The art of attracting attention: a process model of chinese toubu vloggers’ strategies to create online identities and self-brands

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 2018, toubu vloggers – a term that refers to the vloggers who earn the majority of traffic and attention through vlogging their daily lives on Chinese social media – remain a limited quantity in the emerging and rapidly growing Chinese vlogging market. This article aims to explore the performative identity strategies developed by Chinese toubu vloggers to attract attention and stand out from the multitude of vloggers on social media platforms. A case study was conducted with a qualitative content analysis of 73 vlog posts published on the user-generated video platform Bilibili from May 2017 to August 2019, by four Chinese toubu vloggers: Nihaozhuzi, Jyhachi, Cbvivi and Mashasha. This study revealed four personae constructing strategies applied by toubu vloggers to grow and retain their online audience, including anti-standardised originality, negative affect authenticity, ungraspable intimacy and frank commodification. Further, the study offers an explanation of how these strategies contributed to their success by defying the highly standardised and institutionalised Chinese wanghong industry that is characterised by perfection of self-presentation and blurred commodification. These strategies illustrate the agentic and subversive potential that vlogging practices can hold in a highly hermetic cultural environment.