Behind Closed Doors
The doctor swings a fluorescent lamp over the patient. As the nurse leans in monitoring vitals, the woman cries out, sweat plastering her hair to her face. The woman gives a red-faced grunt, and the baby finally pushes out – a messy, but real, moment of birth. Scenes like this are delivered for private audiences every day. But since the creation of the YouTube platform in 2005 (Hosch), family vloggers, such as Cole and Savannah LaBrant, harness these intimate medical moments for public viewership and sponsorship. Through their YouTube channel “The LaBrant Fam,” Cole and Savannah LaBrant target a demographic of Christians, aged 8 through late 40s, with a theme of ‘Christian family life’ (The LaBrant Fam & YouTube, 2022). Their highly-edited “unfiltered” content shares their personal lives, including those of their 4 young children, for 13.1 million (and growing) subscribers. However, unlike documentarians seeking real footage, the LaBrants are “microcelebrities” who, Crystal Abidin points out in her blog article “Communicative Intimacies,” rely on “Perceived Interconnectedness” to demonstrate a sense of intimacy and connection with their followers. (Abidin, 2015). While Laurie Ouellette and Susan Murray, in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture, define this type of ‘Entertaining Real’ as a “voyeuristic… yet often playful” look into various lavish, conventional, or extraordinary lifestyles around the world (Oullette and Murray, 2022, p.5), ultimately the viewers understand this highly personal content is a manipulated ploy; the LaBrants eschew personal boundaries for subscriber counts, while monetizing it all through “advertorials” for diapers and children’s clothing brands (Abidin, 2015).
One LaBrant Fam YouTube video in particular that oversteps the boundaries as part- hoax-part-medical voyeur is “The Live Birth of Our Daughter.” Posting less than one day after their child’s delivery on June 7, 2022, and garnering 2.835 million views, the LaBrants’ birth scene is nothing like the sweaty, labored ordeal most experience privately; theirs is manufactured for show – with hair, jewelry, and makeup in place (The LaBrant Fam & YouTube, 2022). While critics such as Oullette worry about “ethics and responsibility with the representation of real people,” here, the LaBrants offer themselves up for exploitation (Oullette and Murray, 2004, p.4).
The video begins with Savannah peacefully taking deep breaths as her husband, Cole, films – setting the tone and style for the vlog as a sweet, simple, intimate experience. A time stamp flashes on the screen, documenting the minutes. Within seconds, Sav begins to sing, as we – the voyeuristic audience – hear her heart rate monitor in the back and the husband’s whispers of encouraging words. In this version of YouTube birth, Cole and Sav are in charge, with any real medical staff noticeably absent or obscured. In fact, when the doctor comes to administer the epidural, the camera shifts its focus away to an inanimate object – the hospital bed – in order to keep its stars the only human focus. It’s Cole (not the doctor) who is analyzing the hydration bag, blood pressure, heart rate monitor, and the epidural medicine – interrupting only to deliver a joke or a kiss, with edited audience sounds providing audible support. Cole is the one declaring Sav is at 10 centimeters and will begin pushing soon; the doctors do deliver the baby - but unseen and heard only as background noise. Savannah lies in bed smiling, showing off and promoting a bracelet – a nod to Oullette’s “merger of marketing and ‘real life’ entertainment” (Oullette and Murray, 2004, p. 3) – and joking about hair color. The message of the video – through the light-hearted dialog, uplifting Christian messaging, and sweet and easy delivery (the background music reassures you that’s how you should be feeling) – is that the LaBrants are the perfect Christian model for the birthing process, and by extension, the model for raising a perfect Christian family. However, even as the subscribers adore it, they can’t help but wonder about the authenticity of it.
The LaBrants’ YouTube followers are willing believers, meaning the followers know that some aspects of the life presented to them are fabricated, but nevertheless, they still are excited to see the content presented in exchange for “the illusion of an intimate sharing” (Abidin, 2015). Of course, Sav actually gave birth, but, in the video, she has applied fake eyelashes and makeup along with unnaturally-styled hair. As viewers, we begin to suspect the deceit; at the beginning of the video, with her husband recording her, we begin to think he likely instructed her to “look pretty, but in discomfort for this shot.” With the video at only 9 minutes 4 seconds, major parts of the experience were cut and curated to match their particular aesthetic. The video ends with a bible verse – on theme, as this is a Christan family vlogging channel.
