Since childhood, I’ve followed Bethany Mota’s rise to YouTube fame but also watched her internet presence fade over time. She started YouTube at 13, filming videos in her bedroom in 2009 as a creative outlet to cope with bullying. Her rise as a YouTuber was due to her relatable and authentic personality, as she spoke to the viewers themselves and employed a “participatory culture,” which kicked-start her success.

Her content mainly consisted of haul videos, showing her fashion and cosmetic purchases, and videos of vlogs, tutorials, makeup, outfits, and DIY. There is this sense of “amateurism” in YouTubers like Mota, who are often self-taught and not professional (Cunningham & Craig, 2019, pg. 69). In 2013, Mota went from non-commercial videos to launching a successful fashion line with Aéropostale, leveraging further opportunities off-platform. Her videos would garner approximately 3-15 million views per video, a huge milestone back then.

A big part of this career requires attention to algorithmic culture and acting upon it. Stuart Cunningham and David Craig argue that “creator labor is both empowered and precarious” (2019, pg. 85). Being successful on YouTube in 2017 became increasingly more difficult as they encountered obstacles placed by the platforms themselves, which shifted requirements for creators (102). Because of this, Mota began doing more collaborations, music videos and skits to fit the trends and algorithms in 2017. Sadly, her videos became more scripted and forced; thus, she lost an essential part of her brand: authenticity.

By 2019, her views and subscribers had started dropping, and she faced the “cascading effects” of YouTube’s technological innovations over time. She was unable to maintain consistency, visibility, authenticity, and relatability in the commercializing space, leading to her losing her target audience and struggling to grow it. This highlights that it becomes counterproductive to trade your true authenticity for views. Hence, proves a difficult shift for creators from the early days of YouTube to adapt and adjust to this new precarity of algorithms that are out of their control.

Written by Gladys Leger (33751421)

References
Cunningham, S., & Craig, D. (2019). Authenticity, community, and brand culture. In Social media entertainment: The new intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley (pp. 148-183).
Cunningham, S., & Craig, D. (2019). Creator labor. In Social media entertainment: The new intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley (pp. 65-114).
Mota, B. (n.d.). Bethany Mota YT channel. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/user/Macbarbie07