Practically, everyone knows—meaning, an awesomely significant number of people—what a vlog is. Video log or video blog, a vlog is a form of blog, with video accompanied by music, text and other metadata.
Clusters of them have been “monetized,” which marks them as earning something for the vlogger.
I never took seriously the monetization of vlogs until I came across data about top 10 vloggers in the world. Online is available the lists of top bloggers earning millions already. In one list, the top blogger, named Moz, is reportedly earning $41.3 million per year.
Forbes has an article, titled “Highest-Paid YouTube Stars of 2020.” In this report is identified the top-earner—a nine-year old boy who became uber-popular with his video showing him “unboxing” toys from their packages and providing a running review of each of them.
There is no end to how much a vlogger can earn. One does not need to be a global celebrity or a nationally recognized name. For months now, I have been following up on this vlogger named Brenda Madge. He is a TV comedian who does not hide his past and, in fact, capitalizes on the simplicity of that life, which he now complicates through narratives that relentlessly defy logic. In one of his earlier vlogs, he is shown distributing income to his friends who have become his associates and have provided variety to his presentations. The more interesting angle to this is Brenda—if you still do not realize it, he prides in being “brain-damaged”, by alias at least—parlays the opportunity to friends to vlog. He, in other words, have helped his friends by providing them with a unique source of livelihood even in these days of lockdowns and isolations.
While I do not propose “vlogs” to be regulated in the same way that I do not agree porn should be removed online, despite or maybe because of preposterously inane proposal from a Philippine senator, it is imperative to view and be critical of these online images and data. Their presence should alert communications educators given how the technologies of the Internet and its concomitant practice, like vlogging, render irrelevant any traditional and established form of mass media.
My particular interest is viewing vlogs as social artefacts. What kind of vlogs do we produce in this country? Who views them? What are the more popular themes and subject matter that attract vloggers?
Given their preponderance and the money these vlogs earn, they must have audiences to sustain their virtual shelf life. From vlogs which, from a thinking viewer’s perspective, are crude, insane, vulgar introspections on daily life to self-conscious recording of an individual’s evolution as a character and whatever-response to the world around, the vlogging phenomenon is not about indulging us but enabling other people to indulge in their personal fantasies, self-inflicted phantasms, and financially rewarding psychosis.
Not all is dismal in the world of vlogging. There is the more engrossing travel vlog, which really threatens any dream of a travel writer. Travel vlogs abound online and they are more entertaining than the usual travel writing, which, by tradition, puts the writer/narrator at the center. Rich in images and possessing an immediacy one cannot find in regular travel essays, travel vlogs bring the reader/viewer to the place being experienced by the vlogger. The heavy visualization, a given in travel vlogs, puts the audience on a ship, in the plane up in the sky, or within a rushing train. More visceral than virtual, travel vlogs are here to displace tourist brochures and orientation.
Travel vlogs, however, are not created equal. Having been preoccupied for several weeks viewing travel vlogs, I am able to create categories delineating the presence of the narrator in this new business. Their types are: (a) the omnipresent/omniscient narrator; (b) the mediating tour guide; and (c) the assured/assuring facilitator.
The first, the all-knowing kind, is a holdover of the ancient documentaries. Over-annotated, the material here anticipates every move, doubt and query of the “traveler” and robs anyone of the magic of discovery. Pedantic, this guide does not believe in the evil of sensory overload. He also appears to enjoy himself more than the traveler he is with.
The guide who mediates knows when to stop. He has data and directions, but he keeps them to the minimum. The bits and pieces of trivia and significant materials are carefully curated. Good editing is his competitive advantage. He respects the unique ability of the traveler to find joy in his own way.
The facilitating kind is almost absent in the vlog. He prefers to embed text instead of voice. The Japanese travel vloggers belong to this category. In tony night trains or supremely hygienic buses, the vlogger allows the place—the tunnels, the mountain views, the sceneries—to speak for themselves.
Fascinated by canal cruises, I have two favorite travel vloggers. They are a couple: Timothy West and Prunella Scales. Stage and film actors both, they are known now for their Great Canal Journeys, which aired from 2014 to 2020 on Channel 4 of the UK. They use canal barge and so-called “narrow boats” to travel the breadth of the man-made canals in the UK and the Netherlands.
Articulate and with genial screen presence, they are never boring. And yet despite what their admirers expect them to do, which is to annotate, West and Scales never attempt to overwhelm the landscape that unfolds in their journey. A strong personal reference crops up every now and then, and this is the onset of Alzheimer’s in the wife. As West, the husband, puts it, however, what memory is needed in enjoying the amazing network of canals and locks and flood gates?
With regard to our country’s vloggers, please do not ask me what themes preoccupy them, and earn them lots of moolah.