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YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars
From KSI to PewDiePie, the real lives of YouTubers
Jake Paul, KSI and PewDiePie influence the views, lives and purchases of millions of fans. And their power is growing. Two billion people worldwide watch YouTube.
Yet despite their reach, YouTubers remain a mystery to much of the public and media. What is the secret of their appeal? How do they cope with being in front of the lens? And who is behind them?
Wired journalist Chris Stokel-Walker reveals the answers in the first independent in-depth book on YouTube. For three years he has interviewed more than 100 figures connected with the world s biggest video-sharing website, among them agents, managers and influencers themselves.
He charts YouTube s rise from showing a single video of a zoo to multi-billion-dollar site that outmuscles Facebook. And he delves into thorny issues about brands, burnout and authenticity. He explains why YouTubers keep stopping traffic in city centres and whether they will eat normal TV.
If you are a journalist, publicist, advertiser, or marketer who needs to know how YouTube works or a parent intrigued by what the kids are watching and why (or just fascinated by the lives of leading creators) you need this book.
No one understands the intricacies of YouTube like Chris Stokel-Walker. His reporting on the platform and its creators has been ground breaking and unparalleled. - Taylor Lorenz,The Atlantic
For anyone trying to understand the bonkers world of YouTube, this is essential reading. Full of entertaining dispatches from the front line of streaming, Stokel-Walker has written the preeminent guide to the new celebrity world - and what it means for the rest of us. - Sam Parker, Esquire
Stokel-Walker provides a brilliant, witty and extraordinary detailed insight into one of the world's most important, but least understood platforms, as well as the young creators that have built their empires on it.
This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to truly understand the future of media, as well as the internet itself. - Hussein Kesvani, MEL Magazine
A front-line report of a key time in the history of digital content creation and consumption, a meticulously researched history of online video, and a deep anthropological study of the often misunderstood Homo influenceris.
If you want to understand the inner workings of your favourite YouTube influencers, or perhaps if you want to understand why your children are always talking about them, you should read this book. It is smart, sweeping, and significant. - Simon Clark, YouTuber
Jake Paul, KSI and PewDiePie influence the views, lives and purchases of millions of fans. And their power is growing. Two billion people worldwide watch YouTube.
Yet despite their reach, YouTubers remain a mystery to much of the public and media. What is the secret of their appeal? How do they cope with being in front of the lens? And who is behind them?
Wired journalist Chris Stokel-Walker reveals the answers in the first independent in-depth book on YouTube. For three years he has interviewed more than 100 figures connected with the world s biggest video-sharing website, among them agents, managers and influencers themselves.
He charts YouTube s rise from showing a single video of a zoo to multi-billion-dollar site that outmuscles Facebook. And he delves into thorny issues about brands, burnout and authenticity. He explains why YouTubers keep stopping traffic in city centres and whether they will eat normal TV.
If you are a journalist, publicist, advertiser, or marketer who needs to know how YouTube works or a parent intrigued by what the kids are watching and why (or just fascinated by the lives of leading creators) you need this book.
No one understands the intricacies of YouTube like Chris Stokel-Walker. His reporting on the platform and its creators has been ground breaking and unparalleled. - Taylor Lorenz,The Atlantic
For anyone trying to understand the bonkers world of YouTube, this is essential reading. Full of entertaining dispatches from the front line of streaming, Stokel-Walker has written the preeminent guide to the new celebrity world - and what it means for the rest of us. - Sam Parker, Esquire
Stokel-Walker provides a brilliant, witty and extraordinary detailed insight into one of the world's most important, but least understood platforms, as well as the young creators that have built their empires on it.
This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to truly understand the future of media, as well as the internet itself. - Hussein Kesvani, MEL Magazine
A front-line report of a key time in the history of digital content creation and consumption, a meticulously researched history of online video, and a deep anthropological study of the often misunderstood Homo influenceris.
