This semester in English 110 I have learned a lot. I admit I can’t remember everything that we have done off of the top of my head but a two of the most important lessons that I can remember is my target audience and critical reading and thinking. Writing a paper becomes 10 times easier to write when you have a specific type of audience to write to, it makes you more persuasive while also allowing you to look at your paper from the perspective of the reader. By learning to critically think and read I have become a much different person, I am now a more open person and a better listener. I now look at things from multiple angles and points of view compared to my old self that would block out people who did not agree with me. Although I have learned a lot I know there is still a lot for me to learn and hopefully, I can continue to take English classes because for the first time in my life I actually enjoyed going to English.

Intro: Open telling a story about an event in my english past (try to be interesting- grab attention)

Thesis:

Body Paragraph 1: Writing, During my time in English 110 I have become a much stronger writer but I have not become the best writer I can be.

Evidence: Compare an essay I wrote in high school to an essay I wrote in English 110 this semester.

Body Paragraph 2: Throughout my time in English 110 I have become a much more open critical reader.  I used to believe everything that I read on the internet but now I try to find multiple sources and points of view.

Evidence: Work that I have done on the Moosa paper.

Body Paragraph 3: Participation. I feel as if I participated more than most when we met and had discussions in class. This allowed me to open up and voice my opinions, in return I was able to listen to other people and allow their ideas to shape the way I think. Whether I agreed or disagreed with what the person was saying I was respectful.

Evidence: Talk about discussions we had in class, use comments from my blog.

Conclusion: Tie the year up, overall I learned a lot but I still have a lot to learn. This class was perfect me to get acquainted to college level writing and workload.

At the beginning of the course I came in with the mindset that I would be doing a lot of writing and that I would struggle because I have never been a strong writer. I have never enjoyed writing so I would always get away with doing the bare minimum. This semester I think I have wildly improved my writing skills on top of improving my critical reading and understanding my audience. Im not gonna say that I have mastered reading, writing and rhetorical knowledge because that is a flat out lie, but I absolutely have improved. First off I used to write just plain boring essays, they would answer the prompt at hand but the writing wouldn’t have much life. This semester I feel as if I have become a much better writer then what I used to even if my writing still isn’t very strong. I have also learned how to critically read, I found that in English 110 I participated more then I used to so it got me thinking more about what I read rather then reading just because I had to. Rather then just read a text with no purpose I try to understand who the writers target audience is, I try to understand tone and the purpose of the text.  Also when writing I have always written to my teachers as my audience, I am so glad that I was able to write my multimodal research paper because it gave me the opportunity to change the style in which I was writing.

We all know of Youtube as the place to view viral videos that your friends send you. Everyone knows of  Charlie bit my finger and Keyboard Cat and Zombie Kid likes Turtles. But not everyone knows of the people who make youtube videos for a living. Youtube allows independent users on top of big name corporations to share skits, tv clips, music videos, movie trailers, commercials and any other type of video you can think of. Youtube has created lots of jobs for people, especially independent video content creators. Some of the most popular youtubers are called youtube stars. These people make a living off of creating videos for people to watch. These youtube stars make hundreds of thousands of dollars and a few of the top ones make over a million dollars per year. Not only do they make youtube videos but since youtube has become so popular, major tv networks and movie companies are hiring these people as actors. One youtube star in particular is Jimmy Tatro. His youtube channel “LifeAccordingtoJimmy” has 2,631,437 million subscribers and averages 1,508,677 views per video. Since the creation of his channel on November 24, 2011 he has earned over a million dollars and has had roles in major movies such as Grown Ups 2, 22 Jump Street and the Blue Mountain State movie. 

Although many people view youtube as a hobby and a waste of time, youtube stars are an integral part in today’s society. They give millennials the hope that no matter what they are passionate about, as long as they put in hard work and effort they can make a living doing what they love.

Youtubers create a sense of relatability

Some of the most popular youtubers create a sense of relatability with their fans. Rather then acting like they are too cool for their fans they try to show that they are normal people just like their viewers. One Youtuber in particular named whiteboy7thst who mainly makes Call of Duty videos has 34 videos that talks about his high school experiences. In the video below he talks about getting in trouble in high school, he starts off by thanking his fans for their support and then goes into how he would skip class, throw paint on the ceilings during art class and copying homework last minute before class. Im positive almost every person ever can relate to at least one experience in this video, Whiteboy7thst also continues to interact with his fans through the comment section and on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Whiteboy7thst doesn’t need to talk about his personal life but it makes the viewer seem like they know him on a personal level. When I was in middle school I would watch this youtuber’s videos and on a personal account I felt like I knew him in real life.  He talks about how life wasn’t always easy for him and that he just kept grinding and now he is able to make a living off of playing video games. This youtuber serves as inspiration to middle schoolers and high schoolers who love to play video games. What kid doesn’t want to make money doing something as fun as playing video games for a living?

