Rebecca Sloane

February 15, 2015

WRRH 205
(E)dentity Essay
The Consequences of Feminist Disagreements
Jenna Mourney is a self-proclaimed YouTube star and comedian,
who has one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube. A native from
Rochester, New York, Moruney received both her Bachelors of Science in
Psychology and Masters of Education in Sports psychology. While her fancy
diplomas gathered dust in her apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, her
first video How to Trick People Into Thinking Youre Good Looking went viral
in a week and received 5.3 million views. Under her pseudo name Jenna
Marbles - Marbles comes from one of her two dogs who is named Mr.
Marbles to avoid her mothers reaction to her foul mouth, Mourney has
uploaded over 150 videos with 1.2 billion viewers since her very first video
and continues to add to them to her channel every week. The twenty six
year old YouTube phenomena contributes her success to the free nature of
the Internet, which allows her to express herself as she wishes and use all of
the inappropriate language that she knows without getting filtered or kicked
off YouTube. As her success on the Internet has brought her a lot of money
and public recognition, she doesnt consider herself a celebrity and continues
to make videos in the comfort of her own home without a film or camera
crew. With many offers to create television shows or movies, Mourney turns
them down over and over again, claiming that Hollywood wants your soul
and the coolest thing about YouTube is that nobody owns you. Mourney

strives to be herself in every moment of her day, and her fear is that any
producer will come and strip that of her and make her into something she is
not, which has no integrity or intuition.
A woman who was discovered on YouTube after creating a viral
masterpiece, Mourneys famous identity began on Internet as her video
became popular, which has brought her real life persona to be recognized by
the general public on accident. If Mourneys YouTube video had never gained
ground, she would have never been discovered as a major part of todays
many self proclaimed YouTube stars and more importantly, she would have
never gotten herself out there, as a shy girl from Rochester, New York. More
importantly, she recorded a funny and entertaining video, which were some
serious and opinionated views on the mistreatment of women. If her viewers
did not find her video comical or understand the rhetoric in her choices as
she recorded it, Mourneys YouTube persona would not have gotten the
recognition it gained. The newest technology and rising popularity of YouTube
stars have allowed many others like Jenna Marbles to become YouTube
celebrities, which is a cyber community all on its own. This allows her to
create videos through her target audience, while it is also shared to the
common space of YouTube for anybody to watch as they please. As Jenna
Marbles has many follows through her brand, her name, and her channel,
there are many who occasionally watch some of her videos for a good laugh.
The important piece here is that she has a community of followers who visit
her social media networks or participate in active blogs to discuss Jenna

Marbles, while at the same time, she has a brand out there that is known for
comedy that people are able to watch once, but are not necessarily
followers. In this case, Jenna Marbles has a split audience of obsessed
preteenagers or teenagers, or people who know of her work and can laugh
mindlessly while procrastinating or taking a work break. At the same time,
her videos give a deeper thought into the equality of men and women that is
not necessarily apparent in just simply sitting down and watching her video.
Mourneys subtle but efficient choices and feminist cyber persona shows how
interesting and entertaining a video can be, while also making a bold
statement about gender equality. Mourneys true followers can see her selfexpression within her YouTube channel, no matter the type of video she has
created for the week. Within the wide spectrum of work she creates on
YouTube, she splits up her videos into different categories: Other Videos, Me
Being Me, Music Videos, What Guys and Girls Do, I Teach You Some Things,
Marbles and Kermit, Fucking Rants, Makeup Videos, Extras/Outtakes,
Questions Videos, Sometimes I Get Drunk, Impersonations, Me Dancing
Around, Infomercials, Travel Videos, and Relationship/Max Videos. Each of
these subcategories includes Jenna Marbles doing something in her video
that can be categorized as one of these 16 topics. While each category
seems different on the surface, Mourneys core feminist ideals are shown
through each video, even when the topics or the styles are different. Her
feminist stance is embedded in each of her comical videos, that are not so
funny under the surface. Her presence alone stands for many different

beliefs, and in turn she has become a controversial figure for todays youth
and for feminists with varying opinions and morals.
As Mourney has gained ground in cyberculture, specifically YouTube
culture, she has not changed her online persona from her real life self.
Instead she creates different characters whom she acts as during some of
her YouTube videos, however sometimes she chooses to act as herself when
speaking to her audience directly depending on the type of video she
creates. Her YouTube videos typically involve rants, tangents, or examples of
topics that she explores through the interest of her followers or peers. She
goes from videos like Things To Do Instead of Cleaning Your Room to What
Boys/Girls Do in the Bathroom in the Morning. Her spectrum of characters in
each of her videos ranges from a typical girl, a typical boy, and Jenna
Marbles herself talking and relating to her viewers. Her videos similar to
How Girls Watch TV typically involve short 2-3 minute clips of her
pretending to be a boy or a girl in a certain situation; not Jenna acting or
asserting what she thinks these events look like, but actually dressing up as
either gender and acting the video out depending on the theme. In the
second type of video she creates, Marbles acts as herself speaking to her
viewers about different topics or doing different activities with her friends or
her dogs, Kermit and Marbles, who have become a major part of her video
blog. The identity she uses to speak to the audience of people that follow her
blog is consistent with who she is outside of cyberculture, as she uses the
same language and mannerisms when giving an interview as when she is

