When prompted to think of YouTubers, it’s common to think of lifestyle vloggers and makeup artists. Events revolving around those creators seem to go viral each week; recently, Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star’s new makeup palette has been the talk across every social media platform. Controversies make national headlines, like the cancellation of James Charles and even the breakup of Liza Koshy and David Dobrik. And yet, amidst the tutorials and sensational events, we can find a place to take a deep breath, forget about the drama, and reunite with ourselves: the yoga channels.
The most popular YouTube yogi is Adriene Mishler, whose Yoga With Adriene channel has 5.59 million subscribers. Even though there are eight main types of yoga, Yoga With Adriene covers it all, exploring the different types and targeting different parts of the mind and body in each video. Some videos are even directed toward those from certain professions, like teachers or musicians. While there are occasional videos for kids, teens, and seniors, Yoga With Adriene is primarily directed toward adults of all genders, body types, and classes.
The emphasis on working with one’s body is perpetuated throughout the video. Adriene offers pose variations to cater to varying experience levels, such as when she gives the option to either stay in a lunge or lift one leg up to create a more challenging, balancing position at 22:50 (Mishler, 2019). This is explicitly stated at 28:35 when she says of a pose, “It’s optional, of course, always optional.This is your body, your life, your practice, so ultimately, you’re the one in charge of and responsible for your own happiness” (Mishler, 2019). This type of self-assuring content is valuable in health and wellness videos, for attaining fitness should be for one’s own happiness and not to appease society.
The style of the video illustrates how this at-home yoga practice is truly accessible for anyone; it’s filmed not in a fancy yoga studio, but in Adriene’s home—and even features her dog lying on the floor. The familiar setting indicates that the practice is for anyone, anywhere. As yoga in the U.S. is typically an expensive and time-consuming habit, and thus is implicitly for the middle class and above, the option to practice yoga for free in one’s home is inclusive of everyone.
Although the ritual of going to the yoga studio, physically sharing the practice with others, and intimately hearing the instructor’s voice is lost, there is much to be gained from the massive distribution of YouTube. This follows Walter Benjamin’s (1936) analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction; the ritual of the yoga studio experience is lost, as well as “its uniqueness, that is, its aura” (p. 52) because the video remains unchanged upon each play. However, the practice becomes more accessible and less elitist in its technically produced form. A beauty in the lack of aura and ritual with Yoga With Adriene videos is how people can share a practice with others all around the world. Although the “Abs, Arms, and Attitude” video was uploaded on June 1, 2019, it will guide people to work with their bodies for as long as YouTube exists, creating connections across time and space as the same practice is shared.
References
Benjamin, W. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Visual Culture: Experiences in Visual Culture(pp. 48-70).
Marwick, A. E. (2015). You May Know Me from YouTube (Micro-)Celebrity in Social Media.
In Marshall, P. D. & Redmond, S. (Eds), A Companion to Celebrity(pp. 333-350). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Mishler, Adriene. [Yoga With Adriene]. (2019, June 1). Abs, Arms, and Attitude! | Yoga For Weight Loss | Yoga With Adriene.[YouTube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyBmGfI5OWU
The most popular YouTube yogi is Adriene Mishler, whose Yoga With Adriene channel has 5.59 million subscribers. Even though there are eight main types of yoga, Yoga With Adriene covers it all, exploring the different types and targeting different parts of the mind and body in each video. Some videos are even directed toward those from certain professions, like teachers or musicians. While there are occasional videos for kids, teens, and seniors, Yoga With Adriene is primarily directed toward adults of all genders, body types, and classes.
Although she achieves her popularity through YouTube, Adriene is more of a subcultural celebrity than a microcelebrity. Referencing Matt Hills’s definition, Alice E. Marwick (2015) defines a subcultural celebrity as someone who is “famous only by and for their fan audience” (p. 337). Adriene is well-known throughout the yoga community, but if mentioned in another environment, she would be unheard of. Because she posts instructional yoga videos, rather than creating a persona for herself “to be consumed by others,” (Marwick, 2015, p. 337), she does not fit the term microcelebrity that is often applied when analyzing YouTubers. It should be noted that while she does have vlog videos on her channel, they date back 4-6 years ago.
Further following Hills’s work, Marwick (2015) claimed that subcultural celebrities “may engage in direct audience interaction, such as blogging or making personal appearances” (p. 337). Since she’s a professional yogi, Adriene holds in-person classes in her home state of Texas and around the world, in which subscribers or the general public can learn from her. There are many organic ways people can interact with Adriene outside of the lens of YouTube.
Yoga With Adriene’s motto is “Find what feels good,” encouraging people to make the practice their own and listen to their inner self. This message is especially prevalent in the “Abs, Arms, and Attitude” video. As the title suggests, the practice targets the abdominal and arm muscles, but places the most emphasis on fostering a positive attitude about one’s body. So much of the health and wellness community focuses on toning in order to achieve a slim, “desirable” body, but Adriene focuses on doing it to strengthen and become more connected with one’s body. As she says in the video, “I wanted to make sure we also bring an awareness to just the attitude that exists around working with the body—and notice I say working with the body and not on the body” (Mishler, 2019). In other words, there is a deep message of body positivity in this video that targets areas vulnerable to many people. A sense of comfort is felt when moving through the practice as each viewer is reminded that they’re doing this to become strong physically and mentally.
