Marina Watanabe, in contrast to Lilly and Jenna, is an explicitly feminist vlogger who uses her YouTube channel to promote awareness of sexual harassment and mental health issues. The 21-year old girl, who is a Women’s and Gender Studies at Sacramento State, comes across as unassuming and well-informed. Though moderately popular, with about 50,000 subscribers, Marina’s fanbase palls in comparison to the millions of subscribers surrounding Lilly and Jenna. It’s a shame that a calm, articulate voice doesn’t have quite the viral potential that a bikini does, not matter how ironically Jenna may wear it. Marina has a lot of great ideas that I have found myself using to analyze the other vloggers on YouTube.

Marina points out that feminine vocal patterns, like up-speak and vocal fry, typecast the speaker as dumb and irrational, which only serves to perpetuate sexist ideas that masculinity is the default structure, and femininity is the alternative, fringe structure. She doesn’t see feminine speech patterns as superficial, but as inventive and resistant: “Women tend to excel at fields of language, and sue language to speak out against a culture that oppresses them…Young women take linguistic features and sue them as power tools for building relationships.” Marina’s analysis makes a lot of sense in the context of YouTube vlogs like her own, but even Jenna and Lily’s. Both women imitate feminine speech patterns for comedic effect, but they use that speech to convey a wide ranged of nuanced emotions, and even to disguise their true intentions. For example, Lilly often plays a young girl talking on her phone with her boyfriend, and everything she says serves to manipulate and gain power over him. Although that is by no means a healthy relationship, Lilly also recognizes that when it comes to language, girls often have the upper hand. Whether the linguistic skill of young girls is either a biological reality or a culturally learned trait to cleverly manipulate a social system that has been set up to manipulate you, this is unclear. In any case, Marina’s fresh new ideas add to a growing body of online videos about feminist theory. Marina is one of many girls who are now using social media to rapidly evolve feminism into what some are calling a “fourth wave:” “I don’t think I would be pursuing a Women’s Studies major if it weren’t for my exposure to feminism through the internet,” as she said in her interview with Bust. These women are so young themselves, and yet they are still teaching even younger girls in imperfect but admirable ways.

Similarly to Jenna Marbles, Lilly Singh (also known as IISuperwomanII) bases many of her

Lilly Singh shows off her hip-hop inspired, playfully androgynous style

comedy sketches on gender, particularly ridiculous things that “girls” do, but from a decidedly different perspective: she is a 25 year old South Asian Canadian living with her Punjabi Indian parents. Lilly has a fanbase of over 5 million subscribers, 80% of whom are girls between the ages of 18 and 25 (see here) and who seem to come from a wide variety of racial backgrounds, based on the video comments. Clearly, many young people respond to Lilly because she offers something different; a more balanced representation of race and gender in the media. As Mary Beltran explains in this analysis of primetime television, the increase in racially diverse characters on major networks does not necessarily imply any improvement in their representation. Often, on shows like Glee, the audience learns to identify with the perspectives of the white characters, and to think of minority characters as charming diversions, but not the main drivers of the plot, which actually ends up reinforcing white dominance. To make matters worse, there are even fewer steadily employed minority writers than minority actors, which leads very little accurate cultural representation of minority groups; instead, we watch a cast of colorblind, thereby whitewashed, characters. Which is  what makes what Lilly a bad-ass: from conception to final cut, she controls the message.

Lilly relies on over-the-top generalizations for humor, and she recognizes that gender and racial oversimplification is not exactly politically correct. For example, in her interviews, Lilly says she is constantly aware of her use of the stereotypical Indian accent: how much is too much? Even if she mocks the accent lovingly, whose to say that someone won’t take her videos and use them to reinforce hateful stereotypes about Indians? I think that’s just the nature of self-expression, and the risk that Lilly may be misunderstood shouldn’t stop her from saying anything at all. When Lilly adds the accent, or casually includes an Indian film or song in the background, she normalizes an all-too-often exoticized culture for her audience.

In the above video, Lilly dresses in drag supposedly to poke fun at men, but the whole skits to me seems less like a way to call out gender performativity (which is the typical point of drag according to the lovely Judith Butler), and more like a reverse way to make fun of women for their irrational behavior. I have conflicting feelings about this skit. On the one hand, complaining about periods helps girls bond over a shared experience. On the other hand, the emotional woman, rational man stereotype seems to be more of a social construct than a physical reality, according to a wide review of psychological research. Is all this stereotyping really helpful? With Jenna, I can see an element of masquerade, but with Lilly, the feminine characterizations strike me as slightly less ironic. Will girls learn from Lilly that they really are supposed to be incapacitated and weak when they menstruate? Or am I just taking this way too seriously? Despite these limitations, Lilly’s distinct voice adds something new to the conversation about stereotypes, what they are, and who can use them.

