- Hello my dudes, my name is Tiffany.
Welcome back to my
series, Internet Analysis,
where I like to research
and discuss things
relevant to social issues and media.
Today's topic is You're
Not Relatable, Anymore.
I am fascinated by influencers,
and especially YouTubers
and I'm also interested
in the ways that fame and
money can change people.
So in this video we're going to explore
why some relatable YouTubers
are not relatable anymore.
Relatability is important
on all social media,
but I think specifically YouTube.
YouTube became popular
and has been popular
because it's different
from celebrity culture.
We look at celebrities
and marvel at how amazing
their lives are, but
they're different than us.
They don't seem just like us.
Except when they don't wear makeup.
But part of the appeal of YouTube
is -this relatable element
because a lot of times
when we watch creators,
we tend to feel like we
could be friends with them.
Typically before a YouTuber gets big,
they film in their bedroom.
They're just a regular, average person.
Maybe they go to school,
maybe they have another job,
and they just happen to
also have a YouTube channel.
As a fan, it's exciting
to be an early subscriber
of someone because you can watch them grow
and become more successful
and feel really personally proud of them.
But, at a point, many YouTubers
lose their relatability
and begin to alienate their audience.
Here's a meme I got sent by
one of my Instagram followers
which is just extremely relevant.
Let's start with relatable content.
I think the peak of
broadly relatable content
was pretty much 2013 to 2016.
That was the era of those
high saturation, very colorful videos,
and the relatable topics that they
featured included school
things, hairstyles,
meal ideas, DIYs, morning
routines, life hacks.
These topics are pretty
much 100% uncontroversial.
They appeal to the masses,
and they target a demographic
which is usually girls
aged about 10 to 15.
myLifeAsEva was definitely one
of the biggest creators in this category.
She made expectations versus
reality gems such as this.
(optimistic music)
(upbeat music)
(snoring)
(alarm blaring)
- Ah, froot loop shirataki noodles,
I slept in on Black Friday.
- We also have the queen
of lifestyle content,
Bethany Mota, Aspyn
Ovard, and many others.
By the way, here's me just being nerdy
about money and metrics,
but during this era these
videos were incredibly popular
and these girls were making bank.
Let's take Alisha Marie for example.
I was looking back at her channel,
and just during this amount of time,
there are 127 million views just here.
Alisha Marie's main channel
has over a billion views.
I can't even imagine.
So, that high contrast videography
and those super exaggerated scenarios
may have gone a bit out of style,
but tons of creators are
still creating videos
about these topics.
Take Hannah Meloche for example,
especially a few years ago.
Her and her friends became
kind of the new group
of relatable teen YouTubers,
and she had a period on her channel
where she was making morning routines,
back-to-school videos,
challenge videos, the usual.
- [Hannah] Now that I'm
watching these clips back,
I actually look insane doing this,
but it's so much fun to
do this in the morning.
- There is always a new group
of younger, relatable
teen YouTubers every year.
Look at these recent school
morning routine videos.
I was shocked to see that the titles
and thumbnails are
almost exactly the same.
Clearly there's a certain
style and aesthetic
that is very appealing to this age group,
but it's just crazy to
see it like that similar.
Then again if you look
back on those thumbnails,
those are probably all the same too.
Anyway, it's not surprising
that a lot of audiences
want age-appropriate,
specific, relevant content.
If you are a college student,
you would probably like to watch
and be able to relate to
YouTubers who are in college.
Katherine graduated years ago,
but if you're interested
in early career content,
San Francisco content,
check out her recent videos.
Making relatable videos is
very smart strategically
because, obviously, you're
going to attract an audience
that is probably similar to you
and is more likely to
subscribe and end up liking you
and your personality
and your other videos.
So for what I've seen, after
a while of making these
very broadly relatable videos,
creators get more popular
but then they stop making
those types of videos.
Their videos start to
be more about their life
and them as a person.
So, their life and
personality become the basis
for their content.
Now, of course, these videos
can be very relatable as well,
but they're not that same
broad level of relatability
if you get what I mean.
By the way, relatability is relative.
So, how much you specifically
relate to someone
can be based on circumstances
like age, gender,
even where you live or
other things relevant
to your lifestyle or relatability
can be base more just on personality.