Cole and Sav have worked hard to develop a sense of Perceived Interconnectedness, if not familial bond, with their devoted Christian audience. But that’s all that it is… a sense. The Labrants have been posting videos for five years now, so while you may know plenty about them (after all, if you’ve been a follower, you’ve shed a tear at the wedding, eagerly anticipated the three gender reveals, and endured the videographed tantrums), the relationship is one-sided; they keep this fabricated friendship alive by replying directly to comments and revealing intimate details of their lives, acknowledging their audience as friends rather than fans to build rapport. But where’s the line drawn? The intimacy – which Abidin describes as when the followers feel emotionally attached through a strong impression of familiarity between them and the influencer – of this birthing experience is almost too personal, from Sav getting an epidural, to the baby coming straight out of the womb, purple with white goop and all (Abidin, 2015). We hear the baby’s first cry and watch her latch onto her mother’s breast. The intimacy, built off of Perceived Interconnectedness, and the access implies trust. But, in the end, the viewers deep-down know: they have witnessed a show – a “manufactured artifice that coexists with truth” (Ouellette and Murray, 2004, p. 3).
Works Cited
Abidin, Crystal. Communicative Intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness, ADA A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, no. 8 (2015, November). https://adanewmedia.org/2015/11/issue8-abidin/
Hosch, William L. “YouTube.” Brittanica.com. Retrieved Nov 13, 2022, from: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hans-Rosling
Ouellette, Laurie and Susan Murray. Introduction, Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture (2004).
The LaBrant Fam & YouTube. (2022, Jun 8). The Live Birth of Our Daughter (Official Video). YouTube. Retrieved Nov 08, 2022, from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=aSP8kc2Beew
Commentator: Brenna Cotter
ReplyDeleteEmmy,
I really liked reading your piece about “The Labrant Fam” and the impact they have on others from their presence on YouTube. I remember watching this video a while back and feeling very uneasy about it. I thought it was odd that the Labrant family decided to post such an intimate family experience for the whole world to see. I really liked what you wrote about perceived interconnectedness. When I first watched this video I felt as though I had experienced this moment with the family, however I could not quite put this feeling into words before learning the term perceived interconnectedness. I also agree with you that the sharing of such an intimate moment allowed for a strong sense of interconnectedness between the viewer and the creator, when in reality the Labrant fam has no idea who their viewers are.
In your blog post you write about how the video portrays Sav Labrant giving birth with her hair done and makeup on, allowing viewers to wonder if her husband told her to look pretty before getting the camera out. This moment made me think about a connection to Andi Zeisler and the male gaze she describes. Zeisler defines the male gaze as “the idea that when we look
at images in art or on screen, we’re seeing them as a man might—even if we are women—because those images are constructed to be seen by men.” (Zeisler, 2008). Sav trying to look pretty and calm during an extremely painful and unpleasant experience is an example of a video being produced with the male gaze in mind. Sav and her husband intentionally filmed and produced the video in a way that misrepresents what is like for women to give birth in a way that would be more pleasant to look at (especially for men) with a beautiful woman not at all in pain or sweaty. Which as a result leaves viewers with a misconstrued idea of what birth actually looks like, in an attempt to make the video more appealing to the male eye. Overall, I think you did a great job analyzing “The Live Birth of Our Daughter.” and made some key connections to course materials.
Excellent job, Emmy!! Family bloggers have always fascinated me, and I watched them extensively throughout middle school. The vlogs from these channels are videos I wish I didn’t spend my time watching, yet I can never seem to look away. Something is so interesting about the public display of a real-life family and watching them grow together. You capture this sensation well in your use of Abidin’s “perceived interconnectedness.” Creators, like the LaBrant Fam, employ a sense of intimacy because each video is a glance into their backstage life. In a way, the backstage lives of family bloggers transform into their front-stage appearance. What content is truly meant to reflect their personal lives, and which is for entertainment? Jenna Drenten explores this concept of backstage viewing through an analysis of the surveillance models. Drenten writes, “In social surveillance, everyone online is both a guard and a prisoner, constantly consuming online content and producing content for others to see” (2022). Essentially, public entertainment is now orchestrated by people who produce content and those who consume it, and the dynamic between the two. The LaBrant family constantly releases videos that enable people to survey their intimate personal lives. But in a weird tradeoff, this encourages other families to mirror this level of intimacy, creating an online society where family vloggers are watching each other and creating content for one another. I am fascinated by the vast community of family vloggers and their strange sense of competitiveness yet support towards one another. Nonetheless, it will be very interesting to see how these dynamics manifest throughout the adulthood of children who grew up in the lens of a camera!
ReplyDelete- Libby Collins