Script

The History of YouTube and Introduction 

Dan 

YouTube was founded by a small team in California, North America on the 14th of February 2005. It was initially created when its founders: Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, and Chad Hurley discussed problems they had sharing home videos they had recorded. They formed a small team and began working on a website that we now know as YouTube. On the 13th of November 2006, after seeing the early success of the platform, Google decided to purchase this company for $1.65 billion. 

Han 

Since its creation, YouTube has been a kick-starter for huge household names that almost everyone knows, including the likes of Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes and Carly-Rae Jepsen. However, in its early days, most people knew the website for the viral videos that had been uploaded on it. This included ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’, which has amassed over 868 million views, ‘David After Dentist’, which has over 138 million views and ‘Evolution of Dance’ that stands at a staggering 305 million views. If these types of videos were created in this day, it would be highly unlikely that they would see the same volume of success. This is due to thousands of creators having such a high production value, which leads to audiences expecting this same production value on other videos. Over the years, as YouTube has evolved and grown, it’s harder to identify what is considered to be a viral video. 

Cheye 

In an interview with the creator of ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’, the father claims that he created the future viral video as he found the moment between the brothers to be amusing and he had planned to share the video with his children’s godfather who lived overseas. Due to being unable to send the content via email, the father chose to instead upload the video privately to YouTube. It was only when other family members requested to see the video that he decided to make the video public. After doing this, unaware to the father, the video had been viewed by thousands. This was only discovered when a few months after uploading the video, the father intended to remove it, however after the discovery of the video’s success, he decided to let it remain on YouTube, where it later gained millions of views. 

Dan 

With YouTube gaining a much larger audience since it was created, there are thousands more videos that easily hit the 1 million view mark. Creators like ‘Pewdiepie’, ‘Jake Paul’ and ‘KSI’ even manage to create multiple videos per week and still achieve this level of viewership. Looking at a video statistic website known as Socialblade, it offers a better insight at just how much money these creators earn from their videos and the crazy part is that these YouTubers also have other sources of revenue like merchandise, sponsorships and even crowdfunding websites. Some YouTubers like Jake Paul are more than happy sharing what they spend their money on in their videos, whereas other creators are a lot more reserved in showing what they purchase. 

Han 

It’s big YouTubers like Logan and Jake Paul who often leave a more negative impression on mainstream media of what YouTube is really like, leading to a lot of negative press on YouTube as a whole. Viewers of any articles, videos or any other forms of content created by mainstream media are often left with a negative impression on the platform because of the actions of a small number of creators. In this documentary, we plan to inform parents, older generations, children even on what YouTube is really like. We’ll be researching the bigger creators to find out what impact they have. We will also be interviewing YouTubers to get their thoughts on the platform and talk about the positives and negatives of being a YouTuber. To top all of that, we will also be visiting YouTube Space London to get an insider’s perspective. 

• 3 Minutes 37 Seconds 

Can YouTube be a Career? – Dan  

Since it’s creation in 2005, YouTube has become the home to thousands of content creators. Each of these creators make different videos and have different personalities, however, what we want to know is can YouTube be a sustainable career? Creating this documentary, we thought it would be a good idea to get the insight of creators themselves to see what they had to say about YouTube being a full-time job. With YouTube stars being busy people, what with some of them creating multiple videos a week, to find YouTubers who’d be free to talk about this subject, we headed off to YouTube Space London. The YouTube Space is where all creators above 10,000 subscribers are free to attend to talk with other YouTubers and even record and produce their videos. Luckily, at the time we attended, there were plenty of creators who were happy to discuss whether or not YouTube could be a sustainable career. Here’s what they had to say on the topic:

*YouTubers Interview*

After interviewing the YouTubers, it became clear to us that the vast majority believed YouTube can be a viable career path, however, as Sammy Paul mentioned ”it’s a tough game and it’s transparent when people are creating videos with the core intention of making money”. Paul also suggested that it should start off as a hobby, something that I personally agree with. When it came to making this documentary, I felt really passionate about the project due to the fact that I make a living on the YouTube platform. For me, it started off as a hobby years ago and eventually transitioned into a money-making opportunity. In my experience, it can be really hard to make it on YouTube and your success doesn’t come without it’s fair share of hard work or stress. YouTube is also self-employment, meaning that it’s not the most reliable source of income. You do get to choose your hours, however, if you go through a bad patch, that can mean you’re left struggling for cash. Bigger YouTubers don’t have this problem, seeing as some can go through a difficult time and still thrive on the money they’ve made, however as previously stated, their success is earned. As well as this, bigger YouTubers also tend to have other sources of revenue, away from just creating videos. A lot of them, for example ‘Sidemen’ and ‘Mr Beast’ h ave successful clothing merchandise, with others like ‘Joe Sugg’ and ‘Kian and Jc’ having launched successful books. Sugg has a series of fictional books, whereas ‘Kian and Jc’s’ book is a self-written biography. So can YouTube be a sustainable career? The short answer is yes. However, after conducting a lot of research, interviewing other YouTubers and applying our own knowledge, the longer answer is yes, but it doesn’t come without hard work and even then, if you’re not a massive channel, you might still struggle to get by. If you plan to make YouTube a career to make money from, it can also be transparent to people, so maybe start it off as a hobby and eventually it might become a money-making opportunity and sustainable career.

• 2 minutes 52 seconds (W/out interviews)

YouTube’s Influence on Children

Han:

As YouTube increases in popularity, the amount of channels targeted at children is rising. YouTube is becoming more and more main stream and the creators are seeing the gap in the market for content targeted at children. After conducting primary research, I’ve seen that adults tend to take a dislike to these people creating content for children. ________ children Say that their favourite YouTubers are Jake Paul and Logan Paul, however, _____ adults say that these are their least favourite YouTubers due to their controversial actions.

Jake Paul and Logan Paul are brothers from Ohio. They began creating content on vine and quickly moved over to YouTube. We looked into the Paul brothers when doing secondary research and they seem to always be in the public eye for the wrong reasons.

Jake Paul was the star of Disney Channels ‘Bizardvaark’ but on July 23rd 2017, Jake announced on his twitter that he and Disney had parted ways. It was later confirmed by Jake himself that he had lost his contract. The press surrounding Jake at the time gives us a better insight as to why he was fired. Jake was on the channel 5 news 3 days prior to his announcement, about the chaos he had caused in his neighbourhood, this included setting his pool on fire, destroying property, revving his motorcycle in the streets and a lot more. This is not the only controversy Jake had been in either. On August 18th 2017, Jake posted a video titled ‘my assistant was assaulted…’ in this video Jake claims that his assistant was assaulted by another YouTuber, Faze Banks, who happens to be Jakes ex girlfriends new boyfriend. They even went so far to show the “bruises” on the assistants neck. This claim was debunked when witnesses came forward and said this never happened. All of this was publicly shown on Jakes channel, where his young and impressionable fans could watch.

Even though Jakes actions are inexcusable, his brother Logan Paul took it too far on the 31st December 2017. This was the day Logan uploaded a video titled “We Found A Dead Body in The Japanese Suicide Forest” where he and his friends filmed the body and were laughing in the situation at the Aokigahara, a sacred forest near Mount Fuji known as the ‘suicide forest’. At this point in time, Logan had more than 15 million subscribers and the video received more than 6 million views. Logan deleted the video more than 24 hours later, meaning that plenty of his young fans had more than a day to watch it. This video and the effect on his young audience made main stream media news and as a result Logan began to lose subscribers and stopped uploading daily vlogs. On the 2nd of January 2018, Logan uploaded an apology video and began his YouTube hiatus. On January 24th, Logan uploaded a video titled ‘suicide: be here tomorrow’ where he talks with suicide survivors and pledges to donate one million dollars to suicide prevention in attempts to save his reputation.

Another YouTuber who’s main demographic is children is Morgz. Morgz is a 17 year old British YouTuber who is popular for his challenge videos, although if you look closer at his thumbnails and the content he’s producing, you’d question why his demographic is children. Morgz has come under fire for creating inappropriate thumbnails and video titles in the past, mainly of his girlfriend or his mother. A recent controversy surrounding Morgz was him advertising gambling to his young audience. Not only was Morgz too young to be gambling, but encouraging his young audience to do so was irresponsible.

