01/08/2020
How do I become famous on YouTube?
Youtube really doesn’t care what you do, how you do it, how good you are, or how diverse or inclusive or special you are.
Well, there are some users like How To Basic and MyFroggyStuff who get their success from the wacky, strange, or highly unique things that they can do in their videos. But that’s a minority on Youtube.
Youtube likes to promote its users with big personalities who are unique in how they act, talk, and the persona they project. Of course, everyone acts a little different in front of a camera, but for some it’s a whole other game. For many Youtubers who figure this out, they start a faking personality or putting on one that is VERY FAR from who they really are when the camera is off. This can work for a long time… but it’s really just a long road to self-sabotage.
Of course, at the same time, this is how scandals are used for both positive and negative publicity for Youtubers.
For example, I’ve been using Youtube since 2006 and from then until last year I had NEVER, EVER heard of Jake Paul or his brother or crew. I had no idea who they were or what they did until that whole Su***de Forest scandal. Suddenly he was everywhere and everyone knew his name.
In the long run, as most Youtubers with a good head on their shoulders will tell you in advice videos, if you start being a Youtuber you CANNOT expect ANY fame or fortune to come out of it. Youtube is not a “get rich quick!” type of site. Unless you’re just really, really very lucky. If they reach some amount of fame, MOST Youtubers only have their fame within their general Youtube community (eg the Art Youtubers, the Altnerative Fahsion Youtubers, the Make up Youtubers, the Mommy Vloggers, the Health Vloggers, etc).
If you want to be known on Youtube, you shouldn’t try to force it via a put-on quirky personality, because you will slip up at some point and people will see the real you if you are creating a persona that is nothing like your real self. That’s the LAST way to do it.
All of my favorite Youtubers are (I like to THINK) genuine people who genuinely just enjoy creating video-based art content and entertaining people. Rhett & Link, Matthias and the Hi5 Crew, Safiya Nygaard, Megan Bowen… these are all pretty huge Youtubers with a pretty solid following and they all have a very strong, fun, entertaining personality naturally. They are all pretty bubbly, positive, clean, funny, and make you want to be friends with them in real life.
It’s these kind of personalities that people tend to gravitate toward to watch and these are the people who Youtube seems to really like.
Of course, Youtube also seems to really like the “influencer” sort of personality; people who have ton of money and give self-help, life improvement or health tips, or just vlog about their own life and success.
And there is also the “brutally honest” personalities that Youtube seems to like as well. The people who are “themselves” without any borders or boundaries (they don’t try to stop themselves from cussing or saying things they could regret later). I think people just like the shock value of “oooh what are they gonna say next?!”. These are often the more political people.
So yeah. All of the popular Youtubers you can ever really think of are most likely popular for one reason: Their personality. Whether it’s their real, genuine personality that just works for a homemade internet video show, or a put on personality designed to portray a certain persona and reach more people… how someone acts and speaks on camera can play a HUGE role in their Youtube success. True, their talent still plays a big role (and for a few, THAT was their claim to their fame) but no matter how talented someone is at doing something, if they’re boring to watch or have a heavily negative personality, people aren’t going to watch their channel anyway.