Internet Celebrity

Just some food for thought:


I recently found a video by a youtube user called LadyEvar who is talking about the idea of the YouTube Celebrity, and uses Liam, Min, Charlie, myself and Alex as examples.

She brings up a particular situation from my SkyMall Fiesta video where someone left a comment telling me that since I am slightly taller than Alex, we look strange together and our relationship is wrong. I got a bit defensive telling them that my personal life and relationship is my own business and I don't need people on the Internet deciding whether Alex and I look good together. He told me that since I put up videos, I therefore have to deal with criticism. I told him that by all means I welcome criticism of my video, of the fiesta movement, of that particular video, but not of my relationship because it's irrelevant.

Until I post a video called, "What do you think of Alex and I together?" I don't want to hear a damn thing from anyone about whether or not Alex and I should be dating. We should be, is the final word, because we're choosing to be.

LadyEvar's video was about whether or not people have the right to judge "YouTube Celebrities" because we put ourselves out there. We make videos about our lives for people to watch, and then in return, everyone who watches feels like they get to have a say in what they think of our lives. But if I make a video about what I thought of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, do people have a right to comment on how my arm jiggles a tiny bit when I move it? No. I don't think so.

As I said in an e-mail to another user, the one who brought LadyEvar's video to my attention, I never set out to be become well known on YouTube. I never ASKED to have 22,000 subscribers. I didn't go out and MAKE people watch my videos; I never changed what I did to attract people to my channel. I may be friends with people like mememolly and Hank and John Green, but these friendships happened naturally. I didn't start dating Alex to gain subscribers. I didn't start fievawesomegirls as a ploy to get famous. I was just lucky. These things just happened.

And while I do ENJOY having a large audience, I would still be making videos even if I only had 10 subsribers. Honestly.

I started as a girl with a handful of subscribers who were mostly my friends, and now more people watch my videos, sure, but I am no different as a person. I may have gotten better at editing, I may talk faster, but I am still the same girl who started on YouTube two years ago talking about Harry Potter.

I am not a celebrity. I am not conditioned to deal with that kind of scrutiny.
I have a normal day to day life free of paparazzi and then I am expected to go online and deal with that kind of hyper-critical response from complete strangers. Regardless of how I am viewed, it's all VERY new to me.

Someone may look at my channel and see that I have thousands of subscribers and assume I am used to being well-known. To tell the truth, that's just a number. Making videos doesn't feel any different on my end, no matter how many people watch. In general only a few hundred people comment, so it already feels smaller.

If someone has 15 subscribers, makes an excellent video, gets featured and overnight they gain 20,000 subscribers, are they expected to, overnight, learn how to deal with the public viewing them as a celebrity? No. So why should it be any different when it happens over a year? 2 years?

I don't have a solution, or even a "so what?" to end on with this. I just want people to understand that to me, it doesn't feel like I am talking to 22,000 people. I don't get stopped in the streets. I still have homework, and chores, and struggle to pay rent sometimes. I walk into my University and nobody knows who I am.
I still make videos in my bedroom. It's not like I suddenly have a studio audience, a manager, a flashy camera crew, and autograph signing as I enter and exit my house.

My subscriber number has changed, but I haven't. I know what's happening on my side of the screen, but yours? I have no way of knowing. It's completely out of my hands. It's like people are saying once I reach a certain number of subscribers, I should not only accept but welcome people judging every aspect of my life because I did this to myself, becoming "famous" on YouTube. I don't want to stop making videos, but at the same time, my continuing to make videos isn't an open invitation for every judgemental person on the Internet to come and tell when when I should lose weight, who I should date, what I should talk about and when I should let go of Harry Potter and grow up.

What do you think?