EP 12: social media's obsession with "critique" analyzing Stephanie Soo & Sevyn Satiiva | video essay

0:00 Welcome to Reese Grey Analyzes, and I'm so glad you decided to Adventure with me today :) On Reese Grey Analyzes we look at creations and experiences in art, media, music and even video games to explore exactly why we think the way we think question what we believe and learn something new!

0:20 Look! my mic is fixed. and I was considering if I should like hold it but it was kind of heavy last time so I'm just gonna obtrusively just kind of chill here and today we're going to be talking about the era of branding yourself with Fame and notoriety inevitably comes controversy and critique whether warranted or unfair it's part of your job as a public figure to figure out how to respond to critique outrage and straight up hate those who argue branding yourself is positive argue that branding yourself opens doors and creates "Lasting Impressions" on potential or even existing audiences advocates for personal branding argue that by developing your own brand you'll have control over the initial perception people have of you but do you? So this whole idea of self-branding suggests that you can advance your career and make money off of creating a reputation that's the goal to create a reputation and gain an audience and whatever online space you want to occupy and unfortunately we see time and time again that your personal brand is something that you do not always have direct control over and that is terrifying.

1:09 So one example I saw happen right in front of my eyes on Tiktok Creator Sevyn Satiiva [Soundbite Plays] "meow meow meow I'm a cat now". I randomly came across her TikTok video on my for you page here's a clip "I said I'm doing weird [ __ ] yeah oh and don't call me a weird [ __ ] you just not mad cause I really didn't do it" It's cute and funny and the comments at the time thought so too and when I saw it it wasn't viral yet. Three days later she's back on my for you page and her comments are flooded with hate saying she quote "copied Doja cat's moo" and she already cited that she had inspiration from that video. Later that day I saw her upload an innocent TikTok story of her cat just laying down being cute and the comments were telling her to kill herself and that they wish that the cat got run over that she should stop making music. And she had a TikTok where she was crying asking people to stop. A lot of the hate stems from people believing that she said people were "homophobic and racist" if they didn't like her song but if you use any kind of critical thinking skills it's not what she was saying [Soundbite] "like this is [ __ ] racism to be honest because I feel like if a person that was not my color would have made this song everyone been like oh this is so cute they wouldn't be comparing me to Doja cat like they're only doing that because I'm black". And like most creators, she's fine if you don't like her music and she can take critique. Even going so far as to thank people when they say that they think she improved on her music. [Soundbite] "meow is my most recent song, Joke songs that I've made for funsie. I made me out because I got cat ears, and I was like oh I want to make a song about being a cat inspired by a moo (Doja Cat)".

3:21 It's a good reminder that a reputation, or a personal brand is a byproduct of your work but not all of your work, just the things that people see. And you can work on your skills but in a way you cannot work on a reputation. Sevyn is a good example because she went viral for something fun and cute and weird, and sadly it wasn't representative of the amalgamation of her work. You see this reputation or a personal brand is nothing more than the perception other people have of you in a lot of of ways you do not have direct control over what your audience ends up seeing despite having tons of creative work, because it can be shared by other people determined by algorithms, Etc. It's the Dark Side of content creation that I think is brushed off as "well that's what you get for putting yourself out there" or "that's Showbiz baby" "that's critique". But there is a difference between critique and there is unwarranted threats in hate and cruelty. Not to mention, people can snip clips together that take your words out of context and not take your words in good faith, and if they choose just to be mean and hate for the sake of hatred and outrage when someone doesn't deserve it they're just allowed to do that.

4:35 And if this somehow gets to her too, I hope this makes her feel a little seen and happy and understood! I think she's so cute and I wish her tons of success you're so cute and talented seven I'm rooting for you :)

4:47 But, let's talk about one of my favorite personal brand influencers; Stephanie Soo. [Soundbite] "Hi everyone welcome back to my Channel my name is Stephanie and today we are back with another DUNDUN. MUKBANG!" We're gonna go on talking about Stephanie Soo and how she handled controversy gracefully. So as an influencer, you just basically have to be ready for controversy and know how to handle it. Again, which I think Stephanie Soo Has done really well. And the way you handle criticism as a Creator can make or break you to an audience. And the things Stephanie does well is that she one knows when to laugh at herself, and two knows when to respond to criticism and when to just let it go, and when to Simply make quiet shifts in her content when she notices a negative shift in public perception.

4:49 So we're gonna go over all those points, but we're going to start with her responses to controversy. Stephanie's personal brand went through a lot of public tribulations most notably with the Nicocado Avocado situation, where Nicocado basically accused Stephanie of being unprofessional stating Stephanie agreed to talk about drama of the falling out she had with Veronica Wang another mukbang YouTuber but Stephanie stated that she felt baited into talking about the drama when filming a collaborative mukbang with Nicocado, Zach Choi, and herself. Stating she felt as if nicocado was overstating the drama and she no longer felt comfortable to film. And stated that she never gave consent anyway to talk about the drama on camera. Ultimately Stephanie ended up canceling their next featured collaboration video. Once she canceled that collaboration video, Nick posted several things to his Instagram citing how he wanted to do an "expose" video where he would "spill the tea" about something, and didn't say what. He also kept citing one of Stephanie's texts which had said that Stephanie has been "in and out of sleep". He repeatedly posted videos of him and his friends singing it and saying it and chanting it basically meme-ing her anxiety, mocking her for drawing boundaries and sticking up for herself. [Soundbite] "I've just been in and out of sleep and I don't know what's going on but you know I got things to do I just got...I got". "Just getting out of sleep right now you're like what the [ __ ] that's the most obnoxious bizarre thing".

