Hannah Meloche, a 20-year-old from Michigan, has always loved being in front of the camera, first joining YouTube in 2013 (The Fact Ninja, 2018). After finding a love for video making, she continued to create content, and her following has grown significantly ever since (Hanson-Firestone, 2020). She currently has over 2 million subscribers and has even created her own jewelry line, known as Starlite Village (Weiss, 2019). Because of YouTube, Hannah Meloche has also grown her image by becoming a model and brand ambassador for several different brands (Hanson-Firestone, 2020). Meloche’s channel consists of video logs, or vlogs, that show her everyday life as well as her love for fashion and beauty. Videos of her everyday life include content of her eating, walking, and relaxing (Meloche, 2021). While vlogs can take several days to edit, Hannah is consistently able to post a video once a week, keeping her fans engaged. Meloche’s audience consists of young teen girls, evidenced through her videos, which contain topics of shopping, boys, and beauty (Meloche, 2021). Hannah’s subscribers see her as someone to whom they can relate, and as a result, they feel a connection to her.
One of Meloche’s most recent videos is entitled, “A Pretending I Have My Life Together Vlog” (Meloche, 2021). This video shows a day in her life, as her friend visits her in Hawaii, where Meloche currently resides. The entire video appears extremely candid, showing raw--or what the audience perceives as raw--conversations between the two. The video starts out with Hannah just speaking to the camera, as if she is in a conversation with the viewer. The vlog continues with the two hanging out on the beach, attempting to skateboard, and then ending the day by watching television. It is clear that parts of the video are curated towards a specific audience. Specifically, Hannah says, “I’ve been hating the way I’ve been looking lately,” then proceeds to take beautiful pictures of herself in a bikini on the beach (Meloche, 2021). While most people cannot relate to having a beautiful beach to pose on nor a “picture-perfect” body, many can relate to not loving the way they look, or feeling a type of self consciousness. The fact that Meloche included this comment about herself is strategic. While some may perceive these types of videos as boring or blatant examples of privilege, Hannah’s fans find them authentic and genuinely engaging. They feel as if they were able to spend a day with Hannah through this daily vlogging. Also, the title of this video implies that Meloche does not have her life together, to which her audience can relate because at some point, everyone feels lost or questions the direction of their life. Hannah’s message and goal for this video is to demonstrate an unvarnished representation of her life, aiming to strengthen the connection with her audience as these vlogs create a sense of perceived interconnectedness, or the way in which one feels close to an influencer.
Meloche curates the content of her videos to appeal to her young audience. Specifically, the topics of her videos run the gamut, from “Girls Trip Vlog” or “You have boy trouble… I have advice” (Meloche, 2021). This content is clearly very strategic as these videos appeal to a specific group, young girls interested in fashion and boys. Through this deliberate choice of topics, Meloche’s audience feels a strong connection to her. Also, her weekly vlog posting allows her subscribers to remain engaged and active. Crystal Abidin argues that these strategies help cultivate a parasocial relationship between influencers, like Hannah, and their audiences. Abidin discusses these parasocial relationships, in which the intimacy is one-sided, often by design. Specifically, Abidin mentions that “influencers enact similar relations with followers through explicit displays of intimacy” (Abidin, 2015). Hannah’s content is rarely raw or candid, rather it is calculated. She knows what to include to seem relatable and keep her audience interested. In order to continue these parasocial relationships, Meloche purposely includes long clips in her vlogs to create the illusion of her videos being spontaneous, unedited, and unfiltered, thereby cultivating a sense of connection and intimacy, or what Abidin calls perceived interconnectedness.
Additionally, in all of her videos, Meloche subtly promotes her jewelry line by wearing her own products. While she never specifically mentions the jewelry, the act of wearing jewelry from her own line is a self-promotion strategy. Meloche’s fans want to be like her, so if her image includes jewelry from her line, they will feel inclined to buy it. Also, as these parasocial relationships are being leveraged, Hannah’s following will feel the responsibility to support her through her jewelry line. Her followers will think they are special when wearing her jewelry, while in reality, it is not unique. Adorno and Horkheimer view the culture industry as a profit hungry, industrialized being, perpetuated through pseudo individuality. They discuss this idea of pseudo individualization as “endowing cultural mass production with the halo of free choice or open market on the basis of standardization itself” (Adorno, 1941/1998, p. 203). While fans believe that buying jewelry from Starlite Village will create a stronger connection to Meloche, it is no different than buying from any other jewelry store because, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, “all mass culture is identical” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944, p. 1).
