YouTubers, Prosumers and Entrepreneurs?

“YouTube has helped democratise film making, anyone with an internet connection and a video camera can upload a video to YouTube. But YouTube is not the art it’s a platform. The art is the video.” (Benjamin Cook, Becoming YouTube: Episode 3- Everybody Hates YouTube. 2012)

YouTuber’s initially are prosumers as they are creating content for an audience, they are taking their art to the level of broadcast for people’s enjoyment and entertainment. As already discussed they are interacting with a platform that they consume from themselves. So the concept of a prosumer is an obvious go to when describing these online celebrities, but they are spanning further and leaving the internet so the argument at hand is, does the term “prosumer” fully cover their job description?

We define a prosumer as “someone who blurs the distinction between a “consumer” and a “producer.” (Alvin Toffler. 1980). Looking again at Zoella we can see how his applies directly to her standing, she consumes the media broadcast on YouTube but also contributes the platform/channel with her own content, but she has also carried her online popularity into the business industry recently by releasing her own range of bath products which were top sellers in just their first week on the shelves. She then takes her celeb status one step further again with the release of her first fiction novel “Girl Online”, which managed to outsell even J.K Rowling’s best-selling “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”. These movements lead us to question if prosumer fully covers it when discussing Zoe Sugg.

“Someone who exercises initiative by organizing a venture to take benefit of an opportunity and, as the decision maker, decides what, how, and how much of a good or service will be produced.” (BusinessDictionary). An entrepreneur, looking at this definition it could be considered that Zoella’s growth as well as other YouTubers following in her footsteps makes them business people, which when looked at technically, they are. However, when they begin online is it considered in the same way? We usually associate an entrepreneur with someone who is starting a business from scratch, having to build a target market and sell products. These stars however, are going into the market place with products and books which are best-sellers from the beginning due to their already built, fanatical, target market.

With all that is discussed in mind we can lead to believe that there has been a complete change in the works in both media consumption and in market development. When we take into consideration that these people are entering the market place with, in Zoella’s case, 7 million people who are interested in them already and out selling one of the best authors of this generation within a week of release, can we really call them online stars? Some might say that they are just a person who talks to a camera in their bedroom and that they are “internet famous” but surely they are more than that with such accomplishments behind them already.

Now after clarifying how far they can go with their online status, it is key to distinguish where it begins. There are still many questions that surround the topic: why do people start “YouTubing”? What is the fascination surrounding it? And is it all about the possible fame?