The commercialisation of YouTube The YouTuber development… Chris Stokel-Walker, journalist and author

1. The commercialisation of YouTube

2. Who am I?
● Digital culture journalist for WIRED, The Economist, Bloomberg, The
Observer
● Chaired panel on burnout at VidCon 2019, broke sales of Little Baby
Bum (£6m+) and Enchufe.tv ($5m+), visited YouTube school in Spain
● Author of YouTubers (published May 2nd, Canbury Press)
○ First independent look at YouTube, its evolution, its associated
businesses, its impact on society and media, and its ecosystem

3. YouTubers
● Published May 2nd by Canbury Press
● 100+ in-depth interviews with influencers,
industry figures, fans and analysts
● On-the-ground reporting at events and
peeks behind the camera
● New, exclusive interviews and research
● Raft of polling data hitting headlines soon

4. YouTubers
● Aims to explain what this ‘new media phenomenon’ is to people like
you, making you better informed about the world of influencers
● Helps put those within the industry (creators, businesses etc) in their
proper context to better leverage position in the media landscape
● Provides a glimpse of the glamour for fans of some of the world’s
biggest creators on YouTube
● Advises parents whether they need to worry about what effect all
this has on their kids

5. Evolution of YouTube
● Different generations of the platform:
○ v1 YouTube: scrappy, ‘Broadcast Yourself’
○ v2 YouTube: first influencers secure brand deals & ads
○ v4/5 YouTube: MCNs are a thing
○ v7/8/9/10 YouTube: Will Smith is a YouTuber now, entrepreneurs
‘There was almost no creativity rooted into it. It was simply a strategy
of how to identify an audience and how to find attention’

6. Rewinding Rewind

7. The state of YouTube in 2019
● PewDiePie is being usurped by a Bollywood music and movie studio
● Will Smith is the ‘acceptable public face’ of YouTube
● Channels with traditional media presences are being sold for $$$
● Creators can sell out arenas and stadia for offline events
● YouTube is one (small) part of an influencer’s 360 degree brand
YouTube grew up way faster than the Hollywood studio system
‘I want to give TV back their audience’

8. YouTube is squeaky clean and smooth-edged
By usurping traditional media, YouTube borrows heavily from it

9. 2019: Oh shit, YouTube is a thing
● YouTuber recognition falls off a cliff >24 (exclusive YouTubers
survey)
● 96.5 percent of YouTubers won’t make a wage from AdSense
● Approaching 10 billion videos (exclusive YouTubers data analysis)
● YouTuber is the most-desired career for kids
● YouTuber toys sold in major supermarkets in the US and elsewhere
● More creators out there competing for eyeballs than ever
Traditional media is waking up to the power of YouTube - slowly

10. With great power comes great responsibility
● Lots of people - not least YouTube - are
making big money now
● And media attention is highlighting
the issues with the platform
○ Adpocalypse 1.0 - spring 2017
○ ElsaGate - mid 2017
○ Logan Paul - January 2018
○ Pranks and violence - January 2019
○ Conspiracies - January 2019
○ Child porn in comments - February 2019

11. Takeaways
● 2019 is pivotal for YouTube in its professionalisation
○ Seven years in, it dropped ‘Broadcast Yourself’
○ Seven years on, it really means it
● A year of consolidation, sales and commercialisation
● More tough headlines and more drastic action blunting OG YouTube
Things are moving fast and YouTube as we know it is mutating -
it’s handy a comprehensive guide is published on May 2nd...

12. Thank you!