Online star … video blogger Natalie Tran says that while ethnicity is irrelevant to
YouTube success it would be preferable to see a greater spread of racial backgrounds
on television.
MAJOR TV networks stand accused of creating too few roles for people from
Australia’s ethnic mix. Firass Dirani, who portrayed John Ibrahim in Channel
Nine’s Underbelly: The Golden Mile and New Zealand actor Jay Laga’aia, recently
cut from Home and Away, have slammed racial tokenism on television.
But viewers of the democratised online platform YouTube see a different
representation of Australia.
More of them log on to Natalie Tran’s channel on YouTube than any other. Ms Tran,
25, who lives in Sydney and has a Vietnamese background, is at the top of the list of
the most subscribed to channels in Australia. Her witty and instructive video blogs
have earned her hundreds of millions of viewers globally – and a large salary.
Her 212 videos have been viewed 411 million times, while her most popular
video, How to Fake a Six Pack, has gained 34.5 million views since it was uploaded
in 2008. The basic, sarcastic video shows Ms Tran drawing fake abdominal muscles
on her bare stomach, accompanied by classical music. It has become the second-
most viewed YouTube video in Australia behind Gotye and Kimbra’s 2011 smash
songSomebody That I Used to Know, which attracted 94.8 million views.
To Ms Tran, however, ethnicity is irrelevant to her online popularity.
”I don’t think that people watch others on YouTube because of how they look,” she
said. ”They [don’t] watch someone because of their ethnic background.
”I am Australian, I was born here and raised here and it would be nice to see a cross-
section [of ethnicity] portrayed on television.”
Ms Tran said that YouTube offered a more accurate portrayal of Australia’s diversity.
”The internet is testimony to the fact that people are interested in different things, as
long as it’s interesting content,” she said.
For 25-year-old identical twins Janice and Sonia Lee, also from Sydney, their
childhood hobby of singing with a guitar has led to them being the fourth most-
subscribed YouTube channel in Australia. The product of Korean parents, they have
had 55 million views on their channel Jayesslee and now tour the world full-time and
often get recognised on the streets of Malaysia and Singapore.
”YouTube has become a platform where anyone can share without barriers as there is
in television,” Janice said. ”If people like your videos then they will share with a
friend.”
With a lack of Asian actors in mainstream media, Janice said their online success had
made them role models in their ethnic community, despite being ”more comfortable”
speaking English than Korean.
”It’s great to know that our success and what we are doing is inspiring other people
to do the same,” she said.
YouTube has created a democratic forum for cultural groups across Australia, unlike
mainstream media, said professor of sociology Andrew Jakubowicz, of the University
of Technology.
”In commercial media there has been this long sense that advertisers are extremely
conservative and don’t wish in any way to offend or alienate audience members and
so in the process of creating content, the safest way to go is to stick to the
mainstream model,” he said.
”It’s not that audiences are uncomfortable with the reality of Australia being shown
to them [in reality television shows], it’s that the people making the programs are not
courageous, adventurous or knowledgeable enough to make programs that work in
real terms.”
Sarah Whyte – SMH – March 4, 2012