Thanks for joining our life: Intimacy as performativity on YouTube parenting vlogs

Abstract

YouTube is currently becoming one of the main international platforms for amateur creators attempting to attract followers through a multiplicity of audiovisual content and engagement strategies based on search and algorithmic recommendation systems. In many cases, this environment, and especially its users, try to adapt to a celebrity network pattern on the basis of the construction of seemingly authentic and close relationships, leading to relevant phenomena such as parenting vlogs. This kind of content is focused on the presence of intimate moments that reflect the daily life of influencers or micro-influencers, capturing large numbers of followers, as well as important communication and information strategies. From this perspective, and through a quantitative content analysis of 1,034 videos and more than 900 viewing hours on two very popular YouTube family influencer channels, this study explores the degree of intimacy portrayed in their video content as performative strategies that configure the profiles’ post through interactions with followers, brands, and self-promotion. The results suggest that the degree of intimacy shown in this content becomes a performative process for these family youtubers, whereby the more intimate the exposure, the more popular the information offered to the user. In short, this type of content prioritizes the routines of the youtubers, who include their closest family members and friends as a means of attracting attention, while dedicating their time to interacting with brands (advertising) and recording, editing, and submitting a vast amount of personal and private information on the platform (dissemination) in a sort of promotional–private performativity.