The names Bethany Mota, Troye Sivan and Connor Franta may not mean anything to you yet, but the perky personalities
behind these names mean plenty to their millions of fans who quite simply adore them. It's almost frightening.
As well as meaning something to millions, they also make millions, or at least some of them do. These YouTube soldiers, rolled out by the video-sharing website at its annual Brandcast event earlier this month, are touted as the new kids on the block for digital-savvy brands, and as Google would have it - they can connect with the kids in a way that TV simply cannot. But should these vloggers really leave TV quaking?
Beyond their own shows and channels on YouTube, these 'kids' have countless other strings to their bows.
From teaming up with brands, creating their own lines of coffee beans, record labels, world tours, or even having the audacity to publish a memoir at 22 that went on to become a New York Times’ best-seller. Just a tiny taste of these young morsels exuding confidence is quite the eye-opener. And of course, they are the perfect fit for certain advertisers.
I say YouTube soldiers because they were marched out one after the other with military precision, and they have the almighty force of Google behind them. But perhaps that's unfair.
Google and YouTube have some big ideas to take these stars to the next million-follower mark, and it begs the questions 'who is really driving who?' and ‘just how structured and manufactured is the concept of creators popping online to talk to fans?’
There was mixed chatter across the media agency sector. Many were straight-up blown away. Others sniffed at the theatre of it, not quite 'getting it'. Others are still processing the colour, glee and general on-stage shenanigans. I was surprised, in immediate conversations I had following the “YouTube push”, that not as many people as I'd expected were bowled over by the bigger concept – the power that these ‘creators’ have. Take Canadian YouTube creator Lilly Singh who has nearly seven million fans. She was a smarty dressed business woman on stage one minute, assuredly telling advertisers to get with the times and invest in YouTube as fans simply buy what creators recommend. I was certainly impressed with her pitch. Fast forward two hours, and her hair is in pigtails and she's skipping around the stage to screaming fans, rapping about Tim Tams. The mind boggles at the spectacle of it all.
While the huge contrast was irksome at first, yet we know there's a method to the madness. So does it really matter who is driving who if people are listening, engaging and buying through them in such vast swathes? In a few years’ time will we really be able to avoid the onslaught of even more stars breaching the million mark? Or is it little more than a simple shake of the TV table leg?