YouTubers Will Be The New "Stars"

If they aren't already.. Or sites similar to YouTube.

Musicians were at the height in the 1960 and 1970s.
Acting = 1930-70s
Sports - they'll be watched, but I don't know about "star" - someone who people are interested in.

Comedians is one area I'm unsure of. The best ones are society's truth-tellers, but Mort Sahl, Bill Hicks, and George Carlin are dead. Nowadays, everything is too corporate-approved. If you're not funny, nothing else matters. But if you can tell the truth and be hilarious - you're great. I don't see much point-of-view humor anymore. Just "trending now"

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https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition

i think 80s to 90s was comedians but dont know the current state as i still watch my favorites from the nineties early 2000

youtube has made some people famous but me personally i wont know about them unless they make it big, and im not even that old

I'd argue Youtubers have already been and gone. Not that there aren't big stars on that medium, but the money has already moved on and, from what I can see, it's Tik-Tokers who are currently creating the online stars/influencers (whatever that really means). Their time will pass and another version of social media will probably take over.

90's was the decade of 'Comedy is the new rock and roll', though that is a headline you'll get every few years, but I think that was the first time I really heard/saw it and meant comedians playing 10,000 seater stadiums.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

The thing for me is that creating on the Internet is an extremely nascent thing, performance-wise.

If you watch a Twitch streamer (not quite the same thing as a YouTuber, but obviously similar) there's a level of obviousness and showiness to it. Everything is exaggerated, often clumsily. It's kind of wild watching someone with a million subscribers lose some multiplayer game and then bug out their eyes and express a completely over the top, cartoonish level of shock. It's Kabuki theater. It's vaudeville.

People in their chat talk about the most basic of gags as being "hilarious," in part because so many of them are young and don't realize how well-tread the bit is, and in part because they've willfully bought into the idea that this is "real." It's the same logic as people watching low-key drama in reality shows (oh no, this lady slapped this other lady for looking at her husband!) that they'd find totally dull in a scripted drama. But of course, it isn't real. And it doesn't even do a good job of impersonating reality.

There's a degree to which it all just feels like a baby art form, held up by the sheer number of teenagers with working eyeballs and even a bit of disposable income. I expect a lot of really great and interesting things will happen on these platforms, but for now, it feels like it's all too new for that, and the people rushing in and making a living off it now are almost like grifters of old swooping down on some new opportunity before it's properly understood and before its audience demands higher levels of sophistication, talent, and skill, the way they do in older forms.

The other side, however, which cannot be perfectly separated from the stuff above, is the parasocial quality. For those who haven't heard it, a parasocial relationship is basically a one-sided one: a famous streamer who makes you feel like you're their friend in exchange for your $5/month subscription, basically. Sometimes this is because they interact with the community (it's a running joke people donate money specifically to hear their username called), and sometimes it's just because they have a really good mic, and a good camera, and get really good at creating the feeling that you're just two friends on a video call killing time. This, incidentally, ties into why some of the most popular podcasts do so well. Someone whispering in your ear, and it's not scripted? Easy for you to register that as friendship.

Yeah, like I said. YouTube or things similar to YouTube. There will be new companies in the future always. But this is quite different than the 80s when I grew up. If you were famous, you were on TV. Now, everyone has their own channels.

It's also a way of advertising your own YouTube channel with a few bucks, especially if its similar. The people who see it can simply click "View User's Channel" and that $5 might be worth it. I also hear there's a huge business of buying/selling subscribers and accounts.