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Capitalizing intimacy: New subcultural forms of micro-celebrity strategies

and affective labour on YouTube

Article in Convergence · February 2018

DOI: 10.1177/1354856517736983

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Article

Convergence: The International

Journal of Research into
Capitalizing intimacy: New New Media Technologies
2018, Vol. 24(1) 99–113
subcultural forms of micro- ª The Author(s) 2017
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celebrity strategies and sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1354856517736983
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affective labour on YouTube

Tobias Raun
Roskilde University, Denmark

Abstract
This article is a redevelopment of my previous studies, characterizing the media genre of – and
community building through – transgender video blogging. Focusing on one of the most famous video
bloggers at the moment, the Canadian Julie Van Vu, I investigate new forms of transgender vlogging
that embrace money making/self-commodification in a degree not seen before. Here, activism/
advocacy co-exists with and goes through an explicit self-commodification. Drawing on existing
research, I explore the mechanisms and characteristics of Vu as a micro-celebrity within YouTube as
a platform. I suggest the concept of ‘subcultural microcelebrity’ to nuance, diversify and specify
micro-celebrity as a concept and a practice. The article departs from – but also redevelops – the
concept and characteristics of micro-celebrity to specify the ‘affective labour’. Micro-celebrities are
expected to perform various kinds of labour, many of which are time and energy consuming but not
necessarily economically profitable. Micro-celebrities must signal accessibility, availability, presence,
and connectedness – and maybe most importantly authenticity – all of which presuppose and rely on
some form of intimacy. I propose that intimacy as genre and as capital is deeply ingrained in the
strategies, dynamics and affective labour of micro-celebrities. Intimacy is an important and necessary
signifier in relation to both the form and content of the videos and the relation between the creators
and their audience. Furthermore, intimacy works as an important currency within social media; thus,
intimacy can be capitalized in manifold and intersecting ways, for example, for monetary purposes,
social recognition and as a tool in advocacy work. The article hereby contributes to existing research
on YouTube by redeveloping the concept of micro-celebrity in relation to affective labour and
intimacy, analysing how these play out in new forms of transgender vlogging.

Keywords
Affective labour, emotional labour, free labour, intimacy, mediated intimacy, micro-celebrity,
subculture, transgender, YouTube

Corresponding author:
Tobias Raun, Communication Studies at the Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, Universitetsvej
1, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
Email: tobiasra@ruc.dk
100 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 24(1)

Transgender people started to upload material to YouTube in 2006. One of these is American Erin
Armstrong (known as Grishno), who shot her first video in secrecy in her lunch break at the
basement of her workplace (Grishno, 2006). The video does not seem scripted, and it is very low
key. Hence, it is not the video in and of itself that is the point but rather the possible connections
that are made available by putting herself out there in this new, yet to be determined techno-social
space. Feeling alone and without a transgender community, Armstrong’s videos were in the
beginning primarily a vehicle of connection – an attempt to reach out to like-minded others.
However, making these videos is also a way for her to claim a trans identity – and not least a double
identity as a lesbian trans woman.
Transgender vlogging has since then spread and evolved as a culture and a genre. Recently,
I have noticed significant changes with the practice of Canadian Julie Van Vu, known as Princess
Joules. Focusing on Vu, I redevelop my previous studies (Raun, 2010, 2012, 2015a, 2015b, 2016)
to investigate new forms of transgender vlogging that embrace money making and self-
commodification much more explicitly and in a degree not seen before.
The content of Julie Van Vu’s videos covers medical/surgical transition as a kind of activism/
advocacy work and makeup/beauty with a more explicit commercial purpose. Different media
genres and actor roles converge as these videos have multiple expressions and purposes, yet
smoothly co-exist and mix and match in new ways. What is significantly new is the way in which
Vu’s activism/advocacy co-exists with and works through an explicit self-commodification. By
self-commodification, I refer to the capitalization of content as well as to a specific way of per-
forming in front of the camera and addressing the audience to attract attention and publicity. It is
‘the commitment to deploying and maintaining one’s online identity as if it were a branded good’
(Senft, 2013: 346) which intersects with a neo-liberal technology of subjectivity – the entrepre-
neurial or ‘enterprising self’ (Marwick, 2013: 169, 192). YouTube as a platform plays a crucial role
by persistently encouraging users to compete for attention and status and rewarding them eco-
nomically for promoting themselves. Hence, I argue that on the one hand, Vu’s self-
commodification is called for by the changing touch and feel of YouTube as a platform and on
the other hand is taken up by Vu to reach a broader audience and hence disseminate the transgender
cause and obviously to earn or supplement an income.
I frame Vu as a micro-celebrity, primarily within the subculture of transgender vlogging, and
yet her many make-up and beauty tutorials have also enabled her to attract a broader pool of
viewers and subscribers. Drawing on existing research (Abidin, 2015, 2016; Jerslev, 2016; Mar-
wick, 2013, 2015; Senft, 2008, 2013), I explore the mechanisms and characteristics of Vu as a
micro-celebrity within YouTube as a platform. I also suggest the concept of ‘subcultural micro-
celebrity’ to nuance, diversify and specify micro-celebrity as a concept and a practice. I use the
term ‘subcultural’ instead of ‘niche micro-celebrity’ (as proposed by Marwick, 2015: 342) because
of the political identity underpinning the videos made by trans vloggers like Vu.
The article departs from – but also redevelops – the concept and characteristics of micro-
celebrity to specify the ‘affective labour’ involved (Hardt, 1999; Gregg, 2009). Affective labour
is a somewhat slippery, yet intriguing, concept that I want to bring to the forefront to describe Vu’s
converging practice as a micro-celebrity, in her joint venture of commercial and activist cultural
engagement. Micro-celebrities are expected to perform various kinds of labour, many of which are
time and energy consuming but not necessarily economically profitable. Micro-celebrities must
signal accessibility, availability, presence, connectedness and maybe most importantly authenticity
– all of which presuppose and rely on some form of intimacy. I propose that intimacy as genre and
as capital is deeply ingrained in the strategies, dynamics and affective labour of micro-celebrities.
Raun 101

