So Caspar Lee, a Youtuber with 5 million subscribers, just did a video where he went around the park talking to all these people and name-dropping a dozen Youtubers, each with 1 to 8 million subscribers each. He knows them all personally.
Studies are showing Youtube Influencers are now scoring higher than actual Hollywood celebrities in terms of recognition and who young audiences consider famous.
However, what we are finding is that outside of this crowd, they are not famous in the same way an actual celebrity is. So if they were to go to a social media convention like VidCon, the personalities will definitely be mobbed by fans. However, as shown in Caspar’s video, outside of this crowd, to the average person, they are almost unrecognizable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Lf0hlAXE0
It is not just Caspar but even some of the biggest Youtubers. Pewdiepie is the #1 most subscribed Youtuber with 38 million subscribers and still growing rapidly every single second. He has been for a while and he’s been killing it. He is so far ahead that #2, who happens to be a hispanic channel, is a little over just HALF his subscriber count. I like him because he truly doing Youtube videos because he enjoys making them and not for the fame or money. It shows through in his videos and that authenticity is one of the reasons he’s done so well. Pewdiepie has done a couple vlogs. His most recent one is another example. This man, who is recognizable to tens of millions, is still able to walk casually through a tourist destination in Santorini all day and not be harrassed.
Having said all that, that is not always the case. There are Youtubers with 1 million subscribers who do get recognized at least once or more a day, especially if they live in California. I think why this “lack of fame” occurs is that their exposure through videos is not as pervasive as the widespread exposure of actual celebrities through media, press, and their art (music or film usually) which spreads recognition much further. When we have whole businesses like TMZ in the picture, they are more easily recognized. Again, we are really only talking about the top Hollywood celebrities. I think the same effect is somewhat at hand for mid-tier and B or C-list celebrities in that they don’t get recognized that much. Again, this is just speculation and my opinion, which could be wrong.
Also, I have heard stories of privacy and hacking issues with Youtubers with much less of a following to the point where they had to move homes so perhaps Pewdiepie and Caspar were just lucky.
Conclusion
I haven’t seen anyone explain it better than Casey Neistat and Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary has blasted this message in his social media content and books. The TLDR behind it is that Social Media influencers are the new Hollywood. They’re getting bigger followings and more attention faster than some of the big Hollywood actors back in the day thanks to the virality of the Internet.
Overall, I agree, though I think that the entertainment industry is more splintered with 1,000 times more competition than there was five years ago. Therefore, I can’t say that they get larger followings — but they are pretty big. There are thousands of YouTubers with at least a million subscribers, to give you some perspective.
What do you think?
