@PrettyLuv - Thank you for sharing this video. I agree with the points the content creator is making and I think she has WAY more credibility in this topic than if a man or an older woman was saying the exact same thing.
I watch a lot of YouTube but I had never encountered this particular content creator before. I have no idea what her other videos are about (other than what she mentioned in this video) but to dismiss / discredit her points in this video based on other topics she may have discussed in other videos is a perfect example of the logical fallacy known as an “ad hominem attack”.
I see ad hominem attacks frequently in the videos I watch. One person will say, “I agree with Presidential candidate X because of their well thought out position on issue Y”. The next person rolls their eyes and says, how can you take candidate X serious because (pick one: they cheated on their wife, used to do drugs, or their own family doesn’t even support them, etc.) - As though any of that delegitimizes their position on issue Y.
Again, this is the only video I have seen from this creator so I cannot speak to the rest of her channel but I did not see anything in this video that even hinted to me that she was trying to attract a “male gaze” (I had to look that term up).
YouTube creators, once they reach a certain subscriber count, are given demographic data by YouTube about their audience (age, sex, language, geographic region, what other channels are popular among their audience, etc.). I don’t know what the demographics look like for this channel but I doubt many men, especially young men, want to hear about the human cost / personal regrets of women on OnlyFans. I am guessing the VAST majority of consumers on OnlyFans care very little about the regrets of someone they are fantasizing about.
Likewise, in my opinion, this creator is not likely to attract many men who are simply looking for “eye candy” as there are many other YouTube channels (not to mention other platforms) that overtly cater to eye candy consumers.
@JohnR1972 it would be an ad hominem argument if the other videos were not relevant to the point I was making....but they were. The point I was making, as I said and both you and @PrettyLuv ignored, is that Brett (the commentator, not the woman who used to have a OF that she featured) specifically chooses topics that focus on male points of view, support patriarchal values, and further the centering of the male gaze - which is one of the points she was arguing was problematic about OF.
Likewise, when I spoke about the stylizing of her videos, I was not talking about her style, else I would have said that. She or her management intentionally design everything about her videos, from the format, to the lighting, and the background design to appeal to men. Her studio is designed very similarly to a typical Twitch streamer, a male dominated platform, rather than more neutrally or leaning more towards the style that algorithmically favors other women. As someone who has done a fair amount of video and social media design for various businesses, YouTube is entirely driven by its algorithms and anyone with any sort of following is acutely aware of this so every design choice is absolutely intentionally chosen for the desired audience based off of how it performs. The audience she is targeting is Gen Z, conservative, and primarily male.
So no, Brett is not attempting to be eye candy, and that is not at all what I was saying. Rather she, or her management team and editor, are very astute business people who know how to utilize social media and how to market her as a brand. But the point remains that her arguments against other women doing the same on another platform are absolutely hypocritical.
(Edit to add: I use Brett's name to differentiate her from the other video creator she featured, as apparently it wasn't clear whom I was critiquing.)
@cuddlefaery The part that you seem to be ignoring is the topic itself. The point you’re focusing on “the centering of the male gaze” is not even the focus of the video. The focus of the video is about women having exposed themselves on these sites and then having to deal with that exposure for years to come well into their older years and regrets and harsh reality of picking up the pieces from that. The fact that you’re just brushing over that like it means nothing, for an argument over “the male gaze” and YouTube lighting is quite telling.
Whether she’s catering to a male audience or not, the topic is relevant to women, is very much about women, and has a women’s entire experience laid out as it’s main focus for the entire duration of the commentary. To say that she’s orienting her platform for the male perspective while conveniently ignoring the male that just spoke of his perspective on it, namely @JohnR1972 is rather contrary. Now it’s not just her account being dismissed on account of your “YouTube lighting experience” but the male perspectives’ as well. Not to mention the countless female commentary just under the video in support of everything she said. I suppose their commentary is dismiss worthy too?
Of all the women who actually do cater to the “male gaze” on their channels you choose to zero in on the who isn’t showing a thing and talking about a real female issue, to call her the hypocrite for it … because of lighting choices? Should she have bedazzled her microphone or dressed up her studio in pink lighting? Would that have been more female oriented?
