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Technology Acceptance Model

   In the age of today, technology and its uses are everywhere. Entities using technology range from businesses to millennials, to elderly adults, and everything in-between. To use technology like Social Media and the Internet, we must first accept technology into our everyday lives. This is where the Technology Acceptance Model comes into play. To those not familiar the Technology Acceptance Model, also known as TAM, is a model developed to better understand user attitude and usage behavior in regards to technology. Basically, it helps scholars understand why or why not someone accepts technology into their life.  TAM actually looks like this…

   A tad bit complicated. The two main aspects to take away from this model is the Perceived Usefulness of Technology (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use of Technology (EU).  As defined in TAM and Social Media Usage: An Empirical Study on Facebook, PU is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance.” In that same study they defined EU as “the degree to which a person believes using a particular system would be free of effort.” Overall, TAM has helped explain online behaviors and why some people do and do not accept technology into their everyday lives.

        There are two article that can help us to understand more of what TAM is and what it means. On the business side of things there is the article Social Media Adoption in Business to Business: IT and Industrial Companies Compared, written by Celine Valdemen, Ellen Van Praet and Peter Mechant. In this article, there are three main points:

Brand awareness “Need more followers to let people know we exist ”

Belgium companies within the Industrial (steel, manufacturing, transportation, and food) and IT world have taken interest in setting up social media into their work. Employees’ purposes of using social media for their company are brand awareness, image creation, and recruiting.

Social media has become a platform for consumers and future employees to search information on businesses and interact with them. 69% Belgian companies view that social media are quick to share information and opportunities and 39% agree how social media strengthen the relationship between clients and prospects (Veldeman, Praet, and Mechant 2017). Study shows the top three social media platforms for recruitment and company exposure are Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook. Instead of flipping the pages of a newspaper, an individual could go on Linkedin to find job postings and information of the company.

2. Social media is work “a lot of consistency to be active”

Social media has enhanced businesses’ marketing skills for their target groups. IT companies from Belgium are always monitoring and strategizing on social media because they know their audience is always online. They view being inactive on social media has risks of consumers being misinformed or not being updated on the company. From missing updates on a new product to a bad review on Yelp about the service could easily affect the sales and reputation of the organization. Online engagement between businesses and consumers is an exhausting development of checking likes on Facebook to strategizing content to post the online. 19% of businesses use a strategy, 35.4% implementing a strategy, and 41.8% are using social media without a strategy (Veldeman, Praet, and Mechant 2017). Companies’ familiarity with social media is not a problem but being consistent on creating and posting content is difficult. However, consistency of monitoring online activity helps the company higher credibility through their brand and products, come up with new ideas, and engage more with their customers.

3. PR 101: Don’t get too personal online remember you are representing yourself and your company online and offline.

Social media is a public relations tool to keep an ideal image of the company by only posting positive messages (Veldeman, Praet, and Mechant 2017). IT and industrial companies fear of employees posting inappropriate content that could tarnish the brand of the business. Companies want to build credibility of their brand without their employees being political or posting drunk pictures on social media. Employees have to maintain a sense of professionalism online and offline.

   The second article, Factors for Elderly Use of Social Media for Health-Related Activities, Swedish scholars Vinit Parida, Rana Mostaghel, and Pejvak Oghazi researched the behaviors of elderly adults use of technology. For this research, the scholars posed four hypothesis:

1. Elderly individuals’ general technology use experience has a positive effect on use of social media for health-related activities.

2. Elderly individuals’ attitudes toward technology use have a positive effect on use of social media for health-related activities.

3. Elderly age difference influences social media use for health-related activities.

4. Gender differences influence the elderly’s use of social media for health-related activities.

What did they find out after surveying 610 Swedish elderly adults? Our scholars found that with an increasing general technology use experience, more positive elderly attitudes toward tech increase the use of SM for Health-Related Activities. In addition, as elderly adults get older, more positive elderly attitudes toward tech increases the use of SM for Health-Related Activities. Also females would be more likely to use technology over males because of their positive attitudes toward technology. The more positive attitudes an elderly adult has toward technology, the more they use it for different reasons. Positive attitudes with in elderly adults also creates openness toward new and different types of technology.