While Adorno and Horkheimer would see Hannah Meloche as exploiting her relationships with her fans for money because that is what the culture industry demands of these influencers, I think that Meloche is just trying to navigate through a capitalist system. If Hannah wants to keep her platform and stay relevant, she needs to keep her audience engaged, even if it includes not giving a full, true representation of herself and her life.
Bibliography:
Abidin, C. (2015) Communicative ❤ intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No.8. doi:10.7264/N3MW2FFG
Adorno, T. W. (1998). On popular music. In J. Storey (Ed.), Culture theory and popular culture: A reader (2nd ed., pp. 197-209). The University of Georgia Press. (Original work published in 1941). https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/91838/original/Adorno%2B-%2BOn%2BPopular%2BMusic.pdf
Hanson-Firestone, D., Gerstenberger, T., King, C., & Mason, A. (2020, May 12). 10 things you didn't know about Hannah Meloche. TVOvermind. https://tvovermind.com/hannah-meloche/.
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1944). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In Dialectic of enlightenment. Dialectic of Enlightenment. pp. 1-12
Meloche, H. (2021). A "pretending i have my life together" vlog. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAF_tRUmZTE.
The Fact Ninja. (2018, November 22). Hannah Meloche: 13 facts, age, birthday, height, Bio, boyfriend. The Fact Ninja. https://www.thefactninja.com/hannah-meloche-facts.
Weiss, G. (2019, June 4). Buzzy lifestyle vlogger Hannah Meloche launches jewelry upstart 'Starlite Village'. Tubefilter. https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/06/04/hannah-meloche-launches-jewelry-upstart
One of Meloche’s most recent videos is entitled, “A Pretending I Have My Life Together Vlog” (Meloche, 2021). This video shows a day in her life, as her friend visits her in Hawaii, where Meloche currently resides. The entire video appears extremely candid, showing raw--or what the audience perceives as raw--conversations between the two. The video starts out with Hannah just speaking to the camera, as if she is in a conversation with the viewer. The vlog continues with the two hanging out on the beach, attempting to skateboard, and then ending the day by watching television. It is clear that parts of the video are curated towards a specific audience. Specifically, Hannah says, “I’ve been hating the way I’ve been looking lately,” then proceeds to take beautiful pictures of herself in a bikini on the beach (Meloche, 2021). While most people cannot relate to having a beautiful beach to pose on nor a “picture-perfect” body, many can relate to not loving the way they look, or feeling a type of self consciousness. The fact that Meloche included this comment about herself is strategic. While some may perceive these types of videos as boring or blatant examples of privilege, Hannah’s fans find them authentic and genuinely engaging. They feel as if they were able to spend a day with Hannah through this daily vlogging. Also, the title of this video implies that Meloche does not have her life together, to which her audience can relate because at some point, everyone feels lost or questions the direction of their life. Hannah’s message and goal for this video is to demonstrate an unvarnished representation of her life, aiming to strengthen the connection with her audience as these vlogs create a sense of perceived interconnectedness, or the way in which one feels close to an influencer.
Meloche curates the content of her videos to appeal to her young audience. Specifically, the topics of her videos run the gamut, from “Girls Trip Vlog” or “You have boy trouble… I have advice” (Meloche, 2021). This content is clearly very strategic as these videos appeal to a specific group, young girls interested in fashion and boys. Through this deliberate choice of topics, Meloche’s audience feels a strong connection to her. Also, her weekly vlog posting allows her subscribers to remain engaged and active. Crystal Abidin argues that these strategies help cultivate a parasocial relationship between influencers, like Hannah, and their audiences. Abidin discusses these parasocial relationships, in which the intimacy is one-sided, often by design. Specifically, Abidin mentions that “influencers enact similar relations with followers through explicit displays of intimacy” (Abidin, 2015). Hannah’s content is rarely raw or candid, rather it is calculated. She knows what to include to seem relatable and keep her audience interested. In order to continue these parasocial relationships, Meloche purposely includes long clips in her vlogs to create the illusion of her videos being spontaneous, unedited, and unfiltered, thereby cultivating a sense of connection and intimacy, or what Abidin calls perceived interconnectedness.
