So YouTube is celebrating its 10th Anniversary, which makes me incredibly nostalgic. I remember the days when only people my age understood this weird little website. There was a time when you could find anything on YouTube - albeit in crappy pre-HD quality. It was a wonderful, free world. Then Skynet invaded.
If you don't know, YouTube is run by robots. You upload anything that doesn't conform to their algorithms then your video gets pulled. You can try appealing, but it's no use because you're just talking to robots. The internet is being run by this faceless, automated system that keeps updating the design so every time I want to check my analytics it takes hours. I find it funny that people are frightened about A.Is taking over the world when they already have.
But with Skynet has come one positive thing: video creators receiving payment for their work.
OK, so if you use anything other than the YouTube music library or Incomputech then your video immediately gets flagged for copyright even when it's your music that you made yourself. So gaming channels face constant fear of having 90% of their content suddenly pulled. So even if you do make any money YouTube takes about two thirds of it because just like Valve, Apple, Disney, and Amazon; Google seeks to acquire all the money in the world because...because. The fact is that video creators are being paid for their work, meaning they can create more work and thus ensuring there is always new content available to enjoy.
From this comes a hierarchy. There are those content creators who make videos for a hobby, those who are able to make a career out of it, and those who are so ridiculously popular they could start a new empire on Europa. Thus, being a YouTuber is now a credible vocation rather than a silly thing people do to occupy time...though it's still pretty silly.
People are of course rejecting this new influx of online celebrities. They complain that YouTubers are sheltered middle class procrastinators who talk in front of a camera for five minutes every other day and get paid thousands for it. Granted, YouTubers don't have to fix sewers or work 12 hours at an A&E, but anyone who has attempted working with video knows how fiddly it is, and anyone whose ever experienced a modicum of fame knows that being a notable public figure is actually hard. You're pressured to put out new, better content every day. You're pressured to think and act exactly like your audience. Unless you earn more money than an alchemist with a really well-trained dog then you are a slave to your viewers. Disappoint them and they're never coming back.
And of course, with great fame comes famous people making mistakes. Last year there was a massive wave of sexual abuse scandals as it turned out a handful of male Internet celebrities had taken advantage of female fans. This is sadly common amongst rockstars - though thankfully in this day and age it's becoming rarer because more women are reporting abuse and more policemen are starting to take abuse seriously...though there's still, as always, more to do.
You wouldn't think that such an isolationist form of entertainment would spark sex scandals. YouTubing in itself revolves around sitting before a camera. Occasionally they may go outside and document their daily lives, but the majority of original content created on YouTube is solo. One person. One camera. One attempt to make the world stop and listen.
Yet, of course, being a rockstar is just as isolationist. The majority of your work is done in a studio, and then the rest of it is touring and publicity. What I do is probably the most isolationist thing of all. I sit at a desk typing. I don't even speak. When I was in my first year at university living on my own I went for days without saying a word. When I spoke my voice would be so quiet and delicate because it hadn't been used.
YouTube is all about numbers. How many views you get, how many subscribers you get, and eventually how much revenue you make from ads. But isn't that the same as rockstars watching the charts. Music is a business too. Anything that concerns the exchange of goods is a business, and businesses are about numbers. YouTube is but one business.
I've tried several times to start up a successful YouTube account, but they've all failed because I've been turned off by the whole 'public figure' part. It's the same way I don't want to be a rockstar or a celebrity of any kind. The fame is attractive, but I just want to make content that people can enjoy. I don't want to play this whole game. I like my anonymity, and I really like the idea of my work being famous, but I myself being a shadow.
It's important to separate the artist from the art. Justin Bieber is just as abhorrent a human being as the majority of everyone in the music industry. We as a collective race have shunned Bieber (which kinda makes me proud) but if we were to shun everyone else who acted like him then we wouldn't have any music left to listen to. So we detach ourselves from the artist. I wish we did this more often. Politics would be so much better if it was about policies instead of personalities.
YouTubers are the new wave of celebrities. If you don't like them, then you can wait until they go away to be replaced with space ninjas or something.
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