Visual Epidemic

This is my accepted abstract for next year’s Association of Internet Researcher’s conference in Gothenburg!

Constructing the ‘Fjortis’: How youth are (re)appropriating a gendered discourse.

In Sweden, the term ‘Fjortis’  is slang for the Swedish word fourteen (fjorton) and originally described someone who was acting immaturely or childishly (SAOL, 2006).While the term is applied more commonly to girls than boys, it did not originally have strong gendered connotations. On YouTube, however, the term has taken on a gendered meaning and the appropriation and re-appropriation between Swedish fashion vloggers (modevlogger) and Swedish boys on YouTube is assigning new and specific meanings to the term.


The concept of ‘Fjortis’ became popular on YouTube through a photomontage video of  adolescent girls from Umeå, a town in northern Sweden,  in various states of dress and drunkenness. The photos were backgrounded by a popular rap song called ‘Fjortis’ and which describes a boy rapper ‘wannabe’ (Fronda – Fjortis). The fjortis meme spread throughout the Swedish YouTube youth communities and at the time of writing, all major cities in Sweden have a fjortis video posted on YouTube, and many of the cities have yearly updates to the fjortis meme. In response to these videos, a group of Swedish adolescent girls began self-defining as a fjortis and performing additional, positive meanings to the term in their own vlogs. Many of these vloggers discuss fashion and appearance, and through declaring themselves as a fjortis, they are re-appropriating the term as  something positive. This term, however, remains gendered as they often associate the term with a particular style of dress, speech, and vlogging style.


This paper will analyze the discourse between two groups of Swedish youth vloggers – the fashion vloggers who self-identify as a fjortis, and the creators of the city fjortis videos in order to map how the concept of fjortis has become strongly gendered in online contexts. Additionally, the less obvious semiotics of the videos, such as the music, background, and dress will be analyzed in order to determine how the two groups are performing this discourse through various semiotic means (Butler, 1990, van Leeuwen, 2005). In order to establish a baseline of how gendered the term fjortis was before the city fjortis videos, an analysis based on a corpus of how the term has been used in mass media will be applied, as well as an analysis of mass medias present usage of the term in order to determine how the use of this term has changed in popular or mainstream discourse.


Constructing the ‘Fjortis’: how youth are (re)appropriating a gendered discourse is one of four reports in the ethnographic work of a three-part project called YouTube as a performative arena (http://www.yapa.se) which will examine the video-sharing site, YouTube as an arena for creative and artistic expression among Swedish youth. This project brings together cross-disciplinary research in order to gain a better understanding of how youth use these arenas, as well as how the YouTube phenomenon is understood and defined by the traditional, adult-managed media landscape.


This project is conducted as part of the Swedish Knowledge Foundation’s funded project, YouTube as a performative arena (http://www.yapa.se).


References:

Butler, J., 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.

SAOL 13th edition. New words in the 13th edition of brian e fjortis :D SAOL

van Leeuwen, T., 2005. Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge.

Websites Referenced:

LetsSingIt, Fjortis lyrics, http://artists.letssingit.com/fronda-lyrics-fjortis-pzzgv3m [Accessed February 28, 2010].

YouTube, http://www.youtube.com

1 Comment | In: Uncategorized | tags: AoIR, gender, youth, YouTube. | #

Let me start by saying, yes. I get it. I get this is supposed to be comic relief. BUT, it makes me question what we find is funny – and moreover, would we still find it funny if it were the other way around?

Now that I have piqued your curiosity, let me explain a bit more. I love the guild. I love their videos about the geeky, gaming community. But the video above really bothers me. The character Zaboo has his first girlfriend, and the incident here is a continuation of that storyline. Zaboo has always been portrayed as a ‘late blommer’ and with very low self-confidence (as have many of the Guild members). When he does get a girlfriend, described as a tall, hot violent-game player, he does and sacrifices everything for her wishes. While this is problematic in itself, at the end of this video you see Zaboo tied up in the closet after having forgotten to make breakfast for his girlfriend.

