(2011-12-23) Youtube Middle Class

*The nucleus of YouTube fame-seekers has migrated to Los Angeles. Hundreds of top-tier partners have left high-speed Internet connections in hometowns everywhere and settled here, on the periphery of the traditional entertainment industry. But for these viral stars, many of whom already pull in six figures a year from their channels, this move isn’t about getting their faces seen by studio heads or their voices heard by A&R reps. Instead, they come to work with one another. They room together, appear in one another’s videos, lend each other equipment and skills: camera work for special effects, say, or video editing for a song. Several have pooled resources to create mini networks, and an ancillary advertising business has materialized whereby YouTube luminaries are matched with companies scrambling to reach a young audience and build a presence online.

The most dramatic place to witness this digital fame machine in action is in Culver City, a mile from the ocean, at the offices of MakerStudios. An independent media company led by several prominent YouTubers, Maker oversees a large stable of partner channels. Starting out two and a half years ago with a handful of content creators and three or four people working production, the studio has since swelled to more than 200 partners and a full-time support staff of 140. Maker’s business model is simple. It takes a cut of the partners’ share of ad revenue; in exchange, it provides emerging talents with directors, editors, extras, costumes, technical support, studio space, equipment, and help with websites and brand deals. Maker’s founders see this model as comparable to UnitedArtists, the revolutionary studio formed in 1919 by Dw Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and other budding stars who wanted to control their work and its distribution.

YouTube is the anti-Hollywood, the anti-TV, Zappin declares, because there are no decisions by committee, no casting calls, no gatekeepers to pass just to get started. Distribution is global, instantaneous, and free, and shows can’t be canceled. He emphasizes that it isn’t just partners benefiting from the new entertainment industry that Maker is helping to build. YouTube is bringing about a creative renaissance that is also cultivating talented directors and editors and techs who are struggling to find work in Los Angeles. Will all of these people get rich on YouTube? Not a chance. But unlike previous waves of aspirants hitting LA’s shores, Zappin insists, they aren’t wasting their time waiting tables or watching someone’s kids (DayJob). They’re working on their craft, doing what they love, and making some decent money in the bargain. In an economy without much opportunity, they’re trying to join an uncharted and expanding demographic: the YouTube Middle Class.

To get noticed today, you need to understand the inner workings of this competitive market; that is, you need to know the YouTube rules. These can be broken down into five maxims.