Additionally, in all of her videos, Meloche subtly promotes her jewelry line by wearing her own products. While she never specifically mentions the jewelry, the act of wearing jewelry from her own line is a self-promotion strategy. Meloche’s fans want to be like her, so if her image includes jewelry from her line, they will feel inclined to buy it. Also, as these parasocial relationships are being leveraged, Hannah’s following will feel the responsibility to support her through her jewelry line. Her followers will think they are special when wearing her jewelry, while in reality, it is not unique. Adorno and Horkheimer view the culture industry as a profit hungry, industrialized being, perpetuated through pseudo individuality. They discuss this idea of pseudo individualization as “endowing cultural mass production with the halo of free choice or open market on the basis of standardization itself” (Adorno, 1941/1998, p. 203). While fans believe that buying jewelry from Starlite Village will create a stronger connection to Meloche, it is no different than buying from any other jewelry store because, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, “all mass culture is identical” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944, p. 1).
While Adorno and Horkheimer would see Hannah Meloche as exploiting her relationships with her fans for money because that is what the culture industry demands of these influencers, I think that Meloche is just trying to navigate through a capitalist system. If Hannah wants to keep her platform and stay relevant, she needs to keep her audience engaged, even if it includes not giving a full, true representation of herself and her life.
Bibliography:
Abidin, C. (2015) Communicative ❤ intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No.8. doi:10.7264/N3MW2FFG
Adorno, T. W. (1998). On popular music. In J. Storey (Ed.), Culture theory and popular culture: A reader (2nd ed., pp. 197-209). The University of Georgia Press. (Original work published in 1941). https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/91838/original/Adorno%2B-%2BOn%2BPopular%2BMusic.pdf
Hanson-Firestone, D., Gerstenberger, T., King, C., & Mason, A. (2020, May 12). 10 things you didn't know about Hannah Meloche. TVOvermind. https://tvovermind.com/hannah-meloche/.
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1944). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In Dialectic of enlightenment. Dialectic of Enlightenment. pp. 1-12
Meloche, H. (2021). A "pretending i have my life together" vlog. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAF_tRUmZTE.
The Fact Ninja. (2018, November 22). Hannah Meloche: 13 facts, age, birthday, height, Bio, boyfriend. The Fact Ninja. https://www.thefactninja.com/hannah-meloche-facts.
Weiss, G. (2019, June 4). Buzzy lifestyle vlogger Hannah Meloche launches jewelry upstart 'Starlite Village'. Tubefilter. https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/06/04/hannah-meloche-launches-jewelry-upstart
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your post about Hannah Meloche's YouTube channel! You painted such a clear picture about what this micro-celebrity is all about. I also thought that you chose the perfect video of hers because it is all about her being "real" for her viewers, even though this is performative in a way. Your analysis of her video made me think more critically about how YouTubers and other influencers strategically relate to their audiences by presenting themselves as imperfect. I had never really thought about this as being a purposeful strategy; rather I always thought that they were truly showing their fans their flaws. It was interesting to be able to think more critically about this and explore how influencers do this for personal gain. I thought it was really effective how you began by describing how Meloche connects with her audience in the video you chose to explore before introducing the class readings. It made your connection to Abidin so much stronger. Your topic fit extremely well with the concept of parasocial relationships that Abidin discusses, and you did a great job of connecting the two in a specific and meaningful way. I also found it fascinating how Meloche promotes her jewelry line in a subtle way, making it seem "real" in a similar sense to how she presents her life in her videos. While she doesn't tell the audience that it is a promotion/advertisement, it is clear that this is her underlying intention - much like how it is purposeful that she appeals to her fans by saying she doesn't have her life together. You did a great job connecting this to the Adorno and Horkheimer reading, and I think this also connects to their idea that everything in capitalist societies is about making a profit. Great job on this post, I really enjoyed it!