Youtube is a great place to showcase your talents

For people like Jimmy Tatro, LifeAccordingtoJimmy (his youtube channel) was just a hobby where Jimmy could post his funny skits and relatable videos to this youtube channel. Nowadays he has over 2.6 million subscribers and offers to be in major movies and tv shows. In an interview with Tatro back in 2013 by Hannah Orenstein she says “He’s been dedicated to film since the age of 10, when he got his start by filming his skateboarding moves, he says. He joined his school’s TV station in high school and then began creating sketches in college. Today, he has more than 100 million views on YouTube and 580,000 followers on Vine.” (n.pag) Jimmy Tatro’s story is a story that almost any kid can look up to. From the age of 10 he started doing what he loved and continued with it throughout college. He didn’t let popular opinion sway his decision, rather he ignored the hate and took in the positive feedback. By doing this he propelled himself into a minor role in the film Grown Ups 2 which stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and even Shaquille O’Neal. 

This opportunity led Tatro to receive an offer to be in the movie 22 Jump st. where he had a much larger role and more screen time. In an interview with Tatro about the movie he gets asked the question,”Because of the videos, you presumably have a very strong fanbase that’s just there for you, online. Is there a stigma when you’re trying to get into a major motion picture because of that? Do casting directors know online numbers?” and he responds by saying “yeah, I think that’s something that definitely helps in terms of negotiations and stuff, in terms of being able to lay down some numbers and say, “We can bring X amount of tickets based on …” I have 2 million subscribers on YouTube so I can make a video and say, “Hey, everybody, go see this movie,” and they’re all fans of me, so it’s going to be a pretty good conversion rate for people who want to see this movie.”. It is evident that Tatro’s background in youtube is a reason why he was able to get the part in such a big movie with such mainstream actors such as Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. Without youtube he would most likely not have been able to even get a callback from auditions. From a subscriber standpoint, if you’re a big fan of Jimmy Tatro you are going to be inspired by all of his success and try to become just as successful following his path.

Youtube gives the opportunity for people to make a living

Youtubers are able to make a living off of youtube. Some make thousands while some of the top youtubers make millions. Most of these people started from absolutely nothing and have turned into some of the most influential people in their respective communities. In an article written on Forbes, you can see that some of the top youtubers make over a million dollars annually.

Michelle Phan in particular started from nothing, she started at college and had to drop out because she couldn’t afford tuition and now makes around $3 million dollars from youtube alone and has started her own beauty brand called Ipsy. Her company is now worth over $500 million dollars which is very impressive. This shows kids that not everything is going to be easy, that sometimes you need to take a few steps back before you can go forward. I know nothing about the beauty/fashion industry but as a millennial myself this gives me the hope that I can one day be just as successful as her. In an interview by Forbes with Phan she credits youtube for her success and says “”I thought, if [YouTube] is going to be the global television of the future, I need to build my brand here,” said Phan, who uploaded her first video, a natural makeup tutorial, from a humble grainy webcam in 2007. “Within the first week, 40,000 people watched it and hundreds of comments came in and that’s when I realized I’d found my calling.”” (n.pag) This itself is proof that youtube is a great place to build a brand and spread your ideas with people. People like Michelle Phan and PewDiePie are great examples of inspirational people who have been able to make a living by doing what they love. 

Conclusion

Jimmy Tatro, Whiteboy7thst, Michelle Phan and Pewdiepie are just four examples of the thousands of people who make a living off of youtube and inspire millennials on a daily basis. With an estimated 900,000,000 unique viewers each month, the amount of opportunity and potential for success is endless.  Current youtube stars have been able to become successful by creating a brand for their fan base, by being relatable and ultimately working hard to achieve their success. As I said earlier, as a millennial myself I have been inspired researching some of these very successful people and I hope that you are too. Youtube is no longer considered a hobby, it is now a lifestyle.

Works cited

Morrissey B. YouTube STARS BRANDS. Brandweek [serial online]. November 8, 2010;51(40):10-11. Available from: Business Source Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 12, 2016.

Carvell, Michael. “YouTube stars target a select viewership.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution [Atlanta, GA] 22 June 2009: C2. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.

Introduction: Youtube was created on February 14, 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawad Karim.

Hook: They got the idea after the 2004 super bowl when Janet Jackson had her boob fall out of her shirt and they couldn’t find any video clips online.

