100% agree,
@RamonaRemembers.
The vlogging format is so interesting from that viewpoint. On the one hand, it is a video diary you share for fame and money. Your story, your way. [[When you write in your diary you are accountable only to you.]]
On the other hand, driving engagement and selling "help me" merch and GFM's means forming relationships (of a sort) with viewers.
Viewers who enter this sort of relationship admittedly one-sidedly, but then the vlogger builds their relationships, since they are selling engagement....
Social media is... social. Then we suddenly have societal rules to deal with like... don't manipulate, don't use others, don't cash in on sympathy.
I am interested in her cancer journey. But wow! I want nothing to do with her icky vlog product. It's like buying apples. Full of worm holes.
She doesn't owe anything. She could delete her youtube account tomorrow and walk away.
But she has made people feel part of her journey and isn't treating them in a way they expect from her self-produced image she should. That backfires.