Survival Of The Fittest
Which Youtubers will stand the test of time?
In the last decade, the rise of social media platforms has revolutionised the marketing industry, so much so that advertising people has become more popular than advertising products. A career being a Youtuber or an influencer is now considered a profession due to these roles having the ability to generate an income. However, these people generally aren’t qualified in any sort of field and in a sense, “got lucky” that people are interested in their lavish and dramatic lives. Digital technologies may run the world, but social media platforms aren’t physical and solid infrastructures. What if the internet crashes for a few days? Or what happens when the audience finally grows up and has their own problems to sort out besides watching their favourite Youtuber? Is YouTube a substantial long-lasting career?
The Labrant Family consists of young parents Cole and Savannah and two daughters Everleigh and Posie. The family of blondes post new videos about their life on YouTube every 2–3 days and can be considered a form of microcelebrity. Once every so often there is a video that brings in millions of views, such as a proposal, wedding or the birth of a new baby. However, most videos can be considered “filler” content where every day routines of domestic life are shared with followers as a form of calibrated amateurism. Their channel resembles a reality TV show, where videos comprise of a story or shocking obstacle. Tactics such as clickbait and dramatic thumbnails tend to lure the viewers in.
Neither of the parents have qualifications but consider themselves self-employed as Youtubers. But would you really consider these people influencers? Are they changing lives or participating with their hidden audiences? Not so much. As a consumer of these videos, I personally watch them to fill my own gaps in time or have playing in the background. The light heartedness of the content can also be uplifting to watch. The Labrant family is just one example of this family category on YouTube, many other families showcase their lives and children but in turn, these Youtubers are all simply all remixing, borrowing and sampling each other’s content.
On one end of the influencer scale you have families like these, who seem to combine work with play, especially when these videos don’t use technical editing or unique shooting angles. But on the opposite end of the scale, there are Youtubers who have qualifications and motivation to add value to their audience’s lives.
A category of Youtubers that has grown immensely over the last decade is the health, fitness and wellbeing group. These kinds of influencers serve as motivating and inspirational people whose aim is to educate their followers. The profiles of these type of Youtubers usually consist of workouts, recipes, healthy hacks and vlogs on how they sustain a balanced lifestyle.
Natacha Oceane is a “fitness” influencer whose videos comprise of testing fitness theories, challenges and work out videos. She also has a degree in Biophysics, has released 4 complete training guides, 3 affordable (I’m talking like $5) recipe E-books and her own resistance bands. She was halfway through her PhD when her Youtube channel became so popular that she decided to pursue a career in Youtube rather than continue with her studies. Natacha aims to educate her followers by proving general health assumptions wrong and promoting female empowerment. She also is one of the only female fitness influencers that has a bachelor’s degree and uses academic resources to support and differentiate her videos.
So, what if social media completely shuts down, what if the internet collapses, what happens to all these influencers? Well let’s be real for a second, there’s very little chance of that happening due to the amount of money invested in social media advertising. More realistically, what happens when producing good content becomes a struggle? Influencers who have developed their identity into a brand will have the most leverage. By adding significance to their onlookers’ lives, questions will always be asked and content will always be created. We might be living in an age where just watching the Kardashians is classified as entertaining, but what happens when millennials grow up and don’t have time for “Baby Mama Dances”. Families such as The Labrant family may fizzle out due to the time-consuming process of filming your life every day. With no qualifications, you can only hope they’ve put majority of their generous income into savings or an investment.
Natacha on the other hand will most likely continue to develop her identity as a brand. Maybe she’ll potentially write a book or become a motivational speaker? Her options are unlimited, the Labrant family? Not so much. It’s going to be very interesting to see these Youtubers develop in the next 10 years, will they stand the test of time?
