Hello everyone, happy Halloween! Today I want to talk about the current landscape of YouTube and what I noticed throughout this year.
Relationship Vs. Idea YouTubers
Let’s first start off with this amazing YouTube video that Mumbo Jumbo made that was actually the motivator for why I am making this blog post. In the video, he stated there were generally two types of YouTubers: relationship and idea. Relationship YouTubers are YouTubers like CoryxKenshin, Markiplier, Emma Chamberlain, etc. YouTubers that get their views from fan retention and relationship building, meaning that regardless of what they upload they will get views. This is why I believe that some channels, despite having what many describe as “bad thumbnails” still get lots of traction compared to a creative sketch. Idea YouTubers are channels like MrBeast, 5 Minute Crafts, My Story Animated, The Infographics Show, etc. YouTubers who channels are focused on making high quality content and go with watchable ideas to get their views. This is on a spectrum, so you could be more in the middle (like him) or you could be more towards relationship YouTubers (like myself). I believe age and internet browsing plays a big role in this. My observation is that the younger someone, the more likely they are gonna be more towards relationship YouTubers. I believe the age is around 15-44 is where most relationship YouTubers will have in their audience. Mumbo Jumbo believes that it is just more a shift throughout the years and that relationship YouTubers are becoming less and less frequent with streaming taking over. Although mainly focused on the Minecraft side of YouTube, I highly recommend checking out Mumbo’s video, as I thought it was the best way to currently explain that side of YouTube.
Private Equity
I want to dive deeper into this topic. I have personally observed that a lot of YouTubers are becoming a brand rather than a group or individual. A lot of channels (and this is especially the case for idea YouTubers) are or have been bought by private equity with a lot of them not even telling their audience until it is too late. Now depending on the channel this could be a good or bad thing. Game theory is an example of a channel improving after being bought by private equity. Editing improved, more staff were able to get on board, being able to upload with a consistent schedule, and more. An example of a channel decreasing in quality would be Economics Explained, where apparently their research quality and videos in generally are becoming poor. I believe this is the reason why we see YouTubers taking sponsors they wouldn’t really take otherwise and making content that may see out of their field, it is because they HAVE to. They have to make the company that bought them happy to an extent. At that point, the channels become less of “You” and more of TV. Of course there are channels that make content and are NOT owned by private equity. Personally, I believe a lot of relationship YouTubers have the highest chance of not being owned by private equity. This also leads to my next topic.
“IP” expansion
Relationship YouTubers are now trying to become MORE than just YouTubers. I have been seeing this a lot and has almost been going on since the more modern era of YouTube. Whether it is games, web comics, animated shows, movies, or music, we have been seeing YouTubers explore other areas that don’t directly involve the typical content creation process. We have been seeing it with Vtubers, the early adopters, and really anyone who has a very large audience. I believe this is great and what almost all YouTubers should be thinking about as it tells people that you are more than just a “character”, even if they don’t think that way. This is essentially, for how I see it, expanding their IP; the IP being themselves.
Being a YouTuber
Lastly I just wanted to talk about how risky and lucky you have to be in order to be a YOUTUBER (not a streamer). I have personal experience with making content for my own variety of channels for well over 3 years now. Here is what I have to say about just being a YouTuber.
Being a idea YouTuber
Personally, being an idea YouTuber is fun, at least it was for me. Coming up with video ideas, trying to see which would work and what would not, it was all a lot more fun to me. This is also where people usually say “being a YouTuber is not luck” and “anyone can be a YouTuber”. While being an idea YouTuber is less about luck, it does pose some risks. For one, if your idea wasn’t good and your video flops: you won’t be getting paid good money, sponsors will be more hesitant, it takes a toll on you mentally, and YouTube hates when you publish a bad video, making experimenting harder. But at the end of the day you are way more likely to get sponsors and just get more views quickly than your counterpart. Speaking about your counterpart, let’s talk about being a relationship YouTuber.
Being a relationship YouTuber
I do know a lot of people wanna be more of a relationship YouTuber, which make sense. Most people grew up with let’s players and people behind a camera, playing the latest and trendiest game on the market. Plus they get to build a community, who wouldn’t wanna be that? However that landscape has been deserted and oversaturated.
Being a relationship YouTuber NOW is almost near impossible. People have done it, of course, but trying to become STRICTLY a relationship YouTuber is really hard because the videos you make are either too engaging or not engaging enough. This is why, unless they have been in the game for years, you are more than likely gonna see relationship “YouTubers” come from streaming platforms with using short-form content to promote their streams. Once those streamers get popular enough they make their own YouTube channel and grow from there. The traditional way of growing, aka “just keep making good videos” isn’t advice I would give someone if they are trying to go the relationship YouTuber route. Most YouTubers are either a mixture of both, or more leaning towards an idea YouTuber. There are also just cons to being a relationship YouTuber: if you get into controversy your channel could essentially be over, people might grow out of the content you make which would decrease the amount of views you get, the longer you are absent the higher risk you pose from losing a lot of viewers, and if you were to unfortunately pass away no one would be able to run the channel or make a spin-off.
Conclusion
I hope everyone learned something new today. The YouTube landscape is changing, whether for better or for worse. Personally, I mostly like the direction it is heading. I know a lot of people on the internet do not and that is understandable. I haven’t even talked about the rise of AI and how that is affecting some people YouTube shorts feed. Neither have I talked about streaming on YouTube vs Twitch. Reminder that this is just the English-speaking side of YouTube. Other languages are definitely getting affected by this too, but because I don’t speak those languages I would never know.