I recently read an article that used basic averages of CPM (price per impression on advertisements) to determine how much revenue top youtube accounts were bringing in. It estimated that a popular prank channel on youtube had made millionaire status. Several accounts were mentioned being well into the millions in 2012 based on the amount of views their videos received.
For those of you that don't know; youtube allows you to "partner" with them. Being a partner basically allows you to run advertisements before your video plays. You get a portion of the proceeds from that revenue that Google is making. There's a great deal of detail in this that I won't get into, but basically, the more views and clicks on ads you get; the more money you make. Like everything in the Digital Marketing world the more traffic the higher chance of conversion (sale\click\profit\etc..).
Youtube birthed stars such as Justin Bieber (Canadian), Esmée Denters, Walk Of The Earth (Canadian), Lisa Donovan, Greyson Michael Chance and many more. Too many to name actually. Terrible videos have even turned average people into global celebrities. (See Rebecca Black's "Friday" music video)
Now it seems that almost every young person in North America and abroad is turning to the platform in hopes of achieving some sort of stardom. But the question is, by allowing these things to happen are we giving less and less value to the difference between right and wrong? How far is too far?
In the video below, a popular prankster on youtube steals someone's cell phone and then gets punched in the face for it. The interesting thing is that there seems to be a sense of "it's not fair" to the commentary on the video. Are there to be no consequences to our actions any more? At what expense of others do we consider ourselves going too far to make money or become famous? A sex tape is one thing, a foul at the expense of two (or possibly more) people, but going out of your way to cause stress on another human being at that level just doesn't seem right. I'll leave it up for you to make your own opinion and judgement. I truly believe the punch in the face was deserved. And, I will admit to laughing quite a bit throughout this video...