Among the never ending stream of videos posted to YouTube everyday is a collection of videos made using and sometimes about American Girl dolls. The space created by these videos is referred to as AGTube by the girls who upload and watch them. Unlike the stories on FanFiction.net, the videos on AGTube are not centered around American Girl stories, but on the physical products created by the stories. The form provided by YouTube, is also much looser than the form of FanFiction.net. While some FanFiction.net users have posted poetry, or nonlinear “drabble,” the majority of content on the American Girl section of FanFiction.net consists of linear, narrative, stories. This is not true of AGTube. The videos on AGTube range in length, form, and content. Among these videos are photo shoots, music videos, narrative stop motion animations, doll care instructions, contests, and videos of AGTube users opening American Girl products.
I was first acquainted with AGTube by a Jezebel article titled The Weird and Amazing World of American Girl Doll Music Videos posted in December 2012 by Dodai Stewart. In this article, Stewart describes her discovery of the “rabbit-hole-esque YouTube phenomenon: The American Girl Doll Music Video, or AGMV, for short.”[1] She briefly describes the various types of American Girl videos on YouTube, provides numerous links to AGMVs, and excerpts from email interviews with a few AGTubers she contacted for the story. These videos and interviews introduced me to the breadth, and skill of AGTube videos, and to the personalities and motivations of AGTubers themselves. The girls who make these videos must develop and combine a number of technical and creative skills in order to tell stories. AGTube brings American Girl fans from around the world together: they watch and comment one another’s videos, enter each other’s contests, exchange chat and Skype names, and occasionally collaborate on videos. AGTube is a rare female space dedicated to filmmaking.
Methods
Unlike FanFiction.net, which has subpages for different canons, there is not a section or page on YouTube.com which hosts AGTube. Instead, American Girl videos on YouTube are organized by their titles, descriptions, tags, and related videos. It was consequently difficult to study AGTube videos systematically. Instead, I generally watched videos as I came upon them, clicking through to related videos. I attempted to watch some of the more popular videos on AGTube by searching common AGTube tags and selecting the videos with the highest view-counts. I also noticed that in videos about AGTube, users sometimes mentioned their favorite AGTubers or videos. In addition to the users and videos I came upon by chance, and through searches, I looked at the profiles of AGTubers who were often mentioned, and watched their most popular videos.
It is unclear how many people actively participate in AGTube, or how many American Girl videos there are total. A search for “AGSM” (American Girl Stop Motion, the most popular form of American doll video) on YouTube yields 295,000 results. Not all AG videos, however, are stop motion, and those that are do not always include “AGSM” in the description and tags. The results for AGSM also most likely include videos that are not part of AGTube. It is also difficult to predict the number of AGTubers. AGTube Connect, a blog dedicated to connecting and acting as a resource for the AGTube community has a registry where it lists 278 registered AGTube users. This list however, is almost definitely incomplete, as it is unlikely that every AGTuber knows about and has registered with the site. Furthermore, the blog has not been updated since March 2013.
There are a few kinds of videos that are particularly popular on AGTube, many of which are named with acronyms. In addition to AGMV, American Girl music videos, there are AGPS, American Girl Photo shoots. There also are many narrative American Girl videos. Most of the narrative videos and music videos are also American Girl stop motion, AGSM, though some are created by moving the dolls from off camera. Videos of AGTubers opening American Girl boxes and products for the first time are also very common, as are videos in which an AGTuber introduces all of her dolls. AGTubers also make videos about AGTube itself, in which they might narrate their own discovery of AGTube or praise videos made by other users.
The majority of my analysis focuses on 17 profiles, and 67 videos about which I recorded and saved notes. I also looked at four AGTube blogs. Three of these were personal blogs created by AGTubers who write about their videos and participation in the AGTube community. I found these personal blogs through links on YouTube user pages. The fourth blog, which I found through Google, AGTube Connect, was designed to connect the AGTube community. In addition to the sources I took notes on, I watched numerous other videos, looked at video titles and descriptions, and browsed profiles.
