Is being a YouTuber a real job? - Topic Tuesday

You·Tu·ber

Noun

• a frequent user of the video-sharing website YouTube, especially someone who produces and appears in videos on the site. 

If you are anything like me, and the rest of the world, then there is a good chance you get a large percentage of your entertainment from online video, specifically YouTube (YT), and I'm not just talking about cat videos. Did you know that you can actually make a living off of being YouTuber, or a Content Creator? 

From online talk shows to family vloggers, prank videos to beauty guru's, there is a niche for  almost everyone on YT. I've been consistently watching YT as a source of entertainment since 2013. My favorite type of video's are vlog style, where a person picks up a camera and takes you with them through their day. 

Back in 2005 when YouTube was founded, the idea of online video probably seemed like a strange fad that would fade quickly. Now, a short 12 years later, it's a rapidly growing industry with big name media corporations like CBS, BBC, and even Disney taping into the market everyday. More and more people are hopping on board with the hopes of making it big or even just to make a quick buck. But is it that easy? 

There are a few ways content creators on YT earn revenue. Adsense is one of them. Basically the ads you see before your video plays, or sometimes even during the video, pay the creator a predetermined amount of money for a set number of views. The amount of money a YouTuber receives through Adsense can vary on the type of ads being run, the number of views, your location, and even the type of videos you put out. It's important to mention that YouTube also takes a percentage as well.

Two other ways YouTubers earn revenue is from Brand Deals and product placement. A brand deal is when a company will give you their product and pay you a set amount of money to review it in a video. Not only does the creator make money from the brand deal itself, but also from the views of that video. Product placement is exactly what it sounds like. A company will pay you a set amount to strategically have their product placed in the background of your video or have you mention it in passing. This is something that happens on TV as well. Now of course, to get brand and product placement deals you have to first have a large enough audience to make it worth the money to the company.  Some company's will pay as much as $20,000 for a well known YouTuber to feature their product in a video. 

Obviously this all sounds awesome right? I just have to pick up a camera, make a video, post it online and like magic I start making money. Well, it's not that simple. 

The bigger YouTube gets, the harder it becomes to tap into the market. With the rise of click bait titles, flashy thumbnails, and viral videos, garnering a long term audience is becoming more and more difficult. Not to mention the quality of the videos being posted. Its not as enjoyable to watch grainy video filmed on an iPhone as it is to watch a HD video filmed on the most expensive digital camera money can buy and edited like a professional. 

If you've gotten this far you might still be thinking something along the lines of, "But YouTube won't last forever, then what will these people do." This is something that is brought up a lot when talking about how much YouTubers make and whether or not its financially responsible to rely on YouTube as a persons only source of income. It's also  something that was said when TV and TV shows started to become more popular back in the 1950's. 

The YT community grows larger and larger every year. Most well known content creators on the sight, the ones who are earning the big money, are part of something called a Multi-channel Network, which is an organization that works with YT to offer assistance to content creators in areas such as "product, programming, funding, cross-promotion, partner management, digital rights management, monetization/sales, and/or audience development" in exchange for a percentage of the ad revenue from the creators YouTube Channel. This means that a creator isn't trying to keep up with the changes tides alone, they're backed by a company of professionals to handle that for them. 

So, does all of this mean that being a content creator on YouTube is a legitimate job though? Well some people still argue against that, citing the lack of "hard work" as a reason. I mean how hard could it be to press record on a camera, film something, edit it real quick, and post it online. Sounds easy enough, until you take into the account that it's usually one person doing all of that (unless of course it's a company putting out content, or a person who has a team working for them). Not to mention all the hours spent on different social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, promoting the content. Most creators put out a minimum of three videos a week with daily vloggers consistently producing a video every day. 

If you ask me, which if you clicked on my post and made it this far you kind of did, I'd say being a YouTuber is just as legitimate as being a teacher or working as a server in a restaurant. Is it as physically demanding as a servers job, no probably not. Is it as important as the job of a teacher, I guess that is something you have to decide for yourself. Nevertheless, it is a source of income, and a main source of income, for many people and for many families and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere anytime soon. 

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Thanks for reading! 

- Fallon xo