Youtube allows independent users on top of big name corporations to share skits, tv clips, music videos, movie trailers, commercials and any other type of video you can think of. Youtube has created lots of jobs for people, especially independent video content creators. Some of the most popular youtubers are called youtube stars. These people make a living off of creating videos for people to watch. These youtube stars make hundreds of thousands of dollars and a few of the top ones make over a million dollars per year. Not only do they make youtube videos but since youtube has become so popular, major tv networks and movie companies are hiring these people as actors. One youtube star in particular is Jimmy Tatro. His youtube channel “LifeAccordingtoJimmy” has 2,565,716 subscribers and averages 1,508,677 views per video. Since the creation of his channel on November 24, 2011 he has earned over a million dollars and has had roles in major movies such as Grown Ups 2, 22 Jump Street and the Blue Mountain State movie.

Thesis: Although many people view youtube as a hobby and a waste of time, youtube stars are an integral part in today’s society. They give millennials the hope that no matter what they are passionate about, as long as they put in hard work and effort they can make a living doing what they love.

Body Paragraph 1:

Topic Sentence: Some of the most popular youtubers create a sense of relatability with their fans. Rather then acting like they are too cool for their fans they try to show that they are normal people just like their viewers.

Evidence: Youtuber named whiteboy7thst who mainly makes Call of Duty videos has 34 videos that talks about his high school experiences. (Include youtube video as an example and use comments on the video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gElNadcdXls&list=PLD205227737E35552&index=9

Analysis: This youtuber doesn’t need to talk about his personal life but it makes the viewer seem like they know him on a personal level. When I was in middle school I would watch this youtuber’s videos and on a personal account I felt like I knew him in real life. He talks about how life wasn’t always easy for him and that he just kept grinding and now he is able to make a living off of playing video games. What kid doesn’t want to make money doing something as fun as playing video games for a living?

Body Paragraph 2:

Topic Sentence: For people like Jimmy Tatro, LifeAccordingtoJimmy (his youtube channel) was just a hobby where Jimmy could post his funny skits and relatable videos to this youtube channel. Nowadays he has over 2.5 million subscribers and offers to be in major movies and tv shows.

Evidence: “He’s been dedicated to film since the age of 10, when he got his start by filming his skateboarding moves, he says. He joined his school’s TV station in high school and then began creating sketches in college. Today, he has more than 100 million views on YouTube and 580,000 followers on Vine.” (n.pag)

Analysis: Jimmy Tatro’s story is a story that almost any kid can look up to. From the age of 10 he started doing what he loved and continued with it throughout college. He didn’t let popular opinion sway his decision, rather he ignored the hate and took in the positive feedback.

Body Paragraph 3:

Topic Sentence: Youtubers are able to make a living off of youtube. Some make thousands while some of the top youtubers make millions. Most of these people started from absolutely nothing and have turned into some of the most influential people in their respective communities.

Evidence: http://www.forbes.com/pictures/gjdm45jih/youtube-millionaires/#65d0d01c32d1

http://mashable.com/2016/02/13/michelle-phan-starting-over/#yMcHJ.w4gkqF

Analysis: Michelle Phan in particular started from nothing, she started at college and had to drop out because she couldn’t afford tuition and now she makes around $3 million dollars from youtube alone and has started her own beauty brand. This shows kids that not everything is going to be easy, that sometimes you need to take a few steps back before you can go forward. I know nothing about the beauty/fashion industry but as a millennial myself this gives me the hope that I can one day be just as successful as some of these youtubers.

Conclusion: Restate thesis (dont copy and paste thesis, reword)

Summarize research

Some of the most popular youtube stars were able to achieve success by being relatable and friendly with their fans through social media and fan meet ups. This is important because these youtube stars have also become the next generation of movie and tv personalities.

Introduction:

1. Talk about how youtube has grown from the beginning and how people have made careers from it. Insert a scholarly source. ( still searching)
2. Thesis- Some of the most popular youtubers were able to achieve success by being relatable and friendly with their fans through social media and fan meetups. ( tentative)

Body Paragraph 1: youtubers in movies

1. Talk about how a few youtubers have created a brand for themselves and have even had major roles in movies, commercials and tv shows. 5 youtubers who have made it into movies.

