Performing branded affect in micro-celebrity YouTube reaction videos

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F24%3A00135023" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/24:00135023 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.349.08cho" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.349.08cho</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.349.08cho" target="_blank" >10.1075/pbns.349.08cho</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Performing branded affect in micro-celebrity YouTube reaction videos

Original language description

While significant attention has been paid to how social media influencers and content creators use diverse channels for self-presentation and self-promotion, there has been relatively less research into how they employ affective resources in on-screen interactions with their audiences. This article analyses the ways in which online micro-celebrities deploy the resources of affective stance in one specific subgenre of YouTube videos, namely reaction videos. It seeks to identify ways of how such individuals perform affect while otherwise passively watching well-known videos which they allegedly had not seen before (‘first-time watching’). Thus, influencers expose online audiences to their (seemingly) authentic reactions, involving a range of affective responses including surprise, appreciation, amusement etc. The findings reveal that YouTube influencers use affective stance in reaction videos strategically rather than spontaneously, consciously performing affect for their audiences. The article argues that such a form of performed affect is closely linked to self-branding and can be described in two ways: not only as ‘synthetic affect’, which is inauthentic and staged for the benefit of the audience, but also as ‘branded affect’, which is interlinked to the ultimate economic success of social media content creators.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

60203 - Linguistics

Project

—

Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Influencer Discourse : Affective relations and identities

ISBN

9789027215994

Number of pages of the result

27

Pages from-to

200-226

Number of pages of the book

306

Publisher name

John Benjamins

Place of publication

Amsterdam

UT code for WoS chapter

001402155700009