Toronto teen Sylvia Ta shows off a new bracelet -- a freebie from GoFavor.com -- in a recent "haul" video on her Beautycakez YouTube channel, which boasts 102,000 subscribers. Photograph by: Screen grab , YouTube

If hunter-gatherers were teenage girls, the “haul” would be their big-game kill.

A term for the spoils of a shopping spree, hauls can include everything from fashion to beauty products, personal electronics to decor — and often all of the above. Whatever the quarry, it seems the most important thing is that it’s filmed and posted to the Internet for other young women to admire.

YouTube reports that searches for haul videos have reached an all-time high, up 40 per cent over last year’s peak. In fact, of the nearly 600,000 of them on the site, more than 35,000 were uploaded in the last month — a phenomenon credited to back-to-school shopping.

“It’s almost become the virtual fitting room,” says Chris Hodgson, Google Canada’s sector lead for multi-channel solutions. “But instead of going to the mall with five of your friends, you’re sharing (your purchases) with hundreds of thousands of people.”

Hodgson likens it to a teen-girl version of “unboxing videos,” in which YouTubers (typically men) record themselves opening pricey new gadgets.

Unfortunately for anyone older than Miley Cyrus, haul videos can be harder to watch than Hostel — and just as torturous. Their creators tend to have either the feigned ennui of American Apparel models or the exhausting enthusiasm of infomercial hosts, with very little middle ground.

An elite few, however, have established themselves as true tastemakers through these shop-and-share exercises, and have massive followings to show for it. In fact, leading brands the likes of Sears, Crocs, Loreal and J.C. Penney will often furnish the girls with products or sponsor full-blown hauls.

And it’s no wonder: a July report by Google found 38 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds rely on online videos to decide where to spend their money, compared to just 13 per cent of consumers 35 to 54.

“It shows you what’s out there,” says Melissa Merk, the Vancouver teen behind YouTube channel Skindeepbeautytips. “If you’re planning on shopping, it can give you an idea of where to go and what to check out.”

Toronto’s Sylvia Ta, whose fashion and beauty videos have racked up 9.9 million views, says her subscribers see haul videos as a source of inspiration.

“A lot of people look up to (haulers) on YouTube, style-wise,” says Ta, known on the site as Beautycakez. “They want to see what kind of outfits they should be wearing for school, and what’s considered fashionable.”

Ta uses online video not only to display her latest fashion prey, but also to share tips on how to wear the garments. The 19-year-old says she gets as much pleasure making the videos as she does watching those uploaded by her peers.

“It’s kind of like if you were going shopping with your friends how, at the end of the day, you want to share all the excitement (over your purchases) with them,” says Ta. “You get that same feeling and connection from these videos.”

Anthropologist Megan Boler, who has studied vlogging, has mixed feelings about the trend.

On one hand, she’s pleased young women are finding a sense of agency by creating these videos, which make them hosts of their own talk-shows. On the other, she’s saddened that shopping is what’s “empowering” them.

“In a culture where women and girls’ access to power is very limited, YouTube is a place they can exert autonomy. But why is it that so many of them are finding this is the subject they have authority to speak about?” says Boler, a professor at the University of Toronto. “It’s consumerism as a form of identity."

mharris@postmedia.com

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