7:17 She also claimed that Nick took photos and videos of her home security system while she was in the bathroom during their filming of their collaboration mukbang. Now that was just one controversy. Like all that happened at the same time. Now what I really loved about how she handled this mess was that she said her piece in a response video and moved on. [Soundbite] "It's my side of the story there's Nick's side of the story and then there's the truth, I believe that the truth is in the unreleased footage that he refuses to release where he interrogated me about Veronica and in my home security footage where he took pictures without my consent that he also refuses to give his consent for me to release so at this point I'm done talking about it I don't want to do any more back and forth moving on with my life with my freaking blogs with Instagram and moving on with promoting in and out merch I'm gonna keep doing it because 100 of the proceeds go to a really really good cause I'm gonna keep posting videos and I'm gonna be happy and that's it."

8:10 She said what she had to say with eloquence and Clarity and let people think what they wanted to think about it, as people will, because people are going to twist pick and choose whatever they want to extrapolate from what happened. So I think it's great that she decided to respond as a content creator to a drama that she didn't initiate and let it sit. She put her piece on record and that was the only responsibility that she had and as content creators do. She grew for from the drama initially, she got eyes on her people didn't care for her content left her alone, and let her be when she didn't give them any more drama that they wanted, and what they came there for. And people who discovered her from the drama who appreciated the response stayed along for more of a regular content. So I guess that's saying that any publicity is good publicity can be if you handle it with the grace of Stephanie Soo. Because she knows when to respond and when to let it go.

9:07 Next thing she does really well that helps her overall public perception is making quiet shifts in her content when she notices negative shifts in public perception. She would do mukbangs which is eating on camera and she would talk about life to the viewer to keep them entertained. She didn't always, but she started doing stories about True Crime while still doing mukbang. So she would eat while telling these gruesome stories of real life True Crime and there wasn't a negative perception at that point because that wasn't the point of her mukbangs and that was in the point of her content. And the people who have been following her understood that, so because that current audience grew with her didn't see the issue because they knew that there wasn't ill intent. However as her Channel grew, and she reached a wider new audience people started to understandably feel like it was like shock content right? Like they found it odd and weird that this girl eats while talking about Jeffrey Dahmer...like what is this? Why would she choose to do this? But it's just kind of what her content morphed into, because it's what people found interesting. She just happened to be eating and telling stories at the same time. So there were video essays articles and critiques about how they thought it was weird that she ate and talked about true crime. And so she made a shift in her content she stopped eating while talking about crime doing her videos podcast Style instead, and still having meals when the stories were more light-hearted and about pop culture or more regular conversations that you'd have over dinner with a friend.

10:49 Now if Stephanie would have announced that or released the "I'm sorry" or "Why I'm changing my content", YouTube Story Time apology video... it probably would have gotten her more negative press, because she's shedding light on her own controversy. Which is one way to grow... but then it's another way to push away people who already like you. The best way to change and do better for your audience is just to change and do better. Not offer empty words and apologies with empty promises to do better. So again, good on Stephanie for knowing just when to change when to laugh and when to let it go.

11:25 So if you made it this far into the video or the podcast um I genuinely just thank you for adventuring with me today. And I can't end without getting sappy can I? Cringe. Okay, announcement alert! Come to the spooky live on Twitch October 31st at 6 00 PM! I am really excited for it twitch.tv hello Reese guys h-e-w-w-o-r-e-e-s-e. It's spooky season guys, like I love this time of year. For that we're gonna be doing a spooky partython on Twitch. We'll be doing Halloween cookie decorating haunted house decorating... I'll be playing Community games like Jack box Fall Guys Mario Kart Mario Party. Someone requested spooky Minecraft, someone wanted me to play Roblox, and yes my mod beyde will be making spooky things I think like Jeopardy and such, and it'll be so super spooky cute! So this whole month of October, I'm going to stream as much as I can my spooky cute games and sometimes just spooky games! Oh! and I can't forget, that cool little Gummy Bear train that we got at Costco too this spooky gummy bear train. So join the Discord or follow me on Twitch for for more information that is all in the description I am HewwoReese on Twitch, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. h-e-w-w-o-r-e-e-s-e. So come by and I love to chat with you guys! And of course you can find my links in the description, or on ReeseGrey.com, as always I appreciate you guys, and I look forward to so so so so much this month! And that's it for today,

Okay love you bye! But also I am livid that my last YouTube live cut the "okay love you bye" part, I'm suing.