jesuisunèléve wrote:cherrybomb3 wrote:lowkeyloki wrote:hi
love the forum, you guys are great
just delurking to ask people's opinions of this article:
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/05/when- ... s-too-far/
and how it relates to deppy and their fans.
Although twitch is a different platform than YouTube, I think many of the sentiments expressed are the same. Youtubers share their lives with their audience, and some fans (imo) go too far and assume they have developed a friendship with their YouTube idol. They act as if this "friendship" entitles them to more personal information than the youtuber is willing to share, and this misguided attitude results in cases of stalking.
This paragraph in particular stood out to me:
"There's a term called "parasocial interaction," she says, which is "
when a person, typically a consumer, develops a one-sided relationship with a media persona." Many people might believe that if they met, say, Jennifer Lawrence, they'd totally be BFFs, "even though they have never met her personally or even know what she is like outside of interviews.
That's existed ever since there were celebrities to moon over, but social media has evolved it to a new level, Hodgdon says. "Now consumers can interact with their celebrity BFFs, in hopes they ever get a response back. Twitch streamers, in many ways, are like celebrities. They are recognised and beloved, but it comes with a price, which unlike A-list celebrities, [they] do not have the support to handle."
A lot of these ideas have been discussed here in previous threads (and over at the place that shall not be named) but I personally have never seen a mainstream media article tackle this phenomenon, and thought it might be of interest.
sorry for any inarticulateness
(quietly relurks)
Edit: ughhh top of the page soz
m8 dw this is such a good post to be at the top
i find the whole idea of evolving celebrity culture to be incredibly interesting as an area to provide subpar analyses of. i think positive peeps (like me, at times) prefer to see the advances of youtube in creating new internet celebrities (sort of cringe using that word it seems so ostentatious and arrogant whoops) as a good thing, bringing creators and audiences closer together - as audiences feel like theyre closer to their idols or w/e
but then the harsh reality seems to be that (as much as id probs like it to be slightly better, not too weird tho) those walls still exist, and its just slightly more harrowing for the fanz who now
feel closer but are not really any closer to more famous people. like even here where everyone has well articulated and diverse and genuine opinions on things, they are ultimately only based on limited, one sided interactions that dont really give as full of a picture as is often assumed.
soz if this sounded obvious or condescending it just sort of interests me quite a bit
My two cents (because I am procrastinating from editing an essay that's due tomorrow):
Part of the "problem" (if you can call it that, it might not be a problem) is that many (not all) assume an on-screen personality is exactly what that creator is like IRL, when most of the time it's a persona that was created especially for the medium. Then that persona becomes the reality for the fan, which can be interesting (to say the least) with these one-sided interactions.
Call me jaded, but when I watch the YT I watch it like I was watching a television show: I want to laugh and see something/someone relatable. I don't assume that a hand is going to come out of the screen, grab mine, and be like, "Let's be friends!" I watch Dan and Phil because they make me laugh and Dan is relatable. That's my only expectation. I guess I don't take the YT seriously enough, or I am too old to embrace it fully.
Don't be sorry, this is an awesome thing to be top of the page!
The article is really interesting. Just to pull some quotes that got my interest:
"The expectation that everyone who ever made it on the internet's gotta be constantly connected to their fans all the time 24 hours a day... is insane."
"As her channel took off, fans demanded more access to her personal life." "Years later, she still hasn't opened up to fans about most personal matters."
It's weird, because these people online who have massive followings, on twitch, youtube, which ever social media account, are 'celebrities'. But it's hard to remember that sometimes when the creators are interacting with the audience, they feel like a friend. For example, if you get re-tweeted or Dan reads out a premium message, it's going to encourage you to interact with them more, in the hopes that they will remember you/interact with you more. It's trying to break that wall down between the creator and the audience, which most of the time doesn't happen. In reality, they are at their homes, we are at ours, we are watching them talk/live stream/play games.
The hard part I think for a lot of people, especially younger people, is realising that the creators aren't actually a friend, they are strangers. But, you feel like they are a friend, because they interact with you, share their lives with you, share everything they do. And we, us, the consumers, take all of that information and combined with the constant interaction and updates, it feels like they are a friend. I feel like there is a sense of entitlement from some of the audience though, especially deppys, they want more information, more interaction, more updates.
But, we don't know them at all. Not really, and we probably never will, because there is a barrier there. And there has to be, because even though they have a following, are 'famous', and provide us with content, we are not entitled to know everything. There is a limit to what these creators share with the internet, we are strangers to them as much as they are to us. And they are not exactly who they display themselves as on the internet, they are edited down, calculated people and moments in videos and selfies with filters on social media. It is all 2D, really.
It's like, deppy have 'personas', and are not everything they say they are online. They are much more than that, but it doesn't get shown, because there is a limit and there is privacy that they are absolutely allowed to have, which can be hard for some people who absolutely love them, watch their videos day in day out and feel like they have a connection with them.
(Sorry, probably didn't make much sense but there we go. )
