Shifting digital world challenges YouTubers
Platform’s evolving rules push Canadian online personalities to ‘roll with the punches’
YouTuber Dan Rodo has amassed millions of views on his channel “The Danocracy” but knows he still needs way more.
It’s one of the reasons the Torontobased producer partnered with Bell Media’s Much Digital Studios to create Dan for a Week, a slick new web series in which he challenges himself to upend his life in weird ways. He chronicles gut-churning feats like eating only pizza for a week, and struggling through his normal life while wearing a pair of Incredible Hulk gloves — all in the name of going viral.
Rodo, like many of Canada’s biggest YouTubers, came to realize that in the increasingly precarious digital economy, you’re only as good as your last hit video.
“I really like YouTube for what it is now, but it’s not going to last forever,” Rodo says. “There’s been some big changes recently, so you kind of have to roll with the punches.”
The Google-owned video-sharing website has kept its community of creators guessing with recent unexpected changes to advertising payouts.
YouTubers were shocked when its “restricted” setting began filtering out a wide variety of LGBTQfriendly content for no clear reason — and without advance notification.
Then came a rash of advertisers fleeing the platform after seeing their ads running next to racist and extremist content. The creators who struggled with reduced earnings dubbed it the “adpocalypse.”
The turmoil has calmed in recent months, but gave YouTubers a moment of pause. Perhaps it was time to sharpen their skills as independent promoters of their own brands and not rely solely on the YouTube platform. “YouTube is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had but also one of the most stressful jobs,” Rodo says, “just because you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Dan For a Week still uses YouTube as a distribution platform but it’s also bolstered by the Much brand, though it doesn’t air on television. Visitors to Much.com see links to the series on the home page and the network’s social-media accounts promote it.
That backing worked for Jus Reign, the Guelph, Ont.-raised YouTuber whose hobby of making comedy shorts led to him hosting red carpets at some of Much’s biggest events.
Transgender creator Stef Sanjati says she too was in negotiations with Much Digital Studios to help grow her audience on YouTube and beyond but decided instead to hire an agent to chase sponsorship deals. Sanjati has plugged mobile apps, skin care products and, most recently, a laser clinic’s treatments in her YouTube videos and on Instagram.
“It’s tricky for me as someone who is more an artist than a business person, but it’s something I’ve been learning as I go,” she says.
“I do think it would be irresponsible of me — as someone who works only on YouTube — to not expand and solidify myself as a brand.”
Rodo agrees, but he’s particularly cautious about which brands he incorporates into videos. If it’s funny, then he’ll consider it. Last month he interviewed his dog to plug the film A Dog’s Purpose and played Truth or Dare to promote a new pack of gum.
Other Canadians have proven it’s possible to break the YouTube celebrity mould in their own way.
Standing tallest is Lilly Singh, who racked up 11.5 million subscribers with colourful impersonations of her parents and guest spots by Bill Gates and Michelle Obama.
While Singh’s debut book How to Be aBawsesoared up bestseller lists, she says success in traditional media hasn’t weakened her confidence in the future of YouTube. “I remember years ago there was this idea you had to get on YouTube so you could use it as a stepping stone . . . I don’t feel that way,” she says. “I feel it is very much a space that will exist and grow.” Singh left her east-Toronto neighbourhood for Hollywood two years ago in the hopes of solidifying a presence in the entertainment industry. But while she’s found a sweet spot that works south of the border, some U.S. YouTubers are headed north to build their name.
Lloyd Ahlquist, the U.S. co-creator of viral sensation “Epic Rap Battles of History,” tapped into funding from the Ontario Media Development Corp., and the Independent Production Fund to bring his new YouTube series “Epic Studios” to life.
The episodes were shot in Toronto with a cast of mostly Canadian actors, including Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall.
Ahlquist says that while others talk about leaving YouTube, he cherishes the freedom it allows. Some of his most popular rap battles, such as “Darth Vader vs. Hitler” or “Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton,” have racked up hundreds of millions of views — and their concepts might have been vetoed by the executives at a traditional media company.
“For me it’s such creative control. I really enjoy that,” he says. “Having something that’s all mine is really what levels this playing field.”