Codex is upset/angered by the situation, but still leaves without helping Zaboo. Yes, Zaboo’s situation is portrayed as ‘lucky’ – after all he is a geeky gamer who gets the hot girl. But if it were a woman tied up in the closet – no matter how hot the guy is – would this still be funny? Why is it funny that a man can be depicted as a victim of domestic violence as long as he is rewarded through kinky sex (this being part of the story line, as well)? Domestic violence is not funny – and the relationship as shown previously in this story is not funny. Yes, it is meant as comic relief to the Codex-enamored Zaboo, but the necessity falling into a bad relationship to get over unrequited love is not a healthy message.

1 Comment | In: Uncategorized | tags: 60posts, domestic violence, DVIS, YouTube. | #

Slow blogging, but much chapter writing – and that it important!

I am still working on this parkour chapter (deadline Friday). Tomorrow I will add the link analysis to the section describing the online space. But for now I will leave you with two reading suggestions and a little excerpt.

The Young and the Digital

Video Cultures: Media Technology and Everyday Creativity (esp the chapter on Self representation, identity, and visual style in a youth subculture).

and from the chapter-in-progress on value in digital remixing of parkour videos in opposition with valued aspects of parkour.

Swedish youth parkour films enact the identity of parkour runner through the skill portrayed in the run itself. Films by experienced parkour runners focus on the terminology of the tricks in the film’s description, or by enacting the tricks in a teaching/instructive capacity. Conversely, films by beginner runners often linguistically hedge the skill level in the description by labeling them ‘quickly made’ or ‘made when slippery outside’. Another marker of beginner versus more experienced parkour runners can be seen in the speed of the film. Less experienced runners, although possibly more experienced video editors, would slow down the motion of the trick and ask for commentary on the performance of the trick. One runner even entitled his video ‘What did I do wrong?’…

…Digital remixing in order to create videos which show the flow of the run, or a flow of tricks also proved to be an identifying marker of parkour runners. This is common both in amateur videos, but also in international, professionally made parkour YouTube videos. This is not to say that the Swedish youth are copying or mimicking international videos, rather that there seem to be implicit, agreed upon ways of editing together a video. Several informants in this case study termed these videos ‘flow films’, which may refer to a mediated edit of a central concept in parkour. Flow, in parkour, refers to the smoothness of transitions between moves. According to howtoparkour.net, the quality of the flow of a run is a marker of the runner’s skill. The videos, which used the term flow, were highly edited, thus it is unclear if the uploaders were referring to the flow between the edited tricks, or flow as a parkour aesthetic.

No Comments | In: Uncategorized | tags: 60posts, parkour, youth, YouTube. | #

Just a quick note (and a placeholder for future reference), the State of the Vlogosphere 2010 has been released by Mefeedia.

I will look at it more closely this week, but a few things caught my eye. I was surprised at the rate of syndication across platforms. They found that “pro-vloggers” upload their video to an average of 3.6 sites. (This changes my spin on Grussin’s promiscuity of YouTube a bit – this will be tomorrow’s entry.) I was not surprised, however, by the rate of consumption on mobile devices. Was it not always a question of quality and price of bandwidth? As the bandwidth prices drop, I am sure we will see bandwidth-heavy media consumed more and more. The other interesting fact I found was the watch time. It is actually something I have noticed in my own research. It seems that optimal video length is about 2 minutes. YouTube suggests no more than 5 minutes (optimal in this sense being related to receiving the most views).

What did you think of the report? Change your mind on anything? Wish something was report which was not?

