Childhood re-edits: challenging norms and forming lay professional competence on YouTube

Abstract

This article presents the initial findings of research into how YouTube culture can become an arena for young YouTube videographers to remodel mainstream, sub-cultural, and media content (YouTube clips, music, film content, and viral memes). We juxtapose analyses from both media and child studies to look at the ways in which preferred images and notions of the “good” and idyllic childhood are re-edited into a possible critique of the prescribed Swedish childhood. Also, we look at ways in which these media-literate actors use YouTube to display their skills in both media editing and social media “savvy.” We discuss how “lay” professional competence in digital culture can be inherent in a friction between popular (children's) culture and social media production, where simultaneous prowess in both is important for how a mediatised social and cultural critique can emerge.