Rethinking Productivity in an Economy of Taste: YouTube’s “Beauty Gurus”

• In Event: 548 - Section on Consumers and Consumption Paper Session. Intersections of Consumption and Production

Abstract

On YouTube, so-called “beauty gurus” upload highly formulaic and commodity-intensive videos on all things beauty: products they have recently purchased, liked, disliked, or used up. This once small-scale online beauty community has, over the past few years, attracted companies looking to more subtly and credibly promote their products. Drawing on digital-ethnographic research of 20 beauty gurus’ YouTube channels, I argue that the most successful ones occupy a hazy space between production and consumption. As former consumers who were able to turn their hyper-consumption into a form of production—of tastes and their own livelihood—they now draw their legitimacy as producers from their repute as consumers and build their repute as producers by maintaining their legitimacy as consumers. Their credibility depends on upholding the facade of being a mere consumer to their consumer audience. I propose linking theories of consumption—most importantly Bourdieu’s concept of taste makers and cultural intermediaries—to Marx’ labor concept as a first step towards a unifying theory of consumption and production. In this context, I discuss the importance of “authenticity.” In addition to actually using products, producing vlogs (video diaries), and creating the appearance of reciprocity, the manipulating of time and space is another crucial technique of cultivating authenticity in a digital space like YouTube. By establishing “co-present” and “co-presence” and by emphasizing cyclical time, beauty gurus, I argue, create a mutual and “authentic” place conducive to image-based advertising in an economy of taste.

Author

• Ulrike Bialas, Princeton University