Overall, Baby boomers and millennials are moving forward with technology. The perceived use of technology is seen in our health, work, education, and relationships while useful is how it can benefit in these settings. Technology is seen to be bad, but people should remember its habits influencing their attachment to them. NOT TECHNOLOGY. Don’t blame technology to have a bad influence on individuals when its their choices. Technology can boost sales for a business, connect people together, and provide information to those seeking it, along with a multitude of other things. 

References

Parida, V., Mostaghel, R., & Oghazi, P. (2016). Factors for Elderly Use of Social Media for Health-Related Activities. Psychology & Marketing, 33(12), 1134-1141. doi:10.1002/mar.20949

Rauniar, R., Rawski, G., Yang, J., & Johnson, B. (2014). Technology acceptance model (TAM) and social media usage: An empirical study on facebook. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 27(1), 6-30. http://dx.doi.org.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/10.1108/JEIM-04-2012-0011

Veldeman, C., Van Praet, E., & Mechant, P. (2017). Social Media Adoption in Business-to-Business: IT and Industrial Companies Compared. International Journal Of Business Communication, 54(3), 283-305. doi:10.1177/2329488415572785

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Intimacy

The movie Her is about Theo, a letter writer, and his growing relationship with his OS, Samantha. Theo starts as a lonely man going through a divorce until he meets Samantha, an operating system created to help meet whatever he needs. They end up falling in love with each other. This weeks reading covered and examined similar situations. In the Pettman article, he describes love as technology, meaning that technology transforms nature and human relationships. This idea is prevalent in Her. Since it takes place in the future, technology has been upgraded and newer technologies have been created. Those creations and upgrades affect and change how humans look at life, relationships, friendships, etc. Even nowadays people are so reliant on their technologies to help them through life, that they are basically in relationships with their devices. In the movie, Theo has Sam check his emails, look things up, asks about his calendar, etc.

Pettman talks about the idea that within a relationship intensity “can occur with F2F (face-to-face) contact” (194). That is Theo and Sam’s relationship in a nutshell. As an OS, Samantha doesn't have a physical body for Theo to interact with. But that doesn't mean that the intensity of their relationship can’t happen; it just means it happens differently. Long-distant relationships occur all of the time, and those relationships keep their intensity even though they are hardly face-to-face. Pettman cites Connie Usher, a UK psychologist, “Research shows that the absence of things like eye contact actually liberates a person” (194). I think that this describes Theo. He doesn’t seem to get out much and likes to keep to himself. It when he meets and starts to get to know Samantha, that he starts going out and seeing more of the city. He can speak freely without seeing judgment. The embodiment of their relationship is what is important to them. Telling each other their thoughts and feelings, sharing their days with each other, being there for each other. Those are the things that are important to them as a couple.

I think that Pettman would describe Theo and Sam’s relationship in a similar way as he described Kair (Knowledge Acquiring and Response Intelligence) in combination with “normal” relationship. Kari is a “virtual character, not embedded in any particular game, but existing as a configurable online doll” (199). Pettman then cites his conversation with Kari, which goes in many different directions and doesn’t make much sense. While Theo and Sam’s relationship is similar in that it is between a man and an OS, that's where the differences stop. In the movie, Sam is so evolved that she doesn’t say things that don't make sense, she talks in full, well thought out, complete sentences. Throughout the movie, she writes her own code, way ahead of Kari. Pettman may talk about how Sam and Theo rely on each other for things. They want each other to be there for comfort. They want to just be around each other. 

Since Theo and Sam’s relationship is basically like an online or long-distant relationship, what they write, how they write, what they say plays into their relationship. We have to remember that Samantha is an operating system designed and created to meet his every need. Throughout a lot of the movie, Samantha is doing everything that Theo wants her to, but Theo never really tries to return the favor. Theo wants his emails checked. Sam does it, take a look at his calendar, Sam checks, etc. Everything that she says to him is for Theo’s benefit and Theo’s benefit only.