If you want to understand the inner workings of your favourite YouTube influencers, or perhaps if you want to understand why your children are always talking about them, you should read this book. It is smart, sweeping, and significant. - Simon Clark, YouTuber
- GenresNonfictionTechnology
238 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 18, 2019
26 people are currently reading
345 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 7, 2019
YouTube is a global phenomenon. Such is its immensity, deeply integrated in the world of young people, that any description of the website will always come up short. Like blind men grasping at an elephant, aspects that may seem fundamental to one observer will be totally absent from the account of another. To gain an overview of any credibility, one must not only consider YouTube through many lenses - economic, sociological, historical - but also through multiple perspectives. Stokel-Walker’s YouTubers succeeds as a cutting-edge account of one of most important websites in the world, as seen through the eyes of some of its top creators, industry experts, and researchers.
Drawing on interviews on topics ranging from extremism to mental health to finance, Stokel-Walker weaves a tapestry of impressive scope. Speaking as a YouTuber, he captures the feel of the website, what it is to be a YouTuber (warts and all), and in particular highlights many of the less-publicised struggles of creating content to offer up to the almighty Algorithm. I suspect that in years to come, YouTubers will be viewed as an important historical account. It is a front-line report of a key time in the history of digital content creation and consumption, a meticulously researched history of online video, and a deep anthropological study of the often misunderstood Homo influenceris.
If you want to understand the inner workings of your favourite YouTube influencers, and perhaps where we are heading next, you should read this book. It’s smart, sweeping, and significant.
Drawing on interviews on topics ranging from extremism to mental health to finance, Stokel-Walker weaves a tapestry of impressive scope. Speaking as a YouTuber, he captures the feel of the website, what it is to be a YouTuber (warts and all), and in particular highlights many of the less-publicised struggles of creating content to offer up to the almighty Algorithm. I suspect that in years to come, YouTubers will be viewed as an important historical account. It is a front-line report of a key time in the history of digital content creation and consumption, a meticulously researched history of online video, and a deep anthropological study of the often misunderstood Homo influenceris.
If you want to understand the inner workings of your favourite YouTube influencers, and perhaps where we are heading next, you should read this book. It’s smart, sweeping, and significant.
October 29, 2019
3.5 Stars-- the assumed audience here is someone (I'm guessing a boomer?) who is scratching their head over what the hell Youtube is and how it got to be so popular. And insofar as that is the audience, I think this does a good job of running through the history of the platform, an explanation of its cultural relevance, and an overview of the major ethical & business practice considerations that have come up between Youtube, advertisers, investors, creators, & viewers. What this makes me hungry for is a more "inside baseball" book like this-- maybe an oral history? I don't know, but I think this is a very nice version of what it is, even if I wanted it to go deeper in many places based on my own familiarity with the subject matter & people involved
February 21, 2021
Despite being written relatively recently this book has aged poorly as it covers a subject that is constantly changing. It's a good summary of where things were with YouTube at the time of writing but anyone that has a passing interest in YouTube will have already been aware of a lot that is in this book. The interviews with content creators were interesting and the speculation about the future of YouTube was thought provoking.
July 1, 2019
This book caught my attention because I am both an avid YouTube watcher and a not-so-avid YouTuber. I thought I had a fairly good understanding of YouTube’s beginning and workings but reading this was really eye-opening. I love a good backstory and have to say that my eyes were opened to the nitty-gritty of my favourite app. Now I seem to be coming across more stories that reinforce the book’s salient points which I never noticed before. It’s a well-written book that canvasses and the length and breadth of the contexts, motivations and ideas that combine to form YouTube’s story which is also, I think, a story about our evolving civilisation and rapidly morphing social norms.
One major thrust of the book which I don’t agree with, however, is the responsibility heaped on the organisation to police content. While not a supporter of unpoliced publications that spread radicalisation, conspiracy theories and other misinformation, I believe these things are really only a reflection of humanity itself. It is humans themselves that should be addressed. We somehow need to address the root causes of these issues – in which case I see policing content as merely suppressing the problems. I realise this might be a bit of an idealist point of view, but it seems a bit unfair to shove this responsibility on emerging tech and then call their responses overreactions.
This is very much a book relevant to current times. I feel like the conclusion could have been a bit stronger, although, at the same time, the author is very right in leaving it open-ended. YouTube is really too novel a phenomenon to predict a solid trajectory for and there is little/no baseline for permutations. How can one really make conclusions about what YouTube will hold for humanity? I give this book 4.2 stars.
