Playing YouTube: How the Nancy YouTuber doll and app position children as aspiring YouTube influencers

Historical precedents of the Nancy doll

The history of the Nancy YouTuber doll can be traced to Marisol, the most famous child movie star of the 1960s in Spain. Marisol attracted an enthusiastic following thanks to her angelic looks and her roles in popular films with storylines that represented societal ideals of the time (Triana-Toribio, 2003). Many Marisol tie-in products were created, including an iconic doll made in her likeness which became the most desired toy of the time (Triana-Toribio, 2003).

Nancy YouTuber was launched in September 2018 by Famosa (Famosa, 2019b), the same toy brand that created Marisol's doll. Popular child YouTube stars, Arantxa Parreño and Clodett (@elmundodeclodett) became brand ambassadors, sporting bespoke dolls in their own likeness. The fact that the same manufacturer is behind Marisol (Figure 1) and Nancy YouTuber doll (Figure 2) explains why they look very similar.

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Figure 1.

[Marisol and her Famosa doll ca. 1962].

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Figure 2.

Nancy YouTuber doll.

Playing with apps

Children's play is shaped by the socio-cultural environment, media, toy marketing campaigns, and the toys children enjoy (Bergen, 2014). Hence, play can be malleable and preferences change as technology and trends evolve (Sutton-Smith, 2001). Toys are filled with potential meanings. As anthropologists Pearson and Mullins (1999) argue, while Barbie and other famous dolls reflect more than one idea or cultural norm at a time, they are nevertheless products of their time and ‘represent only select possibilities at various historical moments’ (1999: 256). That said, toys, and dolls in particular, are never played with only in the ways manufacturers intend or imagine (Rogers, 1999), yet everything, from advertising to packaging and accessories, provides children with an initial imaginary framework for play, even as that framework is contextualized in the specificities of their own everyday lives. Likewise, even though children may imitate YouTubers after repeated viewings, meaning-making is co-constructed by a wide range of multimodal elements (Willett et al., 2013).

In 1993, play theorist Kline introduced the concept of ‘play scripts’, arguing that ‘children are taught to internalize narrative themes and values into their own scripts’ by assigning specific rules and thematic conventions to licensed toys (cited in Grimes, 2010: 15). Children's media scholar Grimes (2010) acknowledges that this concept is contentious, running contrary to prevailing play theories that confer on children the freedom to discover and appropriate new forms of play. Grimes (2010) reinterprets play scripts from the original articulation, turning it into a flexible analytic tool to examine play technologies and the underlying sets of rules of video games. Grimes (2010) further contends that play scripts remain a valid concept in digital games to understand the effects of the implicit set of parameters devised by game producers on player activity. Together, the design, the narrative, and the rules construct powerful play scripts that shape digital play (Grimes, 2010: 196). Cassell and Jenkins (2000) agree that video games and other forms of play using technology must be played according to specifications and features designed by adults. Even children's apps that foster creativity are constrained by their design (Marsh et al., 2018). Thus, understanding the manufacturer's vision of apps designed for children becomes particularly important.

In one of the most relevant papers for this study regarding the use of apps by young children, Marsh et al. (2018) note that children's apps must incorporate appropriate scaffolding features into their design to guide children on the intended play. Slightly older children, who can read, also require scaffolding features such as onboarding tutorials, which guide users on intended use (Ux Planet, 2017). Young children must be inducted into the use of devices and digital play by others (Marsh et al., 2018). This role is usually played by parents of children aged 0–5 who must also learn the workings of the apps. Although a majority of preschoolers and toddlers are able to use touchscreen tablets to watch YouTube alone (Nicoll and Nansen, 2018), this does not mean that children have an intuitive grasp of the functions in children's apps. Accordingly, as children become active producers of content in digital spaces, they must acquire new skills and practices, and learn to use different affordances to create and upload content even in apps designed as child-friendly spaces (Grimes and Fields, 2015). Children who aspire to emulate other child YouTubers must also learn the practices associated with professional content creators.

YouTubers and the practices that allow monetization

Influencers, regardless of platform, are ‘internet celebrities’ who make a living thanks to ‘their ability to attract and sustain a sizable following’ through ‘highly engaging and personalized content production’ (Abidin, 2018: 71). YouTube has become mainstream media, attracting users of all ages (Burgess and Green, 2018), potentially opening up a ‘participatory culture’ (Jenkins, 2013). However, becoming a successful YouTuber is a different story. Sharing content alone does not guarantee an audience and monetization.