Body Paragraph 2: Talk about one of my favorite youtubers Jimmy Tatro

1. Talk about how Jimmy Tatro is a prime example of somebody who tries to be relatable with their fanbase.
2. insert multimodal elements including tweets and videos
3. Use quotes from an interview where he says “I wasn’t ever really planning on focusing on frat Life. I thought that first video that I made would be a good kind of jump start to starting the channel up just ‘cause I knew how viral it could go because it was such a relatable video”

Body Paragraph 3-4: Zoella

1. Zoella makes vlogs and beauty tip videos.
2. After watching a few videos I could immediately tell why she had such a large fanbase
   1. Insert a video to show relatability
   2. Screenshot tweets and insert
3. Use interview to show where she came from

Body Paragraph 3-4: Concession (still figuring this out)

Body Paragraph 5: Running the numbers

1. Article estimating the amount of money some youtubers have made and how they made it

Conclusion

 

 

One popular source that I have found is “These 23 youtubers make more then people on TV“. This article shows that normal people including children use youtube to make money. All you need is a camera and a computer and you can become a youtube star. People from all different genres can make a living ranging from video games to skits to beauty tips. Although this article is presented in a slideshow format it still gives a gist of who these people are and what type of videos they make on youtube. These are only 23 of the thousands of youtubers that have made more money than some people on national television. One person Michelle Phan was able to use her youtube account to start her own company and has made an estimated 441 million dollars annually.

1. Discussion of Topic:

Youtube was created on February 14, 2005 by Steve Chen Chad Hurley and Jawad Karim. They got the idea after the 2004 super bowl when Janet Jackson had her boob fall out of her shirt and they couldn’t find any video clips online. Youtube allows independent users on top of big name corporations to share skits, tv clips, music videos, movie trailers, commercials and any other type of video you can think of. Youtube has created lots of jobs for people, especially independent video content creators. Some of the most popular youtubers are called youtube stars. These people make a living off of creating videos for people to watch. These youtube stars make hundreds of thousands of dollars and a few of the top ones make over a million dollars per year. Not only do they make youtube videos but since youtube has become so popular, major tv networks and movie companies are hiring these people as actors. One youtube star in particular is Jimmy Tatro. His youtube channel “LifeAccordingtoJimmy” has 2,565,716 subscribers and averages 1,508,677 views per video. Since the creation of his channel on November 24, 2011 he has earned over a million dollars and has had roles in major movies such as Grown Ups 2, 22 Jump Street and the Blue Mountain State movie.

This is just one example of somebody who has become extremely successful off of youtube. In an article written by Justin Morrow on the website No Film School “The top 1,000 channels also average $23,000 in monthly ad revenue”. This is not including sponsorships and doing commercials or movies. In my research I want to find out how some of the top youtuber’s have created their own “brand” and how they have used social media to promote themselves. I believe that all of the top youtuber’s started with a small fanbase and overtime accrued more and more viewers and then one video went viral and they became extremely popular.

2. My Focus:

The broad question that will guide my research is: Who are the top youtubers and how did they get there? A few secondary research questions that I have are: What is the demographic of their fanbase? And what separates these people from all the other similar accounts? Is there a difference in the way somebody from one genre interacts with their fanbase then another? My thesis that may change is: Youtube stars started small and gained a fanbase through interacting with their fans on social media. If it were not for youtube then these people would not have had the opportunity to become actors in movies and commercials.

3. Why I am interested

I am interested in youtube stars because as a child I would watch some of the more popular youtubers in video games and the entertainment genre. I want to learn how these people have become so successful and the impact they have had on people’s lives. I already know that it takes a lot of hard work and effort into becoming a youtube star and maintaining that status so what I hope to find while researching this is how long it took each youtuber to achieve their success and how they managed to maintain success.

4. Research Plan

In order to write this paper I need to find the top youtuber in the top 3 genres. Once I have found these people I will analyze how their videos appeal to viewers. For my broad research I will use scholarly and popular sources to set the scene and show how people earn money from youtube. For the focus of my paper I will use primary sources such as interviews to prove my argument and make my paper a bit more entertaining to read.

In my paper I will incorporate videos, tweets and images to give good examples. Most of the videos that the youtube stars create are very entertaining which is one of the reasons why they are so popular so incorporating videos will be a perfect way for me to prove my argument.

Examples: Jimmy Tatro’s Twitter , Jimmy Tatros Youtube, Machinima Youtube, Machinima Twitter, Zoella Youtube, Zoella Twitter

 

Schedule:

11/1: Outline completed

11/7: Annotated Bibliography

11/20: Have body paragraphs completed

11/25: Complete Intro and Conclusion

11/29: Attend office hours to review essay/ review and complete

11/30: Submit

Research Pitch

1. My topic for A2 is youtube stars and why they are important to todays society and especially “millennial”.
2. What demographic watches the top 5 most popular you tubers? How did they become so popular? Why are they so popular? What type of content do they create? How do they interact with fans over social media? Do they know each other?
3. I am working on the topic of youtube stars and why they are important to todays society. I don’t understand why they are so popular and how they can possibly make a living off of youtube and that is what I want to find out. I want to learn more about where these people came from and what influenced them to create their videos as well as their influence on the viewers. I want my reader to know why these people are important, in order to understand the influence they have on society in particular millennials.