The Rising Popularity of Vloggers or YouTubers

Video blogs most popularly known as vlogs, as we all know, became sensational since YouTube created an online platform for bloggers to present their blogs via video presentation mode be it business blogs, personal blogs or live broadcasting. With more and more social platforms offering this feature such as Instagram and Facebook, one cannot stop the ever-increasing popularity of vlogs. The fact that a vlogumentary titled ‘I am Vlogging’ starring YouTube personality Shay Carl has been filmed and released in 2016 ascertains its gravitational pull.

None would have foreseen the venture of a New York artist named Nelson Sullivan, who created the first video blog style entry in the 1980s, would be a historic moment for future vloggers to mark. A similar effort made by Adam Kontras in 2000 informing friends and family about his move to Los Angeles for a career in show business did not go unrecognized. However, the circumstance that led to the coinage of the term vog is interesting. Adrian Milestone was the first to use the term to refer to his creative enterprise of presenting moving text on a still image in that year. Few years later, filmmaker and musician Luuk Bouwman’s inventiveness became evident in titling his video blog about post college travels as vlog for the first time.  Steve Garfield went a step further than others by calling the year 2004 as ‘The Year of the video blog’ following the launch of his video blogs.    

Vlogs have high traffic, which confirms its appeal to people using social platforms and YouTube. This explains why hundreds and thousands of youtube creators, viewers and representatives gather at VidCon to share their ideas and talk to the audience about the revolutionary mediums through which society is being entertained and educated. Vlogs are successful because it provides viewers with a glimpse into their personal lives, travels or business pursuits that the latter are able to connect with. Vloggers are innovative and make sure that each entry has a strong narrative that sustains the interest of the viewers so much so that they are unconsciously influenced to return to the Vlog platforms to purge their lives off the boredom associated with mundane lives.

With modern day generation being visually literate, barriers of all sorts are overcome, especially if novel content is delivered by vloggers in a different language that we do not comprehend. The caption option offered by YouTube removes the divide and we are entertained by their vlogs just as we are by vlogs in familiar languages. Hence it is not surprising to see that vloggers using foreign languages have as many subscribes as vloggers using the English Language. What really matters is the earnestness and the enthusiasm with which they are sharing their ideas and adventures.

Kudos to vloggers out there who believe that it is fun to create and share besides other benefits of vlogging!