So therefore, YouTubers can be relatable
either through making
relatable content and, or
having a relatable personality.
So, most of the YouTubers
featured in this video
are vloggers or lifestyle channels,
and I'm gonna explain why
I think they are the worst
in terms of losing their relatability.
Inevitably, as a creator
becomes more popular
and starts to make more money,
their real life moves
further and further away
from what their average viewer's life is.
And, by the way quickly,
there is nothing wrong with
making money, good for you.
Make your coin, pay your
taxes, we're chilling.
These people can't really control the fact
that their life just isn't relatable
to the average person anymore,
but they can control their content.
You can definitely be successful
and make a lot of money
while being lowkey about it
and therefore maintaining
your relatability.
Your job and life circumstances
can change drastically,
but how will that change your content?
Will it affect your personality?
And this is all assuming that
a creator would still want
to brand themselves as relatable.
Some creators, obviously, do
intentionally flex their wealth
and their luxury lifestyles.
There's a lot of aspirational content,
people showing off what
they have to people
who also want that and dream of that.
Mansion tours, new car
videos, luxury hauls.
They all get tons of views,
but that flex culture
is a while other topic.
This video is gonna focus on creators
who appear to still want to stay relatable
in some ways, at least.
So I'm gonna start with some
of the worst possible
examples of YouTubers
being painfully unrelatable.
First scenario being a creator who shares
a lot about their very
unrelatable lifestyle
without acknowledging their privilege
which makes them sound very
out of touch and tone deaf.
Life when Alfie Deyes tried
the living on one pound a day
challenge, while still enjoying
the luxuries that he had
already surrounded himself with.
Lets watch.
- We're gonna try something out
that I've never even thought about.
I've never even contemplated
actually doing, myself.
My total bill for my food and drink
intake is gonna be under one pound.
I don't know if this is gonna be possible.
- Right, what the
premise of this video is,
he's gonna try and live
on very little money.
But he opens the video with him in
a 1.7 million pound mansion.
- So, that whole situation
happened over a year ago
but, in case you wanna know more about it,
I would definitely recommend
watching the rest of
JaackMaate's video on it.
- Oh my gosh.
- What?
What?
What?
- Just realized I can event use that.
I'm gonna have to use
this tap water instead.
- So not only can he not use his ice
from his ice making machine,
he's gotta drink normal water
from a tap like normal
people, its not fair.
- There was also another video
which, kind of, counted how much
he actually spent that day, or the worth
of what he got that day
because he, literally,
went out and bought things and said
they didn't count toward his one pound.
- May or may not have done a little
bit of shopping in town
but no food no drink,
so, don't worry I haven't spent
anything out of the one pound budget,
bought myself a t-shirt,
bought myself a game
for me and Zoey and our
family and friends to play.
I bought a couple of
earrings, bought a comb
to brush my beard,
apparently its really good.
And I bought Zoey a pizza for dinner.
(cash register sounding)
- And then he got some things for free,
like, he went to Krispy Kreme and ended
up getting a free box of donuts
because he knew the shop workers.
- [Alfie] Jacob and
Lily are sorting me out.
We've got a box, thank you so much guys.
- That doesn't count as living
on one pound a day, Alfie.
(cash register sounding)
- [Zoey Sugg] You've not
done too bad, you know.
(celebratory music)
- That video was just incredibly
tone deaf and showed how deeply
out of touch he was
slash probably still is.
And another painfully
unrelatable video concept,
testing out regular people things
like shopping at Walmart
or working a shift job.
Yes, we're gonna talk
about the Ace Family.
- Guys, we are, literally,
working right now at a restaurant.
- Yes, we are.
- Like, Austin has been
making food for the past hour
and I've been taking orders,
do you understand how cool that is?
- Yes, the Ace Family filmed a video
pretending to work for about two hours
at their friend's restaurant.
Oh my God, I just noticed that they titled
the video, working at a
restaurant for 24 hours.
It was literally two hours
and then they had a meet
and greet, oh my God.
Imagine putting yourself in the shoes
of regular people, who work
regular jobs every day.
What a concept, how fun,
what a silly experiment.
