by Sam H.
Like many other people my age, I grew up on YouTube throughout the 2010s, and as I’ve grown older, I’ve gravitated towards spending more of my time watching TV shows and movies. I haven’t necessarily “grown out” of YouTube, as that’s a ridiculous claim considering the insane amount of content on YouTube with enough to satisfy anyone’s niche interest; however, I found that the platform itself was growing more tedious to navigate and that I just didn’t enjoy it the same anymore. There are plenty of explanations as to why YouTube’s inner workings have shifted in recent years, including its algorithm, demonetization rules, oversaturation of content through crossposting on other platforms like TikTok, and increased accessibility to creating content. But in this article, I want to focus on how YouTube has been fundamentally shaped by the evolution of internet personalities and their presence in the online sphere.
When I was younger, I remember having a hard time trying to describe the type of videos I watched. I did enjoy a good gaming video every now and then (yeah, they were mostly Markiplier videos), and I indulged in some sketch comedy channels, but most of the creators I watched just created content generically labeled as “Lifestyle” or “Culture.” Yet, I was relatively dissatisfied with that label because I didn’t think that label did any of the channels I watched justice. These “Lifestyle” creators often created videos in which they talk directly to the camera as if talking directly to the viewer, thus fostering an intimate sense of connection. The viewer then feels a sense of trust and loyalty in the creator and, therefore, why it was far more common for people to follow certain creators rather than watch certain content as people do nowadays. Additionally, the length of the videos around the time of the “Lifestyle” creator boom of the 2010s often ended up being around 10-20 minutes, which allows people to connect to these creators in bite-sized pieces or all-at-once binge-style, all up to the viewer’s choice. Thus, this creator becomes an “internet personality,” a character larger than life and a more curated version of the person behind the screen.
During this boom, YouTube knew how important internet personalities and creators were to the platform. Popular creators were invited to be a part of the now-discontinued annual tradition of YouTube rewind, and some, such as Joey Graceffa with his “Escape the Night” series, had their projects supported monetarily through YouTube’s now-defunct premium streaming service YouTube Red at the time. At one point, there was even a Creator Store, a permanent installation in London that sold merch by British YouTubers until it closed post-pandemic.
Nowadays, there’s a larger culture on YouTube around longer video essays and commentary that doesn’t necessarily require creators to share stories about their personal lives, so the need to establish creators as an “internet personality” isn’t inherent to the success of a creator. This can also be seen through the changing cultures around supporting creators; for example, Vidcon was a huge event where attendants could meet YouTube’s biggest creators in the 2010s, but now, most mainstream YouTubers don’t attend the event or engage with it in the same way many YouTubers were doing meet-and-greets at Vidcon in its early years.
The decline of the prominence of internet personalities isn’t necessarily a bad phenomenon. The toxic side of perpetuating internet personalities resides primarily in the parasocial relationships viewers can form with creators. While most fans respected creators’ privacy, some people took their desire to grow closer to the creators much further and would often try to ship YouTubers or invade their privacy to confirm rumors about their personal lives. Though this sounds similar to how celebrities are treated, internet personalities tend to be more accessible via social media and through engaging with them directly on the videos’ comment sections, giving many people a false sense of control over these creators. It’s clear that these relationships become harmful for the creator, who can have difficulty untangling their personal life from the life they put online, especially when much of their content comes from sharing their life online. These relationships can also be unhealthy for the viewer, as the viewer builds an infallible trust in a human being who will inevitably make mistakes.
Analyzing how internet personalities on YouTube have evolved over time, therefore, demonstrates how the platform culture is changing quickly, but if anything, this proves that accessible video platforms, compared to traditional cable or paid streaming services, change and adapt with time, content, and viewers.