Internet Vloggers: Living their lives through the internet.

In today’s  media centred world it appears that ever y facet of society is being dominated by the internet. Age doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore- over Christmas, both my 80 year old grandfather and 9 year old cousin received laptops. While everybody is aware of the internet’s advantages in daily life, I’m beginning to see more and more evidence of people centring their entire existence around their computers.

The ‘youtube’ phenomenon really took off in the year 2006. This date sticks in my mind as I remember Beyonce saying that after taking an awful fall on stage that her biggest concern was the video surfacing on youtube! Over the past five years, its popularity has come to be used as an advertising  tool, an entertainment mechanism and most influencially, a way for artists to showcase their talent. Justin Bieber famously launched his career on the site.

 Another area under the giant umbrella of youtube’s  uses, that I only came into contact with recently, is the ‘beauty community’ on youtube. ‘Beauty gurus’ upload makeup tutorials, advice etc and in some cases gain a huge following of subscribers (which I’m sure they make money from, but that’s another story). What I find interesting about this aspect of youtube however, is that oftentimes the ‘beauty gurus’ extend  their virtual following to personal channels on which they vlog about their daily lives. In the case of two sisters from the U.S.

http://www.youtube.com/user/otherjuicystar07

 as well as countless others, these personal channels have gained a massive following. This interests me from a sociological perspective. I have serious trouble getting my head around the idea that as many as hundreds of thousands of people (granted the majority may be pre-teen girls) would have the genuine interest in accessing the mundane unfoldings of a stranger’s daily life.

 Since discovering the concept of vlogging and the huge following it can command, I’ve come across many other like Juicystar07. Some vloggers even insist upon updating their subscribers on a daily basis. Yip, that means every day without fail, no matter how little material they have to draw from, they will document that day’s happenings. It really is beyond me how an ordinary Joe Soap could genuinely find his day to day routine worthy of such elaborate documentation. For most of these vloggers, their modes of expression are rarely limited to just youtube. These are the people whose endless witterings take over facebook, twitter (in my opinion a playground for the conceited) and the most voyeuristic of all social ‘networking’ sites- formspring. I wonder is it an extreme case of lonliness that drives people to living their lives almost exclusively through interactive pursuits. And yes I am aware of the irony of expressing this through my blog!!