The Rise of the Content Creator - I Miss The Innocent Days of Zoella
My teenage years are bookmarked by Youtube. I would spend hours after school everyday watching ‘What’s in my Handbag’ and the most random challenge videos. I remember defending Zoella to everyone I met. It felt like a constant battle where I was belittled for liking the videos that brought so much positivity to my teenage years. I liked it because it felt off-the-cuff; natural and innocent. It was people having fun, sharing their lives and talking about the things they were passionate about. Youtubers were a new and exciting type of celebrity. It felt as though they were real people with relatable lives. Youtube was how I learned to apply foundation and understood what a skincare routine was. Some of the earliest videos were filmed on grainy webcams and the soundtrack was twinkly royalty-free music.
Overtime, as the industry became more commercial, the nature of it feels to have changed. Youtubers began to secure book deals, create brands and diverge away from solely being social media personalities. Recently, Rolling Stone interviewed Marcus Butler and Jim Chapman, two former members of the ‘Brit Crew’, which suggests that their failed convention ‘Hello World’ marked the beginning of the end for this era of Youtube. The world of the influencer seemed to become more plagued by scandal. For example, Zoella was accused of ghostwriting her novel ‘Girl Online’ and there were more scandalous characters beginning to erupt into the social media space; such as Tana Mongeau, who makes storytime videos and is known for her disastrous convention ‘TanaCon’. And there are the Paul brothers, whose careers are marked by different controversies. Instagram feeds began to be full of heavily edited pictures. The relatability that had once been the reason Youtube was so popular began to be harder to find. It began to feel like not every creator was in it for the right reasons, and everyday you would open Twitter to some new discourse about a different influencer. Now, I tend to seek out smaller Youtubers or only watch those creators who have stayed true to their original selves and make genuine content.
In 2019 the app ‘Tik Tok’ began to rise in popularity, which has led to a whole new ‘genre’ of ‘influencer’. Creators such as Charli D’Amelio rose to fame almost overnight from creating viral trends. These TikTokers joined content houses, such as ‘The Hype House’, where they all lived and created content together. It feels as though TikTok has shifted the industry into a new era, giving anyone the chance to gain an audience and easily allowing people to find the content and creators that they would most enjoy. I find that my TikTok ‘for you’ page is a place of laughter, positivity and relatability. It feels more like people are making content because they enjoy it again. The D’Amelio show, following sisters Charli and Dixie [who both rose to fame on Tik Tok] shows the perils of sudden global fame. They went from normal teenagers to major celebrities so quickly and alongside this came trolling.
I spoke to Content Creator Charlotte Emily Price about her journey in the industry and what it is really like to live in the world of an influencer. Charlotte first began blogging in 2014, when the industry was fairly new and it wasn’t really known that you could make an income from it. Then, a couple years later, she decided to start a Youtube channel and Instagram account. She said that she felt as though the industry was very ‘wholesome’ and filled with people who loved to create. Now, however, she feels as though the industry has become more money-focused and ingenuine. She tries to combat this with her content by focusing on sharing a realistic representation of her body, face and life. She agrees that the rise of TikTok has in some ways positively changed the industry, by creating a lot of joy for the consumer. Overall, Price believes it has brought more good than bad to the industry.
The world of the influencer is complex and has changed so much over time. Underneath it all, though, the wholesome and relatable creators are still there. Influencers remain some of the most relatable forms of celebrities.
Written by Heather Nicholls
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