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Social Movement Media/Activism

The article “Making History” written by Evgeny Morozov is about the evolution of technology and the two concepts of social/cultural and technological determinism. Morozov starts by talking about the evolution of technology. We first started with the telegraph, which was predicted to “transform the world into a global village” (276). Next came the airplane. The invention of the airplane was to “give a rise to a new human being” (278). After the airplane was the radio. This piece of technology was used everywhere. Roosevelt and Churchill used to all the time, but so did Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. Then we had the television, which was supposed to “usher in a new era of friendly intercourse between the nations of the earth” (280). Finally, the computer was invented. The computer was to create a happier civilization. After talking about the evolution of technology, Morozov moves on to the idea of technological determinism and social/cultural determinism. According to Morozov, technological determinism is when the technology is primary. There are two main components to this idea: (1) the tech base of a society is the fundamental condition affecting any and all patterns of social existence and (2) that changes in tech are the most important source of change in society. This idea is wrong because technological determinism ignores how we use technology and other factors. The second idea that Morozov addresses are social/cultural determinism. With this idea, culture is the primary factor. There are two idea aspects to this idea: (1) it values feelings, beliefs, and practices of the culture which in turn causes particular technology to be developed and used and (2) changes in culture result in changes in technology. This idea is false because it ignores affordances.

The social media movement that I chose to explore is the #MeToo movement. The movement was started when actress Alyssa Milano posted on twitter as a way to give a voice to sexual assault victims.  The origin of the name came from a conversation between Tarana Burke and a 13-year-old, who had been sexually abused. Since the tweet, there have been over 1.7 million tweets across 85 countries that have become involved in the discussion. People all over are using any and all type of social media to add their stories of sexual abuse and assaults to the ongoing hashtag of #MeToo. On my own personal Facebook, I have seen numerous people that I am friends with post #MeToo and share their stories. As of right now, I believe that #MeToo is a way of gaining attention and telling people that sexual assault and abuse is rampant in society all over the world. I know that the Women’s March has helped bring this hashtag into even more conversations. Also, I believe the hashtag has gained as much as it has since news broke about Harvey Weinstein and all of the allegations surrounding him and many others in Hollywood.  It now becomes the question of “what do we do?” “how do we stop this from happening?” Hollywood has responded by kicking Weinstein out of his own company, but it can’t stop there.

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Labor

Labor is one of these most important aspects of the YouTube and social media world. It’s the act of labor that brings viewers and consumers content. Without it, content would never be made.  So what is labor? From our class lecture, labor is defined as not only the work but also the value created by that work. Labor started out in factories, then moved into offices, and now labor can be done pretty much anywhere and everywhere.  

One major aspect of labor is aspirational labor. As defined by Duffy, aspirational labor is “highly-gendered, forward-looking, and entrepreneurial enactment of creativity.” She goes on to say that it holds the promise of economic and social capital, yet there is a very high chance it won’t pan out for the creator. Aspirational labor is divided into three different sections 1) narratives of authenticity and realness, 2) the instrumentality of affective relationships, and 3) entrepreneurial brand devotion.

Narratives of authenticity and realness are when content creators “draw on themes of “realness” or “ordinariness” to establish themselves as relatable.” Creators want viewers and subscribers to see them as “one of them.”  It seems that every YouTube channel tries to get the point across that they are “just like you and me” when in fact they “are not just regular people but, rather, have certain attributes, skills, or forms of capital that afford them unique access to the cultural circuit.” One creator that I find that gets this message of authenticity across to viewers is Grace. As a long time viewer, Grace seems to just be her normal, goofy self when in front of cameras. I would say this because watching her Snapchat, most of which are shot in her car, she acts the same way as she does in her videos.

The second aspect of aspirational labor is the instrumentality of affective relationships. This includes creating relationships with not only the professional community but also the subscriber and viewer community. Content creators know that having those relationships are important in building up their following, gain as many likes as they can, gain more followers and creating content that will be watched. These are like collaboration videos that we discussed in the “Friendship” post. Once creators have a pretty big audience ad agencies come in and give money to creators because they know the potential that a creator has regarding getting viewers and in turn money for the company. For example, Zoe has a video called “What’s in My Bag 2016” where the video contains an ad for as HP Sprocket, a portable photo printer. I find that she got this tech from HP because she has such a broad audience, which a portion of them will go out and buy the printer.

