YouTube Vloggers....where's the diversity?

After watching the frightening Taylor Swift Parody by Shane Dawson, I went back to YouTube and took some time to reflect on my perceived diversity of gender portrayals in female YouTube vloggers. Something that I quickly realized is that many vloggers that are women are mostly either cooking show hosts or make up/fashion gurus. There aren't that many vloggers that are women that have different style shows in comparison to the popular channels that other women host. There seems to be only one way that women are portrayed on YouTube and it's very hyper-feminized. This is ironic because even though YouTube is a place where minority vloggers/voices can get lots of attention, the tropes that women vloggers play out are seemingly on one end of the gender spectrum. AKA there are very few female vloggers that are different.

When I searched "female vloggers" on YouTube, instead I found lots of videos where seemingly normal women vlogged about the LACK of female representation on YouTube and how they would be different from other typical female vloggers.

The problem is that despite these efforts, many of these videos have little to no views in comparison to a lot of the vloggers that ARE getting noticed and getting fans. And what's hilarious is that this vlogger points out the typical female YouTube personalities and also other niches that women have possibility to enter into, but even then, the reality is that many don't. Which might be really problematic if the audience that mostly watch these kinds of videos are young people that are seeking media for information about their identities.  In a survey taken by GWI, it states that " 42% of the internet users say that they have watched a vlog within the last month, although this rises to 50% for 16-24 year-olds and 15-35 year-olds." (Dredge)

These young people watching these videos constantly could have this false idea that most of the women in these videos have to be beautiful, ditsy, and super feminine in order to be popular. This is somewhat true if you look at the viewing stats. Most YouTubers that are pretty well known are all very attractive. While this semi-applies to men, it doesn't apply as much as it does in comparison to women. Do I think that there's hope for YouTube female vloggers? That don't talk about just make up or fashion? I'm pretty cynical so I'll say not for a while at least. But there is hope.

With YouTubers such as Femenist Frequency, and Anna Akana (though she has some slightly creepy videos), there is a chance that more and more women with different types of views can be a voice on YouTube that is more holistic of many women's experiences.

Resources

Dredge, S. (2015). YouTube vloggers are popular, but new study questions their influence. The Guardian.