Friend, Foe, or Just Your Average Joe

Celebrities and icons are not a new concept to humanity. For hundreds of years, certain people have been elevated on pedestals above their fellows. During medieval times, it was the Monarchs. During the Revolutionary War, it was President George Washington and his aide-de-camps and cabinet members (do the names Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson sound familiar?). In contrast to idols of a couple decades ago, the celebrities of the world today now face a new challenge: social media. With access to the entire world at the fingertips of everyone, parasocial relationships between famous people (may they be actors, singers, vloggers, or content creators) and their fans have formed at an alarming rate, and the protectiveness that fans have towards their idols is becoming one that is not only toxic, but also incredibly unjust.

Behind the Game

Undeniably, Home Box Office, Inc (more commonly known as HBO) has had a number of hit television shows and movies. One of their most popular TV series was the American fantasy drama series based off of George R.R Martin’s book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, that was renamed to The Game of Thrones (GOT). The first episode of GOT was released to the public on April 17 in 2011, and the finale of the series aired May 19 of this past year. In the eight season lifespan that GOT has had, the show released a total of seventy-three episodes and received forty-seven Primetime Emmy Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and one Peabody

Award. The Game of Thrones follows a group of Houses (the Big Three being House Targaryen, House Stark, and House Lannister) and the interactions that the Houses have with one another. The show writers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (more commonly known by the fans as D&D), create complex storylines that bring all the Houses and their members together while also showing the intricate relationships of gaining power to the Iron Throne and the toxicity that comes with ruling.

Parasocial, Paranormal, Parasitical

The concept of parasocial relationships have always existed. While before, the term for this was just more of seen as crazed-obsessed fans, in 2009, David Giles of Coventry University’s School of Health and Social Sciences in the United Kingdom wrote a paper that considered the phenomenon of parasocial interactions (PSI) that was used by researchers in order to describe the relationship between media users and figures (most being celebrities and fictional characters). In his paper, Giles talked about how prior to 2009, the past two decades of knowledge on PSI was a limited one, seeing as varied so much that it was nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact toxicity of PSI.

Through his research, David Giles looked into the other data and research conducted by other psychiatrist and media analyzers. The first he looked into was a report written by D. Horton and R.R Wohl on British television and their audience. Through Horton’s and Wohl’s communication research study in the early 1970s, they found that many of the viewers of a popular soap opera were described to have a PSI to the characters in the opera. When a character was in a car wreck, many viewers felt “as if they had been in a real road accident” and that they “would like to do something for them.'' This caused Horton and Wohl to conclude that two of the most essential parts of a PSI: companionship and personal identity. The characters in the soap opera often reminded the viewers of people they knew personally, and because of this, viewers identified and used the characters’ situations and behaviors and interactions as a way of trying to understand their own lives.

Counter to what D. Horton and R.R Wohl believed, K.E Rosengren and S. Windahl conducted a similar study on the PSI between viewers and celebrities. They believed that a PSI stemmed from when the viewer interacted with the media figure, but contrary to Horton and Wohl, Rosengren and Windahl believed that it was not when the viewer identified with the media figure. They believed this distinction to be important due to the fact that identity has been around for much longer than that of PSI, which derived initially from psychoanalytic theory. To Rosengren and Windahl, the most important aspect of PSI was the source of alternative companionship, which resulted from the deficiencies in social life and dependency on television (a main point being the compensation for loneliness and isolation).

In the later 1970s, J. Nordlund Of Scandinavia entered into David Giles’ research. Instead of countering the points made by Horton, Wohl, Rosengren, and Windal, Nordlund branched the idea of identification and interaction being one of the same instead of separate ideas like the previous researchers had thought. Nordlund believed that the functions were more integrated than what the other four believed, and that together, identification and interaction with media personas were more of what defined a parasocial interaction, which was the functional alternative to social interaction.

Winter (and Hellfire) Is Coming

When the finale of The Game of Thrones premiered and the series ended as a whole, the audience reaction to the ending was a healthy melting pot in terms of both positive and negative views. Social media sites like Tumblr and Twitter blew up and had various amounts of GOT-related hashtags trending. Amongst the posts and tweets on the opinions of the finale, a fair amount of students at Drexel had their own thoughts and feelings on the subject. In particular, Jill Fox, Marty Jenkins, Alan Keller, Mary Little, Cathy Meyers, and Isabel Smith all had their own very opinionated thoughts and feelings on the ending of GOT and the parasocial relationships that many of the fans have created between themselves and the actors and/or characters.

The interview began with the opening question of whether anyone knew what a parasocial relationship was (to almost no surprise, none of the participants were aware of what a parasocial relationship was). After given the definition, the interviewees gave an example of someone that they believed themselves to have a parasocial relationship with.

Interestingly enough, of the six participants, only two (Fox and Keller) openly admitted to having a parasocial relationship with a celebrity (Bindi Irwin and Mila Kunis respectively). The other four were adamant that there was not a single celebrity or entity of any sort that they saxw as their “friend” without them having an actual relationship with.

Following that, the interviewees were prompted with questions on The Game of Thrones ending, the viewer outlash, the candidness of Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) on her character’s death, and the admittance of Kit Harrington (Jon Snow) into a rehabilitation center due to alcoholism and an extreme decline in his mental health.

