YouTubers, the new Rock Stars?!

[EdKirby]

I apologize for the length of this. Tl;DR at the bottom.

I can't seem to get all these YouTubers who are famous for ... what? I just don't know or can't get my head wrapped around it. Then again I don't know why the Kardashians are a thing either.

On top of it my daughter wants to become one. What's the attraction? Are these guys and gals the new Rock Stars? Is YouTube the new 'stage' of the 21st Century? And what really is their product. Game walkthroughs? Information? Merchandise? Yeah, maybe that's it, merchandise.

Right now I'm sitting around in one of my RUSH shirts. Earlier, at the insistence of my daughter (because she just had to have it), I bought a 'signed' t-shirt by a lesser know Tuber that my daughter likes. I get the RUSH shirt, I go to their concerts, I own all their albums and I love their music. It makes me feel good to wear this t-shirt. It brings back fond memories. This? This I can't understand. LOL I just paid $20 plus shipping for some dude's sig on a t-shirt. I just can't seem to make the correlation between a signed pair of sticks from Neil Peart to this. So far I'm coming up empty.

One of the biggest YouTubers that she follows is Markiplier. I hear this guy takes down some serious coin in ad rev from all the subscribers he has. But this whole model violates, at the very least, the C in CENTS. Some are starting to merchandise and do tours. WTF? Tours?

Earlier this year she wanted to go to a 'thing' that another YouTuber was putting on while he was on 'tour'. His thing? Sitting on stage in his onesie PJ's doing God knows what. I was like uh, I think we'll pass. I'd rather take you to see The Vamps, or 5 Seconds of Summer. That I get.

I'm just flabbergasted by this phenomenon.

TL;DR - Why the heck are YouTubers famous?

 

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[MMatt]

It is self branding at it's finest. They are entertainers taking an entrepreneurial approach to video production. Make good videos-- gain fans and trust--get sponsors--get commissions--sell self branded items and digital products = Profit. The perfect formula for the digital nomad.

 

[jason91]

I apologize for the length of this. Tl;DR at the bottom.

I can't seem to get all these YouTubers who are famous for ... what? I just don't know or can't get my head wrapped around it. Then again I don't know why the Kardashians are a thing either.

On top of it my daughter wants to become one. What's the attraction? Are these guys and gals the new Rock Stars? Is YouTube the new 'stage' of the 21st Century? And what really is their product. Game walkthroughs? Information? Merchandise? Yeah, maybe that's it, merchandise.

Right now I'm sitting around in one of my RUSH shirts. Earlier, at the insistence of my daughter (because she just had to have it), I bought a 'signed' t-shirt by a lesser know Tuber that my daughter likes. I get the RUSH shirt, I go to their concerts, I own all their albums and I love their music. It makes me feel good to wear this t-shirt. It brings back fond memories. This? This I can't understand. LOL I just paid $20 plus shipping for some dude's sig on a t-shirt. I just can't seem to make the correlation between a signed pair of sticks from Neil Peart to this. So far I'm coming up empty.

One of the biggest YouTubers that she follows is Markiplier. I hear this guy takes down some serious coin in ad rev from all the subscribers he has. But this whole model violates, at the very least, the C in CENTS. Some are starting to merchandise and do tours. WTF? Tours?

Earlier this year she wanted to go to a 'thing' that another YouTuber was putting on while he was on 'tour'. His thing? Sitting on stage in his onesie PJ's doing God knows what. I was like uh, I think we'll pass. I'd rather take you to see The Vamps, or 5 Seconds of Summer. That I get.

I'm just flabbergasted by this phenomenon.

TL;DR - Why the heck are YouTubers famous?

I think people get into youtubers because it's sort of a community. Just like facebook, myspace, football, basketball, even the fastlane forums, are a community. The youtubers represent a set of beliefs or common denominators between the people who follow them. And they help the people feel more connected.

In addition they provide interesting and entertaining videos - as well as show their experiences which the person watching may be interested in. Not only do people enjoy the things they do, they enjoy the things they watch. They feel as if they are experiencing a part of the same thing just through watching a video.

 

[EdKirby]

It is self branding at it's finest. They are entertainers taking an entrepreneurial approach to video production. Make good videos-- gain fans and trust--get sponsors--get commissions--sell self branded items and digital products = Profit. The perfect formula for the digital nomad.