In conclusion, YouTube stars are very strategic when aiming their content at children, but they need to be careful with what they’re putting on the internet. Although the children aren’t going to call them out on what they do wrong, when anyone older comes across the videos then they’re going to receive necessary backlash.

Cheye

Ever since the start of YouTube, the community and the social surrounding has constantly been changing. At the start, creators tended to be more tame as the website was (for the most part) being used as a platform for home videos to be uploaded. As YouTube evolved and gained more popularity, the tones of its creators gradually began to change. For the most part, YouTubers behaved relatively well, keeping within the terms of service. However, one major turning point came with the rise in popularity of vlogging. Vlogging is a type of content where creators film their daily routine and everyday lives. As it gained popularity, many creators devoted their channels to creating this type of content. When Vine (which was also a popular platform on the internet) discontinued it’s services, many of the popular creators from that platform switched over to YouTube. This gave popular vine creators more creative freedom as they weren’t limited to creating six second videos on YouTube, like they were on Vine and many of these creators adapted their content to previous established genres like vlogging. Two big viners (both of which we’ve previously mentioned) who quickly gained popularity on YouTube were ‘Logan Paul’ and his brother, ‘Jake Paul’. These creators quickly adapted to the vlogging genre, however, they were no where near as tame as other popular vloggers at the time. Often performing devilish activities and dangerous stunts, in their early days on YouTube, they often overstepped the mark. Jake Paul (who at the time was employed by Disney as a cast member on one of their children’s shows) filmed his hectic antics on a daily basis, gaining at one point over 2 million subscribers a month. In the process, he became a known disturbance to his neighbours who at one point started a petition to remove him from his home. Having shared the address of where he lived, this attracted hundreds of fans to swarm the streets in which he resided, causing a lot of hassle in the process for residents living in this area. One of the neighbours compared living in the same neighbourhood as Jake Paul to like living in a war zone, proving how his antics often pushed his neighbours to the limit. Jake’s brother ‘Logan Paul’ is another controversial figure on YouTube. Unlike his brother, he seems a bit tamer, however his actions are often worse. As we spoke about in the segment regarding Logan’s influence on children, his biggest controversy occurred when he filmed a dead body in Japan’s Aokigahara forest (often known as the suicide forest). As well as this Logan Paul has been involved in other controversies such as being a disturbance in his trip to Italy with him flying his drone near the Colosseum in a strictly no-drone area. There are a lot more controversies of which Logan Paul has been connected to which proves why he and his brother, Jake have given YouTubers (especially the vlogging community) a bad reputation.

Even though there are creators who ruin the reputation of the term ‘YouTuber’, there are also many others who perform kind acts which often get overshadowed by other creator’s controversies. Markiplier is a popular YouTube gamer with over 23 million subscribers. As well as making popular videos which gain millions of views, he has also been known to raise a lot of money for charity and good causes. Markiplier is an example of a creator who uses their platform for good, however as previously stated, his actions are often forgotten due to the extreme behaviour of creators in similar genres. YouTube is not only a positive platform due to a select few of it’s creators, but also for the videos that get uploaded to the platform. Every day, hundreds of tutorials are uploaded to YouTube, which ultimately aim to to help people. On YouTube, the ‘tutorial’ genre is extremely helpful and millions of casual YouTube viewers rely on tutorials to complete specific tasks. As well as creators who raise money for charity and create videos aimed to help people, there are also YouTubers who devote their channel to preaching positivity and offering people advice. Again, these channels are often hidden behind those of which who cause controversy, but are there for people to turn to for inspiration and advice.

Overall, even though there are many YouTubers who provide negativity and controversies which overshadow a lot of other creators, there are YouTubers out there who devote their time to good causes. YouTube can be a positive platform as well as a negative one, depending on who and what you watch.

