YouTube & Gender

Just from the title I bet a lot of you will have dismissed this post to be just some other rant about feminism. But please keep reading- this is going to be different. 

 One of the special things about YouTube is the fact that content is user generated. This means that no matter who you are, where you’re from, what religion, gender or race you are, as long as you have internet access you can be a content creator. It’s a completely equal platform; no-one gets an automatic head start because of their social situation.

 So why is then that men are more successful than women on YouTube? Don’t judge, hear me out. I’m not saying this in a disapproving or angry way, more just in a ‘this is a thing’ way. Men do better. I’m not saying that there aren’t any successful women on YouTube, look at JennaMarbles, DailyGrace and Hannah from My Drunk Kitchen, but there are just more men.

 My main theory as to why this happens is because most of the people who subscribe and watch videos are young girls and they’re more likely to subscribe to guys- I, myself, am probably subscribed to more men than women. But I don’t have a problem with that, I love all the people I’m subscribed to. I just think this topic is really interesting and I’m not having a go at anybody.

 But this here is what makes me angry. My friend Bing’s recent Future Bing video showed him and all his YouTube friends all hanging out together. And that’s awesome, I love it when YouTubers all get together! They kept saying in the video that ‘the whole of YouTube’ was in Bing’s house and I couldn’t help notice that they were all male. So then this happened: 

Seriously, Bing?! Harsh. What exactly is ‘that person’ anyway?

 A thing that I find quite frustrating is when a woman makes a comment along the lines of gender and a man takes this as a personal attack. We don’t hate you! In fact, Bing, I fucking love you, I think you’re amazing. And the same goes to everyone else in that video: Jack, Tom, Khyan, Tim, Jamie, Matt – seriously, you’re all awesome. I have no problem with you all being successful YouTubers, you’re talented and you all deserve it. So Bing, please know that I wasn’t attacking you so don’t get all defensive. I was actually hoping for it to spark an interesting discussion and I know you’re good at them, but not when you dismiss what I said with a rude comment like that.

 So, I’d really like to just have an open discussion. Why do you think men are more successful on YouTube? Or do you think that it’s actually pretty equal? And what do you think about how men and women react to comments made about gender?

Let’s not be mean and attack each other, let’s have an interesting open debate.

Hannah

Project Perfect

My last post about body image had a really good response and so when my friend Mandy wrote a piece for her blog talking about her body likes and dislikes, I thought I'd follow on from my last post and write about my personal body image issues.

As she said in her post, I'm not fishing for compliments- this is about sharing the fact that not everyone is "perfect" and we all have body hangups which just makes us human. Every part of our bodies, whether we like them or not, are what makes us unique and gorgeous!

Here we go...

1. Post a picture of yourself
2. State three things you DISLIKE about yourself
3. State three things you LIKE about yourself

I dislike-
1. My height- I'm 5 feet small (152.4cm). It's impossible to find jeans that fit and skirts and dresses always drown me and make me look even shorter. Also, my stomach is pretty much non-existant.
2. My thighs- They're short and they're big. Shopping for jeans is a nightmare- nothing will fit over my thighs!
3. My eyebrows- They're big, messy and ugly. I even I have big gap in one of them which is a chicken pox scar and it just looks weird. I pluck and pencil them in but I guess I'll never be completely happy with them.

I like-
1. My waist- I have a tiny waist and I love it! When tops and dresses nip in at the waist and really show off my curves, it makes me feel extremely confident.
2. My eyes- I love my eyes. They're big and brown. They're so dark brown that sometimes it's impossible to find my pupils.
3. My boobs- I'm not going to go into any specifics but I have massive boobs. Although, it means there are a lot of clothes that I simply can't wear, with a good bra and the right clothes I can make my boobs look awesome!

So what are your body likes and dislikes? Write a similar post if you like and share!

Hannah

Body Image

The UK newspaper, The Guardian, often holds 'comment is free' competitions where they pick a controversial issue and ask readers to write 250 words about it and then the best ones are published.

Back in January the topic was 'body image' and I felt compelled to write something about this because I have quite a strong opinion on this issue and it affects so many people. I know my writing style isn't very professional or journalistic so I wasn't surprised when my entry wasn't picked. However, I still think it's an important message to spread so I'm going to share it with you here.

[Disclaimer: I talk about female body image here, this does not mean I'm saying that men don't face similar problems, because they do.]


