Underline
Jean Baudrillard suggested that “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” Evaluate the extent to which this postmodernist statement applies to Zoella and Attitude
Plan
HYPERREALITY - a representation of nothing, where the representation is more 'real' than the real!!
'more style than substance'
Zoella's 'mistakes' are left in. More real, more relatable. A hyperreal representation!
Zoella's picnic: intertextual references to Disney princes movies, wooden platters, glass bowls, professional, fake
Shop house, Zoella apartment:
Candles: commodity fetishism: focus on packaging
Sexless, virginal, innocent, pure, chaste, hegemonically 'perfect'...
Old tweets - "gay men spitting", "tramp" "are they honestly letting a tranny in a policeman hat...", "lesbo" - use of deeply offensive homophobic and transphobic slurs completely at odds with her cultivated and hyperreal representation
Simulacrum: a representation of something that doesn't exist
Extremely stereotypical and idealised representation of gay men on Attitude
Theatre tabs: a perfect, constructed representation of gay identity
'Boys' - sexualised, diminutive, condescending
Significant amount of actually straight models,presenting a voyeuristic and hyperreal fantasy to the gay audience
Escapism
Stuart halls's representation theory
Roland Barthes - proairetic, semiotic, symbolic, hermeneutic
Binary oppositions
Web 2.0: presents an easily accessible version of perfection
Zoella
- Content creation, vlogger, beauty and fashion vlogger, 12 million subscriber and over 1 billion views. Presents an outward appearance of a normal and relatable teenage girls. Starting her blog in 2009, she is long established. However, she is nearly 30. A hyperreal simulacrum of perfection for her adoring 13 year old female fanbase.
- Instagram: filters create a hyperreal symbolic representation of femininity.
- Zoella picnic: reinforces representative aspects and Zoella's character archetype
- Selling a personality, selling a lifestyle: M/S high angle, of hyperreal perfect picnic. Use of pastel colours encodes stereotypical notions of being 'female'. Eye is instantly drawn to branded pillow with big 'Z'. Entire hyperreal construction is absolutely without meaning, and exists only to make money off her vulnerable target audience.
- Zoe is accompanied by Poppy, the 'best friend' archetype, who presents an aspiration for teenage girls. High key, perfect natural lighting constructs a simulacrum of a perfect day.
- Bottom of article makes use of hypermodal nature of the internet by presenting the audience with a series of hyperlinks, giving the audience the illusion of choice
Cheers Erin for the below notes!
Attitude
- 'BOYS' stereotyped and idealised representation of gay men appearance. Diminutive and condescending term. Half the men on that tab are straight, presents a voyeuristic and hyperreal fantasy to the gay audience
- Theatre tab. Perfect, constructed, representation of gay identity
- Stuart Hall representation theory
- Roland Barthes - symbolic, proairetic, semiotic, hermeneutic
- Boys article - Tom Ellis 'Ass-ets'. Tom Ellis is straight. They took images from show Lucifer and represented them to show his body in a sexual light to appeal to gay men. Sexualised. Homosexual male gaze? Positions male audience in an escapist fantasy of voyeuristic pleasure.
- Gay men then aim to fit in so they can have access to a lot of gay specific media by living up to gay stereotypes.