recording a rant about people that piss her off at the gym as she calls it. In
an interview with an ABC reporter, the interviewer actually counts the
amount of times she uses the word ridiculous in her videos and during the
interview, showing that her personality does not vary when she is on the
Internet, except when she is recording a video in which she acts as a male or
a female doing different activities. She often records videos of herself as a
typical guy participating in an activity like packing a suitcase, and then the
very next week she will record a girl doing the same activity, to highlight the
way in which women and men are similar, but yet very different, which adds
to her feminist views of equality. In the same light, Mourney also strives to
show her audience that women and men can do the same types of activities
without discrimination, or in her case she demonstrates how both genders
can equally do something simple in a strange and distorted manner. Her
feminist persona comes out in this way, as Mourney subconsciously creates
equality in the substance of her videos where she portrays men and women
doing similar actions.
Mourneys motive behind these videos started with one of her many
jobs at the time: a go-go dancer at a club. She created the video as a joke
while getting ready for work one day and did not expect it to gain as much
ground as it did in the first week of being on YouTube. While most of How to
Trick People Into Thinking Youre Good Looking is humorous, the motive
behind her video is the disrespect she received every day at work. In her
video she explicitly says, Im sick and tired of guys thinking that just

because I showed up at a club or a dance or a bar, that I want to have their

genitalia touching my backside, showing her slightly subtle, but not so
subtle feminist cyber identity. This specific video is funny at first glance, but
the real heart of her video speaks to the disrespect and mistreatment that
she feels in going to work on a daily basis. While almost every one of
Mourneys videos are funny and light, as her first one, she continues to post
as a representative of women everywhere who are constantly overshadowed
by men. Ironically enough, shes seen abnormal amounts of backlash from
self-proclaimed feminists who view some of her videos as crude. Specifically,
in one video she made called Things I Dont Understand About Girls Part 2:
Slut Edition, she received many negative comments and video responses
from angry women who claimed that Mourneys mockery was the definition
of victim-blaming and slut-shaming. She never took the video off of the
Internet, but rather reached back out to those who were offended and
apologized for expressing her own unpopular feminist opinion on the
Internet, which is completely legal and humane. Mourneys quirky humor and
angsty attitude sets her apart from most feminists and demonstrates her
feminist personality in a different light than others. Her unpopular opinion
does not change her morals or values in her feminist beliefs, but shows a
discrepancy in the feminist culture between definitions and ideals. Mourneys
involvement in the feminist cyberculture has made her look like a hero and a
villain, but she is not phased by those who disagree with her and continues
to post her own views in the form of comedy to put herself out there and

encourage others to do the same; in this retrospect she acts as a role model
for all of those young girls and teenagers who follow her videos weekly.
Mourneys humor and views are really strong and are unfiltered in her
YouTube channel. In this sense, her self-expression is inappropriate to a
younger audience as she uses swear words and slightly crude language to
recite her opinions via YouTube. As her views are unpopular among other
feminists, Mourneys younger followers may adapt to her videos and blindly
take on her ideals. This has the potential to create a new type of
cybercultural feminist representation and could pin feminists against each
other for lack of agreement in the way that the ideals are portrayed on the
Internet.
Through her recent claim to fame, Jenna Marbles has become more
than just a popular face on a YouTube channel. She has become an extremely
popular force on social media through Twitter, Vine, Tumblr, Facebook, and
Instagram, with more Facebook followers than Jennifer Lawrence and more
Instagram followers than Oprah herself. Mourney has expanded her role of an
Internet celebrity to show her fans more of her real life with her friends,
family, and dogs by using social media to gain followers without ties to
YouTube. Similarly, Mourneys fans have created their own Jenna Marbles
memes that have pictures of her with her own quotes attached to them,
which Mourney reposts to her own online blogs for others to view. Not only
does Jenna Marbles exist as a YouTube celebrity, but her social media fame
and her cyber society of followers add to her fan base by endorsing her with

Instagram and Facebook likes, Twitter favorites, and their own creation of
memes, response YouTube videos, and scary amounts of fan email that
Mourneys mother help her sort through and respond to. Mourneys social
media platforms existed prior to her Internet fame, and have since
expanded. Not only is she is a role model for her views, but she is also a solid
face for an unpopular feminist persona. Whether her followers realize it or
not, they are fueling a fire of a highly opinionated and adverse feminist with
a popular and unsolicited video blog. Her social media campaigns do not
exist to push her brand further, but are solely an outlet for Mourney to do
what normal twenty-something-year-olds do, which is post pictures on
Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The discrepancy between her cyber self
and her real life self does not exist, but the reason for her existence on
YouTube is different than her mindless use of social media. While her YouTube
persona is used to show viewers her thoughts, opinions, or humorous side,
her use of social media is only for her personal use, not promotion based.
Jenna Marbles is a remarkable character, who is not only a character
but a true identity in the world. No matter the medium she is using, Jenna
Marbles and Jenna Mourney are the same person, who only differs by a few
letters of the surname. Through her interactive interviews with New York
Times, ABC, or her ex-boyfriend, Mourneys personality remains the same no
matter the medium. Her preexisting social media accounts match perfectly
with the person who has been creating monster YouTube hits for five years
now. Due to her informality and realistic view on life itself, Mourney does not

see herself as a celebrity, rather a role model for girls to watch and follow by
example. When meeting fans, she is her usual outgoing and quirky self,
laughing when girls ask for her autograph and posing for a picture instead.
Jenna Marbles is a wonderful example of the importance of rising
cybercultures that are beginning to run the Internet world. The interactivity
that people are beginning to explore give them the choice to decide who
they like and who they want to see more of by the amount of followers, likes,
views, etc a person receives on their social media platforms. In Jenna
Marbless case, it is clear that her target audience sees value in her mission
on YouTube and rewards her with follows and views, which show her how
successful she is and to continue to create videos that have an impact on her
fan base everyday.