Just take a look at the annual YouTube Rewinds from 20, which heavily featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Will Smith respectively. In recent years, however, it appears as though YouTube has been trying to break away from this identity, instead looking to be the home of “real” celebrities. While I feel like that’s a pretty negative way to put it, there is something to this perspective: YouTube was a renegade entertainment service, one where the two class clowns from your high school could be everyone’s class clown.
One sentiment I heard echoed around a lot back then was that YouTube was a place for people to go when they aren’t good enough for Hollywood. Fred was some kid that discovered how to use pitch-shift and somehow turned that into three made-for-TV movies and an appearance on iCarly. Egoraptor and Eddsworld made full-length, genuinely funny animated videos, and they did so from their bedrooms. The guys from Smosh were just teenagers with camcorders and boxes over their heads creating sketch comedy in their backyards. I picture people who manage to become household names despite having humble beginnings and still living relatively normal lives. I see YouTubers as celebrities, but when I envision a “YouTuber” in my head, I don’t picture someone who is living a garish lifestyle.
