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Continuum
Journal of Media & Cultural Studies
ISSN: 1030-4312 (Print) 1469-3666 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccon20
Moving beyond ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’: Disciplining
girls through YouTube feedback
Amanda Rossie
To cite this article: Amanda Rossie (2015) Moving beyond ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’:
Disciplining girls through YouTube feedback, Continuum, 29:2, 230-240, DOI:
10.1080/10304312.2015.1022953
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2015.1022953
Published online: 19 Mar 2015.
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2. Moving beyond ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’: Disciplining girls through
YouTube feedback
Amanda Rossie*
Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH, USA
In this paper, I select three ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’ YouTube videos and examine the
feedback associated with each video, organizing it into five themes to reveal how
feedback functions as a postfeminist disciplinary strategy. Aside from reifying
hegemonic understandings of raced and classed femininities, (hetero)sexual desire and
the meanings of agency within US frameworks of girl power, the feedback also reveals
some of the pressures facing girls today.
Introduction: producing and consuming mediated girlhoods
In a backlit living room, a preteen African-American girl with braces and long, straight
hair sits in front of her computer. ‘Hey everyone’, she starts, her voice casual and high-
pitched. ‘I just wanted to ask you . . . everybody . . . a question, like, if I’m ugly or not’,
she continues. ‘If I am, you can, like, comment down there. And, if you think I’m pretty,
still comment and rate . . . Alright, I don’t care. I just wanted to know’. She repeats her
instructions once more before waving goodbye to the camera. This video titled ‘Am I
ugly?????’ lasts 44 seconds, and there are many more like it, all featuring girls asking the
same question: Am I pretty or ugly?
The ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’ videos went ‘viral’ in the USA in early 2012, garnering
thousands of views and comments and national attention. The popularity of these videos
confounded many news reporters, child psychologists, parents and pundits who framed the
videos as individualized examples of girls’ waning self-esteem and symptomatic of the
vulnerabilities of preteen girlhood. The resounding consensus was that girls seeking
approval – especially about their physical appearance – is not a new issue; instead, the
unlimited potential of new media technologies for impulsive youth was the issue that
captivated the attention and fears of adults (Smith 2012, npn). Another common theme
linking the mainstream news coverage was a tendency to label the videos as ‘risky
behavior’, citing the girls’ decision to upload the videos as one that would leave them open
to the harsh commentary from online bullies and predators (Dumas 2012, npn). This
coverage took the tone of victim blaming and, in the process, recycled existing discourses
of girls ‘in crisis’ (rooted in lack of self-esteem, for example) rather than evaluate the
structural or systemic issues at play.
Recently, feminist scholars have begun analysing the videos, providing the context
lacking in mainstream news coverage. For example, Camille Nurka uses objectification
theory to better understand the impetus behind the girls’ question ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’ For
Nurka, the videos demonstrate how female bodies become objects of public judgement
online, and she argues that sites such as YouTube open the door to new ritualized ‘practices
q 2015 Taylor & Francis
*Email: amanda.rossie@gmail.com
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2015
Vol. 29, No. 2, 230–240, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2015.1022953
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3. of judgment’, wherein ‘communities of invisible judges [coalesce] around technologies . . .
used to evaluate women on the basis of their aesthetic value’ (2013, 486), which, in turn,
lead to ‘new ways of performing and codifying sexual difference’ (495). Nurka argues that
the girls need YouTube viewers to confirm ‘a bodily reality in which the subject herself does
not yet have faith’ (491), thereby reinforcing the role of the ‘judging public’ (486).
Sarah Banet-Weiser contextualizes the videos within the interlocking logics of
postfeminism, neoliberalism and self-help culture. According to Banet-Weiser, the videos
are not only a kind of digital evidence of a gendered self-esteem problem; they are also
indicative of a broader context in which a connection between visibility and empowerment is
not only authorized and legitimated, but is also a scripted feature of marketing discourse and
brand culture. (2014, 88)
The link between visibility and girls’ empowerment is an important one, especially when
thinking about girls’ online self-representations. As Banet-Weiser notes, contemporary
definitions of empowerment – dependant upon the notion of choice – are structured by
and through consumer culture, which is a driving force behind postfeminism.
Both authors cogently contextualize the videos within a postfeminist framework.