Now that we’ve mentioned all the ways that Jenna challenges the patriarchy, here’s one of her more, shall we say, morally questionable videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU20JnsYiXc

Jenna caught a lot of flak on Jezebel and other feminist websites for this, and to some extent, she deserved it. She blatantly condemns women who choose to sleep with multiple partners as unclean and morally inferior to women who choose to be monogamous. The intentions behind Jenna’s argument are sound: women should respect their bodies and practice safe sex. But she errs when she extrapolates that women who sleep around inherently practice less safe sex and respect their bodies less than women who do not. She especially errs when she implies that if a woman goes home with a man and she ends up getting raped, it’s somehow her and her friends’ fault for not “looking out for her.” That is victim blaming at its finest.

There’s a lot to get angry about here, but mostly, this video just makes me sad. This condemning, judgmental attitude is such a strange departure from her typical tone. She just doesn’t seem happy here, and as a result, she’s not as funny as she usually is (she did just break up with her boyfriend before she filmed this video). However, before we label Jenna as someone who makes “girl hate rants” and “sexist gender scripting videos,” let’s consider all the ways that Jenna has playfully encouraged women to claim their sexuality over the years (pay particular attention to 1:20-1:40 and 3:34-3:50):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPPsf-Mi8FY

First of all, it makes sense that Halloween would be Jenna’s favorite holiday considering her obsession with the masquerade; October 31st gives ehr an opportunity to perform a more exaggerated version of the ironic transformation that she performs all the time. This video is very different because Jenna emphasizes choice. “That’s your choice if you don’t want to be a slut…These girls aren’t sluts every day of the year. And even if they are, you keep on hoein’ you ho…Nothing wrong with being a ho…never feel pressured, but if you are, good for fucking you.” Jenna doesn’t presume to judge a woman for being sexual, and she even seems to imply that women dress up on Halloween for themselves (never once does she mention the attention of men; the dress-up is always “what you want to do”).She frequently makes videos about how women should support each other despite societal pressure to tear each other down. With this in mind, her “slut shaming” video seems particularly strange, because she transforms into one of the “haters” that she so frequently dismisses.

What to make of this? Well, Jenna is understandably confused, because just like all women, she is working out a whole mix of complicated messages about how and when she is supposed to be sexual. Young women receive so many contradictory messages about when to be sexual and when to be naive that it’s not surprising at all when a girl starts to express all of the contradictions.

As I alluded to before, Jenna Marbles is by far the most popular female-identified vlogger on all YouTube. At first glance, her gender performance seems to offer nothing all that different from what we’ve seen on every other billboard or Hollywood movie screen since the 1950s: she’s thin, blonde, big-chested, and according to plenty of boy viewers, the object of many a not-too-creative fantasy.

People are confused by Jenna Marbles. Across the internet, she receives both praise for her “revolutionized” brand of feminism, and scorn for her over “general overtone of gender stereotypes” and slut-shaming. So is Jenna a feminist or isn’t she? And how can people possibly have such divergent views on whether or not someone is a feminist? Is it really that complicated?

Simple answer: yes. In its root sense, feminism may mean equality of the sexes, but in practice that “equality” means many different things to many different people. “Feminism” will never be a simple monolithic concept. As for whether or not Jenna Marbles “is” a feminist…that’s just asking the wrong question, because no one “is” anything; people change all the time! In my experience, from Nikki Minaj to Beyonce to Jenna Marbles, whenever someone provokes a strong, contradictory response among different groups of feminists, they’re probably performing a feminine masquerade, which exaggerates feminine traits to highlight their performative nature, while still existing in the frame of the male gaze. Jenna masquerades all the time. The vast majority of her videos play off a “guys do one thing, therefore girls do the other thing” dichotomy that does, at first glance, seem to both uphold pre-existing gender norms, and to suggest that these norms are not only mutually exclusive but also essential. However, if that were all the videos were trying to say, what would make them funny? Humor theorists (yes, they exist) think that most, if not all, humor comes from irony, or subversion of expectation. So yes, we know Jenna’s being sarcastic, but it’s more than that. By creating an over-the-top gender performance, Jenna points out the gap between our essential selves and our gendered selves: it’s like she’s in drag for her own sex.  Here’s her most popular video, “How to Trick People Into Thinking You’re Good Looking:”

