The idea of a YouTuber being a ‘star’ or a dream career has been floating around recently; it was on a recent Hello Internet episode (maybe #109, although I think it was a followup to that episode in a later episode).
It’s an interesting aspiration; the combination of celebrity and entrepreneur; seemingly very ideal to the millennial (and generation after millennial) generation. Set your own schedule, be a celebrity. It’s a new twist on an old story.
I certainly don’t think that it’s something most people should aspire to, for the same reasons that most people shouldn’t be entrepreneurs. (Not to mention the probability of YouTube celebrity is extremely small.) Also, I’m definitely still pro-tribe-building a la Seth Godin or Kevin Kelly’s 100 True Fans.
The reason this came up recently was that I was walking home from teaching and stumbled across this:
This is in Klaipeda, Lithuania, where the primary language definitely is not English. The international scale of YouTube, however, has brought “Like, Subscribe, and Comment” here…
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