JUMP CUT
A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA

copyright 2008, Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media
Jump Cut, No. 50, spring 2008

Queer performance, youth and YouTube

by Ron Gregg

“The ‘magic’ of the Internet is that it is a technology that puts cultural acts, symbolizations in all forms, in the hands of all participants; it radically decentralizes the positions of speech, publishing, filmmaking, radio and television broadcasting, in short the apparatuses of cultural production.” — Mark Poster

"In the evolution of the individual, there is a moment in which rationality gives way to visionary impulse, when the logic of our actions gives way to an extreme desire for freedom, a desire destined to be swallowed up by the infinite rules of the social game." — Francesco Bonami

In this paper, I analyze videos produced and performed by youth on the video sharing website YouTube which feature queer performance, particularly cross-dressing and/or same sex eroticism. I began this study before Oct. 2006, when Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube.com. What drew my attention was the incredible freedom expressed in the youth’s uninhibited and very public performances. Like many queer youth of my generation in the 1960s, I lip synced popular tunes myself, often adopting the cross-gender persona of Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, one of my divas, sometimes even engaging in a bit of cross-dressing to inhabit that persona. But I kept such performances in the private space of the bedroom. Also like most of my peers, we never discussed it outside of that bedroom.

The web has changed this by encouraging youth to make private performances public. YouTube offers adolescents what Francesco Bonami calls a “moment in which rationality gives way to visionary impulse, when the logic of our actions gives way to an extreme desire for freedom, a desire destined to be swallowed up by the infinite rules of the social game.” I wondered when I started this project, if it was possible that this destiny might change for these young producers recording and uploading their “impulses” to this virtual public sphere and connecting with a large network of vocal, like-minded friends. Would these young performers find themselves less “swallowed” up by and change the rules when they enter the adult world? Or would the corporate and moral authorities successfully discipline such youth and reassert their “rules” in this public space?

Without a doubt, the media attention that made YouTube a cultural phenomenon, the Google purchase, and the increasing clash of different ideological forces have changed YouTube. Many of the videos that I looked at more than a year ago are no longer available. There are any number of possible reasons for these changes: the producers boredom and withdrawal from YouTube; after seeing what their teenagers have uploaded and shared with the world, parents ordering them to remove the videos from YouTube; or maturity—they grow out of their YouTube videos with new interests and more freedom outside of the home. Others may have been scared by denigrating, anti-queer responses to their videos or by sexually suggestive come-ons by older viewers and exited the YouTube community in response. In some cases, the producers have shifted their videos from a public site to a private site, only available to those granted permission.

A few producers had their “user accounts suspended,” clearly for video content that was flagged as inappropriate or used copyrighted material. These suspensions suggest that Goggle increased the surveillance and removal of erotic and copyrighted material. But Google does not want to repress the creative and invigorating youthful energy that has helped to make YouTube the phenomenal success that it is. Thus, YouTube negotiates between youthful energy and conservative corporate and moral interests and continues to be a major site for adolescent queer speak and culture. Although some videos have disappeared, they have been replaced by an even greater number of new ones. They are also no longer just from the United States; YouTube is creating a transnational virtual community.

Since its founding in 2005, one of the most astonishing things about YouTube — and one of the ways it most fulfills Poster’s hope that the web will provide a forum to those usually excluded from cultural production — is that, at least, in its pre-Google days, evidence suggests that 12-17 year olds were YouTube’s primary producers and consumers. YouTube has provided amateur filmmakers and performers a virtual space where they can easily upload videos they have produced themselves and which they and/or their friends perform, making them available to a larger virtual community.

Many adolescents find that the sharing, response, and linking nature of YouTube builds a supportive community for their art and/or behavior. After sharing a self-produced video with the YouTube community, the young producer receives responses and ratings from viewers, which sometimes leads to discussions about the video’s aesthetics and content. Out of these discussions, small communities of like-minded “friends” connect and pass on video favorites between themselves, the larger YouTube community through their personal YouTube webpages, and to other linking sites. Each video’s webpage indicates how often the video has been viewed, lists comments by viewers, and links the viewer to other videos by the same producer as well as to her/his favorite videos by other producers.