Ethics
I had many of the same concerns about ethics when studying YouTube.com as when studying Fan fiction. The users are young, and while the videos are publicly posted, their creators are unlikely to imagine me as a part of their audience. There are also, however, a few key differences between YouTube and FanFiction.net. The AGTube community seems to be much larger than the Fanficiton.net community: far more AGTube videos have been posted than American Girl fan fiction stories and they often have significantly more comments. AGTube videos are also much more accessible to the general public than fan fiction. In order to read American Girl fan fiction, a reader has to specifically go to the American Girl page on FanFiction.net. YouTube viewers are relatively much more likely to come upon an American Girl video by chance as a related video, or in search results. AGTube is a subculture of YouTube, which is a much more popular, mainstream site than FanFiction.net. AGTube itself has been featured on Jezebel and Buzzfeed, which has further increased its visibility as a public space. [2]
The large audience for YouTube indicates that I can be less cautious in writing about information that is publicly shared on YouTube. Despite this, I think that it is prudent to exercise caution. Many AGTubers are young teens and tweens, who may not have fully thought through internet privacy, and cannot predict how they will feel about their videos in the future. Furthermore, while many AGTube usernames are obviously not real names, some plausibly could be, and many AGTubers appear in their own videos. I will consequently use a similar approach in this chapter as in my last. In publicly available versions of my thesis, I will remove links to videos and will not provide their titles or the names of the users who uploaded them. In this chapter, it will be easier to make these adjustments, as I can insert excerpts from videos which do not link back to either the original video.
Stories
Like FanFiction.net, AGTube videos have a wide variety of plots and creative storylines. There are stories about girls’ everyday lives, horror stories, adventure stories, and stories that mimic everyday life, in addition to nonlinear videos without stories. Unlike the American Girl fan fiction, however, American Girl YouTube videos usually are not based on the stories found in American Girl. There are a few exceptions to this trend. Some AGTube videos featuring McKenna, for example, show her doing gymnastics.
I did not find any videos related to the Historic Characters book plotlines, nor did I find any videos that appeared to be set in the past. In general AGTubers disregard the American Girl canon. Instead, they tell a variety of stories which usually deal with modern settings and problems.
The stories about girls’ everyday lives vary considerably in theme and content. They include videos of dolls waking up in the morning and getting ready for school, dolls daydreaming about the Olympics, loose stories of large families, each of whom have their own personalities and concerns, videos where dolls go to a café, and dolls reacting to a snow day. Videos in which dolls go on adventures or solve mysteries and horror stories are also all common. There are romantic storylines, particularly when the plots of AGMVs are considered, but the majority of AGTube plotlines are female-centered, in part due to product availability: American Girl only sells female dolls. AGTube videos also are often inspired by reality TV shows. AGMVs are also very popular. AGMVs are most often made for popular songs: numerous Taylor Swift and One Direction songs have been reinterpreted with American Girl dolls. The plots of these videos generally relate to the content of the song, and are often very detailed.
The absence of references to official American Girl storylines, settings, and character traits reflects the way girls play with American Girl dolls offline. In their study of the American Girl doll brand, Diamond et al., found that “left to their own devices, most of the girls reenact stories from the books quite literally, make up stories that have little to do with characters in the books, or simply engage in tactile manipulation.”[6] In my interviews, I found that the two latter types of play were much more common. On one of my interviewees, a girl who was about to enter the fourth grade, had two American Girl dolls. She described imagining their interactions, but was mostly focused on grooming:
(MDH: when you play with McKenna, what sort of games do you play with her? Or is she sort of a special doll that you don’t play with?)
Interviewee 2: it’s like, I always like to brush her hair and dress her up and play with my other dolls like you know, “hey!” “hey!” but mainly I do like to dress her up and brush her hair. It’s really fun because my hair is like a doll’s, her hair obviously is like a doll’s[7]
While Interviewee 2 was interested in creating narratives with her dolls, she was much more focused on the dolls as physical objects. The girls I spoke to during my first interview, sisters aged seven (Younger Sister), eight (Middle Sister), and fourteen (Older Sister) discussed playing with their American Girls at the most length. Rather than reenacting the American Girl stories, they generally played games in which they were adults interacting with child American Girl dolls:
Older Sister: with the American Girls they would like pretend they were their kids and like we, they’d use, we use the stairs and the car and we’d like seat them all
(MDH: oh really?)
