Jenna Marbles: How To Trick People Into Thinking You're Good Looking

2010

Date: 9 July 2010 · Place: YouTube, recorded in Cambridge, Massachusetts · Figures: Jenna Mourey aka Jenna Marbles, performer · Tags: YouTube Comedy, Femme Confessional, Bedroom Channel 01. Five Million Views In One Week On 9 July 2010 Jenna Mourey, a graduate student at Boston University, posts a comedic three-minute monologue titled How To Trick People Into Thinking You're Good Looking. The video accumulates more than five million views in seven days. By 2014 her channel is the most-subscribed by a woman on YouTube. The format is fixed for a decade of imitators: a single performer talking directly to a webcam in a bedroom or living room, fast-cut and unscripted in feel, soundtracked by self-conscious mockery of femininity. 02. The Femme Vlogger Template Marbles' channel proves that the YouTube creator economy is not only a sketch-comedy or vlog-confessional medium but a vehicle for women's confessional comedy at scale. The format will be inherited by Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart, Lilly Singh, Liza Koshy, Trisha Paytas, and countless others. Her 2020 retirement, in response to old videos containing blackface and other content, is among the first major creator exits driven by archive accountability rather than burnout. Sources • Jenna Marbles YouTube channel archive (2010-2020) • The New York Times, 'Jenna Marbles, The YouTube Star Reaching A Generation' (12 April 2014) • Vox, 'Jenna Marbles, an Internet Pioneer, Is Leaving YouTube' (26 June 2020)