Carli Bybel started off her YouTube career way back in 2010 before influencers and the world of micro celebrities existed. She originally started posting videos because she was a freelance makeup artist and her clients wanted to see her work, so she filmed tutorials. She never imagined it would lead to the life she lives now. Carli currently has 6.1 million subscribers on YouTube and 4.6 million followers on Instagram. Although Carli’s channel started off as purely makeup, over the years she has branched into other areas including fashion, lifestyle, and most recently mom life. She has even had collaborations with big brands including Anastasia Beverly Hills and Missguided. Her fans value her opinion and trust the products she puts out. Now, while her intended audience started off as people wanting to see different makeup looks, over time she has been able to transform and grow her brand to reach a wider audience of people who may still want to see makeup but who are also invested in her life and want to see what a day in her life is like. Her videos feel very personal, it is as if she is talking to you on facetime whether she is talking about her life while doing her makeup or vlogging her day. They are a mix of sit down and chat and vlog style videos. She shares vulnerable parts of her life as well such as when her father was diagnosed with cancer but happy things too like when she announced her pregnancy. Her theme is personable, relaxed, fun, the kind of channel you would want to watch on a rainy day under the covers. I think she makes herself enjoyable to watch and relatable as well which is how she has been able to maintain her following for 10 years now.
In one of her recent videos titled “I’M BACK! Get Ready with Me” Carli talks about what has been going on in her life as she does her makeup. It was her first video back after not posting for 2 months which may not seem that long but for her, she says it’s the longest she has gone without uploading a new video. The style of the video is laidback and feels like a casual catch up with a longtime friend. She goes through the process of her makeup and makes sure to highlight the product names as well. Throughout the video Carli shares updates about what has been going on in her life. She and her sister are going to start their podcast again and they are going to create a Facebook group for people to join to chat and talk about anything. She then opens up about it being a year since her father passed and how she broke down while changing her baby in a restroom. It’s raw and real and one of the reasons people have continued to watch her for so long. As Alice Marwick says in her piece You May Know Me from YouTube: (Micro) Celebrity in Social Media, “one of the key attributes of micro-celebrity practitioners is that they are authentic” (p. 12). She’s showing real parts of her life that normally people don’t want to talk about or would rather hide from the world. “The “always on” nature of social media encourages celebrities and those aspiring to be famous to share constant details of their day-to-day life” (Marwick, 2015, p. 11). People don’t want to see solely the perfect parts of influencers lives anymore; they are more drawn into the behind-the-scenes things happening because it is more relatable.
In this video, she also gets vulnerable by talking about the elephant in the room, her and her boyfriend/father of her child breaking up. She even acknowledges and says, “I guess in a way I was trying to avoid having to talk about on the Internet, not because I wanted keep you guys in the dark but because I was getting through some stuff behind the scenes and I needed to be in a better headspace before I got on here” (Bybel, 2021). It would be much easier for Carli to keep it to herself rather than address it but since she chose to bring her ex onto her channel and tries to be open with her fans, she decided to say something to clear the air. She didn’t have to do that, but I think many of her viewers appreciated it because they care about her and want to know what is going on in her life. It is one of the reasons people love influencers now. As Abidin references in her piece Communicative Intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness, “the allure of influencers is premised on the ways they engage with their followers to give the impression of exclusive, intimate exchange” (Abidin, 2015). Carli has been able to build this relationship with her fans, because while she may not know them in real life, they feel like they know her because of how she displays her life to them. The perceived interconnectedness that Abidin talks about is essential to these influencers careers because it creates “an illusion of intimacy with their audience through conversational small talk that appears informal, casual, and responsive” (Horton & Wohl 1965; Abidin 2015). It is different from what people are used to with famous mainstream celebrities and they like it. At the end, Carli finishes by saying how thankful she is for her supporters and that she will be doing a giveaway to celebrate 10 years. It ends on a happy note and makes her viewers feel special too.
The world is constantly changing and therefore so is social media. Carli has found ways to evolve over time and stay relatable through her content as the world of YouTube continues to grow. Through the work of Marwick, Abidin and others we can start to understand the relationships that are created through these forms of interaction and the role that micro-celebrities play within popular culture.
References
Abidin, C. (2015, November 1). Communicative ❤ intimacies: Influencers and perceived interconnectedness. Journal of Gender, New Media, & Technology 8. https://adanewmedia.org/2015/11/issue8-abidin/
Marwick, Alice E. (2015) You May Know Me from YouTube: (Micro-)Celebrity in Social Media. Companion to Celebrity. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118475089.ch18.
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