Arriving on YouTube : vlogs, automedia and autoethnography

Vlogging on YouTube is a process of self-formation whereby a vlogger constructs and presents their identity in relationship with the platform, technology and all of its participants. I frame vlogging as Automedia "” a process of being and becoming "” forged through the merging of self with networked digital media. In order to understand this process, I argue the researcher must engage in the same activity of automediality. I detail my autoethnography on YouTube "” my eighteen months of vlogging "” and discuss the knowledge I gained from my experience of being and doing on the site. My autoethnography highlights the skill, labour and time involved in vlogging, the relational way that identity is formed and maintained on the site, the conscious and ongoing work of narrativising the self, and the vulnerable nature of automedial identities and narratives of this kind. I conclude that autoethnography is an essential part of an automedial investigation.