I asked my daughter when I was outside getting a fire ready in the backyard and she said basically the same thing; They're entertainers. At 12 she probably understands that media better than I. lol

As far as 'why' their form of entertainment is well entertaining, @jason91 your answer makes sense. But damn! some have a pretty big community built up. Is that would Seth Godin means by a "Tribe"? I haven't read that one yet but it would make sense to me.

 

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[jason91]

I asked my daughter when I was outside getting a fire ready in the backyard and she said basically the same thing; They're entertainers. At 12 she probably understands that media better than I. lol

As far as 'why' their form of entertainment is well entertaining, @jason91 your answer makes sense. But damn! some have a pretty big community built up. Is that would Seth Godin means by a "Tribe"? I haven't read that one yet but it would make sense to me.

Yeah precisely it is sort of like tribe. Not sure I've read that book by Seth, but the concept is probably a community that shares beliefs and culture. Notice how many youtubers give a name to their followers - "Villains - Vitalyzdtv | Roman Soldiers - Romanatwood | etc.. etc.." They have their individual sayings such as "Smile more", "Peace on the streets saan" or etc. This can be understood by comparing it to a community of corporate executives, bartenders, or any other form of "tribe" - they all have specific language used in the tribe to make people bond.

Children are very up to date with the frontend of YouTubers (What they represent) - but likely don't understand the YouTuber backend (HOW they build a community, etc.)

 

[EdKirby]

Yeah precisely it is sort of like tribe. Not sure I've read that book by Seth, but the concept is probably a community that shares beliefs and culture. Notice how many youtubers give a name to their followers - "Villains - Vitalyzdtv | Roman Soldiers - Romanatwood | etc.. etc.." They have their individual sayings such as "Smile more", "Peace on the streets saan" or etc. This can be understood by comparing it to a community of corporate executives, bartenders, or any other form of "tribe" - they all have specific language used in the tribe to make people bond.

Children are very up to date with the frontend of YouTubers (What they represent) - but likely don't understand the YouTuber backend (HOW they build a community, etc.)

Right on. Good stuff. There's got to be a lesson in there somewhere for sure. It's certainly something to try to emulate at least on a fundamental level. Regardless if you are using it as your primary form of connection with your base or as a adjunct to your other activities, i.e. Twitter, FB, Pinterest etc.

I know that in one of the areas I would like to pursue, video games, YouTube is utilized by those who know what they're doing. Building that tribe is very important as well as building 'buzz'.

Again, at the end of the day, you should be providing some form of value otherwise it's just a gimmick.

 

[Gymjunkie]

It's called Fractured Fame and yes, Youtubers do violate the Control thing but so what? They can get to scale and that scale then allows them different leverage like merchandise, tours and endorsements. Leveraging one platform is fine IF you're smart enough to diversify later.

And this is not YT thing only, there are Vine, Instagram or Pinterest or Twitch.tv (real mindblower!) superstars with millions of followers. Partly because they are good at it, party because they were first to do it and because platform grew they got most attention. Kind of like when years ago it was easy to rank in Google with SEO stuff and it was a big shift and it built up a lot of businesses which otherwise wouldn't have happened.

 

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[Gamaur]

Youtube is pretty amazing.

I know this wasn't exactly your question, but if your daughter has an interest or passion and wants to start a channel about it, I'd be encouraging her 110%. It's still a booming marketplace well off being saturated, and it's a viable business option for anyone - provided they're doing something of value. As each year rolls over the chances of breaking through and achieving exponential subscriber growth become less and less likely. I really can't stress enough the fact that the online video platform is still in its infancy, and that now is the perfect time to start capitalising on it.

Put it this way; if a person has talent in front of a camera and an interesting point of view, and they're consistent and disciplined, they can easily replace a decent salary within two years. 5 years ago I was the first subscriber for a guy who reviews two movies a week and the odd trailer, and now he makes well over 6 figures a year, and he barely works.

The problem is that many kids just want to be famous, and fail to see that successful youtubers achieved their popularity incidentally to their passion, not because they were focused on it. If your daughter is interested in something then she should start straight away. Not to mention, 12 is a great age to start developing the skill-set running a Youtube channel can promote in a person. It can help to build confidence, self-awareness and social awareness. The latter can be confronting at times though, so make sure she's equipped to handle harshness.

In answer to your question, the first thing we need to do is take away any previous understanding we have about celebrity and media. Otherwise it can be an easy thing to overthink.

YouTube (and other services like it) is a new variety of media altogether. A person's 'rockstar status' is predicated on the concept of exponential growth through viral online sharing. This means a YouTuber's success is always proportionate to the value being offered to their audience. The more valuable their content is, the more likely people are to spread it for them.