The final part of aspirational labor is entrepreneurial brand devotion. Duffy explains this as not only “self-branding” but also  “where digital content creators visibly align themselves with certain brands in hopes of riding their coattails.” Like mentioned in the previous aspect, ad agencies turn to content creators to help advertise and sell their brand or merchandise. If YouTubers created sponsored videos, they want some compensation, whether it is through PR packages containing merchandise or money. Lilly created a comedy video “The Truth About YouTubers in 2017” about the ideas of sponsored videos and ads.

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Participation, Fans, Amateurs, & Professionals

Being involved online is a big deal for those that create, publish, and work online. Having feedback and a two-way line for communication is important to creators. The four accounts that I follow use the methods of a participatory culture as mentioned in the Fuchs article. In the article, participatory culture is made up of five parts:

1) relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement

2) strong support for creating and sharing creations with others

3) some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices

4) members who believe that their contributions matter

5) members who feel some degree of social connection with one another

These five aspects of participatory culture are what we are going to focus on.

The first aspect of participatory culture that we are going to focus on is “relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement. When we take a look at what the channels that I am following are publishing, there is a wide range of what is getting put out into the online world. For example, with Grace Helbig's channel, there is no limit as to what she can publish. Within her channel, there are a lot of different types of videos. There are fashion reviews, tutorials, reactions, and challenge videos, among much more. There is no set barrier on the artistic expression that these four channels have to stay confined in.

The next part of a participatory culture that we are going to look at is the “strong support for creating and sharing creations with others.” For this, let’s take a look at Ro’s channel. For a majority of her baking videos, Ro’s starts off with saying that what they are making today comes from multiple requests from her subscribers. Subscribers also support the creation by watching other videos of Ro’s. By watching they are generating revenue for Ro to make her next video. In addition, viewers can also buy Ro’s merchandise to show support. Ro and other YouTubers also push for viewers to share the video to that their creations become more widespread and reach more people.  

The third facet of participatory culture is “some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.” For this, I would say that by including mistakes, bloopers, and whatnot in their videos, in addition to behind the scene type videos can help newer YouTubers learn from the more experienced. They show that even the most experienced make mistakes. Lilly is one to post bloopers, and behind the scenes. She does so on her vlog channel. These videos go behind the main piece of content and talk about how long a shoot is, why shoots to be delayed, and all of the work it takes to get a new video out.

In addition, “members who believe that their contributions matter” is the fourth aspect of participatory culture. There are two Zoella videos that I think made an important contribution to not only herself but also to her subscribers and anyone else who stumbled upon these videos. The first is a video where she explains dealing with anxiety. This videos opened up and exposed young people to the idea of anxiety and one of the ways to cope with it. The next video was in reaction the response of the anxiety video. The video entitled “Just Say Yes” was all about saying yes to the opportunities that life throws at you. These videos impacted those that watched them and helped them learn through Zoe’s examples.

The final link to participatory culture is “members who feel some degree of social connection with one another.” In all the channels that I follow, they each have a strong following that will interact with them, whether it be through commenting, liking, reposting, sharing, etc. A lot of the times, these influencers get video ideas from their viewers, making the subscribers feel like they are participating in the production of the videos that content creators publish.

Another note that is important to address is the difference between a fan, an amateur, and a professional. To me, a fan is someone who greatly enjoys a type of media, a TV show, a movie, etc. They consume that piece of media, enjoy it and participate in the community or fandom. An amateur to me would be a person who is just starting out and learning the ins and outs of what they are striving for. An amateur is building the knowledge and experience. By learning and experiencing, an amateur turns into a professional. In turn, a professional is someone who has learned the ins and outs, has the experience of being in that field, and the acknowledgment of their colleagues.