While the questions asked about GOT seemed to be irrelevant to that of a PSI, the reason for choosing GOT (since many of the questions did not seem relevant to the topic) came to fruition: in my first research paper, I wrote about singer/songwriter Justin Bieber, his fandom (known as the Beliebers), and their interactions through the social media site Twitter; in my second research paper, I wrote about YouTubers/social media influencers Tati Westbrook and James Charles, Jake Paul and Shane Dawson, and Jon Cozart and the influence that they had with their fans through their videos. For my final essay, I chose a different platform: actors (specifically, The Game of Thrones actors) and the relationships they had with their fans through videos, Twitter, and Tumblr.

I then prompted them to determine which of the three categories of celebrities had more toxic parasocial relationships with their fans: actors, YouTubers, or singers. While a majority of the group believed that YouTubers had a more toxic relationship, Cathy Meyers and Mary Little took an opposing stance of the singers having one that was more toxic.

When asked why, Meyers stated that it was due to the fact that singers have a bigger platform, and that when she thinks of fanbases, she usually thinks of singers and not of actors or YouTubers (specifically, she thinks of that of Arianna Grande). When stating this, Marty Jenkins countered and said that YouTubers, unlike actors and singers, depend on their fans and the amount of views they receive to make an income. Therefore, it makes the PSI more toxic between a YouTuber and their fans than that of other platforms due to the fact a YouTuber makes their money and their fame off of being relatable and faking a relationship between themselves and their viewers. To that point, Jill Fox agreed and mentioned how singers and actors make their money off of an album or a movie, but they don’t need to be constantly engaged with their audience in order to sell themselves.

After both Fox and Jenkins stated their points, Meyers and Little changed their minds to that of: in terms of a fanbase, YouTubers create a more toxic PSI due to the fact that they have to sell themselves to the fans in order to make money, but in terms of the celebrity in question, singers’s fans end up creating a more toxic PSI in relation to the singer due to the obsessiveness that happens and sprouts from it.

The End

With the conclusion of the interview, I determined that PSI are a widespread epidemic than can and will target anyone regardless of their claim to fame, but like many others (and like what I believed in my second research article), the PSI between that of a YouTuber and their fans is one that is much more toxic on an overall level whereas the PSI between that of a singer/actor and their fans is one that is cultivated through the eyes of the fan and isn’t always promoted by the singer/actor.

References

Bael-the-Bard. (2019, May 20). [Tumblr Post]. Retrieved from https://bael-the-bard.tumblr.com/post/185010932043/absolutely-spot-on

Chia, S.C & Poo, Y.L. (2009). Media, Celebrities, and Fans: An Examination of Adolescents’ Media Usage and Involvement with Entertainment Celebrities. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/camho/Downloads/2018-2019/Quarter%20III/Com%20220/MC.01.pdf

Cocker, H.L & Cronin, J. (2017, May 16). Charismatic Authority and the YouTuber: Unpacking The New Cults of Personality. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/camho/Downloads/2018-2019/Quarter%20III/Com%20220/YTC.02.pdf

Ermwhatsup. (2019, May 28). Kit Harington seeking professional help... [Tumblr Post]. Retrieved from https://ermwhatsup.tumblr.com/post/185214842670/kit-harington-seeking-professional-help-for-his

Giles, D.C. (2009, May 17). Parasocial Interaction: A Review of the Literature and a Model for

Future Research. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/camho/Downloads/2018-2019/Quarter%20III/Com%20220/PR.03.pdf

Jamieelanister. (2019, May 22). Characters Season 8 Fucked Over ... [Tumblr Post]. Retrieved from https://jaimeelanister.tumblr.com/post/185059872584/characters-season-8-fucked-over

Kim, J. & Song, H. (2016, April 26). Celebrities’ Self-Disclosure on Twitter and Parasocial Relationships: A Mediating Role of Social Presence. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/camho/Downloads/2018-2019/Quarter%20III/Com%20220/PR.02.pdf

Lee, S., Scott, D., & Kim, H. (2008, June 03). Celebrity Fan Involvement And Destination

Perceptions. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/camho/Downloads/2018-2019/Quarter%20III/Com%20220/PR.01.pdf

Onlyjaimebrienne. (2019, May 21). A big fuck you to anyone defending ... [Tumblr Post]. Retrieved from https://onlyjaimebrienne.tumblr.com/post/185035223628

Murphy, H. (2019, May 29). Game of Thrones Fan Raises $45k For Emilia Clarke’s Charity to Make Amends for Finale Petition. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/camho/Downloads/20182019/Quarter%20III/Com%20220/MC.02.pdf

Polyglotplatypus. (2019, May 20). This intro to a Game of Thrones finale reaction ... [Tumblr].

Retrieved from https://polyglotplatypus.tumblr.com/post/185012529244/this-intro-to-a-game-of-thrones-

finale-reaction

Vineyard, J. (2019, May 22). Emilia Clarke: Daenerys’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Turn ‘Was A Huge

Shock. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/camho/Downloads/2018-2019/Quarter%20III/Com%20220/MC.03.pdf

Interview Guide

Main Question:

- Have you ever heard of parasocial relationships?

Parasocial relationships: one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other's existence.