Older Sister: and then like drive them to like softball
Younger Sister: sometimes we’d use that as an auditorium
Younger Sister: that was her, she got a note sent home
(MDH: why?)
Middle Sister: because she was misbehaving in class
(MDH: oh and was one of you the mom and one of you the teacher?)
Middle Sister: we like
Younger Sister: no because we were both being moms and
Middle Sister: then we’d both be teachers
Mom: yeah
Middle Sister: and we were one of her mom’s so then we’d just like send a note home
Mom: it was pretty funny
Middle Sister: and then yeah she would get detention which that means we would just leave in her in the corner[8]
The stories my interviewees described acting out during play: dolls going to school, and having conversations with one another are very similar to the stories found on AGTube. These stories are inspired by girl’s everyday lives and problems rather than by the plots of American Girl books.
Although AGTube is different than offline play, which is not edited and presented as entertainment, AGTubers often refer to their interaction with dolls as play in their videos and user pages. In one video, an AGTuber describes getting back into dolls after thinking she was too old for them, and ends the video by warning viewers against making the same mistake: “if you ever think you’re too old for dolls, I’ll tell you right now, You’re wrong!” Another AGTuber, lists her motto that everyone grows up but its a choice to stop playing with dolls on her about page. Planning, staging, and editing videos for AGTube is a much longer, more deliberately planned process, but the storylines and spirit of these videos reflects the nature of spontaneous play with dolls. AGTube consists of tangible, carefully edited created output resulting from hard work by users. But AGTubers are right to connect and compare this work with play, and by turning their stories into presentable transformation, they demonstrate the creativity inherent to imaginative play with dolls.
Collection
Though AGTubers do not use American Girl plotlines in their videos, the company’s products are central. AGTube videos often feature several dolls, and are filled with American Girl accessories, furniture, clothing, and other products. American Girl currently offers 40 My American Girl Dolls, eleven Historic Character dolls, one girl of the year, and five dolls without hair. In addition to 57 18 inch dolls, the company sells Bitty Baby dolls, Bitty Twin dolls, and hundreds, if not thousands of accessories. Jan Susina argues that these accessories “foster collectability through a proliferation of related products” and indoctrinate consumerism in young customers of American Girl.[11] But just as American Girl consumers do not passively read American Girl stories, they also do not passively collect the company’s physical products. In part, these products reflect the attention to detail in many of these videos: AGTubers need to amass collections of clothing and accessories and furniture in order to create sets for their videos, and wardrobes for the dolls that star in them.
Many AGTube videos feature dolls spending time in fully furnished bedrooms. In one video two dolls have a sleepover in a bedroom that has a bed with a canopy, a bedside set of drawers covered in bottles and boxes, a mirror and wall decorations. Later in the video they go to a kitchen with a table and chairs, flowers, a side table, a refrigerator, a stove, a sink and a set of shelves full of dishes. They use various accessories including sleeping bags, a pizza, miniature dolls, a cell phone, lunch boxes, and a hair brush. The bedroom in the following video about bullying is similarly elaborate. It has posters, a bedside table, a laptop computer, posters, a trundle bed, and stuffed animals.
Sometimes AGTubers show off all of their furniture and accessories in Dollhouse and room tours. In these videos AGTubers go through doll rooms and houses in great detail, sometimes including where they acquired each item, and how much it cost. The huge numbers of dolls and accessories owned by AGTubers reflects the collection aspect of AGTube. AGTubers are not only focused on making videos, but on collecting AG products and dolls. Sekeres argues that “a tween who engages with the branded fiction will be learning to consume as she purchases additional products of the line."[15] As AGTubers increasingly engage with American Girl to make videos, they also amass collections of AG branded products.
Large collections of accessories are not necessary to make AGTube videos. The detailed explanations in room and house tour videos reveal that a lot of the props and sets in AGTube videos were not made by American Girl. While the videos do feature a lot of branded products, AGTubers also buy Our Generation doll furniture and accessories from Target, purchase items on eBay, and make some things themselves. The following video consists of 6 dolls talking to one another in a nondescript setting. There is no furniture or decoration, just white walls and an off-white carpet.
