Kristina Horner, a youtube and wrock celebrity, recently wrote a blog that I found really interesting. Actually, I find most of her blogs really interesting because she is just such a normal person who leads a life that I am occasionally quite jealous of. But anyway, but to the blog - she was discussing the way that she is viewed as a youtube celebrity, and how the fact that she has loads of subscribers and makes videos about her life makes viewers believe that they have the right to comment on her life.

She sums it up well - if she asked what we think, or asked for advice, then we would be entitled to answer and give opinions. But in videos when she is just talking about her tour, or her car, or skymall products, comments about her relationship are uncalled for.

The idea of celebrity is a big mess anyway, in my opinion. But when you apply it to YouTube celebrity, it gets wierder. On YouTube, subscribers get to feel that they know the youtuber, especially if many of their videos fit into the 'vlog' category. I blogged about this before, but this leads to the feeling of a one way relationship that feels more like friendship than fandom. This alone makes the experience of both being a YouTube celeb AND a 'fan'/viewer/subscriber inherently different. Add to this the freedom of any viewer (whether regular or not) to comment on videos without restriction (well, unless it is spam or ridiculously explicit) leads to a space that enables the free performance of both "fandom" and hating.

Think about it - in real life, if you were speaking about something, or performing something, not everyone would come up to you and say "Wow that was great" - only a small percentage of brave people would. Even fewer would come up and say "Oh man, that was horrible" and I doubt anyone would say "Hey you know your boyfriend is like a foot shorter than you? Your relationship is therefore doomed". If they did I am sure they would get a very alarmed look and people would slowly back away from them...

On YouTube however, many more viewers feel inclined to comment because it is a free space. No one (virtually) is going to come up to you in real life and say "You are out of line!". Any resulting confrontation is confined to the computer which you can walk away from. But does that free space entitle us as viewers to use that freedom to comment on anything?

Kristina argues that it doesn't. And I would be inclined to agree. It comes down to respect really. Respect for a person's life with the understanding that just because they are opening their lives up in some small way or performance, does not mean they are now an open and free book for all to comment, scrutinise and change. Of course, in an ideal world we would all understand that and be as respectful to YouTubers as we are to our friends. Naturally, this world is not ideal and I think we will be hard pressed to stop people from feeling they have the liberty to comment on every aspect of someone who they have a relatively small understanding of personally.

The solution? No idea! But with Kristina I believe she is pretty well protected. Her subscribers are pretty loyal, and we tend to shout down (or thumbs down) overly rude or disrespectful comments rather rapidly...

Kristina's channel and blog.