Oh yeah, and they started the video
like this, because apparently,
they were going to a gala to get an award
because they funded the building
of some wells in Africa,
so selfless, so humble.
The Ace Family is horrible
for countless reasons
and just, generally, I don't
support family vloggers.
I did make a few Internet
Analysis videos about that
about a year ago, if you wanna watch 'em.
Now, I have to give a shout out
to Drew Gooden because he made a video
similar to this topic,
it was called losing your relatability
and he focused specifically
on The Ace Family
because they have a habit of making videos
complaining about the small inconveniences
of their very luxurious
and privileged life.
- So nice to be able to go from
the fitness gym to our master bedroom,
instead of having to go
all the way downstairs.
- Guys, can you imagine how
difficult that must have
been for the, thank God, they made it out
of that hell hole.
- From the fitness gym,
to our master bedroom.
So, its easy access, we don't have to
all the way downstairs and back upstairs.
- And I think that's something
we all can relate to,
right, when you're fully functioning
home gym is all the way downstairs
but your room is upstairs,
so you gotta walk.
These aren't problems
that real people have.
- Rich vloggers are not relatable.
Okay, lets talk about vlogging.
Some of my creator friends vlog
and I watch their videos, shouts out to
Carrie, Meghan, Hailey
Blais but, generally,
if someones main content is, like,
daily vlogging, that is just not my thing.
Here's a little rant about why.
I just think the act of vlogging too often
can be too personal and it, definitely,
opens creators up to
judgment and criticism
about, like, every element of their life
and their relationships, with YouTube,
the more you're willing
to share about yourself,
the more money you can potentially make.
So, its tempting but I don't
think its very worth it.
Anyway, that whole thing
could be its own video, too.
So, as an example of judging a vlogger's
life and relationships,
lets discuss Haley Pham.
First of all, Haley is
young, I think she's about 18
and I'm not here to
shit on a young creator
but she has been under fire recently
for a few reasons, basically,
she made a story time
video that I thought really embodies
this, you're not relatable
anymore kinda phenomenon.
She was talking about how she
went on an anniversary trip
with her boyfriend, to Greece,
she ended up paying
thousands of dollars extra
to rebook things because she made mistakes
booking, like, her entire trip.
And then she told people
that they shouldn't
travel there because its
politically and economically unstable.
And, basically, that San Torini
didn't mean her expectations
based on what she had seen on Instagram.
And then there was this whole, kind of,
purity rant and her saying that she didn't
deserve to have an infection,
I don't know, it was a mess.
Yikes.
She did end up deleting the video
a few days later and,
kind of, making an apology
but not really saying sorry.
But if you do wanna know more about
the situation I would
recommend these videos.
So anyway, this may have been a somewhat
relatable story if she were talking
to a group of other young, rich people.
But telling this story to her audience,
it was just totally tone deaf,
offensive and it made
her look pretty ignorant.
Ugh, isn't it so annoying when you
have to waste another
10,000 dollars on vacation.
This would not happen to most people.
Spending an extra 10,000 dollars
wouldn't be an annoyance, it
wouldn't be possible at all.
Anyway, Haley's been very successful
in the past few years and she is dating
another YouTuber, named Ryan Trahan,
they have a couple vlog channel, together,
called the The Traphamily and they just
bought a house together,
a young couple that's
been dating about a year, just
bought a mansion together.
Not relatable, no, buying a house,
generally, can be a great investment.
But, I don't think most people
recommend that you make that investment
with the person you've been in
a relationship with for a year,
when you're only 18 years old.
The thing is, they have been documenting
this whole process and people typically
like that kind of content, they like,
you know, house hunting videos,
they like moving in vlogs but the actual
videos based on the comments I saw
have, kind of, made them seem
a little bit unlikeable or, again,
at the very least extremely unrelatable.
So, again, that goes back to my point,
the more content that you make
about certain aspects of your life,
the more people will
make judgements about it.
I'm sure it definitely sucks to have
people question your decisions
about your finances or your relationship
but you're the one putting it out there.
- Obviously, we got
here because of you guys
so, it feels like a family effort
that we got here.
- Yeah.
