Supplemental Post #4 - Lilla

Jenkins mentions blogging and The Truman Show in his article, claiming that “[i]t never occurs to anyone that Truman might stay on the air, generating his own content and delivering his own message” (37). I found this idea of “bloggers rewriting the ending” interesting and was wondering how it could be applied to modern-day vlogging and YouTubers. 

Is YouTube vlogging a new form of reality TV, I wonder? While I don’t watch a lot of television, I do admit to watching vlogs, which are similarly serialized, at times dramatized accounts of people’s lives. They even feature ad breaks But what I enjoy about vlogs is how authentic, personal, and relatable they feel — at least initially. Their personal, non-dramatized nature forms their appeal. 

But what is interesting to me is how many of these vloggers attempt to cross into mainstream media and fail. YouTuber Lilly Singh was one of the first people to translate her online fame to a late night show to NBC, which was met with low ratings, and called into question how easy it is to move in-between media. And many British vloggers who initially started on YouTube went on to seek careers in film or acting, only to find little success. Interestingly, many of these people also denounced their former YouTube career, reinforcing this idea of a hierarchy between media. 

While many YouTubers have a huge following and get millions of views — more than they would on TV, they are still ashamed of YouTube as a platform and see it as less than traditional media.