Postfeminism describes the ways liberal feminism has been recognized by social
institutions and mainstream culture as ‘common sense’ and is, therefore, deemed
unnecessary (McRobbie 2009; Gill 2007; Negra 2009; Banet-Weiser 2011; Douglas 2010;
Butler 2013). Postfeminism’s ‘double entanglement’ of feminist and anti-feminist themes
(McRobbie 2009) exposes the ways the feminist language of ‘choice’, ‘empowerment’,
and ‘agency’ has been co-opted and re-defined for a new generation of girls.
Girls’ perceived ‘successes’ are determined by their ability to navigate digital spaces
such as YouTube in order to craft ‘empowered’ identities and build self-esteem. The link
between self-esteem and postfeminism is crucial because, as Banet-Weiser observes, they
both ‘depend on cultural conditions of visibility for specific kinds of girls, made possible,
in part, by the very marketing cultures that constitute the problem of self-esteem that
consumer products are supposed to fix’ (2014, 89). These ‘cultural conditions of visibility’
are further drawn along race and class lines. In Future Girl, Harris (2004) calls white and
middle class girls who tap into girl power and use it to succeed in the new economy ‘can
do’ girls. Located opposite are the ‘at-risk’ girls, who are frequently working class girls of
colour who fail to capitalize or misunderstand girl power (through consuming the wrong
things or consuming in the wrong way) and are thus scrutinized as models of failed
femininity. Thus, the production of an ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’ video is labelled either a ‘can
do’ or ‘at risk’ decision based on who the girl-producer is and who is doing the judging.
For the girls themselves, the decision comes with risks and perhaps some worthwhile
rewards, including public validation and a more defined pathway to self-esteem through
the cultural currency of feminine visibility. The existence of these videos makes perfect
sense in a time when hyper-visibility is a requirement of successful, legible femininity in
US media culture and reflective of postfeminist demands. In this sociopolitical context,
‘the visibility that the girls gain from making this video is typically understood as her route
to self-esteem’ (Banet-Weiser 2014, 90).
However, there is a stark juxtaposition between the videos as cultural texts
demonstrating girls’ pursuits of self-esteem and the ways in which ‘video comments often
envision the videos, and by extension, the girl producers, as evidence that the video poster
possesses a lack of self-esteem’ (Banet-Weiser 2014, 90). Both the media framing of the
videos as risky behaviour and the user-generated comments, which frequently position the
girls as lacking self-esteem for posting the videos in such a public forum, tell a different
story about risks and rewards.
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4. This juxtaposition is a worthwhile point of intervention, and I examine and
contextualize the YouTube feedback in response to the girls’ videos to understand why
this gap exists and what patterns within the feedback might tell us about emerging
relational scripts for producing mediated girlhoods. This is not to say that an analysis of
the videos themselves is unimportant. These videos are valuable cultural texts that
exemplify the new requirements for feminine visibility within a postfeminist framework.
Yet, I focus my analysis on the feedback because the comments far exceed the girls’
original line of questioning (Am I pretty or ugly?) and offer a way to interrogate the
postfeminist pressures girls face, particularly around the racialization of beauty norms, the
heterosexualization of desire and the role user-generated feedback plays in reinforcing
strict gendered performances for girls.
Methodology
In this article, I examine three YouTube videos produced by three different girls. I chose
these videos based on their total number of page views (each exceeding 100,000 page views
and 1000 comments). Although I keep the girls’ names anonymous due to ethical
considerations, the videos are distinguished using the citations Video 1 (V1), Video 2 (V2)
and Video 3 (V3). When it comes to YouTube feedback, I cite each piece according to its
corresponding video ratherthan claim each anonymous user or ‘troll’as an individual author.
The three videos share a few common characteristics: First, they contain contextual
clues allowing viewers to situate these girls as belonging to middle class families. The
presence of luxury items, such as a pool table, and home de´cor choices are just a few of
these indicators. Second, the videos are brief, lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to a few
minutes. The longer videos often include more advanced elements such as music and
personal photographs. Third, the girls sit alone, facing the camera on their personal
computer, mimicking the confessional style made popular in reality television. Fourth, the
videos all contain variations of the same question (‘Am I pretty or ugly?’), thereby inviting
YouTube users to provide feedback in the comments section. Fifth, the girls post their
videos to public YouTube accounts, which allows anyone to view, comment, and/or rate
their content (using a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ system). Lastly, although the overall
video trend consists largely of white girls (Banet-Weiser 2014), I include girls of colour in
my research sample. Out of the three videos examined here, two of the producers are racial
minorities (V1 and V2) and one is white (V3).
