“Thank you to my people!” That was just one of the lines of Tyler Oakley’s speech when he and Bethany Mota won Web Star: Male and Female at the 2014 Teen Choice Awards. He was referring to the 5 million plus followers he has on YouTube. Tyler and Troye Sivan also took home best Web Collaboration for their The Boyfriend Tag video which has over 4 million views.
YouTube and its celebrities are shooting up the social ladder with all of the recognition that they have been getting. For the first time ever popular YouTubers had their own categories in an award show. Some came out with their own music and books but one thing is for sure, YouTube isn’t just something that people watch when they’re bored.
Books announcements were very popular this summer. Hannah Hart from myharto came out with her first book,My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut, which released on August 12, 2014 and made it onto the New York Times Bestseller list only a few weeks later. Alfie Deyes (aka Pointless Blog) also just came out with his own book, The Pointless Book, a book filled with fun activities and games inspired by his own videos. His girlfriend and makeup extraordinaire, Zoe Sugg (aka Zoella), has landed a two book deal with Penguin called A Girl Online, set to be released on November 25, 2014.
It debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200 and it sold over 30,000 copies in just one week, TRXYE was Troye Sivan’s first album and he released it at the age of 19. Troye isn’t the only musician on YouTube either, iiSuperwomanii and Humble the Poet released their first song #LEH in early July (that song now has over 5 million views and it was nominated at the Streamys), and don’t forget the ever famous Miranda Sings who created her channel to mock the people who post videos of them singing to become famous, she even has her own concerts that have sold out in the past.
Now you may be saying, so what? The reason they even have all that is because of their YouTube videos, it’s not like they are known outside of that. Let me introduce you to Joseph Sugg and Caspar Lee, two British roommates. Joe recently started hosting Got to Dance, a British Dance show, for its fifth season. Caspar on the other hand has had many famous collaborations with one featuring Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams. They both are now going to be guest hosting a Radio 1 show on Sunday evenings. To relate matters back to the US of A, Bethany Mota will be joining Season 19 of Dancing with the Stars where she will be dancing with her partner Derek Hough.
It is impossible to ignore the amount of attention that YouTube stars are now getting from people around the world. While many people flip out and fangirl over the newest episode of Teen Wolf or Channing Tatum’s new movie, many people are starting to get more and more interested in spending their time on their laptops watching the latest videos from their favorite YouTubers instead of sitting in front of their TV.
By Harman Kaur