The emphasis on working with one’s body is perpetuated throughout the video. Adriene offers pose variations to cater to varying experience levels, such as when she gives the option to either stay in a lunge or lift one leg up to create a more challenging, balancing position at 22:50 (Mishler, 2019). This is explicitly stated at 28:35 when she says of a pose, “It’s optional, of course, always optional.This is your body, your life, your practice, so ultimately, you’re the one in charge of and responsible for your own happiness” (Mishler, 2019). This type of self-assuring content is valuable in health and wellness videos, for attaining fitness should be for one’s own happiness and not to appease society.
The style of the video illustrates how this at-home yoga practice is truly accessible for anyone; it’s filmed not in a fancy yoga studio, but in Adriene’s home—and even features her dog lying on the floor. The familiar setting indicates that the practice is for anyone, anywhere. As yoga in the U.S. is typically an expensive and time-consuming habit, and thus is implicitly for the middle class and above, the option to practice yoga for free in one’s home is inclusive of everyone.
Although the ritual of going to the yoga studio, physically sharing the practice with others, and intimately hearing the instructor’s voice is lost, there is much to be gained from the massive distribution of YouTube. This follows Walter Benjamin’s (1936) analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction; the ritual of the yoga studio experience is lost, as well as “its uniqueness, that is, its aura” (p. 52) because the video remains unchanged upon each play. However, the practice becomes more accessible and less elitist in its technically produced form. A beauty in the lack of aura and ritual with Yoga With Adriene videos is how people can share a practice with others all around the world. Although the “Abs, Arms, and Attitude” video was uploaded on June 1, 2019, it will guide people to work with their bodies for as long as YouTube exists, creating connections across time and space as the same practice is shared.
Adriene Mishler’s Yoga With Adriene YouTube channel is largely successful because of its accessibility to all ages, genders, classes, experience levels, and even one’s moment in time and space. It is the overall message of doing what’s best for one’s own body to achieve self-happiness, as significantly demonstrated in the “Abs, Arms, and Attitude” video, that distinguishes the channel as truly successful and empowering.
References
Benjamin, W. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Visual Culture: Experiences in Visual Culture(pp. 48-70).
Marwick, A. E. (2015). You May Know Me from YouTube (Micro-)Celebrity in Social Media.
In Marshall, P. D. & Redmond, S. (Eds), A Companion to Celebrity(pp. 333-350). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Mishler, Adriene. [Yoga With Adriene]. (2019, June 1). Abs, Arms, and Attitude! | Yoga For Weight Loss | Yoga With Adriene.[YouTube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyBmGfI5OWU
I really like your blog post! I actually never thought of there being a yoga section on YouTube, so thank you for opening my eyes to a new video genre. After reading this, I want to go and look into of Adriene's channel and watch some of the videos. As far as your inclusion of things we learned in class, I think you did a wonderful job tying everything together. It was also really nice how you gave your reasoning behind describing Adriene as a subcultural celebrity rather than a microcelebrity, and I think that your perspective on it gives clarity on the distinction. Thank you for writing this! :^)
ReplyDeleteNice job! I really enjoyed reading your blog. While I was reading, I was particularly drawn to your discussion on Adriene as a subcultural celebrity due to her popularity within the yoga community yet not well-known to other people. Different from microcelebrities, Adriene seems not like the idea of creating a persona for herself to be “consumed by others.” Here, the wording consume is pretty interesting for me, because it suggests a voluntary objectification that often takes place in the popular culture, and it is usually the female body that is objectified and consumed. Although I do not like the concept of creating a persona to be “consumed by others” in trading for fame, I have developed a new view upon it while I was reading your post. If someone really desires to introduce his or her relatively unpopular interests or hobbies, in this case, yoga, he or she may have to compromise with the world of popular culture by becoming a microcelebrity, through which more people are able to know them as well as their interests or hobbies that they desire more people to know about. A thought on standardization also came to my mind when I was reading your post. In the paragraph that starts with Adriene’s motto, you discussed how the health and wellness community focused on having a “slim, desirable body” whereas Adreine focuses on strengthening one’s body. The contrast here reminds me of the Frankfurt School’s perspective on how “standardization takes places in the cultural industry” and sameness rather than difference is appreciated (Kellner, 6). Because Adriene has no will to compromise to the mainstream aesthetic standard, she may continue to be popular only in the yoga community and attract people who share similar philosophy about the body.
ReplyDelete--Lu Yin
I like the way you used the Benjamin reading to explain how YouTube can have a democratizing power for viewers. YouTube is usually commended for giving ordinary people the power to become famous as content creators, but you bring up an important point that it also incentivizes people who have expertise in skills that are traditionally costly to learn to post videos by providing them with ad revenue. The concept you highlighted with the mass distribution of yoga training on YouTube is applicable across a range of other topics from knitting to gymnastics to photography. While in all cases the aura, Benjamin defines as the artwork’s “unique existence in a particular place,” is lost in mass distribution, there are so many benefits to spreading these skills and this knowledge on a large platform like YouTube. Not only are niche hobbies not accessible to a lot of people for finical reasons, but many people cannot complete the necessary training due to where they live, not knowing someone to teach them, or not being able to carve out the time to attend classes regularly. When more people are given access to the training necessary for these hobbies, new rituals are created for appreciating them. Many people make watching these videos and performing the hobbies alongside the YouTubers part of their daily routine. They engage with other followers in the comments section. They immerse themselves in the hobby in a nontraditional way, and many develop an appreciation for the hobby in the same way as a person who attends the physical classes. Placing these videos on YouTube allows anyone who wishes to engage with the hobby the opportunity.
ReplyDelete-Emma Hutchins
Benjamin, W. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In
DeleteVisual Culture: Experiences in Visual Culture(pp. 48-70).