Is it getting harder for influencers to break out? A chat with 2 YouTube execs

YouTube personality Glozell was part of the rise of superstar creators. Here she is taking a selfie with fans at VidCon in 2015.

If you consider yourself very online, you’d likely be able to name the early wave of top YouTube creators, from Lilly Singh and PewDiePie to Zoella and Tyler Oakley.

But these days, even for an extremely online person, it’s become increasingly difficult to identify the new wave of creators dominating the platform and achieving mainstream success beyond megastars like MrBeast.

At VidCon, the annual creator conference in Anaheim, California, B-17 spoke with YouTube execs Amjad Hanif, who’s vice president of product management for creator products, and Kevin Allocca, global director of culture and trends, about why there seem to be fewer breakout stars on the platform these days.

It boils down to two main reasons. Firstly, there are far more creators on YouTube now than ever before. Secondly, megastar creators can be harder to spot as they now exist in niche corners of the internet.

During the early days of YouTube, there were only a handful of channels to watch with creators consistently making quality content. Most of those YouTubers were in mainstream categories like beauty, lifestyle, and comedy. But now, the number of YouTube creators uploading content and making money from the platform has grown tremendously. No matter your passion, it’s likely you’ll be able to find someone talking about it on YouTube, whether it’s taking care of house plants, reading fantasy novels, or starting a business selling stickers.

Their audiences can be large yet niche, like Minecraft streamer Aphmau’s 21 million subscribers.

“This is actually a great thing for the ecosystem,” Hanif said. “You can have lots of stars.”

He added: “What it means to be a creator is much more diverse now … which is also really interesting because people are able to build all different types of businesses around the content that they create.”

Anthony Baroud, known as Dental Digest on YouTube, has 17 million subscribers and is another example of this trend. He creates videos testing dental hygiene products.

“When you think about the class of influencers on YouTube, you don’t think about a dentist,” Hanif said. “It has opened the door for people to be able to be creators in ways that make sense for them and what they want to do in their lives versus having to say there’s this one path to being an influencer now.”

Creators now have more ways to make a living but ‘being very successful is hard’

At VidCon, Minecraft creators Aphmau, Sapnap, and TommyinnIt, and livestream collective Krew drew the most buzz for YouTube, but unless you’re a member of Gen Alpha, it’s more likely you’ve never heard of these internet stars. Nonetheless, they can be incredibly successful; Aphmau, for example, has about 80 in-house employees and contractors who are employed through her production company, CatFace.

YouTube’s Partner Program, an invite-only program for monetizing content on the platform, has over 3 million members now, roughly double what it was three years ago, Hanif said.

“There are more creators earning, and there are more ways to earn now than five years ago,” Hanif said. “Brands and advertisers are more willing to spend now than ever three years ago on an influencer or a social campaign.”

Still, Allocca said he’s noticed there are more successful creators than there used to be but fewer huge stars.

“There’s also this reality that being very successful is hard,” Allocca said.

A recent study by YouTube found that 47% of Gen Z respondents said they belong to a fandom that no one they know personally is a part of. Examples include niche creators with heavily engaged communities like Ally Sheehan, who has 193,000 subscribers and creates videos about Taylor Swift lyrics and lore, and 11foot8plus8, a channel with 320,000 subscribers dedicated to documenting drivers’ attempts to pass a low bridge in North Carolina.

So, while there may be more opportunities for YouTube creators now, it may be a while before we see another rising star who can amass the broad appeal of someone like MrBeast. This next generation of YouTube stars looks a lot different than previous generations.