Media Meditation #6. YouTube Super Stardom

YouTube has a handful of people who became famous for their entertaining, and sometimes pointless, videos. In addition to fans, some YouTube celebs have corporate sponsors who pay for product placement in their clips or production of online ads. Some of the more famous ones have even quit their day jobs or changed careers to accommodate YouTube filming schedules. It's incredible that these simple videos earn so much stardom simply from internet browsing. 

One notably famous YouTube celebrity is Bo Burnham. His videos are simply him playing on a keyboard rapping. He became so famous from these videos that he performed on MTV and is now famous and bigger then just the YouTube world. This shows that if you have talent, there is a great chance you can be discovered on youtube. 

Four Tool Sets

• Most YouTube celebs demonstrate a personal shift in media culture. Being able to record a video and then post it online is a new form of media with great advantages. People are able to achieve fame this way by making pointless videos that are entertaining, and it is as simple as that.
  
• There is a technological shift with YouTube because people can record videos and then upload them via their mobile devices. This is a great advancement for technology, and everyone can do it, not just people with money.
  
• YouTube celebs use humor to attract an audience. This technique works well for the few who are able to gain their fame with their videos, and those who lack good humor have a more difficult time. Many people have somewhat created careers just from their YouTube videos, which is pretty crazy. 
  

In the more famous YouTube celebrity videos, you can even find product placement. Corporate sponsors spend millions buying spaces for particular goods to appear on a TV show or in a movie. This being said, it makes sense that corporate sponsors would place their products in popular YouTube videos because they get tons of hits daily. That’s a lot of people viewing their products. An average American comes into contact with two thousand forms of advertising each day. "Advertising is the economic glue that holds most media industries together." Putting products in YouTube videos in my opinion is ingenious because they are advertising products in a short clip that grabs people's attention without them realizing it.