This “human optical illusion” that Jenna mentions is basically the masquerade. By putting on make-up, an almost exclusively feminine practice, Jenna uses her own skill and ingenuity to “look nothing like herself.” Jenna points out that beauty standards for women are so narrow and unrealistic that women have internalized the message that their looks are the main project of their lives. She says, “You’re way too ugly for that,” but she means, “As a woman, you’ve been dealt a shit hand. How are you going to get up when society has you down?” Jenna makes this point not by ostracizing women for wearing make-up, but by poking fun at herself for going along with it.  It’s okay to conform, she seems to say, Just know that what you are doing is a cultural norm, not a universal truth, and that it is a choice. In fact, once you know that your feminine role (symbolized by the make-up) is a choice, it’s actually more freeing, because you can use your looks to your advantage. Jenna knows she is pretty, and she wears make-up to make her social interactions easier. But, by stepping back and holding her femininity at a distance, she can use the tools of the patriarchy–make-up–and turn them into instruments of her own power. As she says in a different video, “Women are majestic fucking creatures. Men keep trying to break us open like a pinata, but they’ve got no idea what’s inside.” The make-up is the pinata: it’s a superficial defense that gives Jenna control over her body, in a world that constantly tells her that her body is not hers. Here’s her explanation of how sports bras work, also a before and after comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag4C0MFRnmE

Although not informed by explicit gender theory, Jenna repeatedly points out how men constantly assume that women’s bodies only exist for male pleasure–or even, that they cannot possibly exist outside of the male gaze: “It’s as if tits are ghosts, and they only exist if they are up in your face.” She also points out that women have alternative social structures that exert a power that men may not know about (top secret titty club). The stereotypical, popular portrayal of a feminist hates bras and make-up because they exist for men, but Jenna co-opts them and shows that they actually exist for women.

Don’t get me wrong: Jenna Marbles is not the next Gloria Steinem. She often crassly equates “women” with “people who have vaginas,” which is an existentialist view of gender that directly contradicts a lot of her points:  If the bra is not an essential part of gender, then maybe the boobs aren’t either, but Jenna does not go there.  Nevertheless, she deserves a lot more credit fro her ironic twist on gender performance, and her pride in feminine power, than she often gets credit for.

With YouTube, everyone’s making media–including girls.

In 2006, Mary Celeste Kearney argued rather boldly that “through their insistence to be both seen and heard, girl media producers are a disruptive force, and we do well to consider the changes to popular culture and dominant society [that] their presence is provoking.” At this time, the one-year-old website, YouTube, still marketed itself as “Your Digital Video Repository,” as if the founders imagined their new creation as the world’s first virtual filing cabinet; a convenient space to categorize, preserve, and occasionally share personal items. As we all know, YouTube morphed into a business and communications giant bursting with commercial content; and yet, its current tagline–“Broadcast Yourself”–still emphasizes its roots in the personal and independently produced. YouTube keenly understands that it must preserve what makes it unique; that it must emphasize its departure from mass-produced, scripted media, even as the corporate giants voraciously–and lucratively–swoop in to claim their territory. At this point, YouTube is many things at once, a fluid interface, a tool that anyone with basic computer skills can manipulate, from the Marketing Director at Pepsi Co. to your neighbor’s twelve-year-old kid.

Although the democratic nature of YouTube is up for debate, the site undeniably launches new voices in entertainment–and in doing so, it assembles an unprecedented platform for these “girl media producers” that Kearney writes about: a platform for talented, intelligent, imperfect young women who insist on being both seen and heard. “Girl* vlogs,” in particular, are fascinating examples of what can happen when women control a piece of media from conception to production. What do these girls think about their role in society today? In this blog series, I’ll compare three twenty-something “vloggers:” Jenna Mourey of JennaMarbles, Lilly Singh of //Superwoman//, and Marina Watanabe of marinashutup, in an attempt to answer these questions: To what extent do they rely on conventional gender stereotypes? To what extent do they challenge them? Both? These are important questions to ask, because thousands of young teens watch these videos every day: what are they learning from their “cool older sisters”?

Before we dig into the specific, individual content, first I’d like to argue that the nature of the vlog–a girl sitting down in front of a computer, sharing her thoughts, and encouraging her viewers to respond–subverts feminine norms in and of itself. The inherent structure of the vlog challenges not only what we have come to expect from young girls, but also what we have come to expect from media, in at least three ways:

1. Vlogs are informal, independent productions. Okay, so this is not necessarily, technically true–Lilly and Jenna all receive money and sponsorship from various companies–but they all started out independently, they appear to have high control over their content even with sponsors, and–most importantly–they all must maintain the illusion of independent production. Viewers click on vlogs to hear someone’s personal voice, and when production quality improves, they grow suspicious. Jenna, in particular, has declined in popularity partly because of her enormous popularity (which is a frustrating catch-22 for her, I’m sure). A couple years ago, sponsors flocked to Jenna’s channel, which peaked at a whopping 20 million subscribers. As a result, her videos strayed away from the typical “vlog” structure into the realm of semi-polished sketch comedy shows, and, quite simply, it lost its charm. Jenna now has 5 million fewer subscribers than at her peak.

