Difference between revisions of "YouTube Beauty Community"

Revision as of 22:19, 15 April 2018

The YouTube Beauty Community is an online community of individuals who create and consume beauty-related videos on YouTube. Using the self-proclaimed title, “beauty gurus,” these individuals upload videos of make-up tutorials, product reviews, hair-styling tutorials, skin-care routines, and home remedies. Additionally, some branch beyond beauty to discuss general life topics such as nutrition, fitness, and fashion. Some beauty-gurus like Michelle Phan have risen to national and even international prominence, and have partnerships with beauty companies such as Maybelline, Jaclyn Hill, and Anastasia Beverly Hills. As a result of YouTube success, some have pursued work in the beauty industry as a full-time profession, creating their own make up lines, and offering makeup services.

Michelle Phan, YouTube's most popular 'Beauty Guru'

History

In 2006, the beauty community started as a very small subset of YouTube. Since then, the community has grown exponentially, and now has its own category, 'How to & Style,' on YouTube. YouTube members may subscribe to their favorite gurus as a way of easily keeping up-to-date on the latest beauty trends. Some gurus upload videos daily, while others upload weekly or once a month. Professionalism also varies - some gurus shoot their videos using a phone in an informal setting (e.g. bedroom floor, kitchen table, couch,) while others shoot videos with the help of professional film and editing staff.

The most popular gurus are able to make a sustainable living from their YouTube channels due to video monetization and company partnerships. Currently, the most popular beauty guru is Michelle Phan (michellephan), who has over 1.6 million subscribers. Following her rise to fame from YouTube, Michelle became a Lancôme representative, did makeup for 2010's Fashion Week, and appeared in multiple media articles including Seventeen, Vogue, and Forbes. ^[1] Phan's success also includes the three companies that she helped found: FAWN Inc. (For All Women Network), Ipsy and IQQU, along with her personal jewelry line, Ever Eden. Other top beauty gurus include Elle and Blair Fowler (allthatglitters21 and juicystar07 respectively), who have their own cellphone accessory line through Cellaris, book deals, and an online store. They were also recently nominated for the "2011 Teen Choice Awards" as the "Choice Web Star." ^[2]. Most prominent beauty gurus cite YouTube and the online beauty community as the stepping-stone to launch their careers. ^[3]

Company endorsement does not always have a positive impact on the trust consumers place in a guru's recommendations. Studies have shown that when people are paid and/or given products to promote, fewer people view their videos. Subscribers make the assumption that the guru's recommendations will be altered by the guru's personal incentives.

Video Types

In the beauty community, there are a number of themes commonly visited in videos:

Hauls

Popular YouTube Beauty Guru Macbarbie07 showing her purchases in a haul video.

A haul video shows the most recent beauty-related purchases of a guru from a shopping trip. Products range from drugstore quality to boutique standard, and can include makeup, clothing, accessories, and food. The video-bloggers (vloggers) hold up their purchase close to the camera as they describe the details of each item along with their personal review. Haul videos can be made sporadically after an exciting purchase, or often times on a regular basis, such as weekly or monthly. The concept of haul videos is well known, even to the point of parodies ^[4], in the United States, but this phenomenon has recently spread internationally, and is especially popular with British teens. Many haulers strive to reach as many viewers as possible, and occasionally their videos become so popular that beauty companies begin to send them free products to expose to their follower base. ^[5]

Hauls have become widely recognized and increasingly marketable, with more than 159,000 posted as of 2010. Retail companies support the influence of these videos; they consider them to be free promotion. Companies such as JCPenney and Forever 21 have hosted haul video contests where entry videos show how they would style the company’s clothes and create fashionable ensembles. Judged by the company, other peers, or a panel of stylists, winners of these contests can win thousands of dollars.^[6]

Product Reviews

A product review video is similar to a haul video, in the the guru describes a set of relatively recent purchases. In a product review however, the purchase is reviewed after the guru has used the product for a period of time in order to give a personal account of the function of the product. Typically, a guru will discuss particularly good and bad features of the product. At the end of the video, the guru will highlight the products they recommend to their viewers, including hyperlinks to purchase the product in the description bar of the video.