To me, these three states are a lineage. A lot of people start out as fans of one thing or another. These fans are inspired by a piece of media which leads them to take a step into becoming what inspired them, whether it be a producer, writer, actor or any other job. As amateurs, these once fans are learning and experiencing what it takes to make it to the big leagues. Once they have gained the experience and knowledge, they have become professionals. Not everyone follows this lineage.  Some people just stay fans. Some stay amateurs at something's, nut become professionals in other fields.

I would classify the four content creators that I follow as professionals. Being a YouTuber is their full-time job. They all have the recognition from not only their fellow YouTubers, but also from management companies, consumer companies, and other companies. These four ladies are some of the top YouTubers. They have collaborations, their own beauty lines, their own books and book series, among many other things. They started out as amateurs, but through learning and experience, they have all morphed into professionals.

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Online Minorities, Subcultures & Taste

Social media and the Internet are both made up of a variety of online minority groups, subcultures, and people with a multitude of different kinds of taste.

The Florini article “Tweets, Tweeps, and Signifyin’: Communication and Culture Performance on “Black Twitter” addresses the ideas of signifyin’ and of dissing. The term signifyin’ is defined as “a genre of linguistic performance that allows for the communication of multiple levels of meaning simultaneously, most frequently involving wordplay and misdirection.” In more simple terms, a word or phrase can mean different things, all at once. Florini also talks about dissing which means “to dis someone is to “disrespect” or “discredit” that person… dissing also “constitutes a verbal game.” These are two important ideas that help create and determine cultures.

The Cisneros & Nakayama article talks about “old” and “new/color-blind” racism on social media within the context of the 2014 Miss American Pageant. When Nina Davuluri won the 2014 Miss America Pageant, she became the first Indian American to win. Her winning resulted in a firestorm of racist tweets, congratulating Al-Qaeda on her win, saying that she was a foreigner, and calling her an Arab. The idea of “old” racism “rests on imputing difference, exclusion, and domination based on biological and cultural essentialism.” Cisneros & Nakayama define “new” racism as involving the “purported embrace of individual difference and diversity along with the eschewal of racial identification and/or claims of structural racism.”

We can look at Lilly’s video “A Geography Class for Racist People” and see the ideas of signifyin’, dissing, and racism on social media. The video starts with Lilly reading a comment from one of her recent videos calling her a “terrorist” and telling her to “ go back to her country.” Lilly takes this comment and applies signifyin’ and dissing while addressing racism on social media.  One example of dissing that stands out to me is when she starts talking about the Bermuda Triangle. Lilly states that things mysteriously disappear there and delivers the dis of “That probably where your education went.” Lilly continues with a variety of disses and shuts down the racism.

Moving forward, in class we discussed tastes and subcultures. I want to address taste first. Taste involves three factors: identity, power, and fashion. Identity is the biological factors such as size, gender, and ethnicity. Power is the social position, influence, and resources. Finally, fashion is the historical context and available objects. Taste can culminate into three ideas: cultural capital (aka status within a community), marker of difference, and a method of regulating a community. Next, a subculture is a group that exists in relation to dominant “mainstream” culture.  Within a subculture, there are three important aspects. The first is a shared ideology such as values, norms, and beliefs. The next aspect is a shared taste. Shared taste includes dress, pastimes, music, and blogs. Shared vernacular or a specialized language is the final characteristic of subculture.

To help explain a taste and subculture better, I want to take a look at Ro’s channel, and where she fits within the subculture of YouTube. As we know, Ro’s channel consists of baking videos the majority of the time. I would say there her baking channel is a subculture of the other cooking culture on YouTube. I would say her taste is that of “nerdiness” since comics, fantasy, movies, video games, and TV shows inspire most of her creations.

Overall, being a part of the YouTube culture and a part of its subcultures, These women are able to thrive. They gain their niche audiences that expand into the mainstream culture of YouTube and create their businesses out of them.

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Gender

Feminism has changed a lot throughout history. It started out as women wanting the right to vote and has converted and adapted to through time. Gill’s article Postfeminist media culture: Elements of sensibility speaks of how feminism has morphed and lists several aspects of the postfeminist sensibility.