- Is there a celebrity you think you have a parasocial relationship with?

Game of Thrones:

- How long have you been a fan of Game of Thrones?

- Were you disappointed by the finale of the show?

- Do you think fans are taking the ending to Game of Thrones too personally or do you think they have a right to be upset?

- Do you support Emilia Clarke’s (Daenerys Targaryen) candidness about how she feels on her character’s ending?

- Do you think that Kit Harington’s admittance into a rehab center for alcoholism and mental illness is at the fault of the writers and the ending of Game of Thrones?

Overall:

- Synopsis of past two assignments and how this relates to this essay

- Out of YouTubers, singers, and actors, who do you think has the most parasocial relationship with their fans

Verbatim Transcript Interview #1

Interviewee: Jill Fox

Interviewer: Camille Holzbauer

Date of Interview: June 09, 2019

Location of Interview: The Summit, Apartment 1506

List of Acronyms: JF = Jill Fox, IN = Interviewer

[Begin transcript 00:01:18]

IN: Anyway, so in depth, this essay I’m writing is basically Game of Thrones and the fans and parasocial relationships that have now come to light in terms of the ending. How long have you been a fan of the Game of Thrones?

JF: I had to catch up a little bit, I think ... I think I started when season two premiered, because I had to watch season one, so I’ll say when season two aired.

IN: So you’ve been up with the upkeep for six seasons.

JF: Yeah.

IN: Were you disappointed by the finale?

JF: Um, one of the things that’s interesting about Game of Thrones is that it’s a really -- okay wait, so first of all, this is a complete ‘in the moment’ thing. Because it’s been like, two years since the last season? Like, we’re living in the moment where its standing on its own against the other six, like, it’s already happened. I feel like, seven? I feel like, this season doesn’t even feel like it was a part of the last series. I feel like because it’s been so long since it was actually airing, there was such a time gap, that it feels like, and also because the theme’s completely changed, the characters started acting out of character, and because all of the seasons become irrelevant to the plot that the final season doesn’t even seem like it’s a continuation of what’s been told. It seems like a fan ending.

IN: So, do you think that the fans of the Game of Thrones are taking the ending too personally?

JF: Oh, absolutely.

IN: Do you think they have a right to be upset?

JF: Um, here’s the thing. My least favorite thing about the whole Game of Thrones finale is the petition to rewrite the finale. I hate that. I do think that that’s dumb. And, this is definitely biased as someone who’s in this business of making movies, when you’re an audience member, you’re revoking your free will. You are not allowed to tell the story. You choose to watch the show, you choose to support this thing even when it’s bad, you’ll stick with it. And like, we talk about it in screenwriting this term, and it’s all about how like, when the audience walks into a movie, your belief is suspended. You are giving up a lot, you are trusting the show to take you where it wants. And the show is allowed to, you know, do whatever it wants. And it’s also, not like they changed everyone on the writing team in the last season. It’s not like they changed everything about how the show was made, they didn’t change the actors and stuff. It was all going this way, but they just didn’t have enough source material.

IN: Or enough time.

JF: Yeah, exactly.

[End transcript 00:09:01]

Verbatim Transcript Interview #2

Interviewee: Alan Keller and Isabel Smith

Interviewer: Camille Holzbauer

Date of Interview: June 10, 2019

Location of Interview: Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, Room 265

List of Acronyms: AK = Alan Keller, IS = Isabel Smith, IN = Interviewer

[Begin transcript 00:02:37]

IN: Alright, so how long have you watched the Game of Thrones? Since what season?

AK: Uh, uh, yeah, so I just started, so last year.

IN: So season seven?

AK: Yeah.

IN: What about you Izzy?

IS: I started at the beginning, and then stopped, and then I rewatched in January.

IN: Oh, an OG! Were you disappointed by the finale?

IS: No.

AK: Not the finale, but the final season.

IN: Oh, okay. That’s an interesting take. Alright, since you guys both are not disappointed by the finale, do you think that the fans that are disappointed are taking it too personally?

IS: Yes.

AK: Kind of, no.

IN: How come?

AK: Well, they also dedicated eight years of their life to it.

IS: Well, so did the actors, and the writers.

IN: A lot of the actors are upset too.

AK: Well, also, the final season is also the only season that wasn’t written before. Like, they made it up on the go.

IN: In aspects to they spent eight years of their life on this, do you support Emilia Clarke’s candidness on how she feels about her character’s ending?

IS: What did she say?

IN: She hates it. She is openly against the ending and basically thinks it’s bullshit.

IS: Okay, I liked the ending for Daenerys.

AK: Yeah, I thought it was pretty good.

IS: I really liked her journey, and I think that the beginning of the season, season eight really sucked, but like it got really empathetic. Like, Tyrion and Varys’s conversation where Varys was like, ‘how is this bitch acting like this’ and Tyrion was like, ‘you know, imagine if, your entire life, no one ever said you were wrong.’ Like, her entire life, she was told this is right, you are right. I think that it all worked out.

IN: Okay, so then in addition to that, a lot of [her] fans have donated over forty-five thousand Euros to a charity in the name of having season eight rewritten completely.

AK: I’d be down for that, for another season of Game of Thrones.

IS: I think that’s disrespectful to the people who put the time and effort into this.