After watching each video, I parsed through the user-generated feedback. Focusing on
the feedback rather than the girls themselves or the content of the videos offers a new way
to engage with these media texts and join existing conversations at a new point of entry.
I began this process with neither a pre-conceived notion nor a hypothesis about what the
feedback might reveal; however, after reading more than 1000 comments, I noticed a
series of emerging patterns linking the three videos together (and, I suspect, reflecting
larger trends in online interaction in these kinds of spaces). I placed the comments into five
thematic categories, and while there were outliers to these categories (i.e., nonsensical
spam and unrelated comments trying to drive traffic elsewhere), an overwhelming
majority of the feedback fit clearly into one or more of these categories.
Comments versus feedback
I use the term ‘feedback’ instead of ‘comments’ throughout, an important distinction that
separates my argument from others who have written about the ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’
232 A. Rossie
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5. videos (Banet-Weiser 2014; Nurka 2013) as well as scholars who have done work about the
relationship between girls/women, new media, and identity (Jane 2014; Dobson 2011,
2014; Lamb, Graling, and Wheeler 2013). Although my approach is unique to those
currently studying girls’ gendered identities and online environments, existing scholarship
offers both methodological and theoretical insights into the scope of a postfeminist culture
fuelled, in part, by women’s self-representations on social media, the responses they
receive, and the power this creation-and-feedback loop has in the construction of
contemporary normative femininity. The importance of this work cannot be understated,
especially when it comes to the task of mapping out what kinds of mediated representations
are seen as desirable, and consequently, which girls are conceptualized as cultural ideals.
There are a few reasons why I use the term ‘feedback’ instead of ‘comments’
throughout, despite the latter being more common due to the pervasiveness of ‘comments
sections’ embedded in news web sites, blogs and other social media forums. By using the
term ‘feedback’, I want to direct attention to the implied contract in these spaces between
the producer and user: this forum – the ‘comments section’ – exists and opinions are
welcome but not always required or explicitly called forth by the producers themselves.
This same contract exists on YouTube (unless, of course, the video author closes down
the comments section altogether). Viewers are not only expected to view the video but also
‘dis/like’ it and provide their opinions. This producer–consumer feedback loop generates
the success of YouTube and puts the ‘social’ in ‘social networking’. What makes the ‘Am
I pretty or ugly?’ videos distinctive, however, is the explicit nature of the girls’ question,
which asks for concrete answers, user participation and an honest judgement about their
bodies – instead of their cover song, dance routine or cat video, for example. The call is
explicit: Watch my video. Examine my body. Rate me in the comments section below.
Rather than label these responses ‘comments’ – as suggested by the space into which
they are written – I want to call them ‘feedback’. The explicit nature of this call to action,
combined with the architecture of online spaces such as YouTube, may mean that these
responses are packed with more disciplinary power when directed at girls’ bodies. The
resulting feedback re-circulates racist, sexist, violent and misogynist language with the
intent to do something to the girls – whether that is support or encourage – or to make
them feel something – shameful, validated, or desired. This is feedback meant to enact
some kind of change upon the girls themselves. Put differently, this is feedback rather than
commentary because it has disciplinary intent.
Feedback
Each of the following five sections represents one of the recurring themes articulated in the
feedback for the three videos analysed here. I argue that these themes reflect some of the
postfeminist pressures girls face and provide a framework for understanding how feedback
about girls’ appearances is both understood through the optics of gender, race and
sexuality and function as a powerful disciplinary strategy in mediated spaces. [Note:
YouTube is an increasingly informal space where misspellings, poor grammar and curse
words are very common. I present the comments as they appear, and without censorship, in
order to reflect the tone of this space.]
Racist, sexist and shame inducing
The first theme includes racist, sexist and gendered feedback intended to elicit emotional
pain, shame or humiliation:
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6. ugly as shit u look like a dying walrus (V3)
yes you are soo ugly that your mom hates you and your dad leaves your mom and you (V2)
u cute not that im lesbo but yea (V3).
You look like a boy (V3)
You look like a f’n transvestite LOL (V2)
LOL LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING LIPS! Are you part fish bitch? (V1)
Lets just put it this way . . . i can fit canada on ur lips (V1)
your black enough said (V1).
