Youtube Influencers as an Example of Teenage Role Models

Before the occurring of social media, artists can only be seen or watch on television but with the use of modern technology, they can now also be seen on social media platforms like YouTube. According to Ilagan (2018), with the emergence of various media platforms, person has a chance to express himself/herself in a big group of people. YouTube have a greatest contribution to a person’s life when it comes to earning money and being famous by entertaining people in their own way containing different contents depends on what they want to share to others. Individuals who create and upload their videos to YouTube are called YouTubers, YouTube Stars, or YouTube Influencers.

Nowadays, YouTubers are the new TV stars if YouTube is the current TV. They regularly post videos on their own personal YouTube channel in which they directly speak to their thousands perhaps even millions of audience which are called their subscribers or their fan base. All the topics and almost all the methods to generate a video clip can be found here. Starting with a plain video journal (a vlog), which is captured with a camera of a phone to a detailed argument or statement on the politics and even shows that use satire for criticism. Most YouTubers are often adolescents or young people who talk to their fellow age group genuinely and truthfully. YouTubers can be in direct interaction with their audience and can come face to face with them wherever they may be, unlike celebrities or pop stars which are detached from their fans. It is this closeness teenagers often view their YouTube influencers as 'true friends' or 'older siblings' such as their sisters and brothers.

YouTubers compete on equal footing with traditional celebrities. According to Gavin (2018), there are numerous well-known vloggers and YouTube influencers that many teenagers are obsess with. According to Arnold (2017), 63% of respondents between the ages of 13 and 24 in a research conducted by Defy Media in 2015 said they might attempt a model or an item suggested by a YouTuber, while only 48% said the same for a film or television star. Companies take note and focusing more on to ordinary people more than famous figures to connect to millennials. Coincidentally, YouTube stars influence younger people even more than just on shopping. Furthermore, 70% of users say that YouTubers modify and sculpt pop-culture, and 60% say that they would purchase with choices based not from a TV or movie star's recommendation but by their preferred YouTuber. In addition, according to a research conducted by Westenberg (2016), a group of respondents stated that they are being concerned in 'what older and wiser YouTubers opinion about something'. YouTube influencers also told that they help them form one's own beliefs and ideologies on what to do about such things as aesthetics, artistry, gaming, personal relations and handling disagreements.

So obviously, young adults more preferred the online video influencers rather than TV/Movie stars. In Variety's 2014 study of the Intelligence Group (2013), one third of them aging from 13 to 17 years answered to the actuality that they idolize YouTubers more than typical entertainers. Later on, this figure then suddenly increased to 61%. Whilst people aged 18-24 years say that sense more closeness not to TV/film celebs but to their personal favorite YouTubers, 52% of them say that they are attached to the similar activities that they are doing. 49 percent of young people have more connections with YouTubers and ranked them higher for characteristics such as 'somebody who they believe in,' compared to 20% for TV-/film celebrities. 48% of young adults say that YouTubers 'provides the greatest guidance,' 30% more than television entertainers. TV/movie stars are traditionally regarded as a model like, 'somebody that they want to be,' 'do activities like the stars do' or 'having distinctive or extraordinary skills', according to Marketing Magazine (2015). Youth, as expected have rated them very highly in this characteristics. But it is unexpected that teenagers have also value YouTubers as high as most of these characteristics, which indicates that YouTubers' fame comes from the ability to handle both worlds.