AK: Yeah but the same shit happened with the Sonic movie.

IS: Okay, yeah, but like, these people have been doing this for ten years of their life. Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) was like, five when she started this. Her entire life has been this.

[End transcript 00:009:01]

Verbatim Transcript Interview #3

Interviewee: Marty Jenkins, Mary Little, and Cathy Meyers

Interviewer: Camille Holzbauer

Date of Interview: June 11, 2019

Location of Interview: The Summit, Apartment 1503

List of Acronyms: MJ = Marty Jenkins, ML = Mary Little, CM = Cathy Meyers,

IN = Interviewer

[Start transcript 00:19:52]

IN: Alright, so this is going to connect it back to the past two essays I’ve written. The first essay I wrote was about Twitter and singers, and I looked at singer Justin Bieber and his relationship with his fans through the thread of tweets and how they all think that they have a personal relationship with him. The second one I looked at was YouTubers like Tati Westbrook and James Charles, Shane Dawson and Jake Paul. Are you guys all familiar with them?

MJ, ML, CM: Yeah.

IN: And have you followed the conflicts? Or do you know of the conflicts?

MJ: I know of the conflicts.

CM: I know Shane Dawson’s, and Jake Paul’s, and James Charles’, but I don’t know the other person actually.

MJ: Tati Westbrook? Tati.

CM: Oh yeah, no, I’ve heard of her, yeah.

IN: Alright, well, that one was YouTubers and their fans. And now this new one I’m doing is actors and their fans, and out of all three of those, do you think that one of those has a more toxic parasocial relationship with their fans than the other? Or do you think that they’re all equal?

CM: I think musicians.

IN: Musicians have a more -?

CM: Yeah, I think it’s easier for them to have a bigger platform. I feel like it’s just more common for musicians to have a bigger platform. Like, more fan bases? I don’t know, it’s just whenever I think of fan bases, I think of musicians. That’s just what I think of first.

ML: I feel like, it must be helped to be in a boyband and have people very much obsessed with you.

MJ: Okay, I’m gonna say ... I’m gonna say YouTubers, just because I feel like, at least for the singer or actor, you’re getting ... if you like them, it’s because their work is quality. Whereas a lot of YouTubers, there’s a lot of good YouTubers that put out good content, but more often than not, you’re giving a lot of devotion and you’re holding this person up to a higher standard and you’re getting less back because they’re really not that talented.

CM: No, yeah, I can agree with that. Because, I don’t know, it’s more common to send like, fan mail to YouTubers than like, actual artists because like, who the fuck is gonna send fan mail to the artist? To like, Arianna Grande? She’s not gonna read that shit, you know what I mean? She’s not gonna, it’s a lot more common to send ... like YouTubers literally have P.O. boxes. They’ll literally do videos of ‘what’s in my P.O. box’ and stuff like that. So I guess it kinda make sense in that way, I guess YouTubers are trying to be more relatable maybe? Depending on what kind of YouTuber it is? Like a college YouTuber is going to do stuff that we can relate to. Or, if it’s a fitness YouTuber, they’re gonna relate it to ... I don’t know, there are so many different ways you can go about with YouTube, and when you’re trying to become a YouTuber, you’re trying to attract a certain crowd.

ML: Yeah, yeah I change my answer entirely now. I didn’t even think about it, but YouTubers profit off sharing intimate details of their life to the point where when people watch their videos, they feel like they know this person. Like they’re watching them in their daily life, doing very mundane things. While like, there’s a separation barrier between a celebrity? While a YouTuber profits off of being your friend. And that’s not really the case sometimes, like you don’t know them, you don’t.

[End transcript 00:24:54]

YouTube: A Cultivated Anomaly

YouTube was founded in February of 2005 and has since taken off. In the fourteen years of its existence, YouTube has produced a number of A-List celebrities (ie. Justin Bieber, the Paul brothers, Shane Dawson, etc.) and has also produced a number of controversies that manage to weasel their way into mainstream news. With that, YouTubers and their fans have begun to have a different relationship than that of other celebrities who choose to be more orthodox in their practices (ie. staring in only professional films as opposed to daily vlogging), and the main difference is the recurring theme that the fans of these YouTubers have a feeling as if they know the vlogger on a more personal level than one that’s just behind two screens.

Origins & Evolutions

In March of 2005, three Paypal employees (Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen) attempted to find one of the biggest television controversy: the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime performance in which Justin Timberlake ripped open an article of Janet Jackson’s clothing to reveal her breast and nipple cover to the 143.6 million people watching the show. Finding a video that depicted the scandal proved to be no easy task, and the three men tossed around the idea of a site in which videos could be accessed easily, no matter where in the world the user was. After its first video post by Karim in April of 2005, YouTube became a worldwide sensation almost overnight. By late 2006, Google purchased the rights to YouTube and it is now considered to be one of Google’s subsidiaries.

The creation of YouTube birthed a new way to achieve fame: video logging (referred to as vlogging with the users being called vloggers). Unlike most mainstream celebrities, vloggers did not have to wait for a studio to edit and crop videos before they could release content. Vloggers were able to upload a video monthly, weekly, even daily if they so choose. The concept of vlogging rose in popularity that by 2010, the first ever VidCon took place in Los Angeles, California, in which popular vloggers were invited to meet and interact with their fanbases. While this convention started as an easy way to bring fans and their favorite vloggers together, it became the first step into breaking the orthodox relationships between fans and their idols.