Tag Videos

Tag videos vary across different themes, but center around a set of staple questions the guru answers in a video. The guru then spreads the tag video by selecting a number of friends to make a video and complete the same tag. The most popular tag in the beauty community is “What’s in my purse?” in which gurus display the contents of their bags and give tips as to what items to carry or how to organize their bag. Other tags include “Monthly Favorites” where gurus display their most used and favorite products of the month as well as “Products I Regret Buying” in which gurus showcase products they regret purchasing as a method of informing their subscribers of low quality products.

Make-up Tutorials

Make-up tutorials are videos in which the beauty gurus teaches the viewer how to apply makeup to achieve a particular look. For example, a natural-look make-up tutorial would teach you how to use different make-up products and techniques to create a neutral, natural look. In a makeup tutorial, the guru goes through the entire process of creating a look from start to finish. While they are teaching, the beauty guru would usually inform the audiences what brand of make-up and accessories that they are using. They may also provide links and store locations of where the users can obtain these products. Topics of make-up tutorials vary a lot, typical ones include smoky-eye tutorial, clubbing make-up tutorial, Halloween make-up tutorial and more. Some of the other popular ones out there include tutorials that teach you how to do make up in 5 minutes or make up tutorials that are specifically designed for a season or holiday.

Home Remedies

Home remedies are videos in which the beauty gurus suggest solutions to solve different health problems using commodities that can easily be found at your house. These videos are very similar to the D.I.Y (Do It Yourself) videos. Some of the most popular ones include home remedies for acne, acne-scars, hair-growth, dark-circles, dry-lips, blackheads and etc. In these videos, the beauty gurus would usually start off with stating what the health problem is and why it exists. They then continue to talk about what common items can be used to treat those problems. Some of the popular common items that the beauty gurus suggest viewers to use include fruits, yogurt, sugar, milk, honey and other common goods that can be easily found in your household.

Ethical Concerns

Authenticity

Before a FTC ruling in 2010, beauty gurus and bloggers did not have to disclose to their viewers that they were being compensated for a product review or being sent free products by a company. While this had made beauty gurus more transparent with their viewers, now, their viewers cannot tell the authenticity of these beauty gurus and how whether they actually enjoy the products or services they're sponsoring. Advertising prevails the beauty community on YouTube and in many ways reduces the content of these videos to be like infomercials. ^[7] It's difficult for viewers to trust whether a beauty guru is speaking highly of a product because they're receiving money to sponsor these product or if they genuinely like and use that product. Ads for the sponsored product also play before the video in order to push the brand even more onto the user. ^[8] To mitigate some of the backlash from watchers when seeing sponsorships, some YouTubers will say that a "friend" sent them the sponsored product, increasing the distrust the viewer has in the YouTuber. ^[9]

FTC Compliance

Today, under FTC law “bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.” If a blogger is caught not disclosing this information they will face a fine of $11,000.^[10] The new FTC rule attempted to increase the level of transparency between the vloggers and their viewers as a way to decrease deceptive and unfair practices. However, due to little enforcement, the beauty community is still very ambiguous about their product affiliations. Level of compliance can range from gurus clearly stating their ties with the company such as what they were given, and if they are being paid or may leave a simple sentence such as “I am being paid for this review. All thoughts are my own.”

Trust

Distrust between viewers and the beauty community has expanded to the companies as well, especially after an incident with beauty guru Teresa Ulrich (juicytuesday) and online retailer HotMiamiStyles.com.

juicytuesday

In April of 2010, Ulrich gave a review of clothes she was sent for free by the company. Although the company asked her for only positive reviews, Ulrich gave an honest review stating, “My loyalty is to my subscribers… this [dress] is very awkward. It’s bad. I would wash my car with this.” Within twelve hours and 5,000 views, a HotMiamiStyles representative emailed Ulrich asking her to take her video down due to a drastic decrease in sales. This decrease in sales caused the company to fire two employees who “have babies to feed.”^[11] Ulrich argued that her video alone could not cause such a drastic decrease in that short amount of time. Subscribers were thankful and appreciated Ulrich’s video proclaiming their general distrust of the company due to the only raving reviews from all the other videos.

See Also

References

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