• 4 minutes and 23 seconds

Everyone

Dan: When planning on creating this documentary, we knew we needed a unique selling point, something that would make our project truly stand out from others. Since our project focused on YouTube as a platform, an idea we decided would work well in our documentary would be interviewing someone who makes a living on the platform.

Cheye: We weren’t short on ideas for YouTubers who we wanted to interview, however due to a lot of them being busy people, it was a difficult process to reach out to them to get a moment of their time. Thankfully, one of the creators we approached was more than happy to be interviewed about the platform.

Han: Bird Keeper Toby is a YouTuber with over 200,000 subscribers who makes videos about the ‘Pokemon’ franchise. His channel was created in 2015 and his most popular video rests on over 840,000 views. In the past, Toby has attended events of Pokemon as a special guest, even getting the chance to play games early before their release. Creating questions for Toby, we wanted to find out what his experience on YouTube had been like and in the interview, he had some pretty interesting things to say.

*Toby Interview*

Cheye: Toby managed to give a lot of insight on the YouTube platform and after our interview, we were left wanting to find answers from more YouTubers. For us, just landing one YouTuber to interview was difficult, so we knew we had to up our game.

Dan: As a group, we discussed different ideas on how we could get more YouTubers to interview for our project and we decided on attending a creator day in the YouTube Space building in London. YouTube Space is a building set up by YouTube aimed to support creators. Any YouTuber with over 10,000 subscribers is allowed to access the building, where they can do a handful of things, like produce and edit videos and socialise with other content creators.

Han: Once we all agreed on a date to attend one of these events, the next thing we needed to do was arrange our transport to London. Thankfully the MegaBus offered cheap tickets, however the journey there and back was not the most comfortable. In one day, we travelled to and from London, trapped in a bus for just under 10 hours.

Cheye: We arrived in London very early in the morning, so we decided to do a bit of sightseeing ahead of the event we were attending. At 10AM, YouTube Space opened it’s doors for creators to attend the event and as we entered, we were given badges to prove our identification.

Han: Now that we were in the building, the next step we had to take was to recruit YouTubers to interview for the project. Approaching strangers to ask to interview them was a somewhat of a weak point for our group as we were all too nervous to do so, however after plucking up the courage to ask, we had a handful of people who were happy to help with our cause.

*YouTuber Interviews*

Dan: The YouTubers who we interviewed all gave a helpful insight on the YouTube platform and they had only positive words of praise to say. Overall, what we learned from our trip to YouTube Space London is that creating videos full-time isn’t as easy as some people may think. A lot of patience must go into content creation, with the acceptance that not every video you publish may perform well. When previously asking these creators about whether or not YouTube could be a career path for future generations, most of them were confident in saying that it could be, however some did have their hesitations. YouTube isn’t an easy platform to be discovered on, however, if creating videos starts a hobby and eventually becomes a money-making opportunity, that’s a much more natural process than creating a YouTube channel purely with the intention of generating money.

Our Opinions

Throughout this documentary, we have maintained an unbiased stance in order to fairly determine various factors – like can YouTube be a future career? It’s influence on children and the positive and negative effects of the platform. Upon completing this research, our own prior opinions on the platform have changed. Being avid users of the website, we forged our own thoughts and recorded what we thought about the platform before beginning the researching process of this project.

*Our Interviews Before The Documentary*

Since we began working on our project and learned more information about YouTube, all of our opinions have changed. So here’s what we thought about the platform after participating in this documentary.

*Our Interviews After The Documentary*

Notes

Aokigahara = Eye-oh-key-ga-ha-ra

MusicCollegeTV #1 says yes as it is a good place to create and share content.

MusicCollegeTV #2 says yes. It’s about empowering yourself. Talks about easier access to camera. ”Anyone can be a media entrepreneur from their bedroom”.

TurkishLDM TV/AFTV says he would, but warn to be careful due to politics and changes to come to the platform. He would recommend it, but think about the sustainability.

”It’s managed by sources outside of your control”.

AFTV #2 says yes. It has to be something you are interested in and if you are fortunate to, absolutely.

Sammy Paul says no. It’s a tough game. Thinks that its transparent when someone is creating videos with the core intention of making money. Should start as a hobby.