In the past couple of months I have familiarized myself with vlogging and have been very interested in watching other people's vlogs. Vlogging refers to video blogging, that is, videos posted by an individual to a blog with regular entries. To date, the most popular video sharing website is YouTube, the home of millions of user vlogs. People who vlog keep a sort of online diary over a certain period of time and they vlog for the purpose of initiating dialogue between them and their viewers, via the comment tool. People vlog about a multitude of topics, usually whatever is happening in their life at the time of the post, good and bad. Some vlogging gets very personal and people share what is closest to their hearts, including gender identity disorders, a list of what they've done that day, this week's crush, discrimination they've experienced recently, an update on any changes in their personal relationships, any recent news they've received, a new job they've gotten, they're current playlists, etc. After these video diaries are recorded they are posted into cyberspace, where millions of YouTube users can watch it and potentially leave their comments, questions, advice, etc. Taking advantage of these feature, YouTube users often use vlogging as a form of self-therapy.
I'm going to observe how YouTube reinforces the “looking glass self” and serves as a tool for self-reflection. Unlike on ChatRoulette, people can choose what content their viewers see because it is recorded before it is uploaded and users can view it before submitting it to their vlogs. By watching their videos beforehand, they can see how their viewers are going to see them, thus determining what content they're going to allow their viewers to see. Vlogs are self-produced and self-distributed, defining the “looking glass self”—people see themselves based on how others see them and respond to them. These people enter cyberspace because they're feeling a disconnect with the “real life” people in their lives. They use YouTube as an attempt to connect with other people and form a community—an ultimate attempt to reconnect with humanity. I'll also touch on how people tend to express human values in their vlogs that are not necessarily prevalent in society. Other areas I am considering looking at include how vlogging has changed ideas of community, how vlogging has changed social interaction and integration, and how vlogging helps shape identity.
This is a really interesting idea. You weren't in class for the discussion of "virtual togetherness," but I think you'd still get some good ideas from that article. What other secondary sources are you consulting? For this paper, your big issue will be narrowing it down so that your topic is manageable. As you said, there is a multitude of vlogs online.
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