Does that make us equal?
The thing that we have to be on the lookout for is that on YouTube, you are the product. Ratings are an integral part of television, and while we don't have the same vocabulary for YouTube, it's essentially the same thing. The more subscribers a vlogger gets, the more ads his/her page is going to attract. The more ads that get collected on the vlog page, the more revenue said YouTuber gains. The audience is pertinent to the vlogger's success. Does this mean they're trying to trick us into getting wrapped into their page just so they can win some dough? No, especially not in this generation. Many of the famous vloggers now had no idea how high their success levels would reach. There was no such thing as a "youtube" star before this generation. But now that it's a trend, we may, in the future have to scope out those vloggers who start a channel to get youtube famous and try to rope in a huge audience all for the sake of the moolah. Product placement is still rare among the best of the vloggers today, but demands are getting increasingly higher. People are getting increasingly desperate to become noticed on YouTube.
Let's take Alex Day for example. His video making/music playing started off as a hobby, but now that it's what he uses to buy NeriCool locations and, y'know, not starve, his demeanor has changed. He will enforce the idea that he is talking to us like he would talk to a friend, but after that story about first dates, Alex goes on to sell us that new album he's releasing. I appreciate that it's so exaggerated it's satiric, but still. He uses his everyday stories to talk about his music, which then entices us to buy those albums.
In television, we are a flat "audience." What's trickier about selling us on YouTube is that we feel more connected to the creators. Instead of being mere observers, we are Nerdfighters or Unicorn Warriors. These specified names, in turn, make us feel more special, like the vloggers are speaking directly to us.
On the flip side, YouTube isn't fully about selling. These vloggers do have to make a living, and at times they do try to cater to our expectations, seeing as that's how a job works. But YouTube stars sparked their career from inspiration to create. And not every YouTuber gets paid. The main point of YouTube is still to develop a community of thinkers and artists alike and engage in discourse. Of course, sometimes that discourse can seem elementary, dear Watson (YouTube comments, anyone?), but once you get an intelligent, thought out discussion going under a video, it can be pretty satisfying.
We tend to be less intimidated by YouTube because vloggers tend to stress the idea that our approval of them is high on the priority list. Our opinions matter. Our challenge ideas our accepted. Our comments show up on the screen. Even the negative comments on new vloggers tend to really get to these artists. YouTube lets us shape the artist. We told Charlieissocoollike we wanted more vlogs where he just sort of ranted at the camera, and he filmed more vlogs. YouTube is more of a give and take. Television, however, doesn't allow us to engage. It is presented to us under the idea that there is something wrong with us, and we should let that culture shape our lives. We see a TV show, and we tend to wonder why our lives aren't like those on the screen. We want to relate to these characters; we think we'll be happier somehow. Whereas on YouTube, we want those vloggers to relate to us. We intuitively know what a raw, normal human life looks like, and we expect vloggers to adhere to those values. Television distorts, YouTube, in its purest form, exposes, challenges, and converses.
Personally, I'm much more trusting of YouTube than television. But it could change. Because there is "star status" attached to YouTube, it could quickly come much more commodified and less about creative inspiration.
Let's hope that doesn't happen.
P.S. Carrie Hope Fletcher is my hair doppleganger, I'm almost sure of it.
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