Author: Rosie Matheson
Publisher: Arcturus
Publication Date: 27th May 2015
Pages: 115
Source: Review Copy
Rating: 2/5
Purchase: Amazon
YouTube has revolutionized the viewing habits of millions of people around the world and looks likely to continue doing so. YouTube Famous presents case studies of 20 of the world's most successful YouTubers providing original content to inspire those who might want to set up a channel of their own - it's also a book which will be enjoyed by fans.
Complete with tips to produce your own content, it shows how YouTubers, including Zoe Sugg, Jack and Finn Harries, Caspar Lee, Marcus Butler and many others, built up their channels from scratch and developed content to please their growing fanbase.
'YouTubers' first came to my attention in 2009 when I started watching Call of Duty videos. For a game that was so addictive, I soon found it even more addictive watching other people playing it, and recording entertaining commentaries over the gameplay. And it wasn't just me, these videos had millions of people watching them which I thought was crazy considering they were essentially doing what I did, just talking over it. The fact they could then go on to make thousands of dollars (now potentially millions) doing it just astounded me.
YouTubers then started popping up in every single field of entertainment, some becoming 'celebrities', having a following on Twitter greater than some of those who are classed as actual celebrities. Some of the YouTubers in YouTube Famous I had never heard of, but most I had and it was the chapters about the likes of them I was most interested in reading. For example Zoe and Joe Sugg, Alfie Deyes and Tyler Oakley. For the most part, it doesn't contain anything new or exciting that fans of these YouTubers won't already know but what it is is an informative and well-researched book that offers an insight into each personality: how they started off on YouTube, their lives before and after, their interactions with each other and details about how they have went beyond YouTube and set up various ventures that have brought in even more cash.
YouTube Famous contains a brief guide of sorts detailing how the reader could potentially start off on YouTube, highlighting the dos and don't but really, most of these people I feel just struck lucky and now people look at the likes of Zoella and want that sort of fame and success for themselves but now there's just too many people trying to do the same thing that it probably isn't possible for a lot of people. Also, the book presents a real clean cut image for most of the YouTubers when really, a lot of them probably do maintain a persona online which is the persona their fans and followers want from them and have come to worship. YouTube Famous is a mildly entertaining book which revealed some details about famous YouTubers I didn't previously know but at the same time was essentially a sugar-coated ode to some of the biggest and most popular and I found it a little tiresome after a while.
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