Freedom of Youtube: Creating your own job, free of pressure by advertisers
A rise to fame on YouTube is the result of the following: humor, musical talent, a shocking news story.
Jenna Marbles, the “queen of YouTube,” is a highly influential individual, currently with ten million subscribers to her YouTube channel, and additional fans via facebook. She is a self-declared comedian; her general crowd is teenage girls who share in her day-to-day problems.
Jenna Mourey is better known as Jenna Marbles, using her pet’s name as her given surname. A sports psychology major got her nowhere, but after her initial postings she earned recognition on Youtube. Her first video was “How to Trick People into Thinking You’re Good-looking,” which was recorded while she got ready for work.
Ms. Mourey currently lives in Los Angeles, and continues to make videos.
She makes a substantial living through the Youtube Partner Program, which gives her a portion of advertising profits that people watch before her videos.
Other groups and stars share similar stories with Mourey, including a group called ImprovEveryWhere and musicians like AJ Raphael.
What is important: despite more “official” offers, Mourey retains her original act: recording from her bedroom on daily issues, and chooses to retain her intellectual freedom: she decides what to put in her videos, how to post them, and what she says.
This intellectual freedom is not something that would have been possible without the internet and YouTube. On typical comedy shows on television, any show really, advertisers restrict the creativity of any producer. Were Jenna Marbles on television, she would be pushed out, even censored for her profanity. The beautiful thing about YouTube: she can keep making videos until the day she dies, an no one can stop her. Why? You can’t control the internet.
Links
TheOtherAsians.com Interview of AJ Rafael
American Studies Media Culture Program (ASMCP) 