Early YouTubers are the blueprint for what content creators and content creation is today. From the online personalities to the creative and ambition drive so many YouTubers have embarked and continue to do so both on and off the platform. I argue that the first content creators were YouTubers. YouTube as a platform then and now, serves as a blank canvas accompanied with the right video-sharing tools to launch and showcase ideas to a wider audience. It ultimately is a host holding, perhaps even collecting all of these ideas on its platform.
The crux of content creation is presenting ideas, whether it be creative, educational, entertaining (honestly whatever it may be) and sharing it online for others to view. At least this is what makes the most sense to me, since Web 2.0, the current era we’re in, is interactive and allows users to communicate and engage in dialogue through social media–which early YouTubers achieved.
My relationship to YouTube, as an avid viewer since the early 2010s is why researching content creators and content creation is so important to me as I feel a deep connection to it. I was in elementary school when I first learned about YouTube. My brother and I would spend time at the local public library afterschool and use the computers to surf the web. Aside from playing early online games like Poptropica and Habbo Hotel, towards the end of our web surfing journey, we’d somehow always end up on YouTube. I think one of the first videos I ever watched on YouTube was I Got a Crush On Obama. My brother and I would also spend most of our time watching music videos and lyric videos as that was pretty popular .
Though my perception of YouTube changed drastically when one of my childhood friends informed me one summer that you can actually get paid for simply creating and uploading videos on YouTube. This was groundbreaking to me. Even though I was young, the concept of making money was as old as time to me since I came from a low-income household where the topic of money was always being brought up. My only knowledge about making money came from witnessing both my mother and father working conventional jobs, so the idea that you can earn money outside of working conventional and traditional blue-collar jobs was foreign to me. Though what was more foreign to me was making money on the internet, like was the money earned on the internet even real? where does this money even come from?
That same summer my childhood friends, brother and I started to brainstorm what type of videos we could make to rack in some cash. As a bunch of kids with nothing to do and excitement on our side, the world was our oyster. We talked about making a short action and adventure videos at the park, where we’d all play different characters. Yet this never came to fruition as the summer came to an end. Mainly due to the lack of equipment, such as video-editing software, a decent camera, and tech skills that even with all of us combined was not decent enough compared to other early videos that was being uploaded at the time. We were just kids excited about a new tool on the internet. Despite my failed attempt to create and upload videos of my own in the early days of YouTube, I continued to go onto the platform and watched videos that strangers would upload onto their channels instead. I would also occasionally watched music videos from VEVO’s YouTube channel.
By the time I had hit middle school in 2012, YouTube had changed and grown, as so many newcomers had joined the platform. Some early YouTubers I watched from this era of YouTube were Glozell, the now infamous Shane Dawson, Grace Helbig, SMOSH, Joey Graceffa, Strawberry17 and so much more. Every time a new video was uploaded by my favorite YouTuber I was tuned in, as going onto YouTube became my new form of entertainment. When it came to talking to other kids at school, the conversation at lunch was not about who was your favorite singer or actor, instead it was who was your favorite YouTuber? At this time I was also introduced to Tumblr and Twitter.
Ultimately, as an impressionable angsty pre-teen I felt connected to my favorite YouTubers behind the screen as they uploaded videos about their opinions on the world, pop culture, and other various topics. While many pre-teens my age were still consuming fabricated media like Teen Wolf and Pretty Little Liars (no hate), my appetite was in real-world problems and authenticity. Perhaps it was because I was listening to alternative rock, watching documentaries like Kony 2012, my fascination with the hacker group Anonymous, and paying more attention to the news, I found comfort in YouTubers, as to me they were real people, not paid actors with an agenda or large media company behind them. Their personalties felt genuine to me, as most of the YouTubers I was watching were twenty-somethings navigating most notably the hardest and challenging portion of adulthood. Just as my favorite YouTubers were trying to survive and tackle real-life challenges both offline and online, I too was growing into my teenage years.