This next video is a photo slideshow of two dolls at the beach, where it would not make sense to create sets of furniture and decorations.
Other videos have very simple settings. One consists of a table (fully set) and two chairs set up outside. Though this set does feature several accessories including a table and chairs, plates, glasses, and a lasagna pan, it is sparse compared with the most elaborate sets. These videos show that AGTubers do not need to purchase large collections of American Girl products; they can use sparse sets, or make their own props. Though they do use them in their videos, many AGTubers seem to be motivated to purchase AG products simply to expand their branded collections.
The importance of collecting is also demonstrated in videos on AGTube which consist only of AGTubers opening packages containing American Girl products. These are so cemented as a category of AGTube video that I found a video which is a stop motion animation in which a doll excitedly orders her own doll (represented by an American Girl mini doll) from the American Girl website, receives it in the mail, and excitedly opens it.
While many AGTubers use products that are not branded, most own several American Girl dolls and almost never use off brand dolls in their videos. Their dolls are often listed on the about sections of their YouTube user pages. Though some AGTubers only mention the number of dolls, many list all of their dolls, including their first and last names, and product numbers. Some of these collections are very extensive: One user lists 34 dolls and another has 35.
AGTubers treat the dolls that they collect very seriously, often referring to them as if they were human. On her about page one AGTuber refers to her dolls as actors and lists them by first, middle, and last name. One user has a page on her blog where she lists each doll’s personality and hobbies in addition to her name. In a video by another user, she similarly goes through her each of her 16 dolls and describes each one’s personality. These users each personify their dolls, and present as if they were real people with personalities. One AGTuber's boy doll, Logan (a JLY #23 refitted with a boy wig[25]), is dating one of another user's dolls (JLY #35[26]). These dolls appear together in six videos. Two of these videos consist of question and answer sessions with the couple, one shows them doing the salt and ice challenge, another shows them watching and reacting to other YouTube videos, and the last is a slideshow of photos of them at the beach together. All of these videos reflect larger trends on YouTube, and situate this doll couple as if they were human YouTube celebrities.
When she paired the boy doll with another doll in a music video of a One Direction song, the AGTuber that owns him assured viewers that he wasn't cheating on his doll girlfriend, she just needed a boy doll for the video. She does not treat the dolls' relationship as a fiction limited to their videos, but feels she must acknowledge it in a video where the boy doll appears as the unnamed love interest for another doll. Commenters on the video similarly refer to the relationship as if it they were human, and expressed concern over the boy doll's appearance without his doll girlfriend. Several commenters pointed out that the boy doll was cheating, or asked why he wasn’t with his doll girlfriend. These commenters don’t only view the relationship as human, they care about it.
Other AGTubers make distinction between their doll’s identities and the characters that appear in their videos. Many videos end with credits in which the names of the dolls that appeared in the video are listed alongside their character’s names. The treatment of dolls as if they are real people demonstrates how seriously AGTubers take their collections of dolls. Each of the dolls and accessories that AGTubers own is important to them. These products are not only props used to make videos, but cherished items that AGTubers care about individually.
Skills and Creativity
AGTube videos are creative products that demonstrate a variety of skills developed by AGTubers. In addition to creating elaborate plots and storylines, AGTubers build sets, learn stop motion animation, develop their skills as photographers and hairstylists, edit videos, add soundtracks and voiceover, and make their own props and sets. AGTubers are aware of their own skills and often profess an interest in filmmaking, and photography. They also offer one other advice through comments, blogs, and instructional videos.
Fabrication
In order to make videos, AGTubers must take on all of the creative roles involved in film production. As discussed, AGTubers often amass large collections of accessories, clothing, and furniture, which they use to make sets and put together costumes for their videos. I have already mentioned that they also often supplement store bought furniture and accessories with handmade set pieces. The following video features various sets, costumes, and accessories throughout. In this video, the creator used both American Girl branded products, and homemade props. When one of the dolls goes to her grandmother’s house, the interior is mostly composed of store bought products including a couch, and a side table with a vase and flowers, cups, and mugs. The train station that the dolls visit later is entirely homemade.