Welcome to My Channel

In 2005, Jawed Karim uploaded the first ever video on YouTube titled Me At The Zoo. Fast forward fourteen years, and YouTube now has hundreds of millions of videos with hundreds ofthousands more being uploaded daily. The constant upload of new content on the site is enough to keep anyone busy, and Jennifer “Jenn” Bowers, 20, of Drexel University stands to be a prime example. On average, Jenn guesses she watches around ten to fifteen videos a day, and those videos range from makeup tutorials to conspiracy theories to everything else in between.

The Mind of Jake Paul

The first round of videos that I had Jenn Bowers talk about was a docu-series conducted by Shane Dawson. Dawson’s first video upload was in March of 2008, and he has since risen to be one of the most popular and influential vloggers. The particular docu-series that I questioned Jenn on was of Shane Dawson dissecting and analyzing the actions and drama that surrounded Jake Paul, someone who had risen to fame on the now-deactivated app Vine and stayed in the spotlight by starring on Disney Channel’s original show Bizaardvark and vlogging the various activities and shenanigans he and his friends (donned Team 10) on YouTube.

The docu-series had a generally split opinion: most people approved of the series while others thought the series to be inconsiderate in the fact that Shane Dawson seemed to be diagnosing Jake Paul as a sociopath when Dawson 1. had zero abilities to properly diagnose someone and 2. had little to no interactions with Paul, which then made 3. people believe Dawson to be making light of a very serious situation.

While the video not only brought to light the seriousness and (astonishingly enough) large number of diagnosed sociopaths, it also brought to light a relationship between vloggers and their fans. With the new waves of information coming out about Jake Paul that many people did not know before, opinions began to form around not just Jake Paul, but his brother, Logan, their family, and Shane Dawson.

In my interview with Jenn Bowers, the first thing I noticed was the casualness in which she addressed the issues. One of the questions I had asked dealt with whether or not the docu-series influenced or changed her perception of the parties involved, and she responded with, “it made me like him (Dawson) more and hate them (Paul Brothers) more).” While her opinion is one that many people hold, it was still alarming at the casualness in which she said it.

In order to speak so boldly of someone, I’ve always been a firm believer you have to know them on a more personal level. The details of the Paul brothers and Shane Dawson are ones that remain to be surface level, as there was little revealed to the public that wasn’t already known. The clips Dawson chose to show Jake Paul’s past actions were ones that were pulled directly off of his (Paul) social media accounts. While Jake Paul remains to be more of a teen heartthrob and out of touch with most of the other people his age, it still remains to be alarming at the influence that another YouTuber would have on his persona to the general public.

A Bad Foundation: Tati Westbrook vs. James Charles

With the issues and opinions on Jake Paul and Shane Dawson being so heavily biased, the next round of questions I had for Jenn Bowers revolved around a topic I knew she had more of a neutral stance on. At the tender age of seventeen, James Charles uploaded his first video onto YouTube. Fast forward two years, and James Charles’ fanbase and popularity increased so much that he received an invitation and attended the 2019 Met Gala.

James Charles’ rise in popularity could be heavily credited to thirty-seven year old Tati Westbrook. As a content creator and an owner of makeup lines, Westbrook mentored Charles’ career as a YouTube influencer and even helped him enough that he was able to release his own line of makeup.

However, all came crashing down when James Charles promoted Tati Westbrook’s competitor, Sugar Bear Hair, on his Instagram story. Westbrook responded to the insult by posting a video in which she spoke about being hurt and betrayed by someone she held close to her, and the effect was immediate. While Westbrook never explicitly stated Charles to be the cause of her sorrows, the fans sleuthed and pieced together that he had betrayed her and took matters into their own hands. Within seventy-two hours, Charles lost three million subscribers on YouTube, the Kardashians unfollowed him on Instagram, and #JamesCharlesIsOverParty trended on Twitter.

While the matter was one that I remained unfamiliar with, the feud trended enough that I knew the gist of it: there was an offense of some sort that caused a widespread storm of people to react. One of the major issues I saw with this was the extreme actions that many people took. In order to show support of a side, people unfollowed, unsubscribed, undid everything that they saw fit to declare whose side they were on. When asked what she thought, Jenn believed that the feud was badly handled, but she also had always seen James Charles and Tati Westbrook to be dramatic as well as problematic, and the public disagreement just proved that to her.

Youtube Culture: A Song

The final task I had lined up for Jenn Bowers was to watch a video I knew she would most likely be unfamiliar with: YouTube Culture: A Song. The video was uploaded in 2016 by Jon Cozart, a YouTuber who had attended several VidCons as a performer and had also risen in status enough to be voted “King of the Web” in 2011.

The video is one of the many collaborations Cozart does on his channel, but this particular video has him singing about the flaws and dangers of YouTubers and their fans. His lyrics poke fun at the fact that many viewers think they know their favorite vloggers offline, even if the videos are just five minutes in length. YouTube Culture: A Song is a little under four minutes in length, and the song itself is under three minutes (the extra minute depicts the YouTubers drinking from a bottle labeled Kool-Aid, in reference to the 1978 Jonestown Massacre/Suicide).