MySpace, YouTube and other sites have created a vast and unprecedented public sphere where youth can express themselves and communicate with one another, including adolescents who challenge gender conventions and embrace queer identities. I mean queer in a broad sense. I am not calling these adolescents gay or making any predictions about their future sexual identities—but at this moment in their lives, they seem comfortable with queer performance. And their performances are read as queer by a part of the YouTube community, as evidenced by viewer comments. Some producers know and accept this and continue to turn out provocative videos. A few producer/performers directly challenge the more denigrating comments, calling these viewers homophobes or haters. Other producer/performers disavow such viewers’ responses by adding descriptions that state, “I am not gay.” Some move away from queer performance completely, suggesting that the recognition of normative labels shuts down their public queer play.

The genres of this youth-based queer video are varied. There are numerous original or not so original parodies, tributes to and montages inspired by queer films such as Brokeback Mountain, cable shows such as Queer as Folk, and media stars, such as Ellen Degenres and Rosie O’Donnell. However, my focus in this paper is specifically on queer performance associated with popular music and blogging.

In a vast number of self-produced videos, performers lip sync and dance to new and old music by Madonna, the Backstreet Boys, Shakira, Aqua and others. Drawing upon music that has a link to queer culture, they either imitate their favorites or re-conceive the song or dance, turning it into a campy parody, provocative performance, or more complicated critique. Many have no inhibitions about crossing gender in their performances.

In this paper, I have not named the performers in my primary examples or linked the reader to those videos which are still accessible, because many of them have received denigrating comments about their performances and their direct or implicit responses suggest that some were surprised or upset and do not want to be saddled with a queer label.

One of the most popular forms of queer performance is lip-syncing and dancing to pop songs with easy dance beats and sexually suggestive lyrics. One of the most popular pop groups to inspire this kind of queer interpretation is the Danish-Norwegian pop group Aqua, in particular their two songs Barbie Girl and Lollipop (Candy Man). For instance, in a self-produced 2006 video, one self-identified 17-year-old female producer performs to Aqua’s Lollipop. The song consists of male and female vocalists with stereotypical sexual roles and sexually suggestive lyrics—in a high, girlish voice, the female singer asks the “Candy Man” to be her lollipop, and in response, he invites her to “bouncy-land.” The female producer in this case uses a sped up version of Lollipop (“Alvin and the Chipmunks” style) and lip-syncs and performs both male and female roles in the song.

For the two genders, she creates unique characteristics through dance styles, facial expressions, and dress. She leaves her long hair loose and bouncy for the female role and pulls it back behind her ears, keeping it in check for the male. She wears a “Bimbo-esque” smile for the female and a tough-guy frown for the male. While wearing the same shirt and slacks for both characters, she lets the shirt hang loose and flop freely (like the hair) for the female and then ties the shirt in a frontal knot constraining it to again suggest a tough young male. (I would note that the hair and clothing seems more “butch” than male, but she identifies the two as male and female). She has also choreographed simple dance steps that suggest stereotypical female and male movements—bouncing, loose movements for the female and a barely moving body and tight-fisted hands suggest the male). She meticulously cuts back and forth between the two characters, matching female action and lip sync to Aqua’s female voice and the same for the male, and cuts between close-ups and medium long shots of her two characters. Although sexually tame, the video and her performance suggests a humorous, mocking take on the stereotypical gendering suggested by the song’s voices and lyrics, but also the performer’s enjoyment of the song as an inspiration for queer play.