Rather than using AG products to build the train station, the AGTuber who made this video built her own ticket booth out of cardboard, and decorated the wall next to it with a homemade sign for a lost cat, and a poster advertising guitar lessons. In videos like this one, AGTubers supplement and reuse American Girl’s physical content. Outfits and accessories become costumes and set decoration, and when AGTubers need accessories and furniture they do not own (or that American Girl does not make), they create their own. The fan fiction writers discussed in the last chapter similarly supplemented American Girl’s intellectual content by creating and adding their own plotlines and characters to the published stories.
AGTubers develop craft and fabrication skills through production of American Girl videos. Some AGTube accessories are obviously homemade: the car in the above video retains the shape and color of a cardboard box rather than those of a car. Other homemade pieces are nearly indistinguishable from store bought materials, reflecting hard work and practiced skill. In a doll house tour uploaded by the same user, she shows off some of her other homemade doll sets and accessories.Julia’s room is especially impressive. It is dominated by Julia’s bed, which was made out of a shoebox and piece of wood, covered by a fleece blanket, pillows, and a dust ruffle but is a completely convincing bed.
The rest of the house includes various other items many of which were either made by basilmentos, or made for her by her parents. They blend in among American Girl items, and items bought locally or from other brands, and the result is a realistic, fully furnished and decorated doll house.
In addition to creating new accessories and furniture, AGTubers alter existing American Girl products to better suit their needs. One of the most common alterations is the creation of a boy doll. AGTubers create boy dolls by removing the wig from an American Girl Doll, replacing it with a wig bought online, and dressing their new boy doll in clothes bought online or androgynous outfits from the American Girl collection. The following video is one of several which outline and documents this process.
By creating boy dolls, AGTubers expand the possible characters and plots for their videos. This alteration demonstrates AGTubers' commitment to their videos. When they create boy dolls, AGTubers also add to their collections. Though boy doll are not manufactured by American Girl Doll, they have been established on AGTube as a desirable item. One customization video has 60,748 views. Though this is far below the highest view counts found on AGTube videos, it still demonstrates a significant level of interest.
Filmmaking
The most common type of AGTube video is stop motion. In order to make these videos, AGTubers must take thousands of pictures of the dolls, and edit the videos, adding voiceover and soundtracks. As they make more and more stop motion videos, AGTubers become increasingly skilled animators and video editors. They often acknowledge this skill development. The credits listing doll and character names at the end of any American Girl videos also frequently list the AGTuber(s) who made the video, and name their various roles inluding costume director, prop manager, set changer, director and producer. By including credits, AGTubers acknowledge and name the skills used to make their videos, while aligning them with professional movies and television shows.
AGTubers acknowledge their own work as filmmakers even more explicitly in the “about” sections for their videos and in blogs dedicated to AGTube. In the “about” section for one video, the creator informs viewers that making the nearly 17 minute video involved thousands of photos and hours of editing. In order to make stop motion videos, AGTubers must go through a tedious process, exercising impressive patience. Though it is not revealed in the “about” sections on AGTube videos, considerable skill is also involved in stop motion animation.
AGTubers discuss these skills in blog posts. one AGTuber included an FAQ page on her blog in which she identifies the camera and editing software she uses, offers simple video making advice, and links to a tutorial video. In this tutorial video she offers explicit advice on making stop motion videos, showing viewers how to set each frame at .1 seconds, and demonstrating how to add voiceover and soundtracks. In another blog post, she includes the text of an interview with one of her fans. Her interviewer acknowledges the skill she has built through making AGTube videos, noting that she has improved. The AGTuber attributes this to years of experience and practice.
In a since deleted blog post another AGTUber explicitly linked AGTube with her interest in working in the film industry. Involvement in AGTube has directly impacted girloftheyearstudios’s college and career plans. Later in the post she explains that continuing to make AGTube videos will be helpful as she pursues this career, because she can use AGTube videos to test her scripts. Both of these users developed skills through their involvement on AGTube. Furthermore, AGTube led girloftheyearstudios to consider filmmaking as a career and provided her with useful tools to pursue this goal.