If you want to become a YouTuber, you need to move to LA
Around 2012-2014, it became clear that if you wanted to become a YouTuber, you needed to move to LA since all the popular and well-known YouTubers lived in LA. Plus if you lived in LA, it made it easier to do collaborations with other YouTubers. I started to tune into Joey Graceffa’s channel a lot more around this time, where he’d not only upload Minecraft videos onto his gaming channel, but also vlog on his main channel about his daily adventures living in LA as a YouTuber. He shared an apartment with Sawyer Hartman, another YouTuber, as Joey would upload “ROOMMATE TAG!” onto this main channel.
Watching my favorite YouTubers live in sunny Los Angeles from the East Coast, I started to feel this rush of excitement, primarily because I had never visited the West Coast before. But with the emotions of excitement came along huge waves of FOMO (fear of missing out) as it felt like everything cool and new was happening across the country. All YouTube related events were in California, like VidCon and other YouTuber meetups with their subscribers were locally planned in LA. It was around this time too that I was introduced to Coachella, the music festival, since other popular YouTubers vlogged their experience or would upload related videos like reviewing Coachella outfits and must-haves. I even remember one of my middle school friends talked about how we would beg our moms to buy us tickets to Coachella to partake in the fun and plan out our trip. Of course this idea was out of the picture and scrapped due to our finances and living situation.
YouTuber pipeland to Hollywood
I felt like I was missing out on all the fun happening in LA, since not only my favorite YouTubers were living there but also famous stars I liked where there as well. The universe of YouTubers and Hollywood became enmeshed as YouTubers like Joey Graceffa, Shane Dawson, and others, tried to nudge themselves into Hollywood.
As I became more invested watching YouTubers and their lives, a handful of them would open about their creative endeavors outside of YouTube, such as becoming actors, film & tv producers or directors of their own shows. While being full-time YouTubers, they’d hustle on the side actively building their professional portfolio to break into the media & entertainment industry. It comes as no surprise looking back now that YouTube became an active tool to create and open up opportunities. The ability to get ones name out into the public seemed more feasible thanks to YouTube as the chances of going viral was anyone’s game. YouTube made it possible to provide LA YouTubers the exposure they were looking for.
As cringy and embarrassing it is to admit now, I used to watch Shane Dawson’s channel, and a majority of his early YouTube videos since he was fairly popular at the time and happened to know a lot of other YouTubers. Watching Shane’s channel was like watching a weird indie film– a lot of edgy jokes and a healthy amount of sarcasm (not to mention the lowkey racist undertones). From watching his channel I learned about his passion for making his own movies and dream of becoming a film director as he continuously experimented in every video he uploaded.
By the time I left middle school, the idea of creating my own YouTube channel and uploading videos still sat with me. I was inspired watching my favorite YouTubers create their own ideas into reality. Joey Graceffa created his show Storytellers on YouTube, and Shane Dawson made his horror film Smiley. A sense of motivation and ambition would wash over me whenever I witnessed YouTubers create great ideas from scratch into real-life results (and getting paid to do so).
But something shifted on YouTube somewhere between 2015-2016, as YouTube was not the same YouTube as it was before when I first started watching, as ads were becoming more frequent & normalized on videos and the algorithm that was introduced somewhere in 2015 was hurting smaller channels who were just getting started. LA was now oversaturated with YouTubers or those wanting to become YouTubers. Media conglomerates like NBC, ABC, and FOX were now creating their ownYouTube channels, and even celebrities started to upload and create videos of their own. It felt weird, it felt like YouTube started to become Hollywood and more manufactured, and the more it became like this, I was less engrossed in it.
I noticed that when I got to high-school, I became a little less invested in my favorite YouTubers and watching their daily vlogs, as creating friends and socializing took up most of my time. Though YouTube still served as my main source of entertainment and a source of comfort to me whenever I was free. Once I reached my senior year of high-school, 2019, my watch time on YouTube gradually decreased. I became preoccupied with preparing for college, friends, and entering a new chapter of my life, and oddly enough, it seemed like most of my favorite YouTubers were also entering different eras of their lives too. Many had go on to publish their own books, start up podcasts, pursue other business adventures–some even stopped uploading onto their channels altogether by 2019. We had all grown up as some even started families and were getting married and/or engaged. As we neared the end of 2010s, YouTube was completely different.
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