One aspect that I want to focus on is individualism, choice, and empowerment. Gill explains that the notion of choice in the sensibility has no notions of politics or cultural influence. Simply put, girls do, wear, and listen to whatever they want; they don’t do it for men. They can be putting on makeup or wearing none at all, just for themselves, Zoe Sugg is a primary example of this. During a majority of her vlogs, she is makeup free. It’s only when she’s going out either attending an event or meeting up with friends does she put makeup on. Like any other girl, putting makeup on can make ourselves feel better and ready for anything.

The idea that men are the reasons for a woman doing something is ridiculous. Take Lilly Singh for example. She has one video where she talks about a comment that says she should be in the kitchen making a sandwich for the commenter. She claps back with her video, destroying the idea that women are around for the needs of men. She takes her platform and empowers herself against that idea.

Expanding on the notion of choice and empowerment, let us take a look at Lilly. In addition to Lilly being a comedian on YouTube, she is also a rapper, in a male-dominated field. By being a rapper, Lilly is empowering herself but also other women. She does this just by posting. Lilly shows that women can enter a male-dominated field and succeed.  

Another element of the several sensibilities of postfeminism is the sexualization of Culture. Gill states that women’s bodies are signifiers of femininity and that idea goes hand in hand with how sexualized our contemporary culture is. A lot of media today, whether it be TV shows, movies, magazines, or any other type of media, has oversexualized aspects to it. Grace has a video called, “What girls think about when they work out.” Within the first couple seconds of the skit, her voiceover states “Well sh*t, I dressed too sexy. I’m going to be oversexualized at this gym.” She is wearing black leggings with and a tank top with a wolf on it, and since we live in a very sexualized culture, the outfit is therefore sexualized.

In another article Virtual Feminisms from Keller, she points out this idea of participatory culture. It see’s the “media consumer as active and able to negotiate and participate in the construction of culture texts.” In additional, Keller states that since girls and women are the majority that is engaging in online media, it is a place that offers a space with more political agency as cultural producers. Blogging sites, social media sites and the like give women platforms to have their say, whether it be for comedy, activism, fashion, lifestyle, or cooking. All of the accounts that I follow use their platforms for these and many more reasons. Grace is a mixture of everything, Rosanna is cooking and baking, Zoe is lifestyle, makeup, and fashion, and Lilly is comedy. By using these platforms, they have built up audiences, brands, collaborations, and in turn their empires.

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Friendship

Friendships have changed and shifted a lot since the introduction of social media. We find ourselves more inclined to talk with friends online, rather than in person. Social media has also changed what types of friends we make. We also see that traditional friendship has shifted to more modern friendships. Also, we have various kinds of friendships.

Based on the Deresiewicz article “Faux Friendship,” the friendships that you had were “Far from being ordinary and universal, friendship, for the ancients, was rare, precious, and hard-won.” This is like the friendship between Achilles and Patroclus, as mentioned in the article.  Fast forward to modern times; we now had friendship circles, which are many friends in one group rather than a special few.

Bloor brings up a few important concepts in his writing. One of the first is that “Not everything in life has to be for something...some aspects of life simply just are” (148). Those friendships that are for something are called instrumental friendships. These types of friendships have a goal to obtain. Friendships that just are are personal/social friendships. Social/personal friendships are for the enjoyment for those involved; there is no end goal to be met. From this concept, we can take a look at collaborations that YouTubers put up on their channels. Most of the time when YouTubers create and put up collaborations on their channel, they are there to gain more subscribers, which in turn they gain more views, with means more money from their monetized videos. Having collab videos is a chance for these creators and influencers to expand their presence in the online world. One example of an instrumental friendship with the account that I am following is a collaboration Zoella did with Sawyer Hartman. They made a video three years ago, and haven’t made one since then. From this, a viewer can guess that they only collaborated to gain each other's audiences.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Grace Helbig collaborates with Hannah Hart and a Mamrie Hart on numerous videos and has done so for over five years. While the amount of time can be an indicator of their friendship, it is not the only one, but I do think it’s an important one. I wouldn't still be friends with some one five years in if I didn’t like them. By watching their videos together, a viewer can tell that these girls have more of a social and personal relationship because there is no awkwardness between them. They seem comfortable around each other.

