How online platforms helped male make-up YouTubers to boost up their popularity

In this article I will focus on talking about one specific group who is very active online which is the world of male make-up YouTubers. who have been using YouTube and other platforms to make their voices heard. How did they do that?

With the rise of the Internet and Web 2.0 ideals, Social Networking Sites and User Generated Content Sites have been helping people all over the world gain popularity and become micro-celebrities. Micro-celebrities are social media celebrities who have many followers, usually in one specific niche (as I discuss in this article paper - the male make-up vloggers niche) popular on social media and then who later become popular in the offline world as well. These online platforms  an important factor as they allow them to gain success and popularity and reach worldwide audiences. Male make-up YouTubers are quite a controversial group because they break down the societal conception that make-up is a female thing. They try to promote equality and diversity. Internet is a good place for letting your voice be heard, as is evident from the fact that such a controversial group gained acceptance by posting online videos that had the effect that more and more people like them and consider them real artists.

Jeffree Star - a male make-up guru example

Such an example of a popular and viral male make-up YouTuber is Jeffree Star, an American male make-up artist who started his "career" on YouTube by making make-up tutorialsr,accordingtoHowardBecker,career"refers to the sequence of movements from one position to another in a system"(Becker, 1963, p 24).He 

started his career as a musician on MySpace with over 25 million plays o his music. In addition, he has been spreading his content for more than a decade through Social Media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, which lead to an increasing number of fans. He became more and more famous and eventually started his own make-up brand with the help of the notorious Kat von D..  Jeffree Star can be seen as a masterHoward Becker, helping out and teaching "novices" in this branch how to be successful and how to be authentic in a controversial group that has to deal with a considerable amount of discrimination.

By analyzing his Social Media presence we can find out more about what he beliefs to be the way to become authentic, successful and popularthe norms that are shared by this group. These norms are mostly about make-up trends and how-to's, but the shared underlying belief is that males can use make-up too and express themselves as they please. In a recent Facebook video Jeffree Star promotes the no eyebrow trend, saying that he doesn't need eyebrows and that therefore it shouldn't be considered the "normal" thing anymore. 

Another aspect that male make-up YouTubers share is pro-diversity activism. This too can be seen in our example as Jeffree posted on his YouTube channel a video where he speaks openly about racism and discrimination, that it should be dealt with and that he deeply hates it, even though in his past he was accused of racist slurs. He claims that he has changed and that not being accepted in society made him hateful back then.

Jeffree Star became famous only through the online environment. By posting videos all the time, and by being a guy who uses make-up, he gained a lot of attention. Nowadays, Jeffree Star has a make-up brand of his own and has appeared on American television. These are the stages that moved up his career as a male make-up YouTuber to the highest scale. As Jeffree Star says in his videos: "I am a hot topic, I have always been outspoken, I am, you know, someone who looks different". With this statement he clearly shows support towards freedom of expression. Specifically, male make-up YouTubers are pro LGBTQ and they demolish the social gender roles.

Jeffree Star's Webshop for Make-Up Jeffree Star

Online media as an infrastructure for micro-celebrities

Jeffree Star advertising for Kylie cosmetics Jeffree Star

Besides being a place suited to freedom of expression and gaining popularity,isthe Internet,is a place where "deviants" or "outsiders" as Howard Becker calls them, have a place to gather, to talk and to share their emotions and lifestyles with other people who feel the same way as they do but who are being marginalized by the mainstream society. According to Howard Becker, outsiders  "talk different, they act different, they look different, they’re just not like other people, that’s all…" (Becker, 1963, 89), t

he emphasis on "different" is also reflected in Jeffree Star's quote that I mentioned above in which he says that he is someone "who looks different". There has always been controversy around transgenders, homosexuals, and drag queens, and it is finally getting more and more accepted into society and thanks to social media platforms, these people can make stronger connections worldwide,. 

But the Internet has a dark side too, as it makes these peopleprone to criticism, hate speech and homophobic slurs. Interestingly, the fandom community around these vloggers seems to have helped them getting through this. For instance, Jeffree Star made several collabs with Manny MUA in a compilation of videos called "Reading mean hate comments" where they read hate comments they receive on their YouTube channels to make fun of it and counter the hatred. This is seen by their fans as a really strong attitude towards homophobia and they became an example to follow for other male beauty vloggers.

The fandom around male make-up YouTubers

How are YouTube communities and fandoms formed?

"YouTube seems like an unlikely location for a multimedia fandom encyclopedia, but it’s probably the only location where such a function is even possible online." - Keidra Chaney

Conclusion

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