Worldmaking

Then there are the YouTube stars — people like Ray William Johnson, Mystery Guitar Man, Smosh, Michelle Phan, the ShayTards, Jenna Marbles, Freddie Wong, What the Buck or Philip DeFranco. If these names mean nothing to you, trust me: these are famous, successful YouTubers. Their videos get millions of views, and because they get a share of the resulting ad revenue, they are almost certainly among the “hundreds” that the company says earn six figures or better from their videos. YouTube executives sometimes refer to such YouTube stars as having been “born on the platform”: they built careers through skillful use of YouTube itself. Given the numbers of viewers involved, it makes sense that YouTube, which places revenue-generating ads on videos, might take an interest in creating more of these stars. This was the goal of Next Up, to which several hundred YouTubers applied. While the final selection process was murky, I was told that the winners were chosen based more on metrics (views per video, subscriber growth rate, uploads per month) and ability to whip up fan support than with some entertainment executive’s opinion about quality. (via On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro - NYTimes.com)