Becoming a successful YouTuber requires a range of self-presentation practices and skills (Marwick, 2015) that include having discursive competence, content production skills, and the ability to engage audiences through creativity and affectivity (Hou, 2018). Content creators must build and nourish social relationships to create a sense of friendship with the audience (Baym, 2015). This relational labor is ‘integral to their economic viability’ as it helps them appear to be socializing rather than being overtly promotional (Baym, 2015: 18).

Digital studies scholars (Duffy and Pooley, 2017; Hearn and Schoenhoff, 2016) agree that self-branding is central to cultivating a network. Self-branding in digital media refers to building an online presence by offering a distinctive unique selling proposition through content and delivery (Khamis et al., 2017). This includes a conscious strategy to build a digital identity by creating a distinctive name, selecting images, visual codes (Hearn and Schoenhoff, 2016), and a narrative to attract and maintain the attention of a target audience (Khamis et al., 2017).

To build the kind of social capital that can be monetized on YouTube, content creators need a consistent professional approach to evolve from amateur content creators to digital entrepreneurs (Hou, 2018). This involves additional skills and business practices, such as uploading content regularly, choosing keywords for visibility (Bishop, 2020), engaging with followers, as well as checking metrics and platform analytics to shape content strategies (Hou, 2018). In essence, professional YouTubers achieve their status by keeping audiences engaged through a set of practices, skills, and the effective use of technical affordances. This also applies to child YouTubers, even if they are assisted by parents or intermediaries. Even though social media has created the perception that influencer status and the rewards associated with them are largely attainable to ordinary people (Turner, 2006), only high-profile YouTubers with millions of subscribers become top-earning stars& nbsp;(Ruiz-Gomez, 2019).

Children on YouTube

Children's increased access to digital technology allows them to become contributors in social media participatory culture at a younger age and even become YouTube stars (Lange, 2014). Child YouTubers are highly sought after by brands to deliver curated audiences of other children, because children's channels that ostensibly appear child-led are among the most-watched in the world. According to a 2019 study by Pew Research (van Kessel et al., 2019), content for young children that features children under the age of 13 receives three times more views than other content intended for children on YouTube.

The most popular content categories where children participate are family vlogs that document family life much like reality TV (see Abidin, 2017; Lichtenstein et al., 2017) and toy unboxing videos, where children unpack and comment on toys as they play (see Craig and Cunningham, 2017; Jaakkola, 2020; Marsh, 2015; Nicoll and Nansen, 2018). In these videos, children's play is commodified and captured as a productive act of content creation (Banet-Wiser, 2012).

In this context, broader questions about digital childhood are circulating, including: to what extent parents need to act as gatekeepers for children's content online; and at what age children's digital footprints should begin (Leaver, 2015). Parents sharing their children's lives as social media content raises a number of privacy concerns, in particular for parents turning this content into a source of revenue (Leaver, 2020) and turning children into digital labor.

Research on Spanish child-led YouTube channels shows that covert forms of advertisement play a predominant role in the content (see Tur-Viñes et al., 2018). Hence, child YouTubers become promotional intermediaries that attract the attention of their peers through videos that mediatize children's play and present promotional content as entertainment (Jaakkola, 2020). This is significant because decades of research show that young children find it difficult to differentiate commercial content from regular content (Kinsey, 1987). Influencer marketing using peers is considered to be more effective than traditional advertising as child YouTubers are relatable influencers impacting the consumption decisions of other children (De Veirman et al., 2019).

As YouTube continues its global growth, children's channels are expanding to reach different markets by creating multiple language versions. This makes content more accessible and engaging for non-English-speaking audiences and, more importantly, it increases revenue opportunities. Spanish-speaking children represent a considerable target audience as Spanish is the second most spoken language after Chinese (Centro Virtual Cervantes, 2020).

Leading child YouTube channels such as Kids Diana Show (85.1 M) or Like Nastya (78.2 M) utilize multiple channels to reach other markets. In both cases, their fastest-growing channels are in Spanish (Like Nastya ESP 31.2 M and Diana and Roma 22.5 M). Arguably, reaching new audiences may have helped grow their main channels, as they have quickly surpassed the highest-earning child YouTube star Ryan Kaji from Ryan's World (30.8 M) in terms of subscribers (SocialBlade, 2021). Significantly, Ryan's first channel in another language was in Spanish (1.45 M). The top Spanish-native child YouTubers are sisters Gisela and Claudia, known as ‘Las Ratitas’ (23.9 M). From a marketing perspective, Spanish-native channels offer the advantage of being able to customize content to appeal to local markets and promote local brands more directly than international child YouTubers.

