YouTube and bereavement vlogging: Emotional exchange between strangers

Abstract

Through a qualitative study of YouTube bereavement vlogs and posts by young people about parental death, this article examines the rise and significance of intimate mourning between strangers. An unexpected finding of this research has been the speed with which young people create vlogs or post messages of their bereavement; very often within hours of a death. The question of time in relation to bereavement grief is thus a feature of this article’s analysis. The article argues that YouTube, like other social media, exposes and contests the disenfranchising of grief in offline social settings and relationships while, at the same time, enfranchising disaffected and excluded bereavement discourse via media sociality. It also argues, conversely, that YouTube, like other social media, is now a primary social space (not secondary or supplementary); it provides the where and how and who to connect with regarding personal grief and bereavement.