The first two responses focus primarily on denigrating the girls’ feminine beauty, while the
next three responses take on gender norms in disparate ways. For example, one user extends
a compliment with conditions by praising the girl for her prettiness but quickly follows with
‘no homo’ to signify a lack of same sex desire. This feedback reinforces a culture of
judgement that encourages the open critique of women’s bodies and/or performances of
femininity by distancing the user from non-normative sexual identities and practices. This
response also distinguishes between a postfeminist culture of judgement that encourages
women to examine and critique other women’s bodies and a (potentially) homosexual
moment of desire. The next comments also call upon gender but in dissimilar ways, judging
the girls’ presentation of femininity as unintelligible or not normative enough to be
understood as properly ‘girlie’. Telling each girl that she ‘looks like a boy’ or a transvestite
becomes an insult when normative performances of femininity are so highly valued (See
Scharff 2010). This feedback reinforces prescriptive understandings of feminine beauty and
takes the easiest approach to disciplining the girls through gendered language.
The last three pieces of feedback are directed at V1, one of the girls of colour. Comments
made specifically about her lips invoke a history of racist stereotyping of African-American
facial features. These users call upon this racist history as a way to distinguish and discipline
the black female body. The final comment mirrors cultural understandings of black
feminine beauty as inherently lesser than white feminine beauty and locates women of
colour at the margins of postfeminist beauty norms that celebrate thin, white bodies over
Other(ed) bodies, whose articulations of beauty are often bypassed in favour of cultural
stereotypes linking race and sexuality in harmful ways (See Butler 2013) .
Feedback in this category demonstrates the racialization of postfeminist beauty norms
in spite of post-race rhetoric and the deployment of multiculturalism in the public sphere
(which I discuss later). Even as girls of colour are embedded within postfeminism’s gender
ideology and must occupy positions of visibility, they are not equally rewarded for this
visibility because their image prompts the recognition that postfeminism does, in fact,
have an ideal subject, and she is white. As Angela McRobbie argues, postfeminist
understandings of bodily perfection are white, and whiteness is constantly reinstated and
inscribed within the re-ordering of the feminine (2009, 69). In these examples, the
reinstating of the whiteness as the preferred feminine visibility and bottom-line beauty
criteria is demonstrated in the feedback directed at girls of color.
(Hetero)sexiness
The second thematic category focuses on feedback that mobilizes discourses around sex,
(hetero)sexuality and sexual promiscuity to scrutinize the girls’ bodies. The first set of
comments uses highly sexualized language or violent imagery:
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7. your lips are best for BJ’s (V1)
I love you Suck my dick beautiful (V1)
if you want the truth id fuck u hard in the ass (V3)
As long as I can put my penis in between your tits your pretty (V3)
I’d let you sit on my face (V3).
Aside from perpetrating sexualized and violent forms of feedback, these responses are
connected through the understanding that ‘prettiness’ and (hetero)sexual desire are
inherently linked. While many of these responses are loaded with graphic sexual imagery,
the act of judging feminine beauty through (hetero)sexual desire demonstrates the ways
postfeminism conflates sex with power. This conflation is at the heart of what Susan
Douglas calls ‘enlightened sexism’, wherein women are advised that the ‘calculated
deployment of their faces, bodies, attire, and sexuality’ is their pathway to true power
(Douglas 2010, 9 and 10). The videos at issue here demonstrate this calculated
deployment, although the feedback suggests that users take these moments to remind girls
that beauty is sexiness, defined in the service of men.
In many ways, this feedback demonstrates the futility of the question ‘Am I pretty or
ugly?’ in a postfeminist media culture that combines prettiness with (hetero)sexual
desirability. Despite the girls’ refusal to verbally produce themselves as sexual through
their question, the feedback illustrates how users understand prettiness as (hetero)sexiness.
In this exchange, ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’ becomes indecipherable if not read through the
lens of compulsory heterosexuality and normative femininity.
Other feedback in this category equates girls’ online presence to sexual promiscuity.
Examples of this virtual ‘slut shaming’ include:
You’re a narcissist and an attention whore, that’s what you are. Trolling for compliments on
You Tube? Get a life (V3).
stop attention seeking you cunt (V3)
Why the hell would you put a video like this on Youtube. Either you honestly think that you
are ‘ugly’ or you are just fishing for fucking compliments.. I guess this sounds like hate, but
you are being an attention whore (V2).