Channels featuring young children are typically managed by parents, who coach their kids, as well as record or edit the videos (Nicoll and Nansen, 2018). In Spain, child YouTubers, such as Las Ratitas, are often managed by marketing-savvy parents who are also successful influencers. Parents, however, are not the only ones deciding the content, as brand collaborations and agencies often place specific demands on YouTubers (Abidin, 2020; Hutchinson, 2021).

Spain has a powerful influencer marketing industry with agencies specialized in managing child YouTubers for the Spanish-speaking market (Aznar Díaz et al., 2019). To illustrate the extent of commercial interests surrounding child YouTube stars in Spain, it is worth noting that two agencies – LaRezeta and 2bTube – manage the majority of top children's channels to offer brands for influencer marketing campaigns (Aznar Díaz et al., 2019). To identify new children to recruit, LaRezeta organizes contests, where children are sent toys and a script to perform (Jané, 2017). This is parallel to how celebrities were fabricated by the movie industry (Hearn and Schoenhoff, 2016). Like the movie industry, YouTube also requires a constant flow of new talent given the short number of years a child can promote toys and other products to other children.

In addition to mediating collaborations with brands, these intermediaries offer professional services for families who want their children to be YouTubers, such as digital media production, coaching children's performance, or account management. Using professional management means a more deliberate commodification of children, and an important shift from parental mediation to entrepreneurial calculation where content is designed to meet commercial interests. Additionally, it explains cookie-cutter content strategies and similar self-presentation behavior found across different children's channels according to a study comparing YouTube channels of minors in Spain and the USA (López-Villafranca and Olmedo-Salar, 2019).

Given the demand for Spanish-speaking child content creators as valuable producers of content for peer-to-peer marketing and the financial rewards associated with successful child YouTubers, it is not surprising that children are socially and culturally encouraged to participate in what media scholars Craig and Cunningham (2017: 5) have labelled the ‘proto-industry of social media entertainment’. Toy unboxing is a lucrative genre that generates profit for brands, intermediaries and parents (De Veirman et al., 2019). Toy manufacturers are important stakeholders as their marketing strategy relies heavily on using child YouTubers to promote their products to other children (De Veirman et al., 2019). Toys such as the Nancy YouTuber reify and capitalize on the existing desire to imitate child YouTubers. We thus seek to examine how the Nancy YouTuber is part of the child influencer marketing industry.

Creating a digital identity

The setup process involves creating a fictitious channel stored within the app. This fictitious channel is emphasized in the product description and promotional materials. During the first step, users are prompted to take a selfie for their profile image. At this point, the Nancy doll in the app suggests: ‘make yourself very pretty and fashionable with the accessories’ (Figure 4). Then, Nancy recommends choosing a ‘cool name’. Next, users must create a headline image for their channel (choosing background pastel colours, fonts, adding emoji stickers, and music), all of which are heavily gendered female. The following step is to ‘create an intro for the start and an outro for the end of the videos. Like real YouTubers’ (Figure 4).

Creating content

Once the headline is created, users must scan the QR code to activate the creation of videos and other features. At this point, the tutorial suggests: ‘Now, let's make some cool videos. How about unboxing or whatever you want! We have lots of effects and filters to make it look great’ (Figure 5). Users can record single videos or create sequences that can be customized further by adding filters, stickers, animated texts, or background music. Once videos are added to the simulated account, clapping sounds and little red hearts (symbolizing ‘likes’) appear, directly associating success with online metrics, with the tutorial displaying a message saying: ‘See all the likes, subscribers, and views that you are getting!’ (Figure 5).

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Figure 5.

Video creation tutorial.

Saving videos and receiving simulated audience response

Videos are stored and can only be viewed within the app (although this could be circumvented by screen recording). A message encourages users to ‘create cool videos’ because ‘the more you share videos, the more likes you will get’ and ‘visit the app often to earn likes and increase your subscribers count’ (Figure 5). Every time a user checks their profile, the number of likes, subscribers, and views increases, simulating engagement from an imaginary audience. Table 1 summarizes key features.

