If you don’t know who Jenna Marbles is then you’ve probably been living under a rock or you’re over thirty…
Anyway if you are still scratching your head please click on this link.
Jenna is frickin’ hilarious and she posts a video every weds. The reason I am bringing her up, besides the fact that she is one of my idols, is that I recently wrote a sociology paper about her. In fact, Jenna Marbles is a bit of sociologist herself. She comments on gender stereotypes and celebrity culture all the time.
Here is a bit of my paper:
“My freshman roommate introduced Jenna Marbles to me and I quickly found a whole following of college students, mostly girls, who frequently watched her videos. Jenna Mourey is 26 years old and often jokes about her current job status, as a go- go dancer (when she first started making videos) and laments on her seemingly unnecessary master’s degree in psychology. All of these facts are situations that women around this age group can relate to. Additionally, Jenna is a great entertainer and both says and does many funny things that appeal to younger women who look up to her as a sort of role model.
Like many YouTube videos, some of Jenna’s “likes” or subscriptions can be attributed to the fact that she is very attractive. One video in particular features a still of Jenna in a bathing suit with the title, “What I Would Have Done in Cancun”. This video has over 24 million views and the top rated comment is “she stops talking at 2:20”. While Jenna is in very good shape, her videos are not about showing off. In fact, many of her videos take the opposite approach such as, “How to Trick People into Thinking That You Are Good Looking”. Jenna starts the video with no make- up on and then starts to outline all of the steps to achieve the “hot girl disguise”, saying things like: “If you are an ugly m*- f****er like me then… now remember that because you were born ugly you are probably pretty weird so try not embarrass yourself in public by doing this *Jenna starts to do ‘weird’ moves*”. Jenna’s witty self- depreciation is not said in a “woe-is-me” tone however, but in what can best be described as the signature Jenna Marbles’ sarcastic-silly-tone.
It is hard to pick the best example of why I consider Jenna Marbles “great” because she has so many incredible videos. Because of this reason and a few others I decided to pick the most recent Jenna Marbles video that I watched, “Draw My Life”, which was published March 28th 2013. This video is unlike any of Jenna’s previous videos because her face isn’t shown at all. The video features drawings on a whiteboard with a voice over from Jenna. In this video Jenna recounts her whole life up until this point. She shares all of her ups and downs and everything in between.
I chose this video because it shows how “real” Jenna is and the fact that she truly draws inspiration from her life to create these videos. Moreover, even when she is describing her lowest moments she can manage to include a “Jenna style joke” to make her audience laugh. It is great that Jenna can get the message out that nothing is easy. From the outside Jenna seems to have the perfect life, getting paid to just record herself creating videos, but she reminds viewers in this clip that she is still human and bad stuff like break-ups still happen to “YouTube stars”.
Additionally, creating weekly recordings of yourself from your home can be a lonely profession. In the description box below the video, Jenna makes light of the sad undercurrent of the video writing, “This video accidentally turned out kind of sad, ME SO SOWWY IT NOT POSED TO BE SAD WHO WANTS HUGS AND COOKIES?”. Jenna has an optimistic approach to life that makes people want to keep watching her show and I think that this clip is a great example of that.
Consuming this form of culture provides people with a form of connection. Jenna Marbles follows the standard “YouTube Partner” scheme of posting weekly videos and appearing at conferences around the world. Her videos, while covering many different topics, often follow a well- known trope in “typical” Jenna Marbles’ style. Jenna usually talks in a goofy voice and covers stereotype tropes or parody tropes by dressing up as different people and addressing the humor in these topics. In the video “Things Guys Lie About” Jenna wears a hat and draws a mustache and goatee on her face and in the video “What Nikki Wants in a Man” Jenna wears a wig and makes herself look more tan. Sometimes Jenna makes music videos or skits like “Landshark” and “I hate being a grown up” where she uses the caption humor trope as most of the captions are unrelated to the words being rapped. Other times Jenna creates ranting videos like “what bitches wear at the airport” or “people that piss me off at the gym”. In these videos she goes into beserk mode and follows a similar rant style to get everything off her chest.
Jenna’s videos usually address an aspect of culture that people can relate to whether it is the ridiculousness of celebrities or poking fun at traditional gender roles. People find this content funny or can relate it to someone else and pass along the clip. Jenna Marbles puts everything from her life woes, such as bad jobs or break-ups, along with her life triumphs in her webisodes. Jenna is very close with her fans because she knows that with out them she would have never become a YouTube partner and she depends on them to keep watching her show to support her career. ”
- My Big Lesbian Crush on Jenna Marbles… (mystraightjacketsbedazzled.wordpress.com)
- YouTube Celebrity Jenna Marbles (trendsetterfashionista.wordpress.com)
- Draw Your Life (tobeauthentic.com)
- What Are This? by Jenna Marbles (mymahoganybooks.wordpress.com)
iloveclair 