Media Language

Influencer/YT’er conventions that suggest authenticity/reliability that KSI has used

• Direct address

• Guests

• Language

• Humour

• Mainstream genres

How Youtubers are different to traditional celebrities

Celebrities attract fans with beauty and luxurious lifestyles.

Influencers rely on two main qualities:

• Authenticity and relatability.

KSI and direct address

He usually sits in a bedroom or small studio.

• This mirrors the audience’s environment, making the creater appear ‘normal’ and relatable rather than distant

The cheap, lo-fi production

• Signals honesty because it’s not heavily scripted, edited or controlled by institutions.

• When a video has limited production, low post editing it makes the video seem more raw and unfiltered, rather than manufactured. with real emotion.

KSI and language

He uses language associated with young urban men

• Slang mixed with street dialect

  • Makes his persona feel natural rather than performed.

• Gaming/social media terms

  • Shows fluency in online culture, positioning him as an insider, rather than an external, commercial figure.

• In earlier videos (FIFA 12/Blacks vs the world), the video is based around banter between the siblings. The language/ humour is crude, but unpolished, adding to the authenticity.

Audience who use this language will feel included, and feel that KSI is embedded in the culture rather than imitating it.

KSI and guests

These are sometimes members of his family, (particularly his brother Deji) or other internet celebrities.

This helps build a personal relationship with his fans, who feel like they’re part of his family.

KSI and humour

Some of it is racist or homophobic

• This adds to the unpolished feel of the video.

These jokes are more acceptable because the environment of the video (bedroom) frames the content as informal and conversational, and private rather than public broadcasting.

This helps highlight the jokes as casual banter rather than deliberate hate speech.

His relationship with his brother also contributes to the acceptability, because banter between siblings is understood to be exaggerated, and not literal.

This strengthens the creator-audience relationship because it shows him as a real person that isn’t affected by public broadcasting guidelines.

How KSI’s image has changed overtime

KSI’s image has evolved from an unregulated, provocative internet creator to a strategically managed hybrid media figure, balancing authenticity with mainstream acceptability.

How meanings are established through intertextuality

• Like many youtubers, their own product exists adjacent to the main text (the video game)

• KSI moved beyond this - he harnessed the popularity of his let’s play videos and used it as a launchpad to publicise his scripted comedy and music products with the sidemen.

Baudrillard Postmodernism

This theory asserts that it is diffuclt to discern whhat is real and what is artificial.

KSI exemplifies Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra, as his carefully constructed authenticity creates a hyperreal persona that feels more real to audiences than the private individual behind it.

When asked if his ‘beefs’ are real, he said some aren’t some are.