This producer/performer’s video is still available and continues to receive very positive reviews—and since she has maintained the video on YouTube, she is clearly pleased with the video and enjoys engaging with her small, but growing audience. When I first took notes on this video in Spring 2007, the video had been seen nearly 4000 times, favored 16 times (and when I last checked the numbers had increased to over 6000 views, while favored 22). To give a sense of what these numbers mean, this is more viewers than the entire population of the small Missouri town that I was raised in, but much less than the over one million views for gay YouTube phenomenon Chris Crocker’s take on “What is ‘normal’?” [Click here to see video in new window]

Alternatively, in a more provocative 2006 video that is no longer available, a self-identified 15-year-old boy produced and performed to Aqua’s Barbie Girl. This song sets up a similar sexually suggestive conversation between its female and male vocalists; the female sings about being a “Barbie Girl,” who offers herself for “touch” and “play,” while the male asks this perfect, plastic female object to “go party.” With a stationary camera and a single long take and medium shot, the 15-year-old performs only the female role marking the character’s Barbie-ness through fake Jayne-Mansfield large breasts, tight T-shirt to enhance the roundness and largeness of the breasts, and makeup, particularly bright red circles on the checks to suggest a doll. His lip syncing perfectly matches the female voice in the song and constructs a consistent “Barbie Girl” character by putting on lipstick, erotically stroking his breasts and faux nipples, and smoothing his hair when the song mentions that you can brush “Barbie’s” hair. His “Barbie” consciously performs for the camera, often directly looking at the camera and sometimes leaning in, moving into close-up and smiling, thus teasing both the male character in the song and the YouTube viewer. He never breaks out of this character.

This distinguishes his performance from most adolescent male YouTube performances of the same and similar songs. The majority of adolescent cross-dressing performances are produced in pairs, with one male teen lip-syncing the female part and another male teen performing the male voice. As with the 15-year-old’s version, many of these duets play up the sexual innuendo of the song, although not teasing the YouTube viewer as the 15-year-old does in his more intimate, solo performance. In many of these duets, however, the “female” performer often finds a way to ensure that we know its only a performance, carefully marking his masculinity by either keeping on his everyday male-based clothing, not wearing makeup or disguising his male haircut, laughing and breaking in and out of character, or a combination of these and other ways to ensure the viewer that he is not sexually queer and only doing it for laughs. In their highly successful version of “Barbie Girl,’ with almost two million views, the male duo Syncsta directly solved the problem by writing in their video description, “P.S. WE ARE NOT GAY!” [Click here to see video in new window] At the same time, they appear to have appreciated and acknowledged their gay fans. (See the gay on-line magazine ohlala’s short article on Syncsta.

Like the female performer for Lollipop, this 15-year-old boy has clearly thought through his character’s look and mannerisms and practiced his performance. Unlike the male duos, he is uninhibited by his gender performance with no sign of visible discomfort or shame, staying in his doll like, hyper-female performance of the “Barbie Girl”/doll, and the last time I had checked, he didn’t seem to apologize for or agonize over his female impersonation. The performance seems sophisticated in making the viewer aware of the constructed-ness of the Barbie Girl/doll and her sexual availability in the song, but the singer also seems empowered by and enjoying the female role. At the time that I recorded my impression and the information attached to the video, while he hadn’t created as extensive a community as other adolescents, his network was still pretty impressive. He had over 350 subscribers and offered links to other adolescent sites, including sites in Germany and Zimbabwe. His particular video had been viewed almost 20,000 times and had been marked as favorite 99 times. In his descriptive tag for the video, he describes himself as a “weird” kid—never using gay, queer or drag.

However, this video also illustrates both the support that adolescents receive for their work and how queer performance might subject them to ridicule or a questioning of their sexuality. While many viewers praised his interpretation and performance, one viewer asked, “R U Gay?” I so not know how this might have affected this 15-year-old producer/performer except to note that I never read any response to this comment (although the adjective “weird” might have been his way of explaining). Nonetheless, his site is no longer listed on YouTube.

