At VidCon 2011, YouTube Celebrities Teach Their Fans How to Become Just Like Them - indieWIRE

With 2,400 young and noisy YouTube fanatics, this weekend’s sell-out crowd could have been mistaken for a rave. However, VidCon 2011 was something even more radical: It’s a next-gen vaudeville show that wants to become a showcase for the future of entertainment.

Headquartered at Los Angeles’ Hyatt Regency Century City, the three-day, second-annual VidCon was a showcase for the fastest growing segment of the entertainment business: online video and most specifically YouTube, which was—lest we forget—founded a mere six years ago (and owned by Google since 2006).

At one point, when the stage was filled with YT celebs dancing to the rock stylings of TeraBrite, the audience’s shriek became a deafeningly high pitch rarely hard outside Justin Bieber concerts. By my reckoning, the average age of VidCon attendees was mid-20s, with a decided tilt towards the teen cohort.

That frenzy is more than than fandom: Most audience members are YT creators who aspire to the same kind of fame and fortune. Top draws at VidCon included sessions like “Secret Tactics to Grow Subscribers and Views,” “Building a Great Rig,” “Merchandising Your Brand,” and my personal favorite: “Balancing School and YouTube.”

Vidcon’s message is one of hope, with presentations like the one from Canadian YTer Corey Vidal, who shared his own triumph over homelessness: Every person who opens a YouTube account has a shot at staring in his own version of a rags-to-riches meme —this generation’s version of “A Star is Born.”

Which is why next year, VidCon will move to Anaheim Stadium, which has enough room for 12,000 stars.

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Comment: Toby Turner says on August 1, 2011 at 3:41pm
Thanks for linking my channel! That video was more of a backstage thing - I also posted my whole stage set here. It’s fun! -