One major thrust of the book which I don’t agree with, however, is the responsibility heaped on the organisation to police content. While not a supporter of unpoliced publications that spread radicalisation, conspiracy theories and other misinformation, I believe these things are really only a reflection of humanity itself. It is humans themselves that should be addressed. We somehow need to address the root causes of these issues – in which case I see policing content as merely suppressing the problems. I realise this might be a bit of an idealist point of view, but it seems a bit unfair to shove this responsibility on emerging tech and then call their responses overreactions.
This is very much a book relevant to current times. I feel like the conclusion could have been a bit stronger, although, at the same time, the author is very right in leaving it open-ended. YouTube is really too novel a phenomenon to predict a solid trajectory for and there is little/no baseline for permutations. How can one really make conclusions about what YouTube will hold for humanity? I give this book 4.2 stars.
February 4, 2023
I was more interested in reading about YouTube from a media standpoint (given how they are a giant in competing for people's attentions in today's entertainment sphere).
However, this book was more like an encyclopedia of YouTubers and the type of content they produced. There was nothing eye-opening in terms of how YouTubers ran their business or developed content, beyond what can easily be found in a quick web search. I'm not certain who the intended audience was, but for those who wanted to study media or become a YouTuber producing content, they will not glean anything eye-opening from this.
There was hardly anything on audience engagement/reception with YouTube content, or the process of how YouTube content was created by these creators. At the most, there was a brief mention of parasocial relationships that one can find in many, many psychology books (particularly those books specializing in audience engagement).
I've spent no more than 4 hours researching the business of being a YouTuber, and even still knew more than what was presented here. Just surface-level details that amounted to little more than observations capable of being made by a casual observer with some time on their hands.
However, this book was more like an encyclopedia of YouTubers and the type of content they produced. There was nothing eye-opening in terms of how YouTubers ran their business or developed content, beyond what can easily be found in a quick web search. I'm not certain who the intended audience was, but for those who wanted to study media or become a YouTuber producing content, they will not glean anything eye-opening from this.
There was hardly anything on audience engagement/reception with YouTube content, or the process of how YouTube content was created by these creators. At the most, there was a brief mention of parasocial relationships that one can find in many, many psychology books (particularly those books specializing in audience engagement).
I've spent no more than 4 hours researching the business of being a YouTuber, and even still knew more than what was presented here. Just surface-level details that amounted to little more than observations capable of being made by a casual observer with some time on their hands.
May 16, 2019
I really enjoyed looking into the Youtube world. Having been an avid watcher since 2009 I understood the world on the surface level but this book goes so much deeper. The sheer amount of research that the author did is incredible.
The book includes the views of a wide range of Youtubers including one of my favourites, Lucy Moon. It is an easy read and I read it happily in one sitting.
Thank you to Netgalley and Canbury for this book.
July 17, 2019
What a great book, sharing the secrets of YouTube’s success. I was fascinated by the start up story and found the book full of interesting information. I also enjoyed hearing about famous YouTubers and the secrets to their success. Highly recommend this to anyone who’s thinking of starting a YouTube channel or anyone who wants to understand contemporary business.
October 10, 2019
Good, fantastically well-researched magazine journalism extended to book length. Useful overview of the emerging industry, brutal economics and pressures on creators. Not a business book or a cultural studies book, so no startling insights but quite a lot of specially-commissioned research makes it a very useful read.
January 31, 2021
This was an interesting read about YouTube and the phenomenon from so many differentpoints of view.
I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in starting a Youtube channel.
I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in starting a Youtube channel.
December 26, 2019
A great guide into the weird world of YouTube culture suitable for anyone no matter what their involvement with the site.
February 16, 2021
Wow. Just wow. Great read and highly informative. Not much to analysis.
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April 19, 2021YouTube
May 6, 2021
Ничего нового и интересного не нашла( Успех ютуба они приписывают алгоритму, который тебе рекомендует похожее (как спотифай). Но нетфликс и амазон уже дышит в затылок)))
October 13, 2025
Interesting and informative, but to an extent quite surface level. Definitely a good introduction for those who know nothing of the site but as someone who has practically grew up on it, I felt quite familiar with a lot of this
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews