Vlogging on YouTube as Self- Presentation of Everyday life: A Dutch- Turkish YouTube

Vlog Channel “Gurbetçi Aile”

ABSTRACT

The Internet has had a crucial impact on our communication in our everyday life. It has

been changing the way how the individuals interact socially. With the new technological

developments and websites also new types of social interactions emerged. YouTube provides us

with a perfect example of examining how social interaction mediated by technology. As the

slogan of YouTube “broadcast yourself”, distribution of video online is becoming easier than

ever. With the advancement of video- hosting sites like YouTube now, people have the ability to

easy access and create visual content according to their interest. This study will be present an

examination of user-produced content focusing on personal video blogs (vlogs). Vlogs are video-

based contents which producers share stories, present their everyday life, giving information

about themselves. Nowadays, people prefer to vlog rather than blog, text-based storytelling. The

number of vloggers on YouTube is increasing rapidly day by day. Vloggers are creating daily

videos and they present their daily life from morning to night such as shopping, going to the

cinema, meeting with friends etc. What is also important for vlog, vloggers are the producer,

editor, and star of their content. In short, vlogs are self-created videos. In this paper, I will

examine as Turkish- Dutch family YouTube channel who presenting their everyday life

approaching of foreigner experiences in a foreign country. This study seeks to understand the

vlogs of Gurbetçi Aile1 combine with approach of Goffman’s self-presentation theory.

Key Words: Vlog, Vloggers, YouTube, Erving Goffman, Self-Presentation, Gurbetçi Aile

INTRODUCTION
1
https://www.youtube.com/user/GURBETCIAILE
 In today’s communication environment, vlogs are becoming more valuable because they

are the new form of self -expression and tell us about our everyday life. It seems predictable

when the popularity of visual media was increased, blogs were replaced with vlogs. The Internet

is a new vehicle for very human and basic activities — communication and expression. With the

advancement of “produsage2” media like blogs, individuals are “continually co-creating” their

identities (Griffith & Papacharissi, 2010).

Free video hosting websites such as YouTube and Instagram support interest of creating

and sharing vlogs. The rhythm of language and communication styles are important in the

culture of vlogging. In this paper, I will combine the idea of vlogging experiences of Gurbetçi

Aile with seminal work of Goffman [CITATION Erv59 \n \t \l 1033 ] “Self-Presentation of

Everyday Life”.

Goffman [CITATION Erv59 \n \t \l 1033 ], in his work he argued that individuals present

themselves differently in different social situations. He suggests that people when interacting

with each other they are “on stage”, that means they present their performance to the audience

and yet there is a “back stage” where people cease to perform. While “on stage” is a place of

your social skills, “back stage” is where true self of individual revealed because there is no

audience.

Vlog are can be treated as the stage where the multimedia performances take place. I will

examine a YouTube channel’s content of vlogs of Gurbetçi Aile3 to understand how the family

presents themselves/ their everyday life via vlogs.

2
Produsage is the type of user-led content creation that takes place in a variety of online environments, open soft
software and the blogosphere.
3
https://www.youtube.com/user/GURBETCIAILE
Erving Goffman’s Theory: On Self- Presentation

When analyzing the technology-mediated social interactions, Erving Goffman’s

dramaturgical theory can be involved. He provides a framework for examining social

interactions in everyday life. He believes that the world is like a stage. He understands social

interaction as if it were a play performed on stage for the audience. Humans are active and

knowledgeable beings. They perform roles to each other. According to their performances, they

devise their conduct. People want to guide and control how other people see them that means

people always concern about their presentation. They also need to carefully control the

information others receive about them, in a process called “impression management”. This

dramaturgical concept is using to interpret performed roles and examining the individual’s role

during the interaction. According to dramaturgical analysis, people’s social interactions are

where your statuses, roles and all of your expectation that they entail, come together for people

to give, literally, the performance of your life. He defines the “performance” as the actor

(individuals) performs a given role for the benefit of the audience. He divided into two-part

“front stage” and “back stage”.

In his book “Presentation of Self in Everyday Life”, Erving Goffman argues that human

identity construction through borrowing some notions from dramaturgy. He analyses how people

interact and perform using theater to show the behavior of individuals conceptualizing with

“front stage” and “back stage”. According to Goffman, when people interacting, they become

“actor(s)”. In front stage, individuals are conscious being observed from other (audiences) and

so, individuals perform according to rules and social conventions. He thinks that people act

differently in a social setting around the other people than they do when they are alone. In the

front stage, people are using the tool of impression management. They try to put their best
character out there for meeting the expectations of the audiences. However, when people return

to back stage performances are not necessary. They are no longer required to be in that social

environment. Back stage is like closed and hidden places for individuals. Individuals cease their

performance, it is the only form individuals perform as who they are. They practice how to be

social in this environment in the back stage. People usually behave in a manner that they are

comfortable with.

The self- presentation which emerges from when individuals perform on the front stage.

Performances are as self-presentation which provide new identities. One of the key arguments is

that individuals have both expressions that they give and that they give off [ CITATION Bul13 \l

1033 ]. In face-to-face interaction, Goffman uses a metaphor such as a mask. In his framework,

the self is merely a mask of self which individual chooses to wear in a given situation. With

these masks, individuals adopt multiple roles and identities in everyday life. (Goffman, 1990).

Online environments such as social media, websites, applications are providing their

users perform and present themselves. Avatar or profiles can be seen as a form of a mask in the

social media environment. Profiles demonstrate identity, role or interest of users to audience.

Online environments such as YouTube could be seen as the front stage and the offline life as the

back stage. Vlogger can create different personalities when they are broadcasting. Their

behaviors can change, vary according to their subscribers’ expectations.

A New Type of Tool for Self- Presentation : Vlogging

The word of “vlog” derives from video blog or video log, and it refers to the type of blog

which most of its content is video based form. Vlogs contents are mostly related to the person’s

life who create the vlog post.

Vlogs have became one of the most popular digital video content among the YouTube users.

Vloggers who are candidly captured, edit and share their lives regularly. Vlogging is a daily or

weekly practice of capturing and sharing vlog characteristically featuring a vlogger shooting

themselves at arm’s length throughout their everyday activities [ CITATION Sus18 \l 1033 ].

The term of the vlog is also used by video streamers, they call and advertise themselves

as vloggers. Vloggers are using websites such as YouTube and Facebook for posting their vlogs.

Vlogging is like the mix of blogging and streaming video. Most of the vlogs are created, edited,

made by vloggers. Vlogs are self- created videos that make them easier to shoot and share.

Vlogs had pronounced increase in popularity around 2004. From 2004 to today, vlogs

became the most popular type of video content on YouTube. With the technological

developments such as smartphones, easy portable video cameras etc. make easier to recording

vlogs. All the developments take the format a step further by carrying a camera around and

filming their life experiences on the go. Smartphones helped a lot set the stage for vlogging.

In real life in interaction, we are adjusting our behaviors according to others. However, in

vlogging, it is not as possible as like in normal life communication. Vloggers cannot predict

every individual reaction, they can only make some guesses from comments and reactions of

videos according to their subscriber’s profile.

Vlogs are the place of where vloggers have the opportunity to introduce themselves to

their audience. It can be seen one- way communication, but with the interactions of comments

are developing. Vloggers can decide their content, their vlog- style according to audiences’

comments.
 Vlogging is becoming as a form of interactive communication platform. Vlogging is

more than just the creating and posting videos, it is also considering social activity among the

vloggers[ CITATION Har09 \l 1033 ]. Lange [CITATION Lan07 \n \t \l 1033 ], examined vlogging on

mainstream site such as YouTube, to determine whether users use it to maintain the social

relationship through video. Vlogging also becomes a big business, creators make deals,

sponsorships with big companies. It seems like a serious full time job that people can make

money on it.

Vloggers share their lives daily through means of self-presentation. They create and

recreate their self-presentation in an online platform. That means also they shape new and rich

cyberspace for the living. He also suggests that vlogging is a form of social communication,

which performs the function of maintaining connection physically distanced friends and family.

A Presentation of Being Diaspora on YouTube: GURBETÇİ AİLE

“Gurbetçi Aile” is a YouTube channel that currently has 211.894 subscribers.4 In Turkish

“Gurbetçi” means that “the one who lives or working far away from homeland”. I will use word

of “diaspora” instead of “gurbetçi”. Gurbetçi Aile (Diaspora Family) is a family who lives in the

Netherlands. They constantly share their everyday life with the concept of being far from

Turkey, their homeland. Their main concepts are “How to live in the Netherlands, how is to raise

children in a foreign country, what they do in their daily life? etc.”. In the description of the

YouTube channel, they describe their content:

“Welcome to the Gurbetci Aile YouTube channel. This channel is the diary of a mother.

We live in the Netherlands, I was born in the Netherlands, my husband came after getting

4
https://www.youtube.com/user/GURBETCIAILE
married, we have two beautiful children. I hope that our joy of life and our positive energy will

be in you. In our channel, we share our daily life, children's development, our funny moments

with our daily adventures in a fun way and with high energy. In addition, recipes, make-up

videos, shopping videos. In short, I share our everyday life. Join our growing family every day!

Subscribe!”.

In this family, there four people. two of them are parents and they have a son and a

daughter. Vlogs are generally taken and edited by mother of the family, Tuğba. She shares vlogs

on their YouTube channel daily. Everyday 5 p.m. in Turkey time a new vlog is broadcasted.

Since 2013, they have been sharing vlogs about their daily lives in the channel. When they

started to do vlogging for collecting their daily memory and except their family nobody did not

watch their videos. After day by day they gave gained popularity. Vlogs are enumerated by

themselves. Most of the length of the videos are approximately between twenty and thirty

minutes. A sequence opening is seen for introducing the family name by name with the picture

when vlogs are starting. When we look at their most viewed videos contents, we can see they are

all about how it is being diaspora as a family.

In one of her interview5 with Funda Erkoç she mentioned about their content and their

presentation:

“It is not a channel which includes recipes, do it yourself videos or how to put night

make-up, it is a channel which audiences are watching an ordinary mother take her baby on her

back and sweep her house. They watch my shopping, cooking etc. My husband works to much, I

was a new mother when I started to shoot my vlogs. I’ve just begun to fix my loneliness with

these vlogs. This is the story of our family and I share it with the whole world.”

5
https://medyaextra.com/haber-hollanda-da-bir-gurbetci-aile-11079.html
 I selected 3 videos from the most viewed in their YouTube channel. The first vlog “

Home Tour and Daily Life” is about their home tour and their daily life.6 The vlog was

broadcasted in 2015. In the video, Tuğba she wandered their home and showed the audience how

it looks like and she was explaining what they are doing in their everyday life at home with their

kids. In the video, she tries to show and explain how they live their house, what are their daily

habits in the house. All the topics such as how they eat, how their children sleep or how children

play etc. included topics in the vlog.

The second video “Wedding in the Netherlands” which is about Turkish marriage rituals

in the Netherlands as a diaspora.7 In the video, Tuğba’s sister was getting married and video tries

to capture all the process of the wedding from morning to night. She was shooting from before

wedding preparation such as hair salon and a ritual which called is in Turkish “gelin çıkarma”.

During the wedding, she was recording though, and she was showing how Turkish rituals are

performing in the Netherlands whether they were not in Turkey. After the wedding she was

cuddling her sister and crying. That means she uses YouTube vlogging present herself, her daily

life, her emotions, her thoughts.

The third video is “ I am going to birth, times is passing of” which is about her labor and

her birth experiences and after delivery how she felt. In this video she put video clips of her older

daughter from birth to her four-year-old. Tuğba brought together all of the memories with her

daughter. Also, she has another birth vlog8 too for their son. She made vlog about his son from

birth to his 2 years old.

6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ_7qoOyPWA
7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqD4I-_V620
8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbK9WbH1_Aw
 Engaging Gurbetçi Aile’s YouTube channel with Erving Goffman Self- Presentation

theory it can be seen these vlogs are presented their daily family experiences. They show the

audience how a foreign family lives in a foreign country that means they built a idendtity of

being diaspora in the Netherlands. On the vlogs according to Goffman theory they also on stage

too. They are behaving “a happy family without any debate or fight “also they meet the

expectations of their audience. They give a information about being, living in foreign country.

They share lots of daily experiences such as shopping, traveling, cooking, cleaning, neighboring

so on.

When they vlogging they are also interacting to people (audience or subscribers). They

are vlogging according to subscriber’s wishes. They are behaving in a way how people want to

see them. For example, even their language is shaping according to audiences. Tuğba and her

husband speak Dutch with their children during the vlogs, but it was criticized by audiences in

the comments about why they are speaking Dutch with their children when nobody understands

them, and people commented about they should speak Turkish with their children9. After that,

they tried to speak Turkish as much as they could or added subtitles.

They use vlogging as a diary and an instrument of presentation of their daily life. They

built an identity which is being diaspora in the Netherlands. They are performing according to

their role for example, Tuğba as a mother, she is performing her mothering roles according to

audiences such as taking care of her kids, cooking, sweeping the floor, being a good wife to her

husband. For instance, in a vlog she mentioned about some of the comments about how she feels

distance to her husband, and she was responding the comments. 10 Her husband is performing as

9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8b0dGZIUvU
10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jsIi7W45Wk
how subscribers’ expectations. They have been playing their social roles in front of the camera

while during the vlogging process.

She spoke about how much she shares part of their family life and how they interacting to

their subscribers in the interview11:

“Even though it seems we share a lot of moment, we keep the rest of it special for us, I

put 24 hours in just 20 minutes. We can say that it is a very nice feeling when we decided to what

we publish. As people says, happiness multiplies, and I really believe that. In the last 4 years we

have had good times, but we have had a lot of hard times and my viewers have been very

supportive to me. I'm sure without them I've already given up.”

When the camera turns off, Goffman’s theoretical notion, back stage, is coming out. It is

impossible to know how they behave while they do not vlogging.

As a summary of their channel from Goffman’s dramaturgical approach, they have being

performing in front of the camera while vlogging according to their identity as diaspora family,

their social roles as a good, responsible parents and lovely and respectful spouses to each other.

They are performing on the stage (in the vlog) according to social norms which are defined by

society. Because of they are half Dutch half Turkish family their social norms are seem different

for their audience. As long as they will be on the stage, they also be the part of interaction with

society.

11
https://medyaextra.com/haber-hollanda-da-bir-gurbetci-aile-11079.html
CONCLUSION

Vlogging as a new instrument for self-presentation, they support self- presentation in

multiple ways. Self-presentation occurs when people interacting, people present themselves in a

specific way according to their desired impressions. Most of the vloggers are present themselves

with making videos and creating contents like a personal diary. They are vlogging to express and

reflect themselves for collecting memories and having experiences with video-based technology.

Audiences believe that most of the vloggers are not intimate because their videos are highly

controlled self- presentation.

Gurbetçi Aile’s YouTube channel is a good example of how individuals present

themselves with their identity, roles, thoughts, and lifestyles using vlogs as a tool. Video

blogging becomes a video-based diary which shares with audiences. They share their self-

presentation on stage with the vlogging activity to the public. There are no big differences when

individuals present themselves online or with face-to-face interacting. Individuals always on

stage when they are present their self to another it does not important how they present or what

sort of instruments that they use for presenting. With the opportunity of technological

developments, which the Internet is the most important one, it is very normal, presentation of self

is changed than used to.

Bibliography

Bullingham, L., & Vasconcelos, A. C. (2013). "The presentation of self in the online world":
Goffman and the study of online identities. Journal of Information Science, 101-112.
Erkoç, F. (2018, May 2). Hollanda'da Bir Gurbetçi Aile. Retrieved from medyaextra.com :
https://medyaextra.com/haber-hollanda-da-bir-gurbetci-aile-11079.html
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York : Anchor Books.
Gunelius, S. (2018, December 17 ). What Is a Vlog? Retrieved from www.lifewire.com:
https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-vlog-3476285
Haridakis, P., & Hanson, G. (2009). Social Interaction and Co-Viewing With YouTube:
Blending Mass Communication Reception and Social Connection. Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 317-335.
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube.
Journal of Computer- Mediated Communication.