Mary Celeste Kearney argues in Girls Make Media that “by engaging with the technologies and practices of media production [girl media producers] are actively subverting the traditional sex/gender system” and expanding the “spectrum of identities and activities in which all females can invest.”[44] AGTube brings together American Girl, an overtly female brand, with video making, a hobby that has historically been dominated by boys who were much more likely than girls to own cameras before the proliferation of camera-phones.[45] Professional film making is also dominated by men. According to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, women only “accounted for 16% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors” in the top 250 domestic grossing films of 2013.[46] Video production spaces like AGTube which are dominated by girls and women are consequently rare. In this space, AGTubers build skills and offer one another advice. As a result of their involvement, some AGTubers develop aspirations to become filmmakers, a world that is dominated by men.
AGTubers build various skills and produce wildly creative and diverse videos. Kearney also argues that by making videos, girl directors expand “considerably girls’ public representation, complicating the stories associated with their demographic group, and challenging stereotypes of female youth as technically ignorant and culturally unproductive.”[47] On AGTube, girls demonstrate their own cultural productivity. Furthermore, AGTube incubates future film producers and directors. It is a welcoming, female-dominated amateur space in the shadow of a male-dominated industry. Most of the girls on AGTube will not go on to work in the film industry, but some may represent the next generation of female directors, writers, and producers.
Community
AGTube is a distinct community. AGTubers make videos with and about one another, comment on each other’s videos, meet up in person, and collaborate on videos. Many AGTubers also chat and Skype with one another, presumably bonding over videos, offering advice, and talking about their lives. AGTubers put effort into sustaining this community, and view it as important. The blog AGTube Connect was founded with the specific aim to bring ATubers together. In pursuit of this purpose, the blog featured posts with advice on making videos, links to videos, a list of AGTubers, and a general advice page. These functions reflect the various ways that AGTuber already interact, build community, and support each other through videos, blog posts, comments, and in person meet ups.
Bullying
Videos about bullying demonstrate the support functions of AGTube. Music videos, AGSM with plots, and videos made about AGTube often deal with bullying. Bullying storylines are often very dark. In one video, the main character, a doll named Emma experiences cyber bullying for months, and eventually cuts herself before finding help from friends and the school guidance counselor.
The following video has similarly dark themes. In this video, the main character commits suicide, and her two best friends are left heartbroken. The dark content of these videos demonstrates that AGTubers view bullying as a serious and dangerous issue.
These videos also demonstrate the success of American Girl’s product development team. The storyline for Chrissa, Girl of the Year 2009, dealt with bullying.
Other bullying videos are less dramatic. In several videos, the main character abandons a friend to spend time with mean popular girls, only to realize that friendship, and standing up against bullying are more important than popularity. There also are numerous bullying themed AGMVs set to Perfect by P!nk. A search on YouTube for “perfect AGMV” yields over 7,000 hits, and the first page of videos all appear to be AGMV set to this song. Videos about AGTube itself also often deal with bullying.
Several of the bullying themed videos I watched ended with direct messages to the viewer about bullying. Some of these messages are brief. One of the videos made to P!nk’s Perfect, ends with the simple message “stand up. you never know the difference it could make.” The video in which the main character cuts herself ends with a similar message: “Always help those in need, and fight to Stop Cyber Bullying, You could save a life.” These messages are short, but significant. By adding them, these users connect stop motion animation videos made with dolls to real world experiences and issues. They also assert themselves and the AGTube community with these messages. These messages demonstrate that AGTube is a space in which video makers feel that they have a voice. Furthermore, AGTubers offer support through these videos and messages. They care about and would like to support and help the AGTube community.
Some of the text included at the end of anti-bullying AGTube videos is longer, and more personal than those discussed above. The video above, about the girl who commits suicide due to bullying ends with a very long message which includes statistical information, links to resources, and personal narrative. This AGTuber asserts her own voice and potential for impact with this message. Furthermore, she indicates with this text at the end of the video, and with the text “true story” at the beginning of the video that the subject matter and storyline of the stop motion music video it follows are very important to her. In addition to making a video animation of a story about bullying, she researched bullying statistics and resources and included them at the end of her video. americangirljulie9 takes bullying very seriously and is committed to offering information, friendship, and support to anyone who might be dealing with it.
