There are dozens of millennial women in California and New York who have dropped out of college but are still making upwards of five figures.
The catch: they are not singers and actresses — they are vloggers on YouTube.
Just what is a vlogger, you may ask.
“Vlogger” is a word for video blogger. It is someone who films their daily life, edits it and uploads it to their YouTube channels.
The top vloggers on YouTube are easily making millions.
Many of these famous vloggers also pursue other business endeavors, such as Casey Neistat, who has nearly five million subscribers, runs an app company and maintains his channel with artfully edited daily videos.
While there are many male vloggers like Casey, as well as family vloggers, what interests me most is the large communities of YouTube women in their twenties who live together, collaborate on videos, and have dropped out of school for this job. Many of these young women get, on average, over 100,000 daily views.
With video advertisements placed on the videos generating income, these vloggers are making real money. In addition, many of them work with sponsors, often times in the beauty or tech industry.
These sponsors are often top name brands that notice the large numbers of people viewing these channels and want to strike a deal to have their product displayed.
Some say, though, that vloggers like these young women are making money by doing nothing and selling their lives out for fame.
They also say viewers who get invested in the vlog community are living vicariously through people who don’t have to work hard and are just watching the equivalent of reality TV.
This is where I have to admit that YouTube vlog channels are easily my guilty pleasure.
I have about five or six vloggers that I like to catch up on every few weeks when I have a moment away from my studies or being with friends.
In trying to identify the appeal of vlogs, I have also decided that, far from being mind-numbing content, they actually are a creative outlet for both content creator and user.
What is appealing to me in these videos is they are living lifestyles that are so different from mine.
I love college and my IU experience, and I would never trade it.
However, there is something to be said about an artfully edited video of a woman my age whose morning does not involve textbooks and walks to class, but instead bagels on the streets of New York or a road trip along the California coast line.
After I graduate, I hope to move to some of these places, and seeing the daily lifestyle always makes me excited about my future.
To the argument that it is living vicariously, I would say that as with all media, TV and video games, it depends on how much time spend with it.
For me, YouTube is not an every-day activity but a treat for when I have some free time. The fact that the stories told in these videos are real is even more appealing because it reminds viewers that they never know where they will end up in life.
sdloughr@indiana.edu