Girl body image is complex, frustrating and baffling. Everybody worries about the way they look, and if you disagree and say that you’re completely happy with your appearance then I’ll tell you that you are lying. To make ourselves feel better we’re told to be comfortable in our own skin and that appearance doesn’t matter and it’s what’s on the inside that counts. However, that’s not true is it? At least not for women. Society places an unhealthy amount of importance on aesthetic and no matter how much you dye your hair, do your make-up or dress differently at the bottom of it all a person cannot change how they look. So why do we measure a person’s worth by something we are born with and can’t alter?

 It’s no wonder that women, at all ages, feel pressurised to look a certain way. I feel like I’m lucky in a sense being a petite size 8 with large boobs, however, there are other parts of me that are ‘wrong’, which to me says that if I want to be a T.V presenter or in the public eye in any way shape or form I’d need to be a lot taller, in fact I’d actually need smaller boobs and skinnier legs would definitely boost my chances of success. 

 Naomi Wolf’s ‘Beauty Myth’ still exists and makes women critique themselves so harshly because they believe they don’t fit the mould that society has deemed ‘beautiful’. There needs to be ways to help women who punish themselves for not looking how they believe they should. One way would be to represent more ‘real’ women in the media. However, we can say with a lot of confidence that it’s very unlikely. How successful do you think The X Factor would be with two short, size 14 women with un-plucked eyebrows sitting on the judges’ panel?

I'd love to get a discussion going so please let me know what you think in the comments. Is the media distorting our perception of 'beauty'? And let's not just keep the debate focused on women, we should open it up to the effects of the media on men's body image too.

Hannah 

YouTube Identity

This is something that I've been thinking a lot about lately but I'm not sure how much sense I'm going to make, so bare with me.

YouTube is a very complex place but for the sake of getting across my point we're going to split it up into categories. In terms of people who create content on the site I can see four main categories: vloggers, musicians, gurus and film makers. Now lets remove musicians and gurus from the equation because I am not musically talented in the slightest and I haven't a clue about make-up or how to do anything. So we have vloggers and film makers. (As I said before it's actually more complicated than this but just go with it).

Now I would probably fit in the 'vlogger' category. However, I don't consider myself a vlogger. I don't think I'm actually very good at talking to a camera. The best videos of mine (in my opinion) are ones where I barely say anything or it's a comedy sketch of some sort. Real vloggers are people who have something interesting to say on a topic or their life such as Owlssayhooot, Emilythebravee or OhItsJustKim. But not me. I don't think I could ever upload a video that is entirely three minutes of me talking.

[Just as a disclaimer, I love all those YouTubers and I'm not insulting just talking to a camera because I think their videos are fantastic. I just know I wouldn't be very good at it.]

So I'm not a 'vlogger'. But neither am I a 'film maker'. I don't know how to use fancy cameras, lighting and sound confuse me and I've just installed Final Cut Pro onto my MacBook but I'm too terrified to start using it. However, being a film maker on YouTube- so making nice looking videos containing a sketch with a story and a punchline- really appeals to me. From recently meeting and hanging out with people who do make awesome sketches on YouTube, I am more and more fascinated by that side of YouTube and its content creators. One day I would love to be able to make videos as good as Slomozovo and OMFGItsJackandDean. But for now I guess, I'll just take it slow and learn a little bit at a time. Who knows, maybe my friends will help me and teach me the ropes...

Did this make any sense to you? I really hope so. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I feel a bit lost. I don't really know where I belong on YouTube but hopefully one day I'll find where I fit in and I'll be the best that I can be.

Just out of curiosity, which genre of YouTube videos do you prefer? And which of mine do you prefer?

Hannah

Getting personal...

I said right at the start of making this blog that I wasn't sure how personal I wanted to make it. I feel like I can be extremely honest here and from the last couple posts you guys have made really interesting comments and I like the discussions we get going, especially on issues that mean a lot to me. So here's what I want to talk about today and please don't be scared. It's romance.

About 8 months ago I broke up with my long term boyfriend. It was my decision and I didn't regret it afterwards. I was living in a different country at the time and I guess I just didn't miss him as much as I should have. That was how I knew. Anyway, this is just background. Literally, since then I've been in a completely 'anti-romance' 'anti-relationship' phase and I've loved it! Except when I watch rom-coms because then I want to be sick over everybody. But generally the freedom and independence and just not having to worry about guys is amazing! This doesn't mean I've not been dating but I guess you could say I have commitment issues. But now, I think I'm growing out of this stage, I'm moving on and you know what? It terrifies me! It's as if I know I would be happy and comfortable in a relationship now but I'm too scared to actively go looking for one. Or something. I'm not quite sure, it's very difficult to articulate.

