Recently, YouTube has hugely increased in popularity and content quality. There's virtually something for everyone, whether it be gaming, tutorials, comedy, lifestyle, cooking, education, anything. YouTube has become so mainstream to our pop culture, there's even a convention where fans and viewers can meet their favorite YouTubers. Some even hailed as "YouTube celebrities". With so much content available instantly through the fast growing website it's easy to get wrapped up in only a few, but here are 4 YouTubers who are definitely worth your time:
1. DanIsNotOnFire
Dan Howell is a 28 year old British guy who has accumulated over 5 million subscribers since 2008. He offers quirky and humorous insight to the lives of nerdy and awkward introverts. His videos range from taking dares to telling extremely interesting stories with hilarious reenactments. In his popular series of videos he calls (with a catchy theme and everything) “Reasons Why Dan’s a Fail (yay),” he talks about things like the horrors of being left handed or chronic mumbling. His other most popular series he calls “Internet Support Group” where he answers questions from viewers regarding personal problems. In 2014 Dan won the “Lovie Internet Video Personality of the Year” Award. Dan also maintains several side channels with his best friend Phil Lester (also known as Amazingphil on YouTube) including DanAndPhilGames, where they post gaming videos. The channel was officially the named the fastest growing channel on YouTube, having hit 1 million subscribers in just under 5 months. Dan and Phil also created a channel called DanAndPhilCrafts as an April Fools joke which featured a single video of them making paper snowflakes. The video had overly amateur editing and was obviously a joke but gained 500,000 views and 154,000 subscribers in just one week.
2. Matthew Santoro
Matthew Santoro is a Canadian YouTuber who is called the “knowledge whale” by subscribers, due to his more educational videos. Santoro has over 5 million subscribers and is most well-known for his “50 Facts to Blow Your Mind”. The series has over 50 episodes, and he also posts videos such as “10 Unbelievable Survival Stories”, “7 Myths You Still Believe About Sex”, or “10 Craziest Prison Escapes of All Time”. His videos are very informative having accumulated over 600 million views. In 2015, Santoro was nominated for the Seventh Annual Shorty Award for YouTube Star of the Year, presented by A&E. In the same year, he was nominated for, and won, the Fifth Annual Streamy Awards for Breakout Creator. Coming up in 2017, Santoro is set to appear in the movie “Resident Evil: the Final Chapter”.
3. Chris Fleming
Chris Fleming is one of the most under appreciated YouTubers ever, with just over 67,000 subscribers. A majority of his videos are a continuing comedic series entitled “Gayle”. Gayle Waters-Waters (her husband had the same last name but she still insisted on hyphenating it anyway) is a character Fleming created who is an over-bearing, ridiculous, hyper-competitive, downright insane suburban house wife. Gayle goes on many adventures, one of which includes taking her daughter Terry to a college visit and promptly hijacking another tour, impersonating a student, and making the college sound horrible only to increase Terry’s chances of acceptance. Another time, she created a club at the local high school that had a main purpose of being a support group for people who are “survivors of interactions with intensively playful Trader Joe’s cashiers." Gayle also has a side series where she sits in the car and just rants about topics like the pretentiousness of NYU students, how bread bowls are just trojan horses for soup, or the uselessness of D batteries. Chris Fleming is hilarious and everything his writes and performs is just amazing. And after every episode, whether Gayle has just threatened to leg wrestle Zooey Deschanel or has attached a camera to husband Dave to ensure he stays off Google Images and stops using Sensodyne toothpaste, she asks her faithful audience, “What would you have done?”
4. Miranda Sings
If you haven’t heard of Miranda Sings, you must be living under a rock. Colleen Ballinger created the character of Miranda based on a satire of people she's met or seen trying to become famous by posting videos of themselves singing. Miranda is a hilarious character with a comical amount of lipstick, who claims to be a “five threat”: a singer, actor, dancer, model, magician. The irony is, she's comically talentless. Miranda is eccentric, narcissistic, terrible at singing and has horrible dancing skills. She gives "tutorials," recounts her daily life, and talks about current events that she often misunderstands. She has over 6 millions subscribers and over 900 million views. Colleen, who is actually an incredible singer, has taken Miranda on tours with live shows all over the world. She has been praised as one of the the most successful YouTube parodies, having been a guest star on the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon and an episode of “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” with Jerry Seinfeld. Ballinger also won a Teen Choice award for Best Web Star in Comedy, as well as a Streamy Award for Best Actress. She was also nominated for a Shorty Award and a People’s Choice Award, as well as receiving praise in Playbill, Broadway World, the New York Times and more. Miranda Sings is expected to appear in her own Netflix original series, named after her famous catch-phrase “Haters Back-Off,” coming soon.