Intimacy is an important and necessary signifier in relation to both the form and content of the
videos and the relation between the creators and their audience. Furthermore, intimacy works as an
important currency within social media; thus, intimacy can be capitalized in manifold and inter-
secting ways, for example, for monetary purposes, social recognition and as a tool in advocacy
work. The article hereby contributes to existing research on YouTube by redeveloping the concept
of micro-celebrity in relation to affective labour and intimacy, analysing how these play out in new
forms of transgender vlogging.

Contextual background: YouTube as a transgender archive in flux

YouTube as a platform has enabled, if not revolutionized, trans visibility. There is little doubt that,
today, YouTube provides the most vivid visual culture of trans self-representation and is the
archive that many – trans or not – turn to for information. However, as a transgender archive,
YouTube has dramatically changed, from being a community-based platform with amateur
material produced exclusively by and for trans people to being a broadcasting channel where trans-
related issues are produced by and for multiple actors and purposes. The number of transgender
people vlogging has heavily increased, as have the number of videos on transgender issues in
general – especially from traditional media sources (talk shows, documentaries and news reports)
and from policy-based organizations. To exemplify, comparing the results provided by a simple
search for ‘transgender’ on YouTube shows an exceptional development from 134,000 in October
2012, 458,000 in June 2015 and 1,480,000 in February 2017.
These changes mirror the broader socio-economic shift of YouTube as a platform. YouTube is
today not only ‘the logical destination for amateur home videos’ (Strangelove, 2010: 17) but also a
content distribution channel for major broadcast companies, used to promote content and attract
viewers (Kim, 2012: 57–58). YouTube increasingly prioritizes television features over social
networking and group interaction. The site is now organized according to channel, rather than
video, which together with several other changes in interface features as well as change in content
gives it ‘the look and feel of television’ with the user being increasingly treated as a viewer – and a
consumer I would add – instead of an active participant or community member (Van Dijck, 2013:
114, 115, and 119).
YouTube has popularized celebrity processes, encouraging people to ‘broadcast themselves’
and promising democratic access to (self-) representation while also promoting self-
commodification. YouTube has been heavily commercialized, and especially within recent
years, the site’s distinction between amateur material/user generated content (UGC) and com-
mercial material/professionally generated content has become difficult to maintain (Kim, 2012).
The culture of the so-called ‘Pro-Ams’ (professional–amateurs) has spread, and many producers of
UGC now produce videos for YouTube as their main profession as a result of, for example, the
YouTube Partner Programme, ad revenue and sponsored content (Simonsen, 2011: 80). Hence,
self-commodification is today an integrated part of self-presentation on YouTube, which is maybe
most explicitly illustrated in the short ‘welcome to my channel’ video that almost every YouTuber
has today. The pressing question has become how to ‘promote oneself’ or how to ‘grow one’s
channel’, and YouTube itself offers extensive guidelines for just that. In sum, YouTube as a
platform has undergone an increasing commercialization, which affects both the self-presentation
of the individual vlogger but also YouTube as a culture. One is today expected to ‘sell oneself’ to
be and maintain a position as a high-profile YouTuber. Self-promotional annotations with links to
102 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 24(1)

one’s other videos as well as to channel subscription are a must to ensure views and clicks, both of
which can be translated to status, success and money.

