So today we’re going to look at Millennials who have been recently using YouTube to jumpstart their music careers.
They’ll start a YouTube channel where they post videos of themselves singing – usually covers of popular songs – and hopefully gain enough popularity to show up on the radar of someone with existing experience in the music industry. This method has worked pretty well for stars like
The idea is basically that there is power in resources and in numbers. The resource being YouTube, as a social network,
and the numbers being the hundred of thousands of subscribers that talented musician-wannabes tend to collect. This is a side effect of growing up with all of this technology at our fingertips.
And here we can see famous YouTube musicians with the people that discovered them. Christina Grimmie was discovered by Selena Gomez’ stepfather and the two are currently touring together.
Cody Simpson was discovered by record producer Shawn Campbell in 2009.
Justin Bieber was discovered by talent manager Scooter Braun in 2008. Musicians with real star power are finding that it is not as difficult to get discovered or to have a career-starting opportunity, as it would have been thirty years ago.
In an interview, Grimmie said about her first video she posted on YouTube, that she “just decided to do it in the summer” and “didn’t think anything of it.” Her goal was simply to share her love of music with others.
She likes to sing and it is apparent from her success, that a lot of other people like her to sing as well. Through her high number of subscribers and YouTube popularity alone in the past four years, she was discovered by Selena Gomez’ step-father.
Grimmie’s success in the music industry is still relatively recent, so time will only tell how far she will go. She currently has released two albums with no sign of slowing down. Her being on tour with a star as huge as Selena Gomez will no doubt only propel her career far into the future and gain her a lot more recognition.
What is really incredible is that in the MyYouTube competition, she placed number two behind only Gomez herself. MyYouTube is a competition where stars are essentially competing with each other for new subscribers, so it’s really incredible that Grimmie was able to place higher than stars like Justin Bieber and Rihanna.
There is a general belief that Millennials are the generation of getting trophies and being very overprotected. While this is true, it leads to high levels of self-confidence and a general sense that failure is not a possibility. This is a key element in the success of YouTube musicians because it decreases their sense of realism and increases their sense of optimism, without which, they might have been more easily discouraged in their pursuit of a career in music.
These stars, among others really owe everything they have to YouTube. The experiences that they were able to have are unparalleled to others in any other generation. Maybe it is true that most Millennials are very protected like the stereotype would suggest, but being protected has clearly benefitted YouTube stars. It has given them the belief that this is a viable way to jumpstart a career in the music industry and it actually can be done. And as evidenced by Bieber, Simpson and Grimmie, confidence can bring you a very long way in an otherwise unreachable direction.
