Abstract
In 2006 while I was conducting research about music use and gender among teenage girls in a Swedish town, one of the girls I was working with sent me an e-mail with a link to a YouTube video clip of a toddler dancing to Shakira’s song ‘Hips Don’t Lie’. Before Facebook, distributing URL links in e-mails was a common method for spreading viral videos, and because YouTube was a completely new website at the time, the video interested me. Later, in conversation with the girl in her home, I asked her about the clip and she said that she thought it was a funny video of a cute child, so she sent it to all her friends who might enjoy it. YouTube has grown in popularity since 2006 and is a platform for participatory media culture where millions of people from all over the world upload videos for others to view and comment on. While some of the videos posted on YouTube mirror overt commercial interests, others are part of a ‘do it yourself’ (DIY) culture where people conduct practical jokes, play music or dance. This type of online user culture is part of an increase in the number of people who produce their own media and broadcast it to others. Within British cultural studies of youth, combinations of music, style and play have been identified as three core ingredients of the lives and cultures of young people (Hebdige, 1979; McRobbie & Garber, 1975/2006).
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© 2014 Ann Werner
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Werner, A. (2014). Getting Bodied with Beyoncé on YouTube. In: Bennett, A., Robards, B. (eds) Mediated Youth Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287021_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287021_12
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