The comments on this video indicate that the creator is right to believe that people who are being bullied need a place to talk about it and find advice, support, and community. While there are comments on all of the bullying themed videos which share personal narratives and offer or ask for support or advice, this kind of comment is especially long and common on this video. This is likely due to americangirljulie9’s direct invitation to viewers to speak with her, and assertion through her own experience, that victims of bullying are not alone. The video has 116 comments total; many of which are in response to one another. The comments on this video demonstrated that there is receptive audience for AGTube bullying videos, and that the support offered by these videos is meaningful.
The comment section for this video became a space for further sharing and support. Some commenters shared personal experiences, and to offer advice. Though they may not always give expert suggestions, AGTubers use comment sections and videos as opportunities to seek and offer advice and encouragement. The creators and users of these videos use them to work through important issues, view them as having real impact, and create communities around them. The creator of the following video acknowledges AGTube’s power as an antidote to bullying directly in her message at the end:
The video itself also relates to AGTube. The main character of this video is an AGTuber who is made fun of at school when her peers find out about her AGTube videos. This makes her consider quitting AGTube but she returns after receiving encouraging messages from other AGTubers. This message and video illustrates the importance of AGTube as a self identified safe community in which AGTubers can express themselves and their creativity.
This video reflects the anxiety AGTubers frequently express that they will be judged for their participation in AGTube, and the belief that they cannot share this interest with their friends offline. This belief is particularly clear in a post on one AGTuber's blog. In the post, which has since been deleted she expressed agitation over posting a photo which referenced a doll in the caption on her regular Instagram rather than her doll Instagram. Though she deleted it very quickly, she expresses worry that it could happen again and considers deleting her doll Instagram entirely, telling readers that the incident made her feel sick and anxious. This AGTubers has uploaded 387 videos since 2008; American Girl and AGTube are clearly a significant part of her life. But she feels sick over the possibility that someone who knows her in person might see an Instagram photo referencing dolls. The AGTube community is particularly important because it offers a space for AGTubers to talk about an interest they might be embarrassed to share with their offline friends and communities.
Tension
While the AGTube community is often supportive, it also can be tense, and unwelcoming. In one video which is composed entirely of white text on a black background, an AGTuber explains that she is deleting her account. She writes “I’m just fed up with drama on AGTube.” Like any community, AGTube can be mean-spirited as well as supportive. One AGTuber wrote blog post about her struggle over whether or not to leave AGTube. In this post, she describes reading a conversation about her between two other AGTubers who she characterizes as bullies. While the proliferation of bullying videos demonstrates that many AGTubers are actively interested in creating a supportive environment; these videos also respond directly to a problem that occurs within the AGTube community as well offline.
Most AGTubers attempt to ignore hateful messages. One AGTuber explains her philosophy towards mean comments is to just ignore them. She acknowledges however, that this might not always be effective, and advises readers that to call the National Bullying Hotline if they feel unsafe. Bullying and mean comments can have a significant negative impact of AGTubers’ online experiences, but many AGTubers, like basilmentos, develop and share strategies and defenses against these negative influences.
Class
Participation on AGTube is limited by the expense of making American Girl videos. In order to make American Girl videos, AGTubers must own American Girl Dolls, a very expensive product. New dolls from American Girl currently cost $110. While some American Girl Dolls are available secondhand on ebay and at garage sales, they are still a very expensive toy. Furthermore, AGTubers generally own several dolls and huge collections of accessories. Membership in the AGTube community is expensive, and consequently is not possible for many girls. The relative wealth of the community is further demonstrated by their use of high quality DSLR cameras and Apple computers to shoot and edit their videos. As Kearney notes, middle and upper class girls are much more likely to have access to computers and free time.[65] As a consequence, girl media producers (such as AGTubers) are disproportionately white and wealthy.