Throughout the video, Jenn bounced along to the catchy tune that Cozart composed, and at one point was able to sing along to the chorus. Once the song finished, I asked her what she thought of the song. Her response was that it was surprisingly catchy, though she wasn’t entirely sure what the Kool-Aid at the end had to do with the lyrics (which I then explained the Jonestown Massacre/Suicide to her). I then made a point of showing that the video was released in March of 2016, over three years ago. Once that point was made, I asked if she believed the lyrics were still relevant to the present-day relationships and false friendships that YouTubers have cultivated to their fans. After a brief moment, Jenn determined that the lyrics were still relevant today, however, there were still aspects of the song that she didn’t necessarily agree with (as she believed the song to be taking the extreme of every scenario and normalizing it).

Don’t Forget to Subscribe

At the conclusion of the interview, I determined several factors. The overall theme of it being that the relationship between YouTubers and their fans has always been one that differs from that of mainstream celebrities and their fans. And while many fans of mainstream celebrities do defend their idols to the end, the extent that fans will go to for YouTubers is much farther given that the YouTubers are able to publish videos depicting their feelings and finding ways to make fans empathize with them more (while mainstream celebrities can use YouTube to vocalize their own feelings, many resort to Twitter or Instagram to speak out, which makes it much harder to empathize with written words than with an actual face). The relationship that’s cultivated between YouTubers and their viewers is one that needs to be addressed with more sincerity, especially since so many followers tend to blur the lines between the YouTuber being an idol and the YouTuber being a friend

References

Alexander, J. (2019, May 19). Tati Westbrook and James Charles’ New Videos Are A Lesson On How to Placate YouTube’s Wildest Fans. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/19/18629183/tati-westbrook-james-charles-youtube-fans-drama

Audichya, M. (2017, July 4). Who Founded Youtube? Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/Who-founded-Youtube

Cozart, J. [Paint]. (2016, March 31). YouTube Culture: A Song. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9yS1muZPW4

Cozart, J. [PaintPrime]. (2011 Nov. 20). Dancing King. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6tKSwfTYGo

Hernandez, P. (2018, Oct. 17). Shane Dawson’s Jake Paul Series Is Really About YouTube’s

Broken Heart. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17984304/shane-dawson-jake-paul-documentary-crisis-youtube

Interview Guide

Main Question:

- How much YouTube videos do you think you watch on average per day?

James Charles/Tati Westbrook:

- Have you ever watched a Tati Westbrook and/or a James Charles video?

- How much information do you know on Westbrook and/or Charles?

- In your honest opinion, do you think that Tati Westbrook was just in exposing James Charles?

- Does the James Charles/Tati Westbrook feud change your opinion on YouTubers and makeup brands?

- Do you think that this feud is something that should have been taken as personally as many people and fans have or do you see it as something that isn’t and wasn’t a big deal?

Logan Paul/Jake Paul/Shane Dawson:

- Have you ever watched a Logan Paul and/or Jake Paul and/or Shane Dawson video?

- How much information do you know about Logan Paul and/or Jake Paul and/or Shane Dawson?

- In your honest opinion, do you think that Shane Dawson doing a docuseries on whether or not the Paul brothers, and specifically, Jake Paul, being sociopaths was a just?

- Did the docuseries on Jake Paul change your perception on Dawson or either of the Paul brothers?

- Do you think that the docuseries on Jake Paul potentially being a sociopath should have exploded into an internet sensation as much as it had or do you think that it was overrated?

- Prior to Shane Dawson’s docuseries coming out, have you ever watched a Jake Paul or Logan Paul video?

Overall:

- Does the video above change your overall views on YouTubers and their fans?

- Do you feel that YouTubers have a different connection to their fans than what the more mainstream media celebrities have?

- Do you feel that YouTubers and their fan bases have a false sense of friendships between one another due to the fact most YouTubers upload almost daily, which as a result makes fans believe they’re a part of the YouTuber’s personal life?

- This video came out in 2016. Do you think the lyrics still apply?

"YouTube Culture: A Song"

I'm a famous clown in a flower crown

My friends are dictated by similar subscriber counts

My channel takes you through my bedroom routine

It's just between you and me and a hundred thousand other tweens

Don't care for money, don't care about the fame

I'm just collabing with my friends, though I only know their screen names

After five minutes a week you think you know me offline

I exploit fandoms for a bottom line

I...conjure fame with challenge vids and

I...play drinking games to target kids and

I hope Lucifer will sell me a selfie stick in hell, wheeee

Welcome, welcome to the YouTube Culture

The YouTube Cult

Hey guys, I'm on tour, so tug on mommy's hair

If she pays two hundred bucks you can meet-and-greet a millionaire

Ha, ha, hopping town to town in my first class flight

Which you kinda paid for when you bought my book I didn't write

YouTubers had morals back in 2011

More virgins were at VidCon than in Al-Qaeda heaven

Now we're snorting lines of cinnamon, copycat cashin' in

Quality to quantity, it's Kubrick to Kardashian

I...idolize your idle eyes and

I...'m monetizing kissing guys and

I won't come out the closet till I've got something to sell about it, whoo

Welcome, welcome to my YouTube Lifestyle

YouTube Lie

Welcome, welcome to the YouTube Culture

The YouTube Cult

There's a mystery to being at the top

People think I'm divine (ohhh)

