Rise Of The Superstar Blogger.
Last month, BBC created a whole host of documentaries about or starring bloggers and vloggers an youtube stars. Beauty vlogger Em Ford tracked down a bunch of Twitter trolls in Troll Hunters, Jim Chapman let the nation in to THE vloggers at the moment (I'm talking Zoella, Marcus Butler, Alfie Deyes etc) and The Supergamers hosted by Youtube Gaming star Dan Howell.
I watched all of these documentaries and apart from being good telly, they opened up a world that a lot of people don't know a lot about.
Gamers, bloggers, vloggers, youtube stars, Instagram stars......they're all a bit of an anomaly unless you are part of the industry yourself or a fan/viewer/reader. The best bit about all three programmes was exposing a career, a world and celebrating how mad and daft and amazing it is.
The fact that the BBC commissioned these programmes and got vloggers and youtube stars to host them shows just how the industry is moving. More and more these days people are starting to see bloggers and vloggers and people who have created a job out of the internet as business people. It is being more and more recognised as a career move, as a job, as a lifestyle and I think that can only be a good thing.
Brands have not been slow to jump on bloggers and vloggers. Brands very quickly realised what an impact these voices were having and internet stars were quick to realise it was an investment and something they could make money from. This is old news, brands like Avon have beauty bloggers in their adverts, sponsored content is nothing new and HOW many bloggers got invites to LFW with brands? My Instagram feed was full of it.
However, if you aren't interested in beauty, aren't interested in fashion, don't read blogs and don't watch youtube channels you might find the whole industry bizarre. The idea that people literally walk around London with a camera in their hand talking to it with strangers walking by like ......... is insane if you don't know anything about vlogging.
That's why I think these BBC documentaries are so important that suddenly blogging and vlogging and gaming is even more accessible (mad to think of it NOT being accessible to some people) and an even wider audience is now reachable.
People who have created an entire lifestyle and are making a career and making money out of the internet and social media are business people of the savviest kind. They are self employed, they are negotiating their own business deals, they are working with brands, they are creating contacts, they are working every hour god sends and they are making money from something you can do for free.
I loved the documentaries for exposing the world of the internet famous and portraying it as such a fun, diverse community and one that can really be used to make a difference because of the 28973907539875893642764 voices that speak for it.
Find out more about the programmes here!