However, when all four of these vlogs are at their very best, there exists something intensely personal about them that seems to resist commercialization. To me, their confessional, diary-like structure feels reminiscent of other circles of

Marina Watanabe uses her vlog to address sexism in mainstream media

women’s production throughout recent history, from journaling to zine production. To explain: these women are making videos, and film media falls along a vague gender binary: we code the most respected, official media as masculine (think Academy Award winners), and the informal, marginal media as feminine (think soap operas). In Hollywood, men overwhelming comprise Hollywood’s list of directors and producers, especially the list of elite, successful ones. Of course, a vlog is not a feature length film, but it is filmic media; with this in mind, the girl vlog fits perfectly into the feminine tradition of producing informal, marginal media to resist the dominant, masculine, commercial space.  These vloggers fill the gaps that mainstream media seems content to ignore. I doubt any major network would take a chance on Lily Singh, a Sikh woman, as a comedian, but  Lilly doesn’t need contractual permission to express herself on YouTube. All of these girls speak directly to their own experience. As Marina says at one point, “Telling someone that their experience isn’t valid is only going to make it worse.” She happened to be talking about mental health, but she could have easily been speaking to under-representation of certain groups in entertainment media, which all these vlogs counter to some degree.

2. Vlogs encourage the audience to engage, which blurs the power dynamic of creator/consumer. All four of these women frequently and earnestly encourage audience commentary, especially comments that add something new. Even sarcastic, crass Jenna reminds her viewers: “If you have a different opinion, let me know, because I love intellectually stimulating conversation.” They all make videos based on audience suggestions and directly respond to requests. Which makes me wonder: To what extent are these videos the property of the vloggers, and to what extent are they the property of the viewers?

In this medium, the idea that a piece of art is a static, finished product that someone can “possess” doesn’t really hold water–through constant loops of comments and shares on social media, these videos mutate into their own little units of meaning, independent of the vlogger herself. (Of course, that’s the way it’s always been, but on the internet, this transformation is particularly quick and easy to map.) Over the years, subscribers watch these women change in direct response to their contact with their audience: Marina sometimes modifies old videos with asterisks over the top of her head in response to user feedback (for example, to better include transgender people) because, as she says, she was “uneducated” at the time. These women are not untouchable celebrities; they are imperfect, young people themselves, coming from a vulnerable place, usually in their bedroom, muddling the line between public and private spheres. Just as they shape us, we shape them. The audience craves that dynamic engagement.

And, finally,

3. “Girl Vlogs” simultaneously frame women as both subjects and objects of the gaze. The “gaze” is a visual theory concept that asks who is doing the looking, and, based on that answer, with whom we are supposed to identify. In the vast majority of film media, the camera frames the man as the subject, or the looker, and the woman as the object of the gaze, or (as Laura Mulvey coined) to-be-looked-at. This structure reinforces the idea that both men and women have been taught to see the world from a male perspective.

Look at a girl vlog, though, and gaze theory gets complicated. When a girl stares directly and unwavering at the camera and freely acknowledges the presence of the viewer, can she still be the object of the male gaze? The main pleasure in film typically comes from the voyeuristic sense that the character doesn’t know you are there, but the vlogger’s stare constantly breaks the fourth wall and interferes with that disassociated pleasure. And yet, all three of these woman are very attractive, and many viewers say they watch their shows because they take pleasure in looking at them (with varying levels of creepiness). Can a girl still be a passive, female spectacle if she is the one who actively engineers that image? 

When we watch a vlog, we are basically looking at someone who is looking right back at us, almost as if we were having a conversation–but the vlogger entirely controls the flow of the discussion (at least initially; see #2). Mulvey theorizes that the gaze=power, and that the person looking is the one in control; therefore, the vlogger’s intense gaze her in a position of power rarely seen in mainstream film media. The vlogger, stationary from the neck-up, presents herself as a disembodied, made-up face–the spectacle–and then repeatedly undermines that spectacle by staring at us and refusing to let us either identify with her or be voyeurs. No one does that better than Jenna marbles, who will be the subject of my next (much shorter) post.

*Girl: In this sense, a reclaimed term that does not necessarily imply youth or inferiority.