But the truth is, we're not heroes

We just play some online

5, 6, 7

I'm like Hercules or Thor with a slightly slimmer bod

Cause, yeah, I'm just a normal guy but also I'm a God

So I didn't write my book, Jesus didn't write the Bible

I spread my message through the world with twelve-year-old disciples

I got more slave followers than Moses at the Red Sea

They purchase my biography, despite the fact I'm twenty-three

So love me, and I'll love you more

Cause I love the way you love me, my church is a merch store

I...'m privileged, white, and rich, and male and

You...are not, so worship at my YouTube sale

I put the "I" in "defy" and suddenly you deify me

Welcome, welcome to the YouTube Sensation

The YouTube Sin

Welcome, welcome to my YouTube Lifestyle

YouTube Lie

Welcome, welcome, na-nohh

Welcome, welcome, na-nohh

Welcome, welcome

I said welcome to the YouTube Cult

Cheers!

One Minute Verbatim Transcription

Interviewee: Jennifer Bowers

Interviewer: Camille Holzbauer

Date of Interview: May 20, 2019

Location of Interview: Apartment 812

List of Acronyms: JB = Jennifer Bowers, IN = Interviewer

[Begin Transcript at 00:00:20]

IN: On average, how many YouTube videos do you think you watch per day?

JB: Oh ... probably like, ten to fifteen?

IN: Ten to fifteen, alright. Awesome. Have you ever watched Tati Westbrook or James Charles?

JB: Yes.

IN: What information do you know about either one of them?

JB: They’re problematic. That’s all I know.

IN: They’re problematic.

JB: Yes.

IN: Anything else?

JB: And they’re dramatic. And do most things for views in my opinion.

IN: Alright. In your honest opinion, do you think that Tati Westbrook was just in exposing James Charles?

JB: No.

IN: May you elaborate?

JB: I think that both sides of the argument were valid, but I think that she should have handled the matter privately instead of having the whole world watch them, because that just makes things worse.

IN: Alright, did the James Charles/Tati Westbrook feud change your opinion on YouTubers and makeup brands in general?

JB: No, I already thought that the whole community was not good, and that just reinforced my opinion.

IN: Alright, so kinda follows one of your answers earlier. Do you think that the feud is something that should have been taken as personally by viewers as it has, or do you think it wasn’t as big of a deal as people have made it to be?

JB: Um, I think that it was a big deal because the YouTubers decided to involved their audience.

IN: Alright, awesome. Now, are you familiar with Logan Paul, Jake Paul, and/or Shane Dawson?

JB: Yes.

IN: Have you ever watched any of their videos?

JB: Yes.

IN: All three? Two of the three? Just one?

JB: All of the three.

IN: And then, how much information do you know about them?

JB: I know the stuff that, um, Shane Dawson mentioned in his documentaries But other than that, I don’t know anything.

IN: Alright, in your honest opinion, do you think that Shane Dawson doing a docuseries on whether or not the Paul brothers, and specifically, Jake Paul, are sociopaths was just?

JB: Yeah.

IN: Can you explain why?

JB: Because they were terrible people that were influencing young viewers and their actions needed to be brought to light because they’re influencing people that are too young.

IN: Did the docuseries change your perception on the Pauls or Shane Dawson at all?

JB: It made me like Shane Dawson even more and it made me hate the Paul brothers even more.

IN: Do you think that it’s appropriate that the docuseries on Jake Paul got as much attention as it did, or do you think that it was overhyped?

JB: No, I think it got enough attention considering how big both of their platforms are.

IN: Alright, so now I need you watch a video.

JB: Okie.

IN: Have you ever heard of Jon Cozart before?

JB: I’ve heard his name the past few days, but I don’t know who he is.

IN: Alright, so basically, he came out with a video called YouTube Culture: A Song.

[End Transcript at 00:04:25]

The Friendships Between Fans and Their Idols

The relationship between celebrities and their fans have always been one that sheds the former into a light that makes them almost God-like. When a person gets deified, they become almost untouchable and almost void of being able to have emotions like any other “regular” human. Celebrites are thrown into the public spotlight for all of their wrongs and rights to be on full blast while the same actions performed by other “regular” humans are just seen as human nature and flaws we are all born with.

Uncanny Connections

With the rapid development of technology and access to the internet being introduced to kids nearly seconds after their birth, communicating to others around the world has become much easier and more cost-efficient. It’s no surprise that with this access to the world, relationships that would have been impossible to form just a few years ago are now the main form of connecting and communicating with others These networks brings together people that, if they had met IRL (in real life) before meeting online, their relationships would be drastically different if existent at all.

The Platforms

The beginning of the end of human interactions as we know it began when the telegraph was first invented in 1792. The telegraph was faster than the current method of communication (a horse and rider) and eliminated the need for a horse and rider to deliver messages altogether. Not only did means of communication really begin to change upon the invention of the telephone and the radio in 1890 and 1891 respectively, but the evolution of technology began to also rapidly increase.