These responses reveal the disjuncture between postfeminist requirements for feminine
visibility (and cultural legibility) and users’ expectations for what this visibility is
supposed to look like. Users sexualize the girls (‘cunt’ and ‘attention whore’) as
punishment for their visual presence in the public sphere, thereby illustrating the gendered
hierarchy of feminine visibility: girls should be visible online but must not seem too
desperate or straightforward while seeking approval. If girls’ visibility in some way
ruptures this facade, their very presence points to the existence of a hegemonic hierarchy of
feminine visibility and, thus, draws criticism. These disciplinary responses are important
because they reveal the fine line girls must navigate in cultivating a legible postfeminist
visibility.
You’re pretty, but . . .
The third category includes responses that first offer a compliment followed by advice on
how each girl can improve her appearance. These responses are explicitly disciplinary in
their intent but stand out because they are couched in a helpful or encouraging tone:
You might want to consult you hair stylist to make yourself even more gorgeous (V1).
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8. ehh . . . do ur hair a different style, put eye liner, and do a youtube vid somewhere quiet. you’d
look bettter that way (V1)
u are very very very pretty but u have a big for head so i would gets some bangs (V2).
This next user gives V2 very specific advice concerning her hair care regimen:
You have some great features, to benefit you further may I suggest you change your hair
slightly. Cut it shorter to increase volume, a couple of inches past your shoulders would look
fab. Use volumising shampoo, only condition the ends of you hair, staying away from your
scalp. Get a fringe, block or side, it would be the finishing touch and emphasise the cute, pretty
look your face and eyes give off (V2).
While this user starts out with a compliment, most effort is spent giving detailed beauty
advice on how V2 should treat and style her hair to emphasize her already existing beauty.
However, V2’s perceived need to complete such drastic changes overshadows any praise
held in the original compliment. What is more confusing about this kind of advice is its
contradictory nature. For example, V3 receives conflicting beauty suggestions. Just as one
user says ‘c pretty! just dont wear make up!!!!!! u dont need it! b natural!’ another follows
with, ‘Girl you fine but way better with make up on’. In another example, one user tells V1
that, although pretty in her ‘own way’, she could end up being bullied or even hurting
herself if she does not change her hairstyle, start ‘dressing cuter’, and ‘better herself’ first:
your pretty in your own way its just the way you give your self off as you need too not have
you hair that way and start dressing cuter and people will accept you like that i meen ive never
got picked on but ive heard of sad storys of kids hurting them selves cause of bullying sooo
just change your attitude cause if you just let people bully you its going too probably get too
that point soo better yourself (V1).
This response begins by affirming V1’s beauty but then proceeds into a kind of victim
blaming logic wherein any future bullying or mistreatment is the result of an unfeminine
appearance or not having the knowledge and self-awareness to make these bodily
modifications on her own.
These responses illustrate the shift Gill describes wherein ‘femininity is defined as a
bodily property rather than a social, structural or psychological one’ (2007, 149). In this
case, users encourage girls to ‘fix’ their femininity by fixing their bodies, their hair and
their faces. They encourage the girls to be empowered by consuming the newest makeup
products and hair trends, which openly contradicts the girl power rhetoric of the 1990s
telling girls to be ‘natural’ and love what they see in the mirror. These responses most
clearly align with a postfeminist value system of girls’ empowerment where strangers,
acting as lifestyle experts and personal stylists, not only model appropriate consumption
habits but also provide the language and vocabulary of transformation.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
The feedback in this fourth category uses two types of language: the language of
multiculturalism (responses that homogenize difference through the rhetoric of tolerance)
and religious language (responses that pull from a distinctly Christian tradition). In both
cases, multicultural and religious language is deployed in an effort to encourage the girls
to disregard other users’ feedback and love themselves unconditionally. These responses
come closest to aligning with girl power’s (contradictory) empowerment rhetoric that, on
one hand, celebrates girls for their strength, intelligence and potential power, while, on the
other, constrains girls through an inattention to the structural inequalities shaping their
lives (Hains 2009, xi):
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9. I just was shocked that you wanted approval from others for your own beauty, when beauty
isn’t something that people can rate, or decide without even getting a chance to know you.
