The pressure for girls to focus on how they look or fashion themselves after adults has been much discussed. Most of this, however, has focused on “traditional” forms of media – books, magazines, TV shows – but this does not accurately depict the changing mediascapes of girls’ lives, in particular, the growing significance of YouTube.
YouTube has attained a global watch time of over 500 million hours daily. Growing by 60 per cent each year, it is prevalent in many young people’s everyday lives. But how do YouTubers typically construct and celebrate what it means to be a girl? In 2014, there were at least 45,000 YouTube channels that featured beauty-related content. In June 2016, there were more than 5.3 million videos that capitalise on the female appearance on YouTube.
Fashion
Haul videos are one of the most popular genres uploaded by young female YouTubers. In haul videos, YouTubers typically introduce and describe the products that they have purchased, after each shopping trip.
If you like fashion films and documentaries on designers then Frock Club - a group that goes behind the scenes to learn more about the fickle, fast-paced world of fashion - has something to offer.
Local freelance pattern engineer Ruth Povall started Frock Club to educate people about the fashion industry, and hosts concerns about the sustainability of fast fashion, the decline of quality hand-made fashion in Australia and the loss of skilled technical trades that contribute to Australia as a global design hub.