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I think I picked a bad time to start the 60 work posts – after all, this is ‘vacation’. I have been doing some work, however. I started the Post Secret article, and am working on the book chapter that is due in a couple of weeks. Hursomhelst, I will continue with the 60 work posts. Getting out of sync now would not be a good sign ;-)

So today I spent some time in a cafe reworking the introduction of the chapter. My big writing hurdle is formulating clear thesis statements – you know, that really important sentence that sets up the entire article. Mine are always a bit unclear, too complex and usually a run-on sentence that stretches into a paragraph. With that in mind, I have given myself ‘permission’ to write bad introductions, work the chapter, then go back and rework the introduction. Perhaps this is common practice in academic writing, but I was having trouble being ok with writing freely in the draft version. So much so that I was having trouble producing anything written. And this is coming from a once prolific writer. All that said, I am not quite ready to show my new intro so please enjoy the intro to the Reading Parkour Spaces section :-).

from the section “Reading the spaces”

Time and space are the central concerns when reading parkour films posted to YouTube. Spaces, according to Lemke (2005) are defined by the actions performed within them. Parkour uses objects in public spaces from which to run, jump, bounce, and flip. These acrobatic performances may seem like deviant public displays which show off strength and agility, yet the art is taken very seriously by its practitioners and much emphasis is placed on proper training and thoughtfulness during runs. These films portray behaviours that seem culturally inappropriate in offline spaces, yet are a defining characteristic of the art of parkour. Offline public spaces work because they tend to have culturally agreed upon behaviours. People sit on benches, walk down pathways, bike on roads, and hold handrails. Occasionally these behaviours are extended to dramatic performances, such as street theatre, or even demonstrations of protest 2. Parkour, however, uses objects in public spaces to run, jump, bounce, and flip from. While these acrobatic performances may seem like deviant public displays with which show to off strength and agility, parkour is considered an art by its practitioners and is taken very seriously and much emphasis is placed on proper training and thoughtfulness during runs.
In the Swedish parkour videos examined in this case study, three main offline spaces were found: the urban space, the training space and the rural space.

No Comments | In: Uncategorized | tags: 60posts, parkour, performative arena, youth, YouTube. | #

I am writing up something interesting reported from my parkour informants which dovetails nicely with Grussin’s theory of the ‘YouTube sublime’ Accoring to Grussin, the YouTube sublime is the idea that the  number of videos is almost too large to comprehend (The YouTube Reader, 2009). I began this research looking for communities of practice within the YouTube larger community. While I still hold that these exist and that a sense of community (in the Rheingoldian sense) is strong in these communities, the Parkour group I interviewed reported YouTube not as a community enhancer or builder, rather as a searchable platform which allowed them to contact others in their *local* area to come together to train. In other words, YouTube was a way to build a local community. Furthermore, once this community of parkour practitioners was established, they reported finding no further use for YouTube. This may not be surprising given that parkour is situated so much in the physical, yet the level of interactivity on parkour videos makes me wonder about this disconnect between what my informants report feeling and what a rough social network analysis shows. Maybe this would be a good way to compare offline and online communities of practice – but again, maybe this would be an unfair comparison due to the focus on the physical of parkour.This relates to the YouTube sublime in that this group also understands the platform as a large resource rather than a community/social platform. This is just one of several groups we will study in our YAPA project. We will also look at a group using YouTube politically, and a flashmob group. I am very curious to see if this pattern repeats itself in other communities of practice.

1 Comment | In: Uncategorized | tags: 60posts, parkour, YouTube. | #

I am sitting at Starbucks in Milwaukee waiting for the Association of Internet Researchers conference to begin. The theme of this year’s conference is Critical. I really like this theme. It is simultaneously an acknowledgment of research on Internet cultures that may have been a bit romantic in nature, but also a statement that we are doing real, and legitimate research.

In about an hour I will present a paper entitled Negotiating blended spaces, How Swedish youth are using video sharing sites as a performative arena. The paper discuss how Swedish youth parkour runners mark themselves as members of the parkour community in their videos, but also how these runners experience community and ‘the performative arena’ . I have spent the last couple of weeks interviewing Umeå parkour runners and those interviews really changed my idea of how community works on youtube. Never did I think that community was ‘bounded’ – after all, similar to blog community, users have their own primary spaces/channels. Rather, I was surprised at the fact that these users felt little to no sense of community within the youtube platform. They reported using the site as a repository and as a source of inspiration and information. Possibly because of the active and high quality web page this group has, community is experienced within their own forums in which their videos are embedded. Additionally, a few of the informants reported that videos on youtube were used to initially mark themselves as community members, but once a local community was established the need for posting videos was diminished. This can also be seen in the rate of video uploads compared with the establishment of their club.