Plus, everybody is beautiful. It’s not something that somebody has or doesn’t have (V1)
You are beautiful but you need some confidence ! Don’t let the trolls on YouTube make you
feel like shit because you are truly gorgeous, you just need to learn that about yourself (V1)
You are so beautiful because you are made in God’s image. Genesis 1:27 (V1)
You are a beautiful young girl, and that is the truth. But coming onto youtube to ask that
question is just suicide. – In a few years you will learn that you are the only person who can
determine your worth and beauty (SS)
CALM DOWN don’t post things like this asking u-tubers to comment on weather your
pretty or not cause nobody’s opinion is going to matter it all matters on how self confident you
are in yourself an if i were u i would be happy with myself weather society thinks i’m ‘pretty’
or not (V3)
Ugly stands for:
Understand God loves You (V2)
your not ugly dont listen to what they say god did not put u on earth for u to listen to those
haters (V2).
While these users may intend to offer the girls support or encouragement, this feedback,
instead, assumes agency to be an uncomplicated choice that eliminates contradictions and
mitigates material realities like a self-selected salve. By buying into multicultural and/or
religious conceptions of agency, girls can choose to love themselves regardless of
pervasive and powerful media images, seductive promises of consumption, racist beauty
standards or even bullying at school. Yet, what this fantasy omits is what critical girlhood
scholars strive to illuminate: one of girl power’s primary problems is the way it targets a
very ‘limited range of acceptable physical behaviors and appearances for girls’ that
predominantly includes ‘slender, white, middle-class girls above all others’ (Hains 2012,
xi). The result is the over-representation of girls that fit this model, leading to the
misleading supposition that all girls (can) have it all. Girl power’s erasure of structural
inequalities and ideological effects (of racism, sexism, misogyny, rape culture, etc.)
reduces girls to simple subjects with a choice: they can choose to empower themselves or
they can choose to be victims. This false binary, which often frames choice as consumer
choice, is harmful to most girls who do not fit within the strict confines of girl power’s ideal
and only works to further harm girls whose lived realities are messy and more complex than
this simple duality can represent. In spite of these attempts at encouragement, feedback
using multicultural or religious language to revive girl power seems wishful and naive in
the face of the other feedback that points to the real ways gender, race and sexuality play a
role in the relational scripts shaping girls’ experiences in online environments.
Outer/inner beauty
The fifth and final feedback category links the girls’ physical appearance or performance
of femininity to their moral character. This connection is taken up by Weber (2009), who
extends Gill’s argument of femininity as a bodily property by turning to the makeover
genre as a cultural site where unruly bodies are cited as evidence of ‘failed or imperiled
[selfhoods]’ and are remade to fit the norm (Weber 2009, 5). Here, YouTube users often
cite the girls’ video inquiries about their feminine appearance as evidence of their moral
failings and/or their inability to be self-sufficient, girl-powered subjects who must be
informed consumers in ever-growing beauty markets (which often contradict themselves
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10. through the suggestion that ‘natural’ beauty is best and refuting the need for beauty
products at all). The following comments reify the postfeminist notion that an
appropriately feminine body can be a woman’s greatest source of power or her greatest
moral failing when not made-over to meet contemporary beauty standards:
No offence, but i think your ugly for making this video and caring that much about what
people think (V3)
perhaps if you weren’t attentionwhoring while looking like a 12 I would’ve said you’re pretty
. . . buttt I don’t like attention whores or people that need to be told that they are pretty or
otherwise be a total disaster ‘because they aint pretty’.
so I’d say your inner is ugly, for now (V3)
Your personality is ugly. The way that you need strangers opinions. Gain some goddamn self
esteem! (V3)
Maybe you should eat some make up so you’ll be pretty on the inside too, instead of being un
attention grabbing Moron... no offence of course:p (V3).
no but your insecurity makes you ugly (V1)
it doesn’t matter whats on the outside it whats on the inside! A girl can be so beautiful on the
outside, but can be really ugly on the inside. then it sodent matter is she is beautiful anymore.
everyone knows she is ugly (V2).
