Why Zoella is just another woman the internet loves to take down
BEAUTY vlogger Zoe Sugg has 6,678,979 YouTube subscribers. But there are also millions who just can’t stand her.
OPINION
BEAUTY vlogger Zoe Sugg has 6,678,979 YouTube subscribers. But there are also millions who just can’t stand her.
The sunny, smiley, 24-year-old YouTube blogger — known as Zoella to her loyal teenage fans — is facing an online backlash today after it emerged that Sugg didn’t actually write her best-selling debut novel Girl Online word-for-word. Shock horror.
It was ghost written by a woman named Sioban Curham, who Sugg thanked in the book’s acknowledgments for being “with me every step of the way”, reports The Telegraph.
In the wake of stories with headlines such as ‘Zoella: Yes, using a ghostwriter matters when your entire brand is built on being authentic’ and ‘Will A Ghostwriter Controversy Destroy Zoella’s New Book Career?’, Sugg made the sensible decision to take “a few days out and off the internet” to protect herself.
But why does it matter so much that a young woman with a burgeoning brand had help writing a fairly innocuous book about beauty? Ghostwriting happens all the time.
And why has Sugg been on the receiving end of a spew of hatred? Well, the ugly truth is...we all love to hate. And if you’re a young, pretty, successful woman on the internet? Well, we hate you even more.
The series of events leading up to this “ghostwriting controversy” reads like a classic tale of the ‘Online Takedown of a Successful Young Female’. Here’s how this particular story, called, ‘Why the internet hates Zoella’, unfolded.
Step 1: Be a young, beautiful female
From the outside, it seems like Sugg has it made. She is beautiful, has a banging body and a lovely, handsome boyfriend (fellow YouTube celebrity Alfie Deyes, whose channel Pointless Blog has 3,362,223 subscribers).
She gets paid to play with makeup all day and test out new hairstyles. Some of her most popular videos include ‘Autumn/Fall Makeup | Gold Eyes & Berry Lips’ and ‘Skincare Chat & Natural Makeup Look’. More than three million people have tuned in to see her unveil the contents of her $975 Alexander Wang handbag. She’s pretty, rich and unlike many of us, doesn’t have to file that sales report by 9am on Monday morning.
Step 2: Become really really successful, really really quickly.
Since launching her blog and YouTube channel in 2009, Sugg has had a fast and intense rise to fame. She’s released her own beauty line, Zoella Beauty, was crowned Cosmopolitan’s Best Beauty Vlogger in 2012 and won the 2014 Teen Choice Award for Choice Web Star: Fashion and Beauty.
She is the ambassador for several charities, including UK-based mental health charity Mind (Sugg has been frank about living with anxiety. This human vulnerability in her seemingly perfect life makes her even more relatable. And even more marketable).
And despite the controversy surrounding her book Girl Online, there’s no doubt that it’s selling well. Her debut novel sold 78,000 copies in its first week of publication in the UK, beating debut novels by J.K Rowling and Dan Brown. She’s already signed on to write a sequel. She’s clearly doing well for herself.
Step 3: Share intimate details of your personal life with your fans.
Sugg greets her fans at the beginning of each video with a cheerful, “Hello everybody!” and updates them with the latest happenings in her life — such as moving in with her boyfriend and or the giant bag of drugstore makeup she purchased that week.
In a clip titled ‘I MOVED HOUSE WITH ALFIE’ (it has 2,340,431 views), Sugg and her boyfriend film themselves half naked in bed together, freshly woken, and discuss their excitement and moving in together.
Because Sugg has invited her viewers to observe intimate details of her personal life, we feel like we know her. We feel like she’s our best friend (along with 6 million other people). She’s made her success off the love and adoration of the public. Therefore, we feel like we’re allowed to take her down.
News.com.au’s Melissa Hoyer says some bloggers allow us into their lives in a big way, leaving some followers to think they can be in those lives, 24/7.
“There is a fine line you have to walk when giving away so much of your life on social media platforms,’’ says Ms Hoyer. “Lots of girls and guys — young or old — follow every step a microblogger makes. And let’s face it, they often live vicariously through the perceived ‘glamorous’ lives they look to lead.
“Resentment can often occur — ‘How can he/she be on SO many holidays, Instagramming every move they make?’ is what I hear a lot. But that IS a job for some relatively ‘normal’ people who have carved out a niche for themselves,” adds Hoyer.
“They’ve gotten off their bum and made a name for themselves whether as a make-up tutor, a bikini blogger or a homewares stylist. They have acquired followers who hang on every frock they wear; every smoky eye they create and every cosy lounge room they design.’’
Step 4: Make a ‘mistake’
On the back cover of her book, Sugg says: “My dream has been to write a book, and I can’t believe it’s come true. Girl Online is my first novel and I’m so excited for you to read it.”
But on the weekend, a spokesperson for Sugg’s publisher told The Sunday Times: “To be factually accurate, you would need to say Zoe Sugg did not write the book Girl Online on her own.”
In an opinion piece titled ‘Zoella: Yes, using a ghostwriter matters when your entire brand is built on being authentic’, The Independent’s Lucy Hunter Johnston says that Girl Online is “different to your standard ghostwritten book, and that’s because of the implicit promise that Zoella makes to her followers.
“Their relationship is based on a fundamental understanding that she will be honest with them. These are teenage girls who worship their idol, and really believe her capable of doing anything. To them, she isn’t a celebrity whose name will be used to shift a product; she’s their best friend. If Zoella tells them she is “writing a book”, as she did several times, they believe that she is doing just that. This is why they bought it, and why they are so proud of her. If this is not the full story then they have misled.”
But does that justify all the hate? Should Sugg have to remove herself from the internet — the medium through which she makes a living — to avoid the snarky comments of millions who have never even met her?
No, she shouldn’t.
Follow @beck_sullivan on Twitter.