Chapter 1 - An Introduction

Chapter 1 - Introduction to the project

As we were asked, by our Digital Literacies lecturer, to create a blog related to the mindful use and engaging in social media I wasn’t too excited. After all, there are nicer things to do than projects, especially when it’s finally turning into spring outside. I also didn’t really think that much about social media, besides the content to post on my own accounts and occasionally getting frustrated at anything remotely stupid I came across. Also to mention the 5-second-happiness created by all those cute puppy and kitten videos floating around on Facebook.

Luckily, this same lecturer provided insight in many aspects of social media through his lectures, making it easier for me to pick a subject for my project. As there are many users of these media doing basically whatever they want, I decided to choose a group of users who I think are very fascinating, as they expose their lives quite a bit, with intent.

Vloggers.

They are fascinating to me as the audience gets to know so much about a person who they (most likely) have never even met. I’m guilty of watching some of these vloggers on a nearly daily basis. However, it is a weird phenomenon to me and I often find myself wondering why I am so interested in watching what those vloggers do during their day. Not to mention that some of them have large audiences of thousands of viewers, which turns the 'hobby' of vlogging into a full-time job. Many of these vloggers are asked for collaborations with brands, which makes them social influencers. 

In this series of posts I am exploring and analysing the content of vlogs which show something specific and whether vloggers have any responsibilities regarding their content. How far can they go in sharing their lives and anything they want?