Im a female and, I find this video appeals very much to a female audience, and it’s actually important that men hear it as well as they’re the main consumers behind such platforms as OnlyFans to begin with.
Even if her “lighting and background design” were geared towards the male audience, her lighting and equipment isn’t being dressed up in strings and put on display and sexualized for men’s pleasure. She’s discussing topics that both men and women can discuss and judge for themselves on. That’s actual content and I don’t see anything hypocritical in that irrespective of who it’s geared towards.
@PrettyLuv I'm not ignoring her other points, I was just focusing on a couple rather that write an entire dissertation dissecting every point she made - I already get flack for being overly verbose, so I'm sure folks appreciate that. I did mention right at the start that Brett made good points about the systemic issues, and then I focused on one issue I had - that she was being hypocritical - and she is the one who brought up the topic of the male gaze and used that term, so I did as well. Then you and John chose to keep the conversation going in that direction speaking of that specific issue, so that is what I was addressing. Would you have rathered I ignored your and John's comments about what I said and just continued on like I was talking to myself? Dialogues generally require that we respond to what the other person says.
I also did not state that her design was sexualized. I stated that the design catered to the algorithm in such a way that favors a male audience. YouTube tracks literally everything about its viewership on an extremely granular level and savvy content creators utilize that data. Something does not have to be overtly, stereotypically gendered for it to cater to a particular audience. The data will show that x lighting is more watched by these viewers, and y topics are watched for longer by those viewers, or that formatting one's videos a particular way results in more subscribers.
I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of the concept of "the male gaze" here as that's a whole topic in and of itself, but as I said Brett is the one who brought it up. It's not as simple as just women being sexualized for men's viewing pleasure - there's also societal fallout that becomes increasingly subtle, but which all still stems from that original concept. For instance, the very point that having one's body viewed online sexually is a negative is a consequence of the male gaze. Or that there are negative consequences for having an OF that can impact a woman's career and social standing - also a result of the male gaze. She brought up a feminist term, but then failed to recognize how her points were supporting patriarchal values and, yes, the male gaze.
I thought I understood the male perspective as I am currently celebrating over 20,000 days of manhood.
I do not claim to speak for all men, and I certainly don’t claim to speak for ANY women, but based on personal experience I can tell you the “male perspective” changes dramatically over time.
Only Fans didn’t exist when I was a teenager but I can guarantee you my male perspective of it would have been different 40 years ago when I was 17 compared to today. At 17, I did not have daughters and I would have never given a thought about the long term consequences / regret any woman on that site may suffer in the future because at 17, all that mattered was the present moment.
Only Fans is designed for immediate gratification. An “efficient” transaction connecting “supply” provided predominantly from young women and “demand” from men (probably of all ages but I suspect disproportionately from young men).
The content creator shared a perspective that resonated with 57 year old me who is a father. That message would not have resonated as well with 17 year old me (although I hope I would have been open minded enough back then to listen to it and take it to heart).
As for catering to “the male gaze”, as I said before, I had to look up that term. Here is what I found… “The male gaze describes a way of portraying and looking at women that empowers men while sexualizing and diminishing women.” https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-male-gaze-5118422
That definition has nothing to do with studio set up or lighting. I do not see THIS VIDEO as catering to “the male gaze” in any way, shape or form. The content creator is NOT portraying women in a way that sexualizes or diminishes them, just the opposite - she is humanizing them.
If someone wants to debate the merits / shortcomings of the content creator’s other videos, then start a separate thread and provide links to the videos you want to discuss. To not take THIS VIDEO (or the content creator herself) serious because of one or more other videos on her channel is still an ad hominem attack in my book.
cuddlefaery To dismiss her content as hypocritical because you assume she’s catering her channel to a male audience or “male gaze” is judgmental and terribly dismissive of the topic at hand.
No matter who’s doing the “gazing,” the content being published is what counts, and her content is not like that of an OF’s to call her a hypocrite for catering to her audience, male or female, in discussing it. Anyone could have discussed it to their respective audience and it would still have the same impact.