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Table 1.

Summary of Nancy YouTuber’s key features.

Manufacturer's sales pitch	‘Nancy YouTuber doll will make girls’ dreams of being YouTubers come true with their own fictitious channel and accessories to practice unboxing, make tutorials, and review products.’
Manufacturer's recommended age	Doll: 3 years old and up (from the doll's packaging).
	App: 6 years and up (from Google Play Store).
What comes in the box?	Doll, tripod, accessories, QR code
How does the app address parents’ safety concerns?	The app is promoted as 100% kid-safe.
	Internet is only required to download the app.
	It does not require or give direct access to the internet.
Key app features	20 filters, stickers, music, and sounds.
	Fictitious profile with heading, intro and outro sequences.
	Simulated views and likes (recreated with visual and sound effects).
	Tutorials: an image of the doll guides users step by step.

The manufacturer's intended use

To analyze the discursive narratives devised by the manufacturer to help children assimilate YouTube affordances and behaviors, we begin with an analysis of the app and its tutorial. We argue that the app's tutorial is more than just a guide to present its features. Playing with the doll alone is closer to free play, however, the tutorial directs the child's actions more purposefully, thus playing with the doll and app fall along the spectrum toward guided play (Grimes, 2010). We consider the tutorial as a key element to understand the manufacturer's intended play and discourse.

In-app onboarding tutorials are an essential part of the adoption of any app as they are designed to familiarize users with basic features during the first interaction (Ux Planet, 2017). In sharp contrast with in-app tutorials for adults, where users only watch the tutorial during the initial setup process or can even skip the tutorial, the Nancy YouTuber tutorial accompanies children every time the app is used. The tutorial does more than just introduce technical affordances. The tutorial uses the familiarity of the Nancy doll within the app to make suggestions of expected play. It provides contextual learning by drawing attention to features, giving specific instructions, and rewarding actions when the app is used as intended by the manufacturer. In addition to the tutorial's scaffolding, digital play is bound by interface elements and design considerations envisioned by a manufacturer (Cassell and Jenkins, 2000).

According to Marsh et al. (2015), children's apps must provide positive feedback and rewards to promote actions, reinforce behaviors and reward progress by using badges, cheering, and clapping (2018: 36–7). This is exactly what we see when the Nancy YouTuber app ‘rewards’ users for uploading content, checking metrics in the fictitious profile, or when using the app repeatedly. These rewards increase exponentially as users spend more time playing. The app simulates cheers, views, and likes from an imaginary audience with clapping sounds and hearts flying through the screen. These rewards represent the ‘popularity markers’ (García-Rapp, 2017: 1) needed by influencers to build social capital that is used as leverage to monetize via advertorials or ad revenue (Hou, 2018). The simulation of audience engagement through views and likes further signals that creating content is not just about self-expression and creativity, but about obtaining social metrics and validation from viewers. This reinforces the idea that success is measured in terms of subscribers and video views (Burgess and Green, 2018).

Manufacturer scenarios of use are further established in the different elements surrounding the doll: pictures of the doll unboxing in the packaging, the doll's outfit and accessories, and the promotional videos created by the manufacturer and the child YouTubers. All of these work together to suggest play possibilities to conform to the scenarios anticipated by the manufacturer. For instance, the videos created by child YouTubers hired to promote the doll and app almost replicate the same manufacturer messages. In Arantxa's video (Parreño, 2018), she appears to be coached as she repeats the script of the in-app tutorial almost exactly. Her video is heavily edited, evident by bloopers at the end of the video. Furthermore, she indicates that the app is a safe place without an internet connection. This message appears in the box and the website description, but it is not a message one would expect from a child. It is directed towards parents, as toy marketing strategies often aim to appeal to parents and children alike (Seiter, 1995). At the end of her video, Arantxa shares her tips to be successful with other girls slightly younger (6–7 years old). She tells them they must upload videos ‘at least once a week’, have multiple channels, and have a unique style to differentiate from others. She ends by saying ‘don't forget to like and subscribe!’ Through these promotional videos, child brand ambassadors induct other children into the manufacturer's intended use by reinforcing the same discourse.

