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ABSTRACT
This article analyzes an emergent genre of tween and teen girl confessional videos on YouTube where girls ask their viewers to comment on whether they are pretty or not. While the very existence of this genre is frequently explained away as a symbol of young girls' dwindling self-esteem in the contemporary moment, this article locates them within a self-identificatory gendered neoliberal brand culture so as to examine the ways in which they reproduce an economic model of the successful white middle class girl.
KEYWORDS
at-risk girl, can-do girl, empowerment, self-esteem, visibility, YouTube
Introduction
The YouTube video "Am I Pretty or Ugly?" (2010) begins with a young white girl looking into a webcam, saying, "I just wanted to make a random video to ask if I'm ugly or not. .... A lot of people say I'm ugly and I think I'm ugly and fat." The video, posted in 2010 by user sgal901, received over 7 million views, and generated thousands of comments. Many of the comments referred to the girl's seemingly obvious lack of self-esteem, or responded to negative comments that were posted. For example, Maddie32110001 said:
I feel sick reading these comments it doesn't matter why this girl posted this video and yes she is pretty but why people feel the need to right horrible messages about her disgusts me she's probably only about 12 and people seem to think its okay to judge her n her appearances and call her ugly. Its sick and its bullying and people can have low self esteem, self harm and attempt suicide because of comments like this stop hate comments and just leave her alone until you want to say something nice.
Another commenter, TheWrongHands18, offered maternal advice:
Just be yourself and at your age, don't worry about it. At this time in your life, these insecurities are normal. I have 2 daughters one is your age and one is older. Worry about being a nice person and your education and not what others think about you. And folumese9 chimed in with: "you should not care what people think just be your self your beautiful no matter what." Many of the comments were not as generous, and had a negative focus, stating that the young...