The YouTube Career Girls
Since I see their faces everywhere (on YouTube, on the Subway, at bus stops), I decided to learn who they are. Michelle Phan, Bethany Mota and Rosanna Pansino convince me every day I should follow my passion, as well as make me gawk at the number of their fans and subscribers.
For the first time ever, YouTube is using its content for advertising – namely, the aforementioned stars who all achieved their success thanks to the portal. Those three young girls all have record numbers of subscribers(Michelle and Bethany have over 5 millions), all are watched en masse by teenagers, all make tens of thousands of dollars and are already treated like celebrities.
Ads featuring them have already appeared on teenage-oriented channels such as CW and ABC Family, as well as in magazines such as “Allure”, “Seventeen” and “Entertainment Weekly” and in the public space of NY and Chicago.
In her videos, Michelle Phan is teaching the art of make-up: she first achieved fame by a series on Lady Gaga (her take on the make-up featured in the “Bad Romance” video reached 40 million hits). Nowadays, she’s working with Lancôme, owns a personalized series of cosmetics by L’Oreal, did a Diet Dr. Pepper commercial and reached a billion hits on her channel.
Rosanna Pasino is an actress who appeared in „Nerdy Numiees” and she uses her channel to teach people how to bake. She says her channel combines her two passions in life – baking and video games.
What was it that Bethany Mota did to achieve her epic fame…? The teenage girl shopped, and then uploaded videos of herself discussing the products she bought. However ridiculous it may sound, these things brought her fame and fortune. Bethany works with Aéropostale company, which first tagged their products following Bethany’s preference, and has now released a whole line named after her.
The number of zeroes on those girls’ accounts grow by the day, as I start to wonder whether I should begin baking/knitting/cooking/painting/doing-something on YouTube to add at least two zeroes to my own account. Dance? The secrets of my toilet? Or maybe just a camera fixed inside my ever-shrinking wallet? I’ll see you on my billboards!
