YouTube as a Career?

Having grown up in the digital, Internet age, YouTube is almost essential. Almost every page you view on the Internet can be traced back to YouTube in some way shape or form. Even news websites have realized that they need to be more multimedia friendly, and will include video packages with their online stories. More often than not, this video is not run through the outlet’s website itself, but through a YouTube widget.

YouTube is everywhere, and while every huge media outlet has its own channel on the site, it is also extremely accessible for regular citizens. All you need to upload a video is a Gmail account, which will allow you to log in and create page.

This simple process has made distributing web content that much easier for citizen journalists, and for regular citizens that just wanr a creative outlet. YouTube gives people a place to display their talents and has evolved into different communities within itself.

I have spent the majority of my teenage years watching videos from the beauty/fashion community on YouTube. Girls create makeup and hair tutorials, make haul videos of things they’ve bought, and create lookbooks for different events and seasons. The videos are not made with the intent to brag, the girls simply want to inspire others. Throughout the years, a lot of the veteran “beauty gurus”, as they’re called, have capitalized on the popularity of their videos. Many of them have even made careers out of their channels from ad revenue, sponsored videos and new found acting gigs.

Comedy videos have also taken off, some of the most famous channels being Shane Dawson's channel and Michael Buckley's What the Buck. Both of these YouTubers have made careers out of their channels as well, with 8 million subscribers between the two of them.

Many people feel that YouTubers should not be making money from the channels, but more people seem to be of the opinion that since the creators take the time to make creative content, their hard work should pay off.