Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of imitation as a key dimension of online DIY and participatory cultures on YouTube. The empirical point of departure is the viral stealth marketing YouTube video entitled ’Danish Mother Seeking’, produced by the official national tourist organisation (Visit Denmark), and selected extracts of the online responses to this video. Framed by the notion of participatory culture (Jenkins 2006; Burgess & Green 2009) and the concept of imitation (Tarde 1895/1903), we analyse how marketing initiatives buy into and borrow energy from engaged networked produsers, but also how these produsers can criticise marketing initiatives by ’re-imitating’ them. Following this, we argue that the case represents an interesting and fascinating example of consumer re-sistance and bottom-up voices insisting on being heard, rather than a simple example of the breakdown of a brand strategy. Looking at the response videos they furthermore reveal that imitation can be a rather ambiguous social strategy as it is used both to transfer energy from the imitated object and to deconstruct it. As part of this argument we replace the classical concept of ’mimicry’ (Bhabha 1994) with the notion of ’ambiguous imitation’ to be able to describe online imitation as both an act of critical voicing and energy transmission.
Highlights
The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of imitation as a key dimension of online DIY and participatory cultures on YouTube
Framed within theories of participatory and DIY culture (Jenkins 2006; Knobel & Lankshear 2010; Gauntlett 2011) and drawing on the notion of imitation (Tarde 1895/1903) as a way of participating and engaging in media culture, we argue that the video responses simultaneously borrow energy from and deconstruct the initial video
The case demonstrates a process of power conversion, in which a stealth marketing initiative is assigned to the different agendas of a social community, transforming the advertised message into cultural material for constructing new user-generated narratives
Summary
‘Hi. My name is Karen and I’m from Denmark. And this here is my baby boy; his name is August. Our analytical approach is based on textual analyses of the videos and is inspired by the discourse theoretical work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (Laclau 1996; Laclau & Mouffe 2001) This implies focusing on the media space of YouTube as a platform of various and contesting articulations trying to fix the meaning and interpretation of a certain social phenomenon (e.g. a branded message such as the Visit Denmark initiative). Following Couldry it can be argued that imitating something socially significant (like the ‘Danish Mother Seeking’ video) increases the possibility of a citizen’s voice being heard on social media platforms Seen from this perspective, imitation is a strategy that can be used to become more visible and less likely to disappear among all the other voices. It is simultaneously what the response videos are doing by creating a complex swarm of imitators using the ‘Danish Mother Seeking’ video as an opportunity to criticise, entertain, relate to others and/or to express yourself
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