YouTubers between postfeminism and popular feminism: Dulceida’s and Yellow Mellow’s construction and performance of gender identity

Abstract

Participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006) has opened up the possibility of prosumption for the youngest users, who use social media as a tool for building their (gender) identities. At the same time, as part of a juvenile digital culture they share with their audiences, influencers, and more specifically YouTubers, they act as role models in this process. While YouTube and other social media continue to reproduce the post-feminist sensibility, recent studies indicate that it also embraces manifestations of popular feminism. This research focuses on two popular female Spanish YouTubers, Dulceida and Yellow Mellow, and its aim is to analyse how they build and represent their gender identity. Particular emphasis is put on the negotiation and/or integration of feminist precepts into those identities, in order to determine whether they contribute to the creation of new gender imaginaries. A qualitative methodology, which includes four models of analysis, is used to cover the representations from the audio-visual, socio-semiotic and textual aspects. The results show a certain ambivalence regarding gender, since popular feminism and queer theory coexist with postfeminism, and values such as diversity with the acritical acceptance of individualism.