Zoella Flashcards
(22 cards)
What is an MCN and how is it linked to Zoella?
Multi Channel Network
- A media company that represents creators.
Zoella used to be owned by Style Haul.
Can be beneficial to a blogger as their content can be promoted to a wider audience.
How can Hesmondhalgh be applied to Zoella?
HH believes to maximise profit, a producer should copy an existing successful formula rather than making something different or original.
- ‘More Zoella’ channel
- Uses content ideas from other YouTubers
Clickbait titles to maximise audiences
What is the ASA and it’s requirement?
Advertising Standards Authority
- They regulated online ads.
- Bloggers have to make it clear to viewers if it’s a paid promotion e.g using the hashtags like #sponsored
What are some Zoella controversies?
- Not making it clear when a promotion has been paid for.
- Lack on regulation online esp. livestreams, Zoella previously had TWT posts sharing offensive (homophobic/classist) messages.
- Her vlog whilst driving caused a lot of bad publicity
- Advent calendar collaboration with Boots
- Furlough scheme - claimed furlough to pay her staff during Covid despite being a multi-millionaire.
- Called out for using ghost writers to write her debut novel ‘Girl Online’.
- This led to #ZoellaIsOverParty hashtag trend
How does Zoella conform to Curran & Seaton?
Zoella is now more of a brand rather than a person.
- Product endorsements, pushing her merch in posts because diversifying into other synergetic products helps to reduce risk and increase profit.
MEDIA CONCENTRATION
- Despite seeming like an independent influencer (her own company A to Z creatives) the platforms she operates on are controller by large corporations (YouTube) This means despite being produced by her, her content is still influenced by the policies and monetisation structures of these powerful media organisations.
How can Jenkins be applied to Zoella?
Zoella’s fandom formed a strong online community, especially during her peak years (2014–2018).
Fans supported each other in the comments, bonded over shared interests (mental health, skincare, makeup), and even met through fan events or online groups.
- After Zoella’s pregnancy announcement, fans discussed baby name predictions etc, engaging in textual poaching.
- Zoella has a long term and strong relationship with fans, with many younger audiences from her early days growing up with her, enhancing authenticity and interaction.
How can Gerbner be applied to Zoella?
Zoella’s standard and stereotypical makeup reinforces certain hegemonic standards of female beauty, and the ideological exception that in order to be successful, a woman should wear makeup
The clothes in her blogs cultivate certain brands as being desirable, mainly fast fashion brands like ASOS, Primark and H&M
How can Livingstone and Lunt be applied to Zoella?
Currently all social media platforms have to self regulate, consumers have to rely on the companies being responsible and not wanting to damage their reputations or lose audiences through inappropriate content.
She is self regulated, other than her vlogs and all video content following Youtube terms of service and her social media tweets etc following their respective guidelines. She has occasionally has ran into legal implications from her Instagram feed, after she was found guilty of promoting brands without announcing it was paid-for content.
- Speaks about taboo topics, opting to educate rather than protect consumers from themes such as depression, anxiety, etc.
What are some regulatory issues that Zoella experienced?
Critics found old Twitter posts:
Messages suggested a woman should “keep her legs shut” and described someone who thought a £2000 dress was too expensive as a “tramp”.
Criticised for promoting “dangerous” ideas of beauty and perfection.
Cited as one of the causes of declining literacy among teenagers.
How can Hesmondhalgh be applied through maximising profit?
- Audience engagement (time spent on respective sites) is maximised through algorithmically optimised aspects such as YouTube’s autoplay and Zoella.co.uk’s “Read Next” buttons.
- Product endorsement via main channel where she posts paid promotions, content where she recommends products she has been paid to endorse.
How is Zoella produced, distributed and circulated?
Zoe Sugg began her career in 2009 by creating a personal blog and YouTube channel, focusing on fashion, beauty, and lifestyle content.
Her content is primarily distributed through her YouTube channel and personal blog, using the internet’s global reach to connect with international users.
How is Zoella monetised?
Youtube Partnership programme - her channel has always been very advertiser friendly (no controversial content) and began to carry targeted ads which she shares a 55/45% split of the revenue with Youtube.
In 2013, Zoella signs with Gleam Futures MCN which, amongst other things, secures her deals with a number of high street brands for her range of beauty and lifestyle products.
In 2021 moves full time into managing A-Z Creatives and is essentially managing her business interests herself (vertical integration - profit and power).