More than the performance of Barbie Girl, many adolescent producers engage in erotic dances, striptease, and sexually provocative performances. Often, these performances are directly influenced by pop performers associated with erotic dance videos, such as Fergie’s London Bridge and the work of Brittany Spears, Madonna, Ricky Martin, and Shakira. In these videos, young producers and performers enthusiastically move and shake their bodies without inhibition, provocatively dancing and posing, often suggesting sexual acts, much like the pop stars. Many turn it into a striptease, disrobing down to their underwear as the dance progresses. Some of these seem unconscious of the erotic implications, while others knowingly, boldly challenge YouTube’s “inappropriate” content standards (which includes a ban on obscene or pornographic material). Others have ignored YouTube’s standards altogether, disrobing completely and found themselves flagged as inappropriate and taken down. But for a brief moment, they entertain and prompt similar behavior from other adolescents, while “shocking” and drawing flags for “inappropriate” behavior from other YouTube viewers.

The hit dance and song The Macarena inspired a number of young producers and their friends to cut loose and dance for the YouTube community. One 2006 collaboration between two boys drew particular attention for its uninhibited, but seemingly innocent performance. This video also illustrates the problems that many of these adolescents encounter with their queer performances and sexually uninhibited dances.

With no edits and a stationary camera set up to record the boys in long shot, the two boys jump on a pool table and when the music kicks into high gear, rapidly pull off their T-shirts and begin to dance in all positions—facing each other, back to back, and in the spooning Macarena position. They often follow the formal Macarena dance steps, but just as often, exuberantly give themselves over to their own subjective interpretation of the dance. Less than a minute into the dance, they take off their pants and dance the rest of the dance in their boxer shorts. There are a few moments when it is clear that they have choreographed and practiced certain movements and interactions, but for the most part, they give themselves over to the pleasure of their bodies moving to the music without inhibitions. The two boys seem completely comfortable dancing, interacting and stripping down with each other —unlike many other videos where two male adolescents might step out of the performance and make a gesture that would telegraph their masculinity and heterosexuality. One aspect that makes this video stand out is the idea of a stage—performing on the pool table, again suggesting that this was not spontaneous play, but put together with an audience in mind.

In early 2007, the video had been viewed over 80,000 times and marked as a favorite by over 600 viewers. Judging from the comments and responses, this video drew a diverse audience (male and female viewers of different ages). These two encountered both a gay reading and the gaze of older viewers who read their performance as erotic striptease. One “male” viewer wrote:

“that was really hott. You should do a completely naked version ‘wink.’ Lol.”

However, the queer readings and inappropriate come-ons didn’t seem to bother them as much as other adolescents. In a later video, one of the two boys again dances to the Macarena in drag. However, like the video of Barbie Girl by the15-year-old, this video is no longer available. After being up for nearly a year, when I recently linked to the video through an old bookmark, I found that YouTube had removed it “due to terms of use violation.”

This type of performance illustrates the controversial nature of YouTube and similar sites. Some of these videos are appropriated and shared as erotica for adults. Making this type of performance even more difficult to control is the mix of youth and adult material on YouTube and the lack of truth in many biographical profiles, including age. However, as YouTube continues down the road to profit, these videos will more than likely appear less or those who make sexually suggestive comments will be flagged more often and kicked off. Not surprisingly, these encounters upset some young producers. As mentioned earlier, some producers remove or retool their work as a response to these encounters. However, a few directly respond either through a written response on the comment section or by producing a video blog that either denies that they are gay or alternatively confronts the adult voyeur or homophobe, telling her/him (the evidence points to mostly male) to leave them alone and stay away from their work.