Hi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, loved your piece on Hannah Meloche’s Youtube channel! I also enjoy vloggers with candid vlogs and relatable-feel. However, I’m also sometimes skeptical of these Youtubers because at the end of the day, we don’t personally know them and we only know them through in a highly edited and curated video.
I found this connected to Jeanna’s lecture and Oulette and Murray’s piece about reality TV. As we consume reality TV, we are promised an honest portrayal of the people involved. However, reality TV shows are highly edited and designed intentionally to increase audiences. This is the same way how Hannah Meloche edits her life or acts on camera in a certain way to draw a specific audience, which in her case is young girls. I liked how you pointed out one of her strategies to attract viewers is to act relatable, which in your example was Hannah Meloche acting self-consciously about her body on camera. This is relatable to numerous teenage girls as many are also self-conscious about their bodies. However, this strategy becomes undermined when she posts her “picture-perfect” body online. It is interesting how Hannah Melocoche posts her “picture-perfect” body online since it could even cause a greater negative impact on her audience. Similar to reality TV, it is hard to differentiate between what is real and what is not. However, when we watch Youtube vloggers or reality TV, we suspend our belief and immerse ourselves in the experience as the creator wants.
Overall, loved your piece! Very informative and thought-provoking!
- Bettina Catoto
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI had a great time reading this post– your analysis of the brand and lifestyle Hannah Meloche has built for herself feels spot-on and really well-executed. You connected your ideas to the readings eloquently and it was interesting to see something so particular to our generation broken down into its critical pieces.
Your exploration of the calculated parasocial relationships demonstrated by Meloche was especially poignant and reminded me of the reading penned by Alice Marwick, in which she supplements many of the topics presented by Abidin with her own ideas. In her exposition of micro-celebrity and deliberate self-presentation, Marwick brings up the notion of “strategic intimacy,” which certainly feels relevant in the context of Meloche. You rightly assert that even the “raw” or “real” aspects of Meloche’s content are very deliberate, and though it might not be her sole intention, she profits in more ways than one (economically, in regards to fame, etc.) off of this perceived relationship she has established with her fan base. Another point Marwick notes in her piece is that the mediated nature of our modern world is what allows for microcelebrities to exist in the way that they do– in your post, you mention that Meloche’s videos can appear to be two-way conversations with her viewers. These two ideas feel inextricably linked, as the mediation that occurs through her camera and YouTube is the basis for this seemingly reciprocal relationship that exists between Meloche and her fans. In the end, I definitely agree with your assertion that she has no bad intentions when creating this parasocial relationship with her viewers, but rather she is navigating a capitalist sphere that has been designed to encourage and reinforce such behavior.
Great work again!
-Kendall Allen
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI really loved your blog post about Hannah Meloche. As someone who has watched her videos, I found it really interesting to analyze them through the more critical lens of our class. I found your discussion of Meloche’s cultivation of parasocial relationships with her followers especially engaging. You noted that these relationships are “one-sided, often by design.” There is a false sense of interconnectedness because influencers choose their content which, in turn, allows them to sell an image of themselves. You noted that Hannah, through her vlogs, sells authenticity. By including long videos of her throughout her day, Hannah’s followers believe they are seeing the real, authentic Hannah.
I also enjoyed your discussion of how Adorno and Horkheimer would view influencers like Hannah Meloche. You explained Adorno and Horkeimer would view influencers having their own companies and promoting them in their videos as exploitative and dangerous because it reinforces a society based on consumerism. Your analysis made me think about how recently every influencer and social media star seems to have started their own makeup line even if makeup isn’t the main part of their online identity.
Another text you could have chosen to incorporate into your analysis is Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Benjamin describes the “cult of personality” which “preserves not the unique aura of the person but the spell of personality” (p.57). People are not obsessed with the celebrity or the influencer themselves but rather with the idea of them. Rather than obsessing over Hannah within Hannah’s vlogs, people obsess over her demonstrated idea of perfection in the real world.
I really enjoyed your piece! Great work!