Are YouTube stars rising above film stars?

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Here’s some food for thought regarding the status of today’s film stars (at least, with teenagers). Last month, Variety put together a survey to measure the influence of YouTube stars alongside your run-of-the-mill film stars. The survey reached out to 1,500 folks between the ages of 13 and 18, asking a myriad of questions about 20 “recognizable stars.” I put the quotations in there because admittedly I was not familiar with most of the internet stars. Anywho, half of these stars were of the YouTube variety while the others made their rise of fame through film. Once all the responses were made, a score was assigned to each and thus we’ve been given this nifty popularity chart.

Take a look, courtesy of tubefilter:

As you can see, Smosh was at the top. This prompted me to actually look them up online, and to my credit, I almost made it through an entire video about Pokemon. So, there’s a few things to take into account: One, being the age-group that is polled. Another being the nature of the questions. I imagine that the younger crowd would feel a closer bond with YouTube stars given the often candid approach they have with their fans. It’s akin to watching Chris Pratt or Jennifer Lawrence in an interview, as far as charisma goes. While I think we would see very different results from the same people 10 years from now, I do think there is something there in regards to the connection people feel, or may want to feel, with their media stars.