When Youtube Stars Become "Irrelevant"

it’s also crazy how so many people have a million+ followers and i stumble upon their channel, and never heard of them, it’s a very competitive environment

It’s wild to think YouTube has existed long enough for influencers to have fallen off. What a time to be alive.

Speaking of ‘irrelevancy’, you should do an Evolution of Buzzfeed Creators! It’s really interesting to see how Buzzfeed went from being the place to be from a laughingstock on the internet when they started losing their most prominent workers. Perhaps you could analyze how these Buzzfeed stars transition from being part of a huge media company to doing their own gig.

Hear me out, I feel like Safiya Nygaard took the same concepts bunny had but placed them into more relevant topics

This is why even popular influencers shouldn't go crazy and spend all of their money. If you fall off, you won't be able to pay your 5 million dollar mortgage girl!

Jenna Marbles transcends all of the boxes. She was to the point where she could post ANYTHING and was guaranteed 3 million views and a 99% like to dislike ratio. She would take a vacation and everyone would be like “Girl, you deserve it! Take a month off and enjoy it! Please do sponsors and add mid-rolls so you can go on more vacations!”. I’ve NEVER seen someone with subscribers like that. And, in my opinion, that is a testament to the brand she built. And her “brand” was just being a good, thoughtful person who wanted to have fun and laugh. I miss her and Julien so much, but I hope they’re both doing well and enjoying the step back from the Internet — and once again, Jenna is the only person who could leave and a year later be talked about and cared about so deeply. I feel like we all just want her to be happy. She’s a legend. Like, truly her Internet life needs to be analyzed and written about by scholars. It’s WILD.

Can I just say, Bunny getting on TikTok was such a good choice. She has 1.6mil on there now and the fact videos are short and easily digestible, I think that's literally perfect for her type of content nowadays.

Personally, I think younger youtubers don’t understand that this platform didn’t start out as a source of clout or money. These were just talented people who liked to entertain folks. They would’ve done it for free. But now, people approach Youtube as a way to get famous, so they will do whatever is popular.

Can't believe YouTube has been around since I was 9. Now I'm 25. Literally remember when no one did YouTube and only a couple did such as Fred, Shane Dawson, Nigahiga, Jenna marbles etc.

Someone who comes to mind who also just 'rides the wave' is Simplynailogical and Ben- Cristine and Ben keep their day jobs to use their degrees and still encourage their audiences to go to to school or finish their education and give off that mentality of just having fun and setting boundaries.

im obsessed with you

I am quite impressed with Good Mythical Morning's evolution. Because they could have easily been part of the "aging out" category, but instead they make some more mature jokes while still being their goofy selves. They definitely had like a golden age, but they're still getting a decent amount of views!

I feel like a huge outlier is Jenna Marbles. She started out huge with so many viral videos and even as she “fell off” she was consistently views and support. Idk maybe I just love Jenna and am blinded by how much I miss her

YouTube recommended this video to me. I feel targeted lol. Great video by the way. My channel probably falls in to the first category, minus the attempt to try and adapt to the modern demands of the general YouTube audience. We have kind of accepted what we do and we continue to do it for fun rather than a chase for views and money. There have been some trends we could have hopped on and we never did because we just didn’t feel like it. Not cause we thought ourselves above it, but rather we just upload what we want to, for fun.

I feel bad when creators get the "you've changed" comments. Yeah, they changed. They started a channel when they were 20, they're now 27. I am happy I changed from my 20 yr old self 🤣

I don't think people give jackie Aina and Bretman Rock enough credit for their consistently and evolution. They both are YouTube "ogs" and content have remained relevant while also being particularly great at responding to current trends.

i feel like it would be really interesting to do a deep dive on where the “old youtubers” are now, like the golden age of youtube - the british daily vloggers like alfie and zoe, along with joey and dan & phil and ingrid and hannah hart - because they’ve all branched out rlly far from their youtube peaks

Hannah touched it a bit when she said that being "irrelevant" is natural and shouldn't be connected to their worth as a person, but I think it's important to explicitly consider the Youtuber's mental state. Maybe they're content with where they are now. Maybe they're happier now with smaller channels, maybe they don't want to evolve because they just want to make what they like and not chase trends. Treating irrelevancy as something to always fix is what brings out all the bad side of social media IMO.

you’re basically a YouTube historian at this point I love it

Honestly, I'm really okay with not knowing a lot about youtubers' personal lives. I think the whole relatability factor is what has driven the intense parasocial relationships that seem extremely prevalent now. With the more personal info out there it's so easy to create a relationship that doesn't exist.