| dc.description.abstract | This thesis explores the significance of beauty and lifestyle videos on YouTube in the lives of young women. It uses the biographic-narrative interpretive method (BNIM) to allow five women to share their personal life stories and their consumption of beauty and lifestyle content during their teenage years. In doing so, this thesis uncovers new meanings of the genre and how it is embedded in the personal lives of teenagers. A broad theoretical field is integrated into the thesis. In addition to a general introduction to YouTube and the beauty and lifestyle genre, this thesis discusses the understanding of the individual and woman at the beginning of the 21st century with movements such as post- feminism and neo-liberalism. It also presents critical perspectives on the beauty and lifestyle genre, such as the argument that the genre provides space for female empowerment but also limits it by holding on to traditional beauty standards. However, the focus is on the interviews, which both confirm and go beyond the findings of previous studies. The interview analyses show how beauty and lifestyle content on YouTube played an important and guiding role during adolescence and provided meaningful role models to validate preached beauty standards. Most importantly, the biographical approach showed how YouTube served as a compensation for the lack of role models in the personal context, most often the family context. Often videos were watched and guidance sought because the personal context did not provide it well enough. The last finding reinforces the importance of the personal context in relation to media use, and the project as a whole underlines how important the beauty and lifestyle genre is for young girls and how closely it is linked to forms of beauty, self-image and adolescence as a formative period. | eng |