In 1940, the first round of super computers were invented. Scientists, engineers, and technologists all together developed newer and more ergonomic computers that soon were in every household. With the access to the internet and the world now just sitting in the homes of every day people, sites that connected everyone to one another emerged, and the first social media site Six Degrees was created in 1997 (Hendricks, 2013). Six Degrees became the starting point of social media. It originally had just two functions: upload a profile and befriend other users. By the early 2000s, Six Degrees was no longer operating, but it carved the path for newer social media sites to take the stage.

YouTube became the first widespread craze after its release in 2005. The site was created for means of sharing videos publicly or privately to the world. In the 14 years that YouTube has been around, it has produced several big-name stars such as Justin Bieber and Kate Upton. The platform has also been the platform for many videos to go viral such as Psy’s “Gangnam Style” and Rebecca Black’s “Friday”.

In 2006, YouTube faced some competition when Facebook and Twitter both became accessible to the public. Despite all three platforms were used for very different reasons (Facebook being a glorified and more opertable version of Six Degrees and Twitter being a Facebook that limited characters in one post), they all became the Golden Trio of social media sites.

The years following YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, other social media platforms have come and gone, and only a handful have stayed. Some of the biggest platforms that have stayed are Instagram (1 billion active users), Tumblr (335 million active users), and Snapchat (255 million active users) while other sites like Vine and MySpace were left behind.

The Rise of JB

The creation of all the social platforms not only made connecting to friends easier, but it also made connecting to celebrities much more effortless as well. Prior to Twitter and Instagram, celebrities were able to live their lives in relative peace. They were basically demigods -- not quite human, but not fully a god. The only time an average person would be able to interact with a celebrity would be through various gossip magazines or maybe a lucky run-in, but even then, the interactions between celebrities and their fan bases were limited, making it easier for their fans to idolize and deify them.

A prominent example of this is with Canadian pop star Justin Bieber. In 2007, at the age of 13, Bieber’s singing videos were discovered on YouTube by Scooter Braun. Two years later, Bieber released his first studio album, My World, which quickly took the world (and by world, mostly adolescent girls) by storm. And not only was Bieber’s album doing well on the charts, but his following on the social media platform Twitter also proved to be thriving (he was reported to have over 6 million followers by the end of 2010).

Bieber Fever By Beliebers

In order to further investigate how Twitter, Facebook, etc. have changed the ways humans interact with one another, I took to looking at Justin Bieber’s twitter account. Currently, as of April 19, 2019, Bieber has 105 million Twitter followers (see Fig. 01). While this is an impressive number, it is speculated that at least 40 million of them are fake, but that piece of information is relatively irrelevant.

The first tweet made by Bieber that caught my attention was he made a week prior to the United States midterm elections (see Fig. 02). In the thread of replies, Bieber received tremendous amounts of support as well as an equal amount of backlash. As I read the tweets, a recurring theme that happened in both the supportive and hateful tweets was that the user behind said tweets seemed to act as if they knew Bieber on a more personal level, as if the relationship that they had is not one that is strictly behind a screen (see Fig. 03 - 05).

The evidence of this was clear in another tweet Bieber had made (see Fig. 06). In his tweet, Bieber expressed his gratitude to friends. He did not list or tag anyone by name, and whether that was on purpose or not, the fans took it upon themselves to interpret it as a tweet for them. One fan tweeted back a picture of a tattoo she got to honor Bieber along with an explanation on the influence Bieber has had on her (see Fig. 07).

The connection that Justin Bieber’s fans seem to think they have to him is “so strong” that it becomes evident in a tweet made by Bieber in wake of the Manchester shooting during an Ariana Grande concert. Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, had been known to help Bieber format tweets here and there in order to maintain a good media image, and in that, Bieber’s fans are always quick to assume which tweets are made by Braun and which are authentically Bieber (see Fig. 08).

While it is a safe assumption to make that most tweets by media-trained mega stars are not coming directly from said person, it’s another level of confidence state a tweet that gives little to no indication that the tweet wasn’t from the celebrity but instead a third party. The only way to know for sure who tweeted it would be if the speculators were in the room at the time of the tweet and were able to clearly see the third party execute the action.

The Cure?

The interactions of celebrities and their fan bases have evolved greatly through the years, and the evidence is strong in the cult following Justin Bieber. While there is strong evidence in other fan bases as well (for the fun of it, looking into the hashtag Larry Stylinson on any platform generates hundreds of thousands of theories and “true” speculations), Bieber’s fan base persists to be the most intense in the nine years he’s been in the limelight.

References

Golbeck, J. (2016, July 28). You’re Not Really Friends With That Internet Celebrity. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-online-secrets/201607/

Heflick, N.A. (2009, December 09). Why We Are Obsessed With Celebrities. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-big-questions/200912/

Lua, A. (2019, January 24). 21 Top Social Media Sites To Consider For Your Brand. Retrieved from https://buffer.com/library/social-media-sites

Sage Research Methods. (2017). Analysing Online Postings: Exploring Television Fandom and Identity. [Online PDF]. Retrieved from https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a3199fc4282a/10090271?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27webposts-television-programmes-student-guide.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20190419T181226Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-AmzCredential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ%2F20190419%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=b07f4f827c9d096860d15593d75fd8f62a873f19af1c054cf20e5aa8f66adad4

Figures

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3, 4, 5

Fig. 6

Fig. 7