For many late adolescents, as they begin to contemplate their gay sexuality, blogging becomes a popular genre where they directly address the webcam offering humorous and/or serious insights on their life, culture and even gay politics. Some young producers make the transition from lip-syncing and dancing to blogging; some blog, but continue to lip-sync and dance; and other young producers begin their YouTube career solely as bloggers. Most of these bloggers seem to be coming to terms with their gay or lesbian sexuality, articulating their interior feelings and struggles. Many of these gay bloggers develop a broad following either through their outspoken viewpoints on gay subjectivity and culture, their camp humor, or erotic performances (for example, see Chris Crocker and GayGod). Other young gay bloggers express very moving, personal experiences and feelings.

While many easily embrace gay desire, sexuality, and politics, others find that blogging allows them to express their frustrations and fears and receive advice and support from responders who often become web friends. For example, a self-identified 18-year-old man living in Ireland started to blog in 2006. Over a short time, he shifted from humorous comments on his life, dreams and dating to moving, painful coming out stories, developing an ever expanding transnational, YouTube community. For instance, in an early blog, he wryly pretended to live a double life with a wife and hidden affair with the family gardener. In the same blog, he offered to commit humiliating acts, if someone would help him escape from Ireland to Australia. However, in his later blogs, he turned to more serious matters, discussing his coming out process and the harsh response he received from his parents and the surrounding community. In one blog, he talks about growing up in a small Catholic community in Ireland, and feeling the conflict in his mid-teens between desiring men and being told by his community that these were abnormal feelings.

When he discovered the Internet, he explains that he saw it as a place where to be gay was not wrong, but the normal thing. However, after finding him on a gay website, his father forced him into therapy to cure him of his queer feelings. His blog is moving, self-reflexive and demonstrates the global importance of the web to his generation of gay and lesbian identified youth. As in the case of this Irish young man, gay youth possibly find confidence through blogging, particularly when they find a community that listens, responds and supports them through whatever is going on in their lives. And again, the conversation is global—this particular blogger has developed friends throughout the United Kingdom and from Australia, Canada, the United States, and other nations.

The Internet has been full of playful, experimental approaches to subjectivity and desire, including among youth who have discovered a larger community beyond their few friends who “play” in a private sphere — usually the bedroom — or those who discover that they are not completely isolated in their queer thoughts and actions. In addition, YouTube and other sites have given us a window into the queer play in the private spheres of a larger youth culture — it is incredible to see how the web has allowed this to surface into the public sphere and what many youth would do without supervision. And I suspect that there will still be room for queer youth and video blogging and the non-normative play of dance and lip syncing on YouTube. The millions of views that Chris Crocker and GayGod have received suggest as much.

But the drive for profit will lead to some of this material being flagged as inappropriate or a violation of copyright laws and being removed, as has happened with many of the videos that I studied. More likely, this material will be buried as it is on the larger web. Corporations and those YouTube celebrities who pull in advertising dollars will be featured and promoted and dominate home pages, sidebars, and searches. Many queer performances will change to appeal to a larger audience or almost disappear from view, buried by the more professional and commercially driven producers. As Time Magazine stated when it identified YouTube as the invention of the year 2006,

“With that kind of money behind it, YouTube has to start conducting itself with a little more legal and financial gravitas.”

Many YouTube producers have either submitted or moved on to other things. Others continue to submit, appear for a brief moment and disappear, if flagged for various reasons. However, a new generation of queer youth will work within the possibilities or find other sites. At this moment, I’m hopeful and think that there are other possibilities and it will be hard to force youth back to the privacy of their bedrooms. This might be changing subjectivity, allowing a more rebellious, queer spirit to flourish and continue into adulthood. And for those in more oppressive worlds, the web offers queer visions and community for dealing with abjection.

Works cited

Bonami, Francesco. “The Fourth Sex.” In The Fourth Sex: Adolescent Extremes. Florence: Charta, 2003: 11-12.

Grossman, Lev. “Time Magazine — Invention of the Year, YouTube.”
http://www.time.com/time/2006/techguide
/bestinventions/inventions/youtube.html, 2006.

Poster, Mark. “CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere.”
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/
mposter/writings/democ.html, 1995.