The style and content of Julie Van Vu’s videos

Julie Van Vu signed up for a YouTube account in June 2010, but she did not start making videos
until 2011. Half a year after her first online appearance, she came out on YouTube as a ‘trans-
gender person, trans woman, girl’ and explained that she had, at that point, been on a low dosage of
oestrogen for a couple of months (Princessjoules, 2011). In the introductory text that appears in the
‘about’ section on her channel page on YouTube today, Vu describes herself as a ‘transgender
woman who has a passion for makeup artistry and fashion’ (Princessjoules, 2017a). Besides from
her first year on YouTube, she has been making videos regularly, typically twice a week within
recent years. She has 443,870 subscribers and her videos have been shown 67,189,931 times (as of
23 February 2017).
The content of Julie Van Vu’s videos has from the start combined medical/surgical transition
and beauty/make-up; hence, advocacy work and some form of commercialization has always
existed side by side, although the opportunities to make sponsored videos and product reviews
have clearly increased with her growing popularity.
Her transition-related videos are characterized by extensive information on the medical pro-
cedures accompanied by very explicit moving images from operating/recovery rooms (see e.g.
Princessjoules, 2014b, 2014c) including photographs of her scarring (see e.g. Princessjoules,
2015a). The videos document her breast augmentation, genital sex-reassignment surgery, dilating1
and so on. Her videos are characterized by her self-disclosure on these sensitive and personal
matters, such as the significance and bodily feeling of sex and orgasm after genital sex-
reassignment (Princessjoules, 2014a). These videos serve several purposes, audio-visually doc-
umenting her transition while also having a clearly educational purpose, enlightening other trans
people about what to expect. She explicitly claims a political identity, labelling herself as ‘an
advocate for the LGBT community’ (see the ‘about’ section on her channel, Princessjoules,
2017a). She states that she wants ‘to educate the younger transgender community and people who
want to get a better understanding of what it’s like for people like me’ (Princessjoules, 2014d,
0:55–1:05). Like other trans vloggers, she is committed to knowledge sharing and demystifying the
process and procedure of physical and social transitioning. Herein lies a clear political purpose to
counteract and challenge the pathologization and discrimination of trans people by sharing inti-
mate details about her life.
Vu’s transitional videos continue an already established style and genre of transgender vlog-
ging, started by transgender pioneers such as Erin Armstrong (Grishno, 2006). Here, somatic as
well as psychosocial aspects of transitioning are disclosed in a diary-like style and format, offering
regular check-ins and enabling intimate access to the vloggers’ physical and emotional where-
abouts. Furthermore, the vloggers engage in what can be considered a digital autobiographical act,
recreating and remanifesting the self. These vlogs therefore become sites for memory preservation
as well as experiential identity communication and negotiation. As a media genre, the trans vlog is
a site for the constant here-and-now tracking and mapping of visible and emotional changes (as a
diary) as well as the representation of these changes over time (as an autobiography). The trans
vlog also acts as an extended moving picture mirror with certain affordances: the ability to reflect
on how one looks/appears in the present moment while also archiving the image for comparison
later, and the ability to use the medium as a testing ground for trying out and adjusting one’s
Raun 103

appearance and enabling specular interaction, making the vlogger the centre of and vulnerable to
other people’s (mis)recognizable looks and feedback (Raun, 2016: 102–139).

Trans as a brand
Vu’s videos follow in the footsteps of other trans vloggers, as her videos are devoted to document,
test and evaluate various body-modifying products and procedures, offering support and advice
and claiming trans as a legitimate, knowledgeable and desirable identity category. She is hereby
audio-visually sharing information and knowledge that was almost inaccessible to other than
healthcare professionals before the advent of YouTube. But Vu’s videos also represent a new genre
of trans vlogs that tries to combine and bridge self-reflexive documentations of her transition,
offering support and advice for others in a similar situation, and sponsored/commercially driven
tips and tricks on make-up, beauty and body modification. As mentioned, she has almost from the
start embraced (self-)capitalization, earning money through sponsored mentions and affiliate sales,
while also receiving gift merchandise for reviews. Within the last 2 years, she has made numerous
explicitly commercial videos covering the area of make-up, skin and hair products, hair extensions
and sex toys. The various products are presented and recommended in tutorials with a written
coupon code underneath the video for price reductions. There are also several unboxing videos,
where for instance expensive handbags are unpacked on-screen, with the brand ever visibly present
and mentioned several times throughout the video. The tips and tricks offered by Vu on lifestyle/
beauty have become so enmeshed in product placement and advertisement that Vu at times needs
to explicate when a video is not a sponsored video (listed as *Not a sponsored video*).
As other parts of my research show trans vloggers have been – and often still are – reluctant to
monetize their content. In interviews with trans vloggers, one told me that they were afraid that it
‘would push community away, or give the impression that I was in this for personal gain’ (Raun,
2016: 187). Another told me that the common perception within the trans community is that ‘by
doing something good you are supposed to not get paid for it’, making them feel ‘eekie’ and
‘weird’ about ‘too much of this “subscribe now!”’ (Raun, forthcoming). As noted, many trans-
gender vloggers believe that vlogging should be for the common good and not involve too much
self-commodification. As a political identity act, trans vlogging is often understood to be situated
in a sceptical or critical relation to capitalist logics and structures, not least in relation to how these
structures works as barriers for certain trans people’s access to transitioning technologies and
products. Medical and surgical transition is not just a matter of choice but indeed also a matter of
capital that is unevenly distributed. Transitional technologies (hormones, surgeries, etc.) are
extremely expensive and often not sufficiently covered by healthcare insurances (if one is lucky
enough to have insurance) or people might be denied access by the gatekeeping psycho-medical
establishment. Trans-related medical tourism has also become big business, allowing trans people
with the means and the ability to travel access to skilled and respectful trans healthcare (see e.g.
Aizura, 2010). In critical response hereto, many vlogs explicitly serve as self-help how-to manuals
that can make life easier and less expensive for trans people, listing the best and cheapest body-
modifying procedures or products – or how to make one’s own.
Vu’s videos break with this narrative, as she explicitly embraces and uses capitalist logics and
structures to support her own transition. Vu is not the first trans person to use her YouTube channel
as part of earning or raising money, but whereas other trans vloggers primarily and almost
exclusively earn money for their transition through crowdfunding, Vu takes self-commodification
to a new level. Filming herself getting a full Brazilian laser hair removal or her lips remodelled
104 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 24(1)