This feedback significantly connects girls’ outer appearance to their inner character (what
is ‘on the inside’) in ways that vilify the girls for seeking outside approval. One user even
jokes that literally consuming beauty products will make V3 a better person. The
suggestion is that girls’ desires to know if others find them pretty or ugly makes them ‘ugly
people’ because they lack self-generated self-confidence. Yet, the attention girls seek from
strangers is a symptom of postfeminist demands for feminine visibility, which requires
girls to make their bodies, faces and lives visible and be amenable to change based on user-
generated feedback. This feedback demonstrates a digital virgin/whore double bind: on
one hand, if girls make themselves visible to gain confidence (as these videos suggest) they
are subject to scrutiny and called ‘attention whores’ because they are supposed to be girl-
powered and self-empowered; yet, on the other hand, if girls gain confidence through their
visibility they are called ‘attention whores’ because their confidence comes from external
validation rather than within.
What’s more is that social media encourages users to participate in a culture of
surveillance where scrutiny becomes a form of entertainment, and users are supplied with
the space and tools for these kinds of social practices. These spaces support the social
fantasy that perceived missteps in feminine styling, behaviour and performance can be
ameliorated through anonymous critical feedback. By encouraging the critique of
‘inappropriately’ feminine bodies, surveillance culture works to realign those bodies with
normative practices, identities and performances.
Feedback that links feminine appearance with girls’ moral character also maintains
gendered double standards about sexual morality. In postfeminist culture, girls are told they
must be more moral and ethical than boys. They must be the ones to say ‘no’ to male
advances, even as they are told their short skirts, plunging necklines, and makeup invite this
kind of attention, which might feel uncomfortable (at first) but signifies that one is doing
femininity ‘right’. This negotiation becomes difficult when girls are told they must remain
‘pure’ but not lose their sex appeal (Valenti 2009) and, as such, their postfeminist power.
This feedback illuminates the ways girls struggle to negotiate a virtual virgin/whore
dichotomy wherein they must strike the right balance between outer/online displays of
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11. desirable, heterosexual femininity while also attending to cultural (double) standards for
morality that are often judged based on feminine appearance.
Conclusion
This article demonstrates how YouTube feedback reinforces existing hegemonic discourses
of gender, race and sexuality and acts as a disciplinary force to reify normative bodies and
expressions of femininity. This feedback must be contextualized within the framework of
postfeminism, a gendered ideology that shapes girls’ online self-representations. Here,
YouTube feedback offers a disciplinary and relational script dependant upon a feedback
loop between producers and consumers: girls post self-representations and users consume
the content and then critique, shame, and judge feminine bodies using language that reflects
a cultural knowledge about the limited kinds of femininity girls are expected to occupy and
which girls stand outside those possibilities altogether.
The five categories of feedback I outline demonstrate some of the most pervasive
postfeminist pressures girls face and highlight conflicting instructions on how to perform
gender, race and sexuality in culturally legible (and desirable) ways. Feedback that
verbally disciplines feminine bodies through racist, violent and sexualized language
frequently occurs in attempts to reinstate the norm. Yet, inherent contradictions between
comments make these pressures even tougher to negotiate and reflect the competing and
conflicting nature of postfeminist ideology and contemporary iterations of girl power
rhetoric.
The surfacing of these distinct themes critically illustrates which forms of disciplinary
feedback emerge most frequently and with the most force in social media environments
like YouTube. When it comes to producing mediated girlhoods, feedback is a relational
script that serves a powerful cultural function, particularly in a postfeminist media
landscape where girls are repeatedly told they need public approval of their bodies to gain
power, visibility, popularity and self-esteem. In spaces such as YouTube, feedback is
imbued with additional power because it carries the weight of potential transformation.
In other words, girls are not only encouraged to offer their selves and their bodies up for
public scrutiny but they are also expected to embrace the feedback they receive and make
the suggested changes to not only become more beautiful but also ‘better’ people. The
stakes are particularly high when a girl’s outward appearance is directly (but mistakenly)
correlated with her inner life, moral compass and social value. This analysis reveals the
way users in social media environments such as YouTube attempt to confer approval and
administer verbal punishment for so-called failed attempts at femininity through feedback
that takes into account and discounts the girls’ gender, race, class and sexuality.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Amanda Rossie is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at
The College of New Jersey. She received a Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from
The Ohio State University in 2014, where she completed her dissertation titled New Media, New
Maternities: Representations of Maternal Femininity in Postfeminist Popular Culture. Her work has
been published in Girls’ Sexualities and the Media (Peter Lang 2013).
Continuum: Journal of Media Cultural Studies 239
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