- As cheesy as that
sounds, I really do feel
like this is something we're all sharing
because we wouldn't have the ability
to do this without you guys supporting us.
- God, yeah.
- And being so sweet and nice
and supportive and everything.
- But no matter how many
times you thank your audience
or talk about how grateful you are,
or even suggest that you're somehow
sharing your house with your viewers,
this is not relatable content.
But again, yes, their circumstances have
changed, they should be
proud of their success
and they are allowed to spend their money
however they want to but a big problem
that I've seen Haley's
viewers have with her
is that they think that her
personality has changed.
So, not only is it her content,
because she's been making, kind of,
more unnecessary lavish spending
type of videos and then, in addition
to buying this house and everything,
again, people think she's changed,
they think that she's acting differently
and maybe they're seeing a side of her
that they don't like as much.
This is what I mean when I say
that you can alienate your audience.
But this is not just Haley
and I don't wanna pick on her
and this seems to be a major pattern
when a creator gets successful,
they start to make all this money,
the literally have more money
than they know what to do with it.
And maybe because it counts as
a business expense they start making
videos about spending
money, isn't that fun?
These thousand dollars makeover,
self care videos or completely unnecessary
spending, buying ugly designer items
for no reason, as soon as you start
going on Gucci shopping sprees,
it may be entertaining, it may get views
but it is not relatable.
Here's the thing, if you
make your content about other
things you can potentially, kind of,
hide those less relatable
elements of your life.
Or, at least, not go out of your
way to make them the
focus of your content.
There's a huge difference between
filming in a spot of
your big, beautiful house
and making tons and tons of videos
about your big, beautiful house.
Not relatable anymore.
Your life is not relatable anymore,
so, your content is not relatable anymore.
You become so rich and you're surrounded
by other rich people that you
literally lose touch of what
the average person goes through.
For example, Ellen Degeneres.
I recently fell down a weird rabbit hole
of stories about how Ellen is, apparently,
really mean but in those articles
I found a lot of pieces
that were describing
just how ridiculously wealth she is, now.
And, obviously, how her
real life personality
and lifestyle is very different
from her TV show persona.
Here's a clip from her standup special
last year, which was called Relatable.
- And he said, well, do you
think you're still relatable?
(audience laughing)
Just then, Butoo, my butler,
stepped into the library.
You're walking down the isle to your
seat which is 10B or whatever it is,
its like Noah's Ark, there's a woman with
a ferret, there's a man with a mongoose.
(audience laughing)
I say 10B, does a plane go back that far?
I've never been back there.
- I didn't watch the whole special,
so, I can't say whether its funny or not
based on the trailer, I
would say its not my taste.
But anyway, clearly, the
point of this special
was to poke fun at
herself for being so rich
and so disconnected, I'm laughing because
what a problem to have.
But she also made jokes about socks
and trying on shoes,
regular people things.
Are they relatable jokes?
Sure, are they funny?
Eh.
The thing is, extremely rich people
don't have to lose touch, though.
This is where its important to stay down,
down to earth, lets take an example
from ContraPoints latest video.
It was called Opulence and its amazing.
If you have a spare, like, hour watch it.
Specifically, she compared Jeffree Starr
and Gigi Gorgeous, two YouTubers who
are rich and love luxury.
Basically, Gigi made a
video, shopping at Walmart
for a week and it was
just not well received.
- So, for today's video,
I thought we would
take it to a place I've
never been, Walmart.
- So, that's a bad start, Gorge,
most Americans have been to Walmart,
never having been marks your upbringing
as upper-middle class at least.
Treating going to Walmart
as some kind of challenge
kind of comes across as you
and your rich friends being like,
what if we pretend to be poor for a day.
- And then, on the other
hand, you have Jeffree,
who is literally flying in a private jet
but eating Burger King, so,
he somehow maintains his relatability.
- [ContraPoints] You know, he talks about
his white trash upbringing
and, just, generally seems like
he hasn't let his wealth go to his head.
- Unrelatable life, relatable personality.
A creator doesn't have
a relatable lifestyle
but the audience can still
connect to their personality.
So, this is, kind of, like a middle area
and I polled you guys, on my Instagram,
to see which YouTubers you
don't think are relatable
anymore and which ones you do.