appears simultaneously as a personal life-story telling, knowledge sharing and product placement
meant to direct her audience to a specific place and product (see Princessjoules, 2015b, 2017b). Vu
is hereby testing out new ground and challenging previously taken for granted logics within the
trans vlogging community. The transgender politics communicated through Vu’s practice is not
separated from but rather inscribed within neo-liberal notions of an entrepreneurial self; ‘the self-
as-business’ (Gershon, 2016: 227). Vu is in fact commoditizing her trans status while building
community. While previous scholars viewed commodification as fundamentally undercutting the
true self, Gershon argues that this is no longer the case, as it is now taken for granted that
authenticity, like anything else, can be branded: ‘authenticity is not only available for branding but
the basis for a brand’ (2016). I would argue that Vu is both subjected to while trying to benefit from
today’s heavily commercialized social media sphere.

Micro-celebrity status and strategies: Intimacy as genre

Authenticity and intimacy are key elements in micro-celebrity strategies. Senft developed the
concept of ‘micro-celebrity’ when researching webcam girls in the early 2000s, and she describes
it as ‘a new style of online performance’ facilitated by active use of technologies such as videos,
blogs and social networks (2008: 25). It is a form of identity linked almost exclusively to the
Internet, characterizing a process by which people express, create and share their identities online
(Marwick, 2013: 115; Senft, 2013: 350). Micro-celebrity describes the state of being famous to a
niche group of people. The term also refers to a specific behaviour: the presentation of oneself as a
celebrity (Marwick, 2013: 114). It is a status that is both achieved through the purposeful
arrangement of the self and a fame/role assigned or ascribed by others (Bell, 2012: 37; Marwick,
2013: 114). The broader context of the status and performance of the micro-celebrity relates to the
rise of the so-called Web 2.0 or what has been labelled a ‘mediatisation’ of everyday life and
culture (Hepp, 2013; Hjarvard, 2013), where the presentation and experience of self increasingly
travels through media (Senft, 2009). The concept of micro-celebrity has also been used by Mar-
wick to describe the status-seeking techniques of members of the San Francisco technology scene
(2013). More recently, Abidin (2015, 2016) has applied the term to describe commercial lifestyle
bloggers using, for example, Instagram in Singapore, while Jerslev has outlined how the term
relates to broader historical changes in celebrity culture, taking lifestyle and beauty YouTube
vlogger Zoe Sugg as her point of departure (2016).
Both Senft and Marwick argue that there are major differences between micro-celebrities and
Hollywood stars/mainstream celebrities. An important difference is their relation to their audience:
a micro-celebrity’s popularity depends on a connection to their audience rather than an enforced
separation from them (Senft, 2008: 26). In contrast, a Hollywood star/mainstream celebrity is
distanced from their audience, cultivating ‘distance, a temporality of scarcity, and performances of
the extraordinary’ (Jerslev, 2016: 5238). As Marwick states: ‘while mainstream celebrities are
expected to protect their privacy, micro-celebrities cannot or they’ll lose this attention’ (2013:
143). However, Marwick argues that social media have also changed the way Hollywood stars/
mainstream celebrities interact with fans, as they also need to perform the ‘insider authenticity
expected online’ when using social media (which they increasingly do) but the difference is that
they maintain ‘a public face’ (2015: 345). Hence, social media platforms have narrowed the gap
between celebrities and their fans or followers (Jerslev, 2016: 5235). For a micro-celebrity,
audience and community – two groups that have traditionally required different modes of
address, being spoken at or with – blend (Marwick, 2013: 115; Senft, 2013: 350). Micro-celebrities
Raun 105

are responsive to an audience that expects transparency, openness and authenticity, and they are
required to directly interact or connect with that audience in order to maintain their status (Mar-
wick, 2013: 158, 118, 119; Senft, 2008: 116). A micro-celebrity is therefore expected to reveal
personal information (Marwick, 2013: 117).
In a recent article, Marwick argues that micro-celebrities ‘use strategic intimacy to appeal to
followers’ (2015: 333, emphasis added). As she further notes: ‘[Micro-celebrities] reveal the
intimate details of their thoughts, dreams, food consumption, and sex lives, and they present
personas that appear to be less controlled than those of highly regulated, highly consumer brand
oriented film and television celebrities’ (2015: 346). Following Marwick’s line of thought, I want
to suggest thinking of micro-celebrity as a specific genre of intimacy; a negotiation of technolo-
gical affordances, cultural norms and regulation. Berlant defines ‘genre [as] an aesthetic structure
of affective expectation’ (2008: 4). Hence, intimacy as genre presupposes a history of YouTube as
an amateur-driven platform with sneak views into the home and everyday life of the vlogger,
attuning the audience to the expectance of intimacy in content as well as style. However, as
Lomborg notes, genre is not just a matter of ‘horizons of expectations distributed among producers
and recipients’ but also ‘communicative logics and functionalities’ (2011: 57, 2013: 30).
I therefore suggest intimacy as a genre in the sense that both Vu’s performance, the form and
content of her videos and her relation to the audience presuppose and call upon intimacy. What
concerns me here is not whether the intimacy communicated is authentic or not although the
perceived genuineness is what can push or pull the audience (see e.g. Jerslev, 2016: 5245–5246;
Marwick, 2015: 346). But rather that intimacy works as a genre that can be evoked in various ways
and is anticipated by the audience. Intimacy as a genre is at play when Vu broadcasts thoughts,
feelings and situations that seem (deeply) private and/or transgressive, documents these in the style
of a (occasionally handheld) camera acting as a diary or using the camera as an extended motion
picture mirror with numerous close-up images of how she looks or feels. Intimacy as a genre is also
induced when approaching her audience as intimate others, encouraging homosocial friendship.
Intimacy has traditionally been understood in relation to and inseparable from a distinction
between ‘private’ (affective) and ‘public’ (instrumental). Private and public spaces have been
associated with the gendered division of labour; hence, practices of intimacy have been considered
to belong within the ‘private sphere’ (Berlant, 1998: 283; Chambers, 2013: 41, 42). Departing from
a feminist deconstruction of the distinction between private and public, Berlant proclaims that
‘publics presume intimacy’ (2008: vii). Berlant’s claim is based on her analysis of 20th century
‘women’s culture’, where the private permeates and presupposes the public. As Berlant argues:
‘This “women’s culture” is distinguished by the view that the people marked by femininity already
have something in common and are in need of conversation that feels intimate, revelatory, and a
relief even when it is mediated by commodities’ (2008: viii–ix). Berlant labels the network of
women consuming these cultural texts and products as ‘an intimate public’. An intimate public
‘flourishes as a porous, affective scene of identification among strangers that promises a certain
experience of belonging and provides a complex of consolation, confirmation, discipline, and
discussion about how to live as an x’ (2008: xiii). In an intimate public sphere, a kind of ‘emotional
contact’ is made (2008: viii).
Berlant’s notion of intimacy as a signifier of 20th century ‘women’s (mass media) culture’
seems even more pronounced within a 21st-century social media landscape with an overwhelming
presence of ‘intimate moments shared for all to see’ (Garde-Hansen and Gorton, 2013: 60). Social
media play a significant role as fora for the disclosure and display of emotions, while also offering
greater possibilities for intimate contacts based on personal choice and individual control
106 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 24(1)

(Chambers, 2013: 47, 165). In other words, one might argue that social media indeed emphasize
and facilitate intimate practices and connections. An example of this is seen in how both the
architecture of online spaces and the etiquette of behaving within these spaces tend to favour the
communication of intimate content and the proliferation of intimacies with others (Raun et al.,
2018).

Micro-celebrity as a continuum of intimate selves

An essential part of micro-celebrity strategies is the celebrification of a private self. As Jerslev
argues: ‘Social-media-afforded celebrification is characterised by continuous and multiple uploads
of performances of a private self; it is about access, immediacy, and instantaneity’ (2016: 5238).
Although Vu as a micro-celebrity certainly is communicating a private self, I would argue that she
negotiates and displays a continuum of selves, which Marshall labels as: The public self, the public
private self and the transgressive intimate self (2010: 42–45). These selves range from a mere
frontstage, official self to a more middle-region self with some sort of exposure of the individual’s
life and emotions to a more backstage self, motivated by ‘temporary emotion’ (2010: 44, 45).
Vu’s appearance is model-like, signalling indeed a public self that is extremely well-groomed and
well-dressed, always with perfect make-up and hair. Since 2014, Vu has greeted her audience with a
spectacular ‘Hi sunshine sparkle faces. It’s me, mother sparkle’, while audio-visually stars appear
and blink around her. With this introductory greeting, she performatively enacts the image of a
celebrity in order to be/become one, branding herself as a special and public persona worth noticing.
This introductory greeting is different from her initially more informal and neutral ‘Hi you guys’ or
‘Hi everyone’, and it highlights the moment when Vu starts to take on the role of micro-celebrity.
Vu is primarily performing a private–public self, cultivating and engaging with the vlogs as a
medium of exchange and interaction. She lets the camera follow her around the city as she is
having her blood work checked and talks to the camera in the car to and from her appointment, as if
she is talking to a well-known girlfriend; ‘Girl I’m telling you’, as she states (Princessjoules,
2017c). By doing so, she invites the audience into her everyday life. She hereby performs a self,
available for and interested in conversation with a network of sympathetic (primarily female
identified) others that she always addresses directly and inclusively as ‘you’ and ‘us’, looking
straight into the camera. She continually asks for audience feedback, advice or opinions on a
discussed topic, while also positioning herself as available for other’s need for support and advice.
Several vlogs are for instance focused on addressing topics or answer questions asked by her
audience. She displays ‘emotional vulnerability’ (Marwick, 2015: 344), which becomes a vector
for relatability. When talking about her difficult relationship with her father, who is not accepting
her female identity, she states:
I just want to share with you guys my story and kind of like my relationship with my father because I
know a lot of people out there can relate [ . . . ] I want you to know that you are not alone. (Princess-
joules, 2014b)

She hereby communicates ‘a sense of equality’ and gives ‘the impression of connection’
(Jerslev, 2016: 5242, 5241) or of ‘perceived interconnectedness’ (Abidin, 2015).
However, the audience also see bits and pieces of what seems like a transgressive intimate self,
that has problems with depression, mental breakdowns and has a history of suicide attempts and of
being raped. In several of her videos, she cries on camera, in what seem like very raw and emo-
tionally self-disclosing videos (see e.g. Princessjoules, 2016a). She also exposes herself physically
Raun 107

to the camera, allowing the audience a close-up gaze of her tattooed body and disclosing their
meaning (Princessjoules, 2012) and, as mentioned, there are very explicit video footage and
photographs from her surgeries. She also allows the audience to have a look the supposedly first
time she uses a vibrator: ‘I just want to say that we are having a moment together because I am
losing my vibrator virginity with you all’ (Princessjoules, 2015c, 0:35–0:43). She is cut at the waist
so we are not able to actually see her use it, but we hear the buzzing sound of the vibrator, and she
starts to smile and talk about how she feels about using it. She has also made a video, showing her
vagina to a ‘gay guy’ (another vlogger), standing with spread legs just in front of the camera
allowing the audience to see her legs from behind (and her panties as she takes them off) but not the
vagina itself. But the audience is fully able to see – and hear – her friend’s reaction of awe
combined with an extensive description of the look of – and his opinions about – her vagina
(Princessjoules, 2015d). Vu is unable to let her audience see her naked, even if she wanted to,
because of YouTube’s policy on nudity. Several times in videos like this one or the video with the
vibrator, she explicates sharing something that is self-exposing and very intimate. Or when talking
about her mental health she labels the topic as ‘very, very personal to me’ (Princessjoules, 2015e).
When sharing the story of being raped she states:
I have never shared this with too many people [ . . . ] only with my ex-ex-boyfriend – he knows about it
and I’ve told one of my cousins about it and that’s about it. I have not told anyone else, not ANYONE
ELSE [ . . . .] I can’t believe I’m sharing this. (Princessjoules, 2016b, 00:19–3:06)

The audience is hereby pointed out by Vu as exclusive others that are allowed in on a secret or
something so intimate that hardly anybody has seen or heard this before. They are invited into what
seems to be a deep backstage, into a transgressive intimate self, but this self always has a faultless
and stylized appearance. In other words, communicating a private self is accompanied or conveyed
by a public self. Likewise, communicating the private self, as in the videos trying out the vibrator
or having a full Brazilian laser hair removal, travels through the self as a brand and a commodity.

Affective labour: Intimacy as capital

Many trans vloggers before and alongside Vu can be regarded as micro-celebrities. However, they
are not as explicitly as Vu promoting themselves as a brand, trying to sell other brands (commercial
products). As my previous studies show, none of the other trans vloggers earn a substantial amount
of money through vlogging (Raun, 2016), but I expect Vu to do so because of the explicitly
sponsored mentions and affiliate sales. However, there is not necessarily any equivalence between
micro-celebrity status and income (Marwick, 2013: 160). In that sense being a micro-celebrity on
YouTube typically involves free labour. The production of material for online circulation and
consumption is labour without any necessary financial compensation – though affective and social
capital can be earned through the measurable attention received. The monetary capital earned from
user-created material goes primarily to corporate Internet gatekeepers such as YouTube’s owner
Google, whereas most content providers rather gain ‘a sense of community, esteem, and/or
belonging for those who share a common interest’ (Gregg, 2009: 209).
There are various kinds of labour at stake in Vu’s videos. They show, like many other trans
vlogs, that transitioning, and especially the transition of trans women, requires a lot of hard work.
Hormones work differently for trans women than for trans men; testosterone has a quicker and
more radical effect on the body than does oestrogen, hence testosterone alone often does the trick
of becoming a visible man. We see how Vu pursues hormone therapy, electrolysis/hair removal,
108 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 24(1)

breast augmentation, sex reassignment surgery and express a wish to have facial feminization
surgery – all of which are extensive and expensive medical interventions. Becoming a visible and
normatively attractive woman requires manifold procedures and props, thus exhibiting that
womanhood itself is hard work. It is time and energy consuming – as well as emotionally challenging.
The economically and emotionally challenging labour of transitioning is often not supported,
but rather reinforced, in a larger social context. As reports and surveys document (e.g. FRA, 2010,
2014; Grant et al., 2011), trans women are substantially disadvantaged socio-economically when
transitioning: In the United States, 50% of the trans female respondents had experienced dis-
crimination in hiring, 29% had been denied promotion and 36% had lost their job due to bias (Grant
et al., 2011: 53, 54). Trans women have difficulty finding jobs during their first years of transition,
and they lose, on average, nearly one-third of their income after transitioning (Connell, 2012: 870).
Trans women are therefore often forced to find other alternatives, which includes escorting, online
porn, webcam modelling or other kinds of social media work, opportunities closely connected to a
media saturated late capitalism. Seeking out these types of unstable and insecure job opportunities
is typically motivated by the money, the flexible work hours and work space and the prospect of
gender identity affirmation and desired patterns of gender interaction (Nuttbrock et al., 2009: 123).
Vu’s engagement in YouTube also involves substantial emotional labour. As Marwick char-
acterizes the work of the micro-celebrity: ‘[It] requires revealing personal information, sometimes
to the point of extreme discomfort or vulnerability’ (2013: 196). It involves ‘using real emotional
affect when presenting oneself and interacting with others’ (2013: 196). The micro-celebrity’s
enactment of affective labour is an essential part of their trustworthiness and authenticity. A survey
among US teenagers commissioned by the entertainment trade magazine Variety concludes that a
sense of intimacy and authenticity is what attract attention and views (Ault, 2014). When intimacy
is perceived as an essential part of the attraction of micro-celebrities, intimacy also becomes a form
of cultural, social and economic capital. As Jerslev notes: ‘Attention-creating performances of a
private authentic self is one of the most valuable commodities in social media celebrification’
(2016: 5240). In other words, intimacy becomes a currency.
Vu’s physical and emotional exposure on YouTube is a form of affective labour. And I would
argue that affective labour like accessibility, availability, presence, authenticity, connectedness
and not least intimacy is even more pronounced and required in relation to subcultural micro-
celebrities like Vu. These cues are important prerequisites for success among one’s peers and
broader audience and necessary for any kind of economic gain. As it has already been argued in
relation to cisgendered female lifestyle bloggers and vloggers, commodification and branding
smoothly merge with – and even is dependent upon – intimacy and authenticity (e.g. Abidin, 2015,
2016; Brooke, 2015; Brooke and Hund, 2015; Jerslev, 2016). However, this intersection and
interdependence has only recently been embraced by trans vloggers, most explicitly by Vu.

A subcultural micro-celebrity
More than any other trans vlogger, Vu tries to embrace and serve different audiences, primarily
transgender women and cisgender women interested in make-up and beauty. As she humorously
characterizes the content of her vlogs: ‘that’s all I ever talk about: vaginas and make-up products’
(Princessjoules, 2015a). Vu’s blunt documentation of her ongoing transition and outspoken claim
to serve the transgender community is properly what enables her to attract and maintain a trans
women audience, while her strong focus on beauty and fashion is what seems to have propelled her
success among female viewers in general. Her videos are therefore primarily directed towards trans
Raun 109

women but reaching out to a broader cisgendered female audience. As outlined, Vu enacts the
micro-celebrity strategies characteristic of female lifestyle vloggers in general, which is new in the
context of transgender vlogging. It is new for a marginal and subcultural voice like Vu to per-
sistently and explicitly include sponsored mentions, gift merchandise for reviews and affiliate sales
in her life-story telling. As a subcultural micro-celebrity, Vu therefore must balance on a different
set of egg shells, and intimacy seems to be even more required for her to attract and maintain a
transgender audience. Vu is expected to be (and properly feel) intimate with and responsible to her
transgender audience in a different way than a cisgendered female lifestyle vlogger to her female
audience because of her subcultural positionality in terms of availability, online presence and how
she copes with her life situation. These intimacy cues (signalling availability, performing self-
disclosing presence by lending herself to the camera emotionally and physically) become signs of –
and give credit to vlogging as a political identity act. As she states in a video, where she compares
having sex before and after sex-reassignment surgery: ‘Once again, this is so personal to me and I
can’t believe I am sharing this with the world, but somebody has to do it and I guess it will be me’
(Princessjoules, 2014d, 1:05–1:13). In contrast to the many negative mainstream representations of
trans as an inherently miserable or failed position, as mentally ill or unstable (see e.g. Phillips,
2006; Serano, 2007), Vu seems determined to showcase positivity, success, desirability while also
disclosing the hardship of transitioning and continued discrimination.
As a lifestyle/beauty vlogger, Vu is trying to market a positionality that otherwise is denigrated,
thus being transgender is both what can be an obstacle and a ticket to success within this genre.
This is illustrated in the two types of commonly occurring comments to her videos, here retracted
from the comment section of her most popular video (the full Brazilian laser hair removal). On the
one hand: ‘Is she a real Asian girl or a transsexual, her/ his face looks really weird’ (comment by
‘Alien51’, Princessjoules, 2015b). As illustrated here, Vu is vulnerable and subjected to a specific
kind of derogative scrutiny, as her trans status always puts her at risk of not being female (enough)
no matter the amount of surgeries and beauty products applied. On the other hand:
Julie, I recently came across your YouTube channel and I just want to say, you go girl! You are
fabulous, beautiful, fierce and an inspiration to so many people. I am a cis chick, but one of my best
friends is transgender. (comment by ‘Stacy Fuller’, Princessjoules, 2015b)