I know this seems extremely personal but I feel fine about putting it on the internet because it's all so vague. I am still very happy in my situation, however, I do believe that whatever situation you're in you should be happy. Otherwise, you need to change your situation immediately.

I hope it's not too personal, but what are your opinions on relationships/romance? Do you think it's overrated? Could you not live without it?

Hannah

P.S. I may gag at cheesy romantic moments in films but I think deep down, like really deap down, I'm jealous.

Is religion dead?

I'm supposed to be writing an essay right now so I'm on the internet. Standard.

Following on from my last serious blog about sex education I'd like to carry on with this grown up talk. So the essay I've got to write is about secularisation in 20th century Europe, I never thought I'd find the history of religion interesting but hell it is.

I am Jewish but also an atheist. It's easy for me to self-define this way because there are so many parts of Judaism that I can celebrate for purely cultural or traditional reasons rather than religious. A bit like Christmas for most of society these days. More often than not we're celebrating being with our family, presents and a massive meal. We're not celebrating the birth of Jesus.

My upbringing was very interesting, I live in a part of Manchester which is stereotypically known to be very hippie, left wing, vegetarian etc... And it is also extremely atheist. Growing up and going to primary school and then secondary school I felt that religion was dead, it was never an issue that came up and none of my friends were religious. Then I went to sixth form college and I met my first Catholic and it was weird. I genuinely believed they didn't exist in Britain anymore. But hey it turns out they do and now one of my best friends is a Catholic and an ex-boyfriend of mine was also a Christian. However, in my world they were still a minority. Then I came to university and within my block in my halls of residence at least one fifth are Christian. Now this completely screwed over my little brain that told me almost everyone nowadays is an atheist. It really shows how being brought up in a certain way or a certain place can make you believe things about the world.

Being away from home and the environment I grew up in is really helping me learn things about the world that I otherwise would never have found out if I hadn't moved out.

I realise religion is a tricky topic and often people don't like to talk about their personal beliefs in public. However, I'd like to know if you ever had any preconceptions about the world and then you were proved wrong.

I hope you all have a good weekend and you don't have an essay to write like I do.

Hannah

Sex

I am passionate about a lot of things and obviously as a human being sex is one of them. But, that's not what I want to talk about here. I want to talk about sex education.

I was educated in the UK in secular comprehensive schools and so my sex education growing up was a lot better than some people in say religious schools. In primary school we were taught about puberty, relationships and reproduction. In secondary school we were taught about contraception: aged 14 I had to put a condom on a test tube, I was shown photos of genitals of worst case scenario STIs, taught about abortion, all other different types of contraception and the myths and legends about sex. I am so grateful for this education I received in my early teens and even though those photos were absolutely disgusting it was worth my teachers showing them to us because it taught me one of the most valuable lessons you can learn in your life. And that lesson may even one day save your life.

Some, were not as lucky as me, and in their schools were taught next to nothing about sex and so when it came to experiencing it first hand they were completely clueless. I'm not going to name any names but when I was 17 I got very close to having sex with a guy but neither of us had a condom. His exact words were, "it doesn't matter, I'll pull out before I cum." Seriously!? Rule 1: you can still get pregnant or catch STIs even if the man doesn't ejaculate. Have you ever heard of pre-cum?

I strongly believe that every child and teenager has the right to a good and proper sex education. So many pregnancies and STIs occur simply because of ignorance. And it's not just the issues I mentioned that need to be addressed. So many people (teenagers especially) have no where to go if they have intimate questions about sex, body image or puberty.

I have come up with a mini solution. Seeing as I make videos on YouTube and my insight stats tells me that most of you who watch my videos are aged between 14-17, I thought where is a better place to educate people than via my YouTube channel. What do you think?

I plan on making a sex education video in the near future but I need your help! Please ask me questions on my tumblr (you can do it anonymously there) on any topic that fits in with sex and puberty. I will use these questions to come up with topics and a structure for the video and will obviously answer them too.

Thanks very much for reading this ramble!

Stay safe and sexy!

Hannah