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From YouTube to TV, and Back Again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media Dr Crystal Abidin |...
30 August 2017, 19 million views https://youtu.be/-ioilEr3Apw
a brief history of celebrity 1) celebrity and stars media industry, celebrity industry 2) ordinary celebrity tabloidizatio...
demotic turn (Graeme Turner 2010) “Ordinary People: celebrity, tabloid culture and the function of the media.” Pp. 12-32 i...
tv talk shows (Laura Grindstaff 2002) “The Genre Goes Hard-Core: A Brief History of Talk Shows and the Money Shot.” in The...
DaddyOFive (USA) https://theconversation.com/when-exploiting-kids-for-cash-goes-wrong-on-y
Case Study: Sofia Grace (and Rosie)
networked trajectories of viral child celebrity 1) viral happenstance + securing mainstream media debut 2) television debu...
Parasitic or symbiotic? • Reversing the traditional flows; TV producers watching for ‘early’ stage viral stars [parasitic?...
Once in the spotlight … • Whose helps viral kids navigate (temporary?) internet fame? • Branding and monetization? • Is th...
(Emerging) Conclusions 1. (Old media) TV + (new media) viral kids and microcelebrity co-exist in unequal but ongoing symbi...
From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media
From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media
From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media
From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media
From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media
From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media
From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media
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From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media

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By Dr Crystal Abidin & A/Prof Tama Leaver

It is a common perception that television talk shows, a genre of reality TV, can serve as an amplifier for celebrity-aspirants. Everyday, ordinary people have been known to capitalize on their talk show exposure, using their prominence and infamy on the old media platform as a springboard to wrestle attention and establish their digital media estates. One recent example is 13yo Danielle Bregoli who appeared as a foul-mouthed out-of-control teen on The Dr. Phil Show in September 2016, and whose snippets on The Dr. Phil Show YouTube channel have accumulated over 136 million views. Since then, Bregoli has fostered a following into the millions on Instagram where she hawks sponsored advertorials. However, we focus on a less visible but arguably more insidious, commercialized, and exploitative form of virality flows and currency exchange, in the reverse between television and social media around child personalities. This paper examines the way TV talk shows borrow from the native virality of social media vernaculars to bolster old media's struggling foray into digital spaces. From The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon's "Hashtag Fail" segment to Jimmy Kimmel Live!'s "I told my kids I ate all their Halloween candy" video challenge, TV talk shows have been soliciting the free and willing labour of social media users to produce content for their show. Moreover, The Ellen DeGeneres Show regularly mines YouTube for viral videos starring children in order to invite them as guests on the show, often to replicate their viral act for a live audience, disseminate these programme clips on their corporate YouTube channel, and eventually contract viral YouTube children with high attention value to star in their own recurring segments on the Show. The pathway from parents and others posting videos of children that go viral, through to their appearances on TV talkshows, incorporation into the social media output of those shows, and subsequent reappearances if warranted, beg important questions about the agency, monitoring, and exploitation of young children. Our paper investigates the way the ailing old media of television is cannibalizing the spontaneous social capital of viral YouTube children, and the ethical considerations of such childhood commerce. In tracing the lifecycle of such viral YouTube children, we map the historical precedents of pre-internet television formats that similarly capitalize on "kid moments" such as America's Funniest Home Videos and Kids Say The Darndest Things, while drawing out the important differences that are now possible due to networked communication. The paper draws on the theoretical lenses of intimate surveillance (Leaver 2015) and micro-microcelebrity (Abidin 2015), and extends these to map the shifting flows between media platforms, and the way children are implicated, exploited, and situated by these processes.

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From YouTube to TV, and back again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media

  1. 1. From YouTube to TV, and Back Again: Viral video child stars and media flows in the era of social media Dr Crystal Abidin | @wishcrys | wishcrys.com A/Prof Tama Leaver | @tamaleaver | tamaleaver.net
  2. 2. 30 August 2017, 19 million views https://youtu.be/-ioilEr3Apw
  3. 3. a brief history of celebrity 1) celebrity and stars media industry, celebrity industry 2) ordinary celebrity tabloidization, demotic turn, emotioneering, presentational media 3) reality TV celebrity partially staged real people, content and commerce, non- experts 4) celebrity relations parasocial relations, direct interactions 5) microcelebrity social media affordances, self-branding, relatability
  4. 4. demotic turn (Graeme Turner 2010) “Ordinary People: celebrity, tabloid culture and the function of the media.” Pp. 12-32 in Ordinary people and the media: The demotic turn. Los Angeles: Sage. new TV formats: reality TV, confessional talk formats, docu-soaps, reality-based game shows “liveness”: watching as is happening, real replicability: acceleration, cyclical, use and disposal celetoids (cf. Chris Rojek 2001): short lifecycle as public figure, no particular talents (i.e. “virality”) media industry: mediating industry celebrities  producing celebrities democratainment (cf. John Hartley 1999): less elitist, less on information/education, more construction of cultural identities diversity vs. democracy vs. demotic
  5. 5. tv talk shows (Laura Grindstaff 2002) “The Genre Goes Hard-Core: A Brief History of Talk Shows and the Money Shot.” in The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows. Chicago: Chicago Scholarship Online. – saturation  sensationalism  spectacle – interactional > observational – first-person confessionals – studio > real-world context – (commercially) narrating lifestyles – the gender of chatter  topics – “homemaker entertainment”  demographic vs. “the woman myth” – “the money shot”: surprise, transgression, break social codes, unveiling secret  a la carnival freak shows – moral bankruptcy, voyeurism, lowest common denominator – production labour of celebs vs. ordinary people
  6. 6. DaddyOFive (USA) https://theconversation.com/when-exploiting-kids-for-cash-goes-wrong-on-y
  7. 7. Case Study: Sofia Grace (and Rosie)
  8. 8. networked trajectories of viral child celebrity 1) viral happenstance + securing mainstream media debut 2) television debut + convert social capital to economic capital 3) branded grooming + sustaining demotic relatability 4) maintaining intimacies + cultivating diverse assets 5) expanded digital estates + networking across media industries 6) solidifying Influencer status + feeding social capital back to amplifier patron 7) return to the mothership
  9. 9. Parasitic or symbiotic? • Reversing the traditional flows; TV producers watching for ‘early’ stage viral stars [parasitic?] • Are viral star turned into sustained microcelebrities by TV, or is the power of viral kids sustaining TV talkshows? Or both? [symbiotic]
  10. 10. Once in the spotlight … • Whose helps viral kids navigate (temporary?) internet fame? • Branding and monetization? • Is this (often) free child labour sustaining TV show? • Online haters? • Privacy after viral fame? • Parents or/as producers?
  11. 11. (Emerging) Conclusions 1. (Old media) TV + (new media) viral kids and microcelebrity co-exist in unequal but ongoing symbiotic and parasitic relationships. 2. Viral kids are immediately in heightened economies of commerce, branding and attention, which need to be carefully managed for child stars 3. Viral kids have rights (to privacy, etc) and these need to exist despite extensive digital and televisual footprints. 4. Child stars (in film & TV) have often not fared well in ‘real’ life afterwards. Viral kids need better, more carefully mapped, trajectories.

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