Youtube Phenomenon

YouTube—Almost everyone has heard of this video-sharing website or seen videos on this website. YouTube has become massive, from just an ordinary video-sharing website, to something that connects the people of the world.

Ordinary people who make videos YouTube are able to become celebrities overnight. An example is Chris Crocker, 21, who made a video called “Leave Britney Alone”, where he is crying and screaming at everyone who made fun of Britney Spears’ disastrous performance at the MTV Video Music Award 2007.

Crocker’s video was featured at several talk shows and news stations, and it received over 20 million hits on the site.

However, the most viewed video has received over 86 million views, and is just of a man who shows the evolution of dance. It is the most viewed video because people find that it is entertaining and really creative.

There are many users, otherwise known as “channels” on the website, that get subscribed to by the people who frequent the site to watch their videos. The most subscribed channel on the site has 373, 998 subscribers worldwide.

These popular subscribed channels are eventually eligible to get a partnership with YouTube, known as the YouTube Partner Program. According to the website, it is a revenue-sharing program that allows creators and producers of original content to earn money from their videos on YouTube.

Usually these people that get the partnership already have a lot of subscribers and are pretty well known on the YouTube. They are like celebrities, or by Internet lingo, “weblebrities”.

These “weblebrities” have many reasons for making their videos. Charlie Mcdonnell, 18, a user who goes by the username charlieissocoollike, has gained 46, 882 subscribers, and is the most subscribed director in the United Kingdom. He stated that he started making videos because he was bored, and thought that it seemed pretty fun to do, after seeing many other users who were popular before him making videos.

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