Making Bank on Youtube

So, originally I had started a blog post today to discuss some video game advertisements I had seen recently. When I opened up YouTube to grab links to the video game advertisements, I was recommended to a video that looked really interesting. I opened it, and THREE AND A HALF HOURS LATER I finally closed YouTube up. And yet in those three and a half hours, I never made it to the video game advertisements I had been looking for.

I have no idea how many videos I watched during this time, and to tell you the truth, I don't remember what they were all about. But during this time, I remember feeling extremely hungry and not being able to put my computer down. I was so intrigued and entertained that it made it hard to look away.

When I finally closed YouTube and looked at the two paragraphs I had originally started, I dreaded the idea of going back to YouTube for fear that this would happen again. This is not the first time I have diverged into binge watching when I was supposed to be doing something important, and it probably won't be the last.

I started thinking about all of those videos that were created by the same users. Here are some of my favorite YouTube channels that are consistently adding new videos:

BuzzFeed

Here are some of the other BuzzFeed channels.

CollegeHumor

JennaMarbles

An article from CelebrityNetWorth, called 25 Highest Earning YouTube Stars, estimated (in 2013) that the annual income that Jenna Marbles makes is about $4.3 million, while CollegeHumor only makes about $3.3 million. BuzzFeed isn't even on this list but it's likely that it is also making a fairly good sum from their YouTube channels.

It was amazing to me to see this because these people have made careers using this new new media. They have established a fan base that continues to grow and change, but the truth is that as long as they keep posting, there will likely always be that fan base for the information they offer. It's inspirational to see these channels succeeding to the point of making millions for simply getting views.

The study of English is a study of the way we communicate with the world through language and shared stories and that's exactly what YouTube allows us to do - share stories.  JennaMarbles has been sharing her life story for over four years. She has introduced the public to her family, friends, boyfriends and pets. CollegeHumor has shared knowledge and stories that are focused on the humorous thoughts and situations we deal with in college or around that time frame of our lives. BuzzFeed tells stories, shares information and discusses serious topics. All of these stories can be experienced over and over again the same way we can experience literature over and over again. YouTube just allows us to experience these stories in a different format than classical literature.

One last thing I'd like to note is that since all of the videos are like little stories, and because they are all within this larger frame that is YouTube, we can consider YouTube a Frame Narrative!! Woah! Mind Blown!