And I, kind of, got an interesting mix
which brings up this group of people.
So, Jeffree, I think belongs in this group
and, kind of, on that note, Shane Dawson,
obviously they've done
their collaborations
and series and stuff together.
Shane Dawson is interesting
because he's clearly
rich and successful but, especially,
when he's with Jeffree he
plays, like, poor friend.
Which annoys some people but, also,
its still, kind of, relatable.
- Here's the things, I
am poor around Jeffree.
(laughing)
- [Jeffree] What.
- I just saw the price.
- [Jeffree] Oh, its not bad.
- Oh my God, what.
- He's being dramatic.
That's not bad, 2500.
(cash register sounding)
- But I think the main
part of Shane's appeal is,
even after all these
years of YouTube fame,
people can just, still relate to him.
His self deprecating
humor, his insecurities,
his jokes, its relatable, so I don't think
they mind when he's showing of
his Gucci slides or whatever.
Love his this video just turned into me
repeatedly questioning why anyone,
ever, would wanna buy Gucci.
And then we have Emma Chamberlain,
which is, again,
debatable, a lot of people
said she's still relatable,
a lot of people said she's
not relatable at all, a lot of people
said that she changed
after she moved to LA
and, obviously, now she's extremely rich
and she's, literally,
working with Louis Vuitton.
But I would say that her
content, for the most part,
still feels rather
relatable, the content is not
super extravagant, usually, and
it relies on her personality
more than anything, which does, I think,
allow her to focus more on her
and her relatable identity, personality.
Rather than her riches and fame.
Even when Emma does extremely unrelatable
thins like going to Paris fashion week,
most of her actual videos are just her
in her hotel room, ordering room service.
So, she keeps it somewhat relatable
even when she's traveling.
So, my last question is, how can you
be a rich, successful person
and still be relatable?
First thing, as I've obviously mentioned,
don't make your content
about the unrelatable
aspects of your life,
be that wealth, fame,
luxury goods and other
extreme first world problems.
And two, don't let your wealth and fame
change your personality,
at least, on camera.
So, back to Drew Gooden's video,
he cited Jenna Marbles as a YouTuber
who has clearly been
very, very successful,
made a lot of money, has a beautiful house
and she has still
maintained her relatability,
of course, she's like one of the most
down to earth YouTubers
because she doesn't
show off any of her
money, she doesn't brag
about her success and she's making
the weirdest content on this website
and we are here for it.
Here are some other YouTubers that
I think fall into this
category, to name a few.
Safiya Nygaard, Cody Ko and Noel Miller,
Joana Ceddia, these are all very, very
successful YouTubers who have, no doubt,
made a lot of money in their day
but they just keep doing their thing
and they don't flex.
(rap beat beginning)
So, I still have many questions,
I want you guys to let me know
your thoughts in the comments,
my first question being, should YouTubers
even try to maintain their relatability?
What are the actual benefits of this?
Or is it better for them to just
cling to their wealth and luxury
and make their content all about that?
'Cause, I mean, I don't know,
people will still watch it.
My second question is, should YouTubers
try to hide their wealth?
So, I had, kind of, suggested that, like,
just put it away, money
bags, but I would say,
like, don't like or try to minimize it,
like, that would actually
be really offensive
and annoying too.
I'm comfortable, says the person
who makes over a million dollars a year.
If you are rich, be honest about it
but that doesn't mean that you need
to show it off or brag about it.
Your audience knows your rich,
don't try to pretend you're not.
Anyway, that is all for today,
thank you guys so much for watching,
if you haven't watched my last few
videos I would love if you would do so.
They've gotten a little views than usual,
I don't know if they're
less relatable topics
or maybe just less interesting.
You can also follow me on Instagram
for some mediocre pics, you can follow me
on Twitter for political
tweets and occasional memes.
And please subscribe, at this moment,
I am very, very close to
almost 300,000 subscribers
and I am so excited so, thank you so much,
I hope you guys enjoyed this video,
I hope you can relate to me sitting
on the floor or my literal bedroom
and stay tuned for my next
Internet Analysis video.
Kay, thanks, bye.
(comical music)