Zoella brand has diversified and runs as a independent entity - c&s and hh allows full control and minimises risk.
How has Zoella monetised in terms of products/diversification?
Launched Zoella Beauty in 2014.
ZS Beauty and ZS Lifestyle separate identities minimises risk.
- Both were discontinued in 2019, Zoella claimed it was because she has a different vision for them, but revenues estimated to be around 3.8 million a year.
Authored multiple books including ‘Girl Online’ ‘Cordially Invited’ and ‘The Magpie Society’.
How can Baudrillard be applied to Zoella?
Baudrillard’s hyperreality refers to a world where reality and simulation blurs.
Zoella’s curated persona on YouTube, Instagram, and her blog is a example. Her content mixes the “real” (her life, home, relationships) with the careful editing, filtering, and staging.
Audiences might feel they “know” her, but what they experience is a constructed version of Zoella. e.g cozy home vlogs, her ‘vlogmas’, camera is set up, hauls.
- Shows awareness of her being a media product, e.g showing the cameras and lights set up - makes her appear more ‘real’.
- By having an emphasis on reality and showing her audience the ‘real’ her, she challenges the postmodern idea that she has created hyperreal content that is not true of her actual life, regardless of whether we make the judgement that it isn’t real.
How can Barthes be applied to Zoella?
Zoella uses many identifiable codes and conventions to signify or make us associate her with a homely, relatable lifestyle. e.g messy background, her bed, makeup, kitchen, mise en scene of a domestic setting.
- Thumbnail’s use of pastel, bright colours and gesture codes of excited expression, positive mise en scene, attract younger audiences and create an enigma code to draw viewers in. Zoella often uses a theatrical and exaggerated mode of address with her expression
How can Levi-Strauss be applied to Zoella?
Natural vs artificial
- Makeup videos/tutorials create binary oppositions between perceived beauty and actual beauty ideals.
Public vs Private
- Binary opposition between her public life and private life, could argue Baudrillard is more useful as he explores curated images and personalities.
How are social contexts represented?
- Zoella speaks about social topics like mental health awareness and her experiences. In 2017, Zoella posted videos like “Dealing with Panic Attacks” and “Let’s Talk About Anxiety”, contributing to the broader discourse on mental health and normalising those conversations
- Zoella shows progression and social change for roles of women, rather than being a consumer of makeup products only, she transitioned into an entrepreneur with her own beauty line.
How can Stuart Hall (stereotypes) be applied to Zoella?
Zoella reinforces traditional feminine stereotypes: focus on beauty, fashion, shopping, lifestyle, home décor.
She often presents a soft-spoken, aesthetically pleasing, emotionally open persona, which aligns with stereotypical expectations of women in media.
How does Zoella adhere to Butler’s gender performativity?
Zoella’s gender performance is arguably conservative. She does not wear any revealing clothing, nor does she use bad language. Constructs a stereotypical ‘soft and caring’ representation of women.
-Zoella reinforces stereotypical femininity through makeup tutorials, soft aesthetics, and caring/organising roles (e.g. cleaning, home decor). Her brand is built on beauty, fashion, and domestic life, which are traditionally coded as “feminine.” e.g GRWM, what’s in my bag videos.
How can Shirky be applied to Zoella?
Zoella listens to comments made by viewers on her YT videos where they can request videos for her to make.
Audiences product content based on her own: recreating GRWMs, makeup tutorials etc.
During/after her controversies audiences made their own content drawing attention to her scandals and informing other audiences on it, which raises regulatory issues as it is out of Zoella’s hands, up to YouTube/other social media.
How does Zoella target audiences?
Audience is 25–35-year-old women; 75% of audience are 18–35 year olds and 90% female.
Shifts in subject matter reflect maturing content, keeping long-term, loyal fans involved and broadening appeal to embrace new lifestyle and parenting audiences. (changed her content as she’s aged)
- Features on shows like Loose Women and Bake Off.
- Collabs with Alfie Deyes and Joe Sugg increase visibility and increase interaction.
- Her creation of parasocial relationships increases loyalty from audiences.
- Relatable content.
What media language examples for Zoella to include?
POV shots when she did the vlogmas with her children, we are watching her day through her eyes.
Her mode of address: friendly, personal and inclusive – sharing secrets/confessional parasocial interaction, amateur aesthetic of ‘ordinary girl’ star persona to familiar, old friend.