Past studies show that children integrate television shows into their play by trying to match play behavior modeled for them, even if they adjust play to their norms and competence (Sutton-Smith, 2001: 154). Similarly, children reproduce the narratives and behavior of YouTubers into their play. In Spain, for example, over 67% of Spanish children mimic YouTuber unboxing videos according to a survey of 600 Spanish families (Instituto Tecnológico de Producto Infantil y Ocio, 2019). Creating a promotional campaign using admired, yet relatable child YouTubers is the very essence of influencer marketing targeting children (De Veirman et al., 2019). Children connect with YouTubers at a more personal level than with other media entertainers, developing strong parasocial relationships with other children YouTubers that resemble their friends (Dezuanni, 2020: 62).

It is interesting to note that Nancy YouTuber's promotional campaigns in other Spanish-speaking countries use local ambassadors, such as TvAna Emilia for Mexico. Not only is she more popular in Latin America than the Spanish girls, but her expressions like ‘Que padre’ (so cool) are easily understood, while Arantxa's ‘Que guay’ (so cool) is only understood in Spain. This illustrates how influencer marketing targeting children is fine-tuning to take into account different dialects to engage different demographics.

RQ1: Does the Nancy YouTuber doll and app situate children as a particular kind of YouTuber through their design?

The companion app guides children to adopt specific YouTuber practices and integrate media practices through play. As media studies scholars Burgess and Green (2018: 24) note, YouTube stars ‘carefully cultivate their brand identities’. During the setup process, the tutorial provides a step-by-step lesson in self-branding. Children learn to choose a ‘cool name’ for their channel, ‘look pretty’ for the avatar, and create intro and outro sequences for future videos. These actions help mimic self-branding practices used by professional content creators to distinguish themselves and package their content for public consumption (Hearn and Schoenhoff, 2016; Khamis et al., 2017). Children are invited to portray a heavily gendered subject position that follows the norms of girl culture when creating a digital identity, using images, audio, pastel visual codes, and creating a memorable name for audience appeal.

The participation of children in digital spaces has been framed as an opportunity for children to acquire new digital literacies that prepare them for a world in which they socialize, learn and play online (Palfrey and Gasser, 2016). However, digital media literacy discourses distinguish technical skills like video editing and programming from other capabilities needed to navigate, critically evaluate, and contribute to ‘the fabric and culture of contemporary society’ (Grimes and Fields, 2015: 144). The Nancy YouTuber app includes functionalities to create and edit videos, but what sets this toy apart is the fictitious channel and the informal learning provided by the tutorial. Messages centralize the importance of self-branding practices and suggest recreating product review videos designed for audience approval.

RQ2: To what extent does the combination of a doll and companion app, rather than just one or the other, shape play and the commodification of children as promotional intermediaries for marketing campaigns?

We argue that even if the doll and app together are part of a digital playground for playful and creative practices, the gendered cultural discourses embedded in their features contribute to normalizing the acceptance of children as self-brands and producers of commercial content in the guise of entertainment. The companion app plays an active role in helping children integrate and mimic YouTube affordances and perform specific behaviors. The tutorial suggests specific forms of play by saying ‘how about unboxing?’ It then provides tips to create beauty tutorials and unbox products ‘like real YouTubers’, suggesting that creating this type of advertorial is what real YouTubers do. No other content options are suggested. Cultural discourses can be observed in the accessories that represent commercial beauty products and boxes to practise unboxing. App features include spotlights and zoom effects designed to highlight products. All the elements encourage children to create content drawn from a commercialized context. Promotional content, such as toy reviewing, has become an acceptable component of children's media culture, where children become powerful mediators of commercial messages (Jaakkola, 2020). Nancy YouTuber contributes to normalizing the idea of children as consumers and producers of content that mediatizes play to showcase products using covert forms of advertisement in what Jaakkola (2020) calls the ‘mash-up genre’ that blurs product promotion and entertainment.

Marketers have a long history of utilizing children as ‘vehicles’ to sell to other children (Kinsey, 1987). Similarly, social media entertainment industries also consider children as a key demographic as both consumers and producers of content (Craig and Cunningham, 2017). These toys and apps are significant because they contribute to children's, and, more broadly, society's, acceptance of children as creators of commercial content. Furthermore, the doll and app, as an assemblage, not only impact a child's social, educational, and cultural development but also have a meaningful influence on their understanding of everyday behavior and rituals (Sutton-Smith, 1992). Even though a broader discussion of the implications these apps may have on the development of young children in their formative years is beyond the scope of this article, there is clearly a critical need for parents to guide children as they initiate their digital lives in terms of appropriate self-representation and expressions of creativity.