Growing Up on the Internet

Photo courtesy of NBC News

One of the big reasons I chose to talk about this topic is that, for lack of a better term, I am chronically online. When I was in the 2^nd grade, I got an iPod Touch that came preinstalled with YouTube on it, and the rest was history. Don’t get me wrong, I still watched television and movies, but YouTube is what I consumed the most. I watched pretty much anything and everything, whether it was sketches from Smosh, CollegeHumor, or NigaHiga, gaming from Cobanermani456 or Etika, or my pop culture from the Fine Bros. If you dig hard enough, every part of my personality probably relates back to a YouTube channel I used to watch.

My favorite YouTuber, the late Etika (photo courtesy of YouTube)

There’s something so personal about YouTube that separates it from traditional media, especially that early era of YouTube. I am not trying to sound parasocial, but it really felt like the creator was talking to you, the viewer, whether it was just by their cadence or the fact they were literally filming it in their homes. It gave me so many different outlets for different interests I had. If I didn’t have friends that were into something that I liked, I could just watch YouTube videos about them so I could see what other people thought. It was honestly my main inspiration for studying media production. YouTube was the only thing I was constantly enthralled in that I felt like I could actually do, and it’s a little surreal to think that I am doing what 3^rd grade me always wanted to do.

It’s also a bit strange to watch the first generation of YouTube start to settle down. MatPat from Game Theory is retired, PewDiePie doesn’t upload as often, Ryan Higa transitioned to occasionally streaming, and Smosh just celebrated their 20-year anniversary. This has also created such an interesting creator landscape, because we are now seeing how the first generation of YouTubers has influenced the future. Pretty much every new popular content creator will talk about how they watched the first generation “back in the day.” The people that built YouTube are now somewhat taking a step back, and all of their work has created a foundation for everyone else to build upon. Some of the stuff I have talked about for this project I really did have to dig deep and research hard for, but most of this really just came from my memory because I watched it happen in real time.

Ryan Higa discussing his creative burnout that led to him pivoting to streaming (photo courtesy of Twitch)

I grew up on the internet, and now that I’m pursuing content creation, I’m going to publicly grow up on the internet. I’m only 21, so it’s not like I’ve fully grown up. I’ve still got a lot of growing and learning to do, and I plan on continuing to do that alongside the content creators that educate and inspire me. I want to be another example of how the first generation of YouTubers inspired countless people to do whatever they want out of pure passion, not for fame and glory.