Our generation is very privileged to have such a great access to technology nowadays and many of us use some form on social networking site- whether it is Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and etcetera. Hence, most of us publicise our personal lives on the internet one way or another.
As technology advances and social media sites flourish, many people have started to make a living from the internet. Youtube is such a big thing now and Youtubers are treated like legitimate celebrities. They trend on Twitter, they get awards, they go on TV and they get articles written about them. And of course, they get the dark side as well.
I'm not a well-known Youtuber of any sort, but I'm sure it gets very hard to have all these people all over the world relying on you and watching your every move. It gets hard to have your whole life being accessible to the world. With that, you get different opinions and thoughts, and I thought we were supposed to either express negative thoughts through constructive criticism, or say nothing at all. However, in this blog post, I'll be blogging about this particular article published by The Independent on the Youtuber, Zoella, where the writer, Chloe Hamilton, did the exact opposite.
I'm not Zoe's "NUMBER 1 FAN" but I do enjoy watching her videos. And this year her fame and accomplishments has definitely skyrocketed, giving her a little more attention from the public.
Firstly, I would like to direct you to this specific extract from the article...
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This is the introduction to the article and is already a turn-off.
The first 5 seconds into reading this article, I already had a very bad impression of the tone and personality of the writer. The fact that she started off describing Zoe in such a manner that is so negative and "irritatingly" rude, shows that this writer is not just critiquing one's personality/actions, but her literal appearance. She just sounds like a envious and immature 10 year old that really has nothing else better to write about.
In this article, her main standpoint is that Zoe promotes the want for perfection in young girls through her videos. She constantly repeats that it is an "irony" that Zoe tells her viewers not to worry about their appearance when she makes makeup and hair tutorials. She titles this article, "Of Course, Teenage Girls Need Role Models - But Not Like Beauty Vlogger Zoella".
I have no idea how this article even got published with a mere title of such.
The entire article was just from her own point of view and was written in an awfully self-centred way. If you read the above extract, it would appear that the writer does not have a good impression on Youtube in general. Zoella was just one of the victims that she decided to pick on.
Quite a number of well-known Youtubers have beauty/fashion channels and makeup and hair tutorials are very common now. These tutorials are simply just making use of things that are already available to the public. For example, makeup and cosmetics are already a 'thing'. People are already using them. It's not the tutorials that promote the want for a 'flawless complexion', the existence of makeup is. Why not just eliminate makeup altogether? Even without these tutorials, people will still use makeup and they will still feel the need to "cover up their dark circles" or "spots" or "scars" or "blemishes". Since makeup is already existing, these beauty vloggers are just making use of them to share knowledge on different tips and tricks. Therefore, it's not a strong stance to use against beauty vloggers at all.
Zoella also has a vlog channel that she updates frequently. I really enjoy watching these videos because they are just real and raw. It is a common sight to see Zoe without makeup and with sweats or pyjamas on. The fact that she shows this side of her to her viewers just shows how comfortable she is in her own skin and she encourages that in her viewers. Keep in mind, that these videos have millions of views and it is NOT an easy task.
The real irony comes from the article itself where Chloe Hamilton literally judges her on her appearance and most stupidly of all(pardon my tone), her name and her voice?! It completely rebuts her own point on the subject. She says that Zoe causes more insecurity among girls, yet, she criticises others based on their appearance in such a negative and disrespectful way. It's ironic.
Anyways, yea that's all I wanted to say about this article.
It's really enraging and I'm not even a huge huge fan of Zoella. It's just really disgusting when writers are so unprofessional and rude without knowing how Youtube works or without knowing the actual person.
OKAY I GOTTA GO!
SEE YA!
Signing off...
CLL
