By Maja Anushka
When I started making YouTube videos in my bedroom at 12 years old, the term 鈥榊ouTuber鈥 was only just beginning to enter public consciousness. It took many more years to crystallise into a term people understood, let alone took somewhat seriously. Even towards the tail end of my decade making videos, I watched with mild amusement as the adults around me squirmed, trying to remember what exactly this hobby of mine was. 鈥淗ow are your friends, love?鈥 one well-meaning family member asked. 鈥淭he ones on the computer?鈥
Some 15 years on from my first upload, there are now many terms used to describe someone who makes videos for people to watch on the internet. They range from the specific (gamer, streamer, TikTokker) to the vague (content creator) to the often mocked (influencer). Now, YouTuber鈥檚 Creator Consultation is pushing for the UK government to recognise online content creation as a legitimate profession. The manifesto calls for better financial support, accreditation, and representation for 鈥楥reators鈥 on the Creative Industries Taskforce.
What鈥檚 interesting about these labels 鈥 and what marks one of the unique differences between traditional media careers and content creators 鈥 is that they are self-appointed. It requires you to name yourself as something which may not yet be true. It demands a 鈥榝ake it until you make it鈥 attitude, because you just have to start. You do not get a confirmation email one day. There is no university degree to spit you out with 50,000 subscribers and the assurance that yes, officially: You Are A Minecraft Streamer.
To be an influencer, you sort of have to just start believing you are one, often far before the numbers match up with your ambition. It鈥檚 all in your head until it鈥檚 provably on the screen, which is part of the reason why everyone enjoys laughing at influencers in the wild. From the outside, there鈥檚 a potent sense of delusion to the whole affair.
But from the inside, it鈥檚 work. Endless, constant, brilliant work. For me, the most jarring aspect was the internal work of becoming the advertised thing. As a content creator, your identity is the product. You live and think inside the thing which you are trying to get people on board with, and you can鈥檛 clock out of being you, so you鈥檙e always working, even when no one else is around.
And then there鈥檚 the practical, actual work. My gang of kid YouTubers were sometimes pulling off full-scale productions. There were scripts, sets, filming schedules, days and nights spent editing, and thousands of pounds of equipment being hauled around.
At the end, if we were lucky, we鈥檇 sit back for a day or two and be pleased with what we鈥檇 made. But the engine always ticked on. What next? How to stay ahead of the curve? How to remain in people鈥檚 attention? And so we went again. We still straddled the gap between childhood and teenagedom, most of us just starting our first part-time jobs; it was the greatest discipline we鈥檇 ever been exposed to.
And it was a discipline that came from nowhere but ourselves. The motor of the ambition was us, and the whole thing was such fun, and so it became incredibly easy not to notice that you鈥檇 spent 16 hours that day just filming and editing, and perhaps forgotten to eat, or to go outside at all. We realised quickly that the lines between 鈥榟obby鈥 and 鈥榝ull-time job鈥 were impossible to distinguish.
And if that work finally turned into success, what then? We had no media training. No one turned up to give us any advice on how to handle being in the public eye. Financially, it was a disaster: we knew nothing about earning and saving money, or how to report extra income to the government.
Over a decade later, there is still remarkably little support for content creators outside the learned wisdom of the communities themselves, despite the booming industry of online video. In 2023, the YouTube creative ecosystem contributed 拢2 billion to the UK鈥檚 GDP. It supported over 45,000 jobs. 鈥楥ontent creator鈥 is fast becoming the generational ambition for Gen Alpha. How, then, is it still not a 鈥榬eal job鈥?
There are plenty of reasons why working on social media is still not taken seriously. But it鈥檚 the ignorance of older generations, who, critically, tend to be in charge of bureaucracy, which is keeping this industry so far behind where it should be. Digital social spaces are continually miscast, misunderstood, or straight-out ignored by those not in them, despite content creatorship being long embedded into our economy and culture.
The time for formal recognition of the talent, effort, and revenue being produced on YouTube is well overdue. We started calling ourselves YouTubers before it really meant anything; as with everything else, we just did it. It鈥檚 about time everyone else caught up.