The Hidden Identity of Male American YouTubers. An Explorative Search into Gender and Para-Social Behaviour

‘’The main goal of this paper is to explore ‘’’how is lifestyle communicated in the content of male American youtubers?’’. To achieve this, this paper performed a qualitative content analysis. 5 male American YouTubers where analysed using a Constructivist Grounded Theory. 30 videos of the youtubers: Wranglestar (Cody), Matt Carriker, Tanner Fox, Maxx Chewning and Mark Dohner where used. In this research two main themes where identified ‘’Active Viewer Engagement Retention’’ and ‘’Reinforcing and Altering masculine expectations’’. Active Viewer Engagement Retention is a theme that is closely related and inspired by Parasocial relationships. This theme aims to describe how Youtube influencers interact with their audience and communicate their lifestyle. Previous research mainly focuses on how audiences interact with traditional celebrities/ influencers. This paper found that certain behaviours and practices like consistent lifestyle practice, active audience engagement, and establishing credibility aid influencers in the active retaining and gaining new followers. These types of behaviour also explain how morals are implemented and communicated to the audience. Another exciting observation within this theme is the two-sided relationship influencers have with their audience. Reinforcing and Altering Male Expectations is a theme that explains moral tendencies that men exert. This theme is closely related and inspired by the theory regarding hegemonic masculinity. It was found that many of the YouTubers in the research exerted strong tendencies of male hegemonic behaviours. One must think of such tendencies as the unnecessary taking of risk, or the showing of male prominence and power. It was also noted that these same influencers would exert behaviour unfitting to Hegemonic Masculinity. Themes that where identified are playing hurt, Traditional female traits and generative fatherhood. An Interesting and Revealing theme was Generative Fatherhood. The original theory of Hegemonic Masculinity is described how the stereotypical father was distant. Interestingly most influencers showed signs of paternal fatherhood. Other interesting phenomena were observed in playing hurt where influencers would disclose sensitive and vulnerable information with their audience. An example of this is Matt Carriker who shared the passing of his brother with his audience. In the theme traditional female traits, behaviour unfitting to hegemonic masculine Stereotypes was portrayed. It is thus argued that Hegemonic stereotypes where both reinforced and altered indicating that perception of gender within these influencers is more fluid. Meaning that both stereotypical female and male attributes are portrayed’’