Hence, her trans status is also what makes her different from the other female lifestyle/beauty
vloggers, thus trans can be – and is by Vu – turned into a brand. But it can be argued that it only
works as a brand among a more mainstream audience exactly because Vu is medically transitioned
and hyper-feminine and therefore is recognizable within a heteronormative conduit that presup-
poses and celebrates binary gender embodiment and performativity. Vu’s transition is therefore
saleable as a particularly challenging but inspirational path to incarnating female beauty and style.
The appeal to cisgendered women seems to be ‘if she can do it then I might also be able to do so’. In
other words, sculpturing and styling the body and appearance according to normatively attractive
womanhood is always hard work but even more so for trans women. In this respect, cisgendered
women ‘only’ need the more superficial grooming for which they can find inspiration in Vu’s
videos that comes with a subcultural twist.

Exit
I have unfolded the strategies and characteristics of Julie Van Vu as a micro-celebrity, and how this
involves the enactment of a continuum of private selves, communicated through a public, picture-
110 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 24(1)

perfect self. As a micro-celebrity, Vu is expected to perform various kinds of affective labour like
accessibility, presence, authenticity, inclusivity and connectedness with the audience. At stake,
here is various forms of labour that we do not immediately recognize as such, and which are not
necessarily economically profitable for her as a vlogger but more so for the platform. Intimacy is
a prominent feature in Vu’s vlogging practice, characterizing her performance, the form and
content of her videos as well as how she addresses and relates to the audience. Intimacy is a kind
of affective labour that particularly women have been conducting – at home and within the
service industry (Gregg, 2009: 211; Hardt, 1999: 89–90), and which they, and social media users
in general, are now expected to perform to attract and maintain followers. Hence, intimacy
becomes a currency in a social media sphere, not just in the sense of economic capital but is
maybe more pronounced as social capital, enabling status and social recognition as a margin-
alized individual or group.
I have also argued that Vu represents a new kind of transgender vlogging that explicitly
juxtaposes identity politics and commercial self-promotion and explicitly reaches out to a
broader and more mainstream audience. Her videos follow in the footsteps of other and
previous trans vloggers’ attempts to demystify transitioning processes and procedures. Vu is
in many respects more self-disclosing about transitioning processes and procedures than most
other trans vloggers, and she is hereby radically challenging that being trans is not something
(deeply private) that one should be ashamed of or hide. In that sense, Vu is questioning and
transforming what should be ‘public’ and what should be kept (or hidden as) ‘private’.
However, she also challenges well-established notions within the trans vlogging community
concerning a reluctance to monetize one’s content and engage in explicit self-
commodification, and in this respect, her vlogging practice is more in line with the popular
mainstream genre of lifestyle/beauty vlogging. Vu is a subcultural micro-celebrity with a clear
political purpose, but with a crossover to more mainstream cisgendered female micro-
celebrities, hereby drawing inspiration from but also radicalizing the by now well-
established genre of transitional vlogging. One might speculate that her blunt sharing (‘giv-
ing something of herself’) works as a bolster that prevent her trans audience from turning
away from or against her in her explicit commercialization of self and content. Likewise, her
trans status marks her as a special voice within the genre of lifestyle/beauty vlogging, and her
tips and tricks might be particularly inspirational, as her way to (heteronormative) female
beauty indeed is hard-won.

Funding
This research has been funded by the Danish Council of Independent Research.

Note
1. Trans women who have had genital sex-reassignment surgery are required to dilate (using a specially
designed dildo-like device) to maintain the width and length of the vagina.

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Author biography
Tobias Raun is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark, and the
editor of the “New Media” section of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. He has published extensively on
trans and digital media, most recently a book with Routledge entitled Out Online: Trans Self-Representation
and Community Building on YouTube (2016) and a co-authored book chapter entitled “Nothing to Hide:
Selfies, Sex, and the Visibility Dilemma in Trans Male Online Cultures”, appearing in the anthology Sex in
the Digital Age, Routledge, 2017. He is the co-editor of a forthcoming (in the beginning of 2018) anthology
Mediated Intimacies: Connectivities, Relationalities, Proximities, Routledge Studies in European Commu-
nication Research and Education Series.

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