There are many other factors that can help, such as cross-channel promotion, media pick-ups and advertising for yourself, but ultimately it comes down to whether the channel is any good or not.

Markiplier is a perfect example. And by the way, he's reportedly making over 7 figures a year now!

The other effect of all this the one you're experiencing: "How the f*** does a dude talking about videogames get millions of people watching him each day?"

A helpful analogy (and I know you'll appreciate this) is to think of YouTube representing a newly discovered physical law. Physical laws simply are what they are, and things simply happen because of them. TV, radio and film are very different physical laws to YouTube. A kid can build fame and an empire through nothing but personality and a webcam, because the law dictates it as such. It's impossible to understand without expanding our conception of media and celebrity beyond what we grew up with.

This isn't saying anything about why people actually watch YouTubers though. The answer to that is extremely simple: they're entertaining.

If anything, as unfair as the effort to success ratio may seem, I personally don't think they get paid enough for the size of their audience. TV shows with a million views an episode make 10 times more revenue than YouTubers with 5 million views a video. There are plenty of YouTube videos with a bigger audience than the Super Bowl, and that charges millions per 30 seconds of ad-time. I 'd say as the cost of ads starts to more aptly match the popularity of the content, we're going to see some seriously wealthy individuals coming out of it. At the moment the top earners are making 5-10 million a year but much of that is through additional revenue streams and diversification.

Excuse me while I fire up my webcam...

 

[Daniel A]

I've been subscribed to this guy (Vincent Valentine aka Limitless EXP) for a long time now. In his newest video, he announced a new app he had developed which is actually a great idea! I'm going to look and see if this has been done before (pickup line app), because if not, WTF?

It's called Pickup+ and if you didn't guess what it's all about yet...

It's a bit like Urban Dictionary. Users submit pickup lines and they can get liked, favorited and shared.

I'm about to download it.

Video:

App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ascensionate.pickupplus

And I did some quick research and the developer is in the Netherlands I believe. I wonder how much the development cost and if there will be a good ROI. I think it'd get a nice userbase because his YT channel has a lot of subscribers and guys like me are giving him free marketing, haha.

 

[relentlessaction]

Folks are youtube are making bank Just one of those other methods for the fast lane.

 

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[MikeAU]

It is pretty awesome how some of these guys have built major followings and are now making some great cash. I think its a great opportunity for fellow fastlaners to capitalize on. Get contacting some of these guys with big followings and get selling merchandise to their fans. I'm sure there are heaps out there who aren't selling anything with there personal brand on to these followers.

 

[Gale4rc]

I apologize for the length of this. Tl;DR at the bottom.

I can't seem to get all these YouTubers who are famous for ... what? I just don't know or can't get my head wrapped around it. Then again I don't know why the Kardashians are a thing either.

On top of it my daughter wants to become one. What's the attraction? Are these guys and gals the new Rock Stars? Is YouTube the new 'stage' of the 21st Century? And what really is their product. Game walkthroughs? Information? Merchandise? Yeah, maybe that's it, merchandise.

Right now I'm sitting around in one of my RUSH shirts. Earlier, at the insistence of my daughter (because she just had to have it), I bought a 'signed' t-shirt by a lesser know Tuber that my daughter likes. I get the RUSH shirt, I go to their concerts, I own all their albums and I love their music. It makes me feel good to wear this t-shirt. It brings back fond memories. This? This I can't understand. LOL I just paid $20 plus shipping for some dude's sig on a t-shirt. I just can't seem to make the correlation between a signed pair of sticks from Neil Peart to this. So far I'm coming up empty.

One of the biggest YouTubers that she follows is Markiplier. I hear this guy takes down some serious coin in ad rev from all the subscribers he has. But this whole model violates, at the very least, the C in CENTS. Some are starting to merchandise and do tours. WTF? Tours?

Earlier this year she wanted to go to a 'thing' that another YouTuber was putting on while he was on 'tour'. His thing? Sitting on stage in his onesie PJ's doing God knows what. I was like uh, I think we'll pass. I'd rather take you to see The Vamps, or 5 Seconds of Summer. That I get.

I'm just flabbergasted by this phenomenon.

TL;DR - Why the heck are YouTubers famous?

The fast lane concept is just one of many ways to be successful. It's not the rule, it's a proven framework of many.

 

[juan917]

For those wanting to start on youtube I recommend this channel :

https://www.youtube.com/user/jameswedmore

 

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