AGTubers occasionally note this issue. One AGTuber posted a letter to American Girl on her blog calling on the brand to lower their prices because they make the products unaffordable for many girls. Another protested American Girl’s high prices by organizing a petition which reached 1,629 signatures. She notes in the petition that “American Girl has raised their prices to a point where the average girl can no longer afford their products.”[67] The girl who wrote the letter also frequently posts about new American Girl products on her blog. In these posts she notes the products she wants, but she also is critical of products she believes to be overpriced. American Girl customers love their dolls and often amass large collections of American Girl products, but they are not unconditionally loyal to the brand.
American Girl’s prices have a significant effect on the AGTube community. AGTubers who need specific set pieces or outfits for their videos cannot always afford to buy these products from American Girl. As a result, they are more likely to make their own props and costumes, and develop fabrication skills. The prices also act as a threshold, limiting membership to the community to girls who can afford to buy American Girl dolls. This alienates some customers who can afford the dolls but are uncomfortable with this exclusivity. These reactions demonstrate the ability of American Girl consumers to think critically about the company. Basilmentos and girloftheyearstudios both express ambivalence, recognizing the contradiction between their enjoyment of American Girl products, and their dislike of the exclusionary prices of the brand.
Conclusion
AGTubers take the creativity of play with dolls to another level. In addition to using their dolls to create imaginative narratives, they also consciously prepare the results of this creative work for an audience. In order to produce and present these stories, AGTubers must develop new skills, and use a variety of tools. The resulting process—creating and posting videos on YouTube—allows AGTubers to express themselves creatively and to form communities around this expression. These communities reflect the general population of American Girl customers; they are only accessible to girls who can afford to purchase American Girl products.
The plots, themes, and names used in AGTube videos generally disregard the stories and meanings created by American Girl. In some ways, this reflects the power of the American Girl brand, and the physical dolls themselves. The videos on AGTube do not relate to American Girl’s intellectual content, and there is nothing inherent in American Girl dolls which make them better suited to the stories or animation strategies used on AGTube. Yet the AGTube community is centered around, and named for American Girl dolls. The absence of American’s characters and plots in the videos also reflects the lack of control that American Girl has over brand meaning. In their videos, AGTubers tell their own stories and create their own meanings, reflecting offline play with dolls.
AGTube is a space in which consumers of American Girl use the brand as a tool to make videos. In this space, the physical products created by the brand are building blocks used to physically create sets, costumes, and to populate original films made by girls. American Girl products come with elaborate backstories and meanings, but American Girl customers do not necessarily use this content in their videos. AGTube demonstrates American Girl customers’ significant creative agency to reuse, supplement and alter American Girl’s meanings and products. The brand is powerful, but it is not all controlling
[1] Dodai Stewart, “The Weird and Amazing World of American Girl Doll Music Videos,” Jezebel, December 23, 2012, http://jezebel.com/5969594/tons-of-patience-hundreds-of-poses-quirky-wacky-and-amazing-american-girl-doll-music-videos/.
[2] Ibid.; Mike Spohr, “These Fan-Made American Girl Movies Are The Weirdest Thing You’ll See Today,” BuzzFeed, March 13, 2014, http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikespohr/these-fan-made-american-girl-movies-are-the-weirdest-thing-y.
[6] Diamond et al., “American Girl and the Brand Gestalt,” 130.
[7] Interview 3, Interview by author, Evanston, Il., August 21, 2013
[8] Interview 2, Interview by author, Evanston, Il., August 1, 2013
[11] Susina, “American Girls Collection,” 133.
[15] Sekeres, “The Market Child and Branded Fiction,” 405.
[28] The salt and ice challenge refers to a specific category of YouTube videos in which people put ice on their body, and then apply salt to the ice for as long as they can withstand the pain this produces
[44] Mary Celeste Kearney, Girls Make Media, 1st ed. (Routledge,, 2006), 12.
[45] Ibid., 191.
[46] Martha M. Lauzen, The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 250 Films of 2013, The Celluloid Ceiling (San Diego, CA: Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, San Diego State University, 2014), http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/research.html.
[47] Kearney, Girls Make Media, 237.[65] Kearney, Girls Make Media, 14.
[67] “American Girl Needs to Price Their Products Reasonably,” Ipetitions, accessed April 9, 2014, http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/american-girl-needs-to-price-their-products.
Login