Before I run off to register, I wanted to briefly describe an interesting lab moment that I had last week (maybe this should be it’s own post). This is my first ‘real’ conference in a while, so I am a bit nervous. In order to feel well prepared, I gathered up my colleagues and asked them to listen to a mock presentation in the lab. I presented as if I were here, and received thoughtful and very helpful critique. This exercise was great because now I can go up there this morning and feel that the research results I will present flow clearly and the main points have been made. This is the first time that I have prepared this much in advance and I can promise it will not be the last. So to my friends and colleagues in the lab – thank you for your thoughtful and very valuable help!

I am SO excited to be here, and can’t wait to listen to the various sessions. I will blog and tweet my reflections of the conference (and maybe even vlog), so stay tuned!

cross posted from here

No Comments | In: Uncategorized | tags: parkour, youth, YouTube. | #

Tonight a parkour tour is coming to Umeå! I can’t wait to go see it. I hope that I can get some interviews with some of the runners who put their stuff up on youtube. If you are in Umeå tonight between 5 and 8pm, go to Döbelnspark. If you are not here today, it seem that they will swing by Umeå again on Sunday between 2 and 5pm.

Umeå’s own parkour group can be found here.

No Comments | In: Uncategorized | tags: parkour, youth, YouTube. | #

Friday I submitted the AoIR paper, and honestly, I am not really happy with it. I am still missing the interviews, so the paper felt lopsided. I talked a lot about how Swedish youth perform parkour in the uploaded films, but need more data/interview information to really talk about how the performative arena is experienced. I touched on it, but the arguments could/should have been stronger. Before the actual conference, however, I will have the interviews. I plan to make defining the performative arena – or the interaction between the filmed runs, the runners, and the actual platform – the focus of the talk.

Here is an excerpt from the paper:

YouTube is a performative arena due to the interplay between the users who perform aspects of community membership and identity through a seamless blend of offline and offline practices, but also due to the social networking affordances allowed by the YouTube platform. Each channel on YouTube could be considered a site of engagement, as it is there that traces of social networking are collected and made visible. It is the collection and interplay of these sites, both through engaging in conversation on each individual video page, as well as subscribing and participating on a user’s channel which gives meaning to the performed practices within the videos. LaBelle (2006), defines the performative arena in sound art by exploring the relationship between the object and the viewer/listener.

“In understanding the art object and the art viewer as interwoven into a conversational exchange in which the object produces the looking/listening, and the looking/listening produced the object, comes to suggest the field of attention as a performative arena. Thus, art objects do not so much contain or embody meaning but rather are given meaning through a performative exchange” (LaBelle, 2006:101).

This field of attention that LaBelle speaks of can be seen in the interaction of communities of practice in Swedish youth parkour runners. This group has established practices for both their offline performances and their online interactions, and it is the reciprocity between these spaces and interactions that perform forth an arena which is simultaneously meaningful, shared and experienced.

No Comments | In: Uncategorized | tags: AoIR, parkour, performative arena, youth, YouTube. | #

I need to have a look at this book. I have been trying to decide what to do about my youtube informants id’s. They are between the ages of 15 and 25, all have published videos on youtube. I do use some screenshots, but as the sample is random, you would not be able to easily guess all of them from the screenshots. Also, I am not saying anything that seems sensitive – but sometimes what may seem not sensitive to me can be sensitive to someone else. So the point of my long rambling thought- How much id should I use in this article? Obviously I can not ‘hide’ the people in the screenshots, but I can use shots where their back is turned and take away the name of the file/film. It would make it hard (although not impossible) to id.

Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media

No Comments | In: Uncategorized | tags: books, ethics, parkour, youth, YouTube. | #