When you subscribe to a YouTuber who uploads regularly, as a viewer you feel like you get to know them, or, at least, the ‘them’ that they portray on screen.
It is much like how some people feel they know actors, singers and other celebrities. To the avid viewer, they can even feel like a friend. And it doesn’t matter how many other people watch them, whether it is hundreds, thousands or millions, you feel you know them. You look up to them and, if they are cute, can idolise and even fantasise about them – I mean, how much fan fiction is out there about YouTubers! In fact, I have and do subscribe to YouTubers simply because I think they are hot. In fact I would go so far as to say 25% of the people I subscribe to, I’m only there to ogle!
So, you watch them, feel you know them and just like other celebrities you hold them up as something more than yourself, something higher in society, almost untouchable. Many big time YouTubers can now be seen attending red carpet events, appearing on television shows, writing bestselling books and even appearing on large-scale musical projects for charity.
But the vast majority of YouTubers are simply people. People who make videos. Many of the smaller YouTubers, those whose subscriber numbers are in the tens of thousands and lower, have real world jobs because after all, they are just people.
I saw, at Summer in the City, back in August, some YouTubers that I subscribe to, YouTubers that I find attractive, YouTubers that I wouldn’t mind . . . getting to know better, and it was weird. Because I watch them regularly, in my mind they are like celebrities. Yet, whilst I palpitated at the mere sight of them, other people walked past them and didn’t bat an eyelid because they don’t watch them and don’t know them. I may be one of say 25,000 subscribers to their channel, but there are 1 billion people who use YouTube each day.
To them, I am just one of their 25,000 subscribers.
To me, they are inspiring, entertaining and people to aspire to.
YouTube is a strange beast. Its basic premise is that anyone with a camera of some sort can record and upload anything onto the Internet. It has the power to lift people in the perceptions of their viewership when in fact the people who record videos are, for the most part, regular people and not celebrity like at all!
I am a thinker, watcher, smiler, laugher, occasional YouTube content creator, writer & part-time teacher!My YouTube channel can be found at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaPfRtDp5552wTwriVZ0_9g (Jay’s Jabberings).