Summer In The City 2015

Last weekend Summer In The City the annual get together of YouTube vloggers and general Internet type people took place at London Excel on the Royal Victoria Dock with attendees from all over the world. Though the event has been going since 2009 it was only last year that the likes of the wider media (and me) heard of it as it should be. Now you can imagine vloggers saying “Oh it’s not the same since everyone’s talking about it now even that blog thiswayup.” Well they’re probably not saying exactly that but you know how it is when your niche interest becomes common currency. I felt the same when egg shell juggling went viral in 2010. Perhaps this is why a number of well known YouTubers did not attend this year? Or could it be that they are part of a rival event touring the UK later this year called AmityFest? Well the latter actually though you sense that once it broke into the mainstream media it lost some of its cache as an exclusive event. And where it not for the story of such giants in the field as Zoella and others not attending most news outlets did not seem as interested in it this time round. 

2014: The YouTubers Crisis Year

2014 has not been a good year for the community known as YouTubers. An increasingly large and popular set of video bloggers aka vloggers who now reach millions of followers the Youtubers’ ethos seemed to be one of good clean fun. Some mocked the lack of social comment and detachment from the reality of the world- plus the fact that the majority of them are white and middle class- yet it seemed to be a world built on a new aesthetic and a genuinely vibrant use of online media. Yet this year the cards have come tumbling down in a series of scandals and stories that have left the community shocked at how quickly a brave new world can resembled a flawed old one. 

In defence of Zoella

Nothing causes disdain quicker than success and in the case of Zoella this has seemed all too true in the past week. In case you didn’t know, Zoella (real name Zoe Sugg) is a YouTube vlogger whose debut novel Girl Online has sold more in its first week of release than any book ever, more even than the likes of JK Rowling. Which is all fine except for the fact that some people seem to resent this fact. Digging around with barely concealed zeal they have unearthed that the book was ghostwritten and made it a big Sunday media story. The subtext of these stories is very much to belittle her achievement.  Zoella’s success seems to have irked people is because she is `only` a vlogger, she is `only` 24 and most of all her `sudden` appearance as if from nowhere. 

Vlogging your life away...?

If proof were needed as to how quickly sub cultures become absorbed into the mainstream it was August’s Summer in the City event in which thousands of people and dozens of vloggers turned up for what looked for all the world like a tv show convention. Held over two days on 9/10 August at Alexandra Palace the event promised workshops, live performances and of course that peculiarly indistinct behaviour networking. There were on stage appearances accompanied by the screaming of adoring fans, there were awards ceremonies and there were lots of theories expounded by journalists as to what this phenomena was.