Recently, I read this article, maybe not so recent once this goes up as I’m scheduling while I’m still in Ireland, but it’s going up in the New Year, but that’s besides the point. However, while it was slightly disheartening, giving me that little bit of a reality check that social media doesn’t work out for everyone, it was extremely upsetting for me to see that people who should already be at that place of having an audience and viewers are losing money to those who are sitting on half the numbers they are, just further proving to me that you need to understand the social media game.

I’m a little obsessed with this article, probably because I’m a little obsessed with social media and how it works. Up until reading this I assumed that it was a numbers game. I thought the more people you had the more money you would make, that’s what makes sense. I mean I knew you had to have the right audience before people would contact you, but I didn’t realize that even if you have the right audience you hit this awkward point where no one will help you and you have to work 9-5 but it’s also not necessarily safe for you to be working a 9-5 when you have viewers come and find you. Imagine having hundreds of thousands of people know who you are but being afraid of not making rent, that concept has to be scary.

Gaby was right when she wrote the title of the article “Get rich or die vlogging: The sad economics of internet fame”. The thing is, even if these internet celebrities get their brand deals, people aren’t supportive of that. The comments on videos that are sponsored are highly criticized. The UK now has laws that it has to be clearly stated if a posts in someway is an advertisement, Instagram pictures and tweets are usually done with a “#ad” and AD is typically written in the title of videos, however, I’ve noticed that some people are getting away with it in the top line of the description. This however, has sparked more debate about how much money YouTubers make and how they should make.

In my opinion, whenever, I end up on Twitter for too long creeping hashtags about YouTube fandoms I see a lot of discussion among younger viewers who don’t seem to understand that the income of a YouTuber, or even Internet personalities depend on brand deals and companies that support them. I can’t seem to grasp why people would complain about branded videos, if there are no branded videos there couldn’t be any videos.

The thing that everything comes down to it seems in this debate is whether or not YouTubers and other Internet personalities can make a living and what that  magic number is to do so. For some, it seems like one million subscribers can’t be enough and for others, it could be 10,000- the magic monetization number. I guess it depends on how often and willing you are to accept brand deals and sponsorships. I don’t have room to talk because the one time I sent a media kit I never heard back, people don’t want to pay the girl with 400 followers, they want her to write for free, but the numbers game is highly interesting to me.

However, it is not what should be asked in interviews as apparently it has been to several YouTubers, in the past, you don’t ask people how much they make, plain and simple.  If you want to know, do your research!

Do  you have any thoughts on the subject/article?