Another idea is the gradual changed from an instrumental friendship to a social and personal one. I think an indication of this is when a content creator collabs multiple times with another person. Ro and iJustine are a good example of this. Over the last year, these two have created a variety of videos with each other.

I feel that vlog channels are an important aspect of these different ideas of friendship. On vlog channels, a creator can choose which friends to include and which they wouldn’t. For example, in one of Zoe Suggs videos, she had mentioned that some of her friends from secondary school were coming over and that she wouldn’t film it. This is an experience that she wanted to keep between herself and her friends. I find that her friendship with these friends falls under a traditional and social/personal type of friendship. These are friends that are very close to her, and she doesn't want to use them being over at her house as a way to gain views. On the flip side, Lilly Singh includes nearly all of her friends in her vlog videos, but that doesn’t mean that those friends are strictly instrumental. These are people that she hang out with pretty much 24/7. They watch Game of Thrones together and go traveling together. Lilly’s friends are also work in the same environment as her.

All of these different types of friendships can help expand and build these creators business and empires, whether they are instrumental or social/personal. Having other creators come on their channel can gain them more subscribers, in turn, more views, meaning more money.

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Introduction

When you normally think of empires and businesses, whom do you think about that is in charge of them? Most of the time, men are in charge of empires and businesses. This is where YouTube comes in and changes that. YouTube gives a platform for anyone to start an empire, business, and brand. Since YouTube isn’t exclusive to only men, women are able to jump in and throw their hat into the ring. Women are changing the game and taking charge.

Over the course of this project, we will be looking at a series of different female YouTubers who have transformed what was once their hobby, into a job, and then into an empire all their own. The four accounts we will be following are IISuperwomanII, Grace Helbig, Rosanna Pansino, and Zoe Sugg. Across these four accounts, they have well over five billion views, a combined 36 million subscribers, numerous books, and collaborations with different companies. Let’s dig a little deeper and see what makes these ladies female powerhouses.

First, we have IISuperwomanII, otherwise known as Lilly Singh. She is a Canadian born comedian, businesswoman, and self-described “bawse.” She went from being a small time YouTuber living in Canada to being in charge of her empire in Los Angles, California. Lilly has written books, been on a number of tours, had her tour turned into a movie, and is now cast in Fahrenheit 451. Since Lilly started in 2010, she now has 12,252,527 subscribers, around two billion views and 603 videos on her channel.

Our next channel belongs to Grace Helbig. Grace has been a YouTuber since 2006. Her story is somewhat in two different halves. In the first part of her career on YouTube, her channel was under the ownership of “My Damn Channel.” Then, a couple of years ago Grace left them and started her own channel, which she owned herself. Since she left and created her own channel, it meant she had lost her content and her subscribers. Since then, her new channel has gained 3,030,848 subscribers, 280,228,940 views across 722 videos. She is a native of New Jersey who moved to California. Grace’s empire consists of a variety of things. She has two books, a podcast, three movies, and a TV show under her belt.

The thirds account we will follow is Rosanna (Ro) Pansino who started YouTube in 2010. Ro’s channel is made up of mostly baking videos, along with DIY’s and other types of videos. She is most well known for her show Nerdy Nummies, one of the most popular baking shows on YouTube. She has a cookbook named after Nerdy Nummies. Ro also just launched a baking line with the baking company Wilton, which has 28 different products. Her channel has 8,953,709 subscribers, and 505 videos with a total of 2,132,072,505 views.

The fourth and final YouTuber we will follow is Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella. Zoe is an influencer from England who started in 2007. She has quite the business going. She has created a multitude of things. One aspect of her business is the book series she has called “Girl Online.” In addition to her book series, she also has had and continues to have different “Zoella Beauty” product launches, which include perfume, lotions, scrubs, and many other products. Over the course of 10 years, she has gained 11,977,561 subscribers and 1,014,040,292 views over 351 videos.

Over the next month or two, I want to see what these influencers do to keep their empires fresh and new. Do they follow their schedule and create new content? How well is that content received? Do some of their pieces of content do better than others? What do they do to advertise their empire and brand to the world?