Indie Content Creators: A Retrospective Look At 'THIS IS L&S'

THIS IS L&S was a Lifestyle blogging YouTube Channel, showcasing the relationship between content creators Landon McBroom and Shyla. A typical episode lasts between 20 and 30 minutes and opens with a professionally produced montage of the hosts enjoying each other’s company as a young romantic couple.

The style of this life blog was like that of a modern reality show, where the hosts invite the audience to view the exciting and performative moments of their relationship. The most powerful elements that contributed to this couple’s rise in YouTube popularity are the high production quality of the content and the hosts’ energetic display of a young, playful romantic relationship.

This is a content style that seems simple on the surface but is difficult to maintain, evidenced by the fact that the official THIS IS L&S channel, while still having 2.9 million subscribers, only has one video. This is a video of Shyla, and it is an announcement of the end of the THIS IS L&S channel. Landon and Shyla had a falling out. It was years in the making and it involved a cancer diagnosis, a custody battle over their daughter, and extortion.

It seems easy to characterize this sudden controversy and decline as another cautionary tale of what can happen when a celebrity turns their lived experience into their brand, but that judgment does not fully encompass the story of THIS IS L&S.

Individually, Shyla Walker’s YouTube channel has 536,000 subscribers, while Landon McBroom’s channel has 258,000. While these channels combined cannot match the millions of subscribers accumulated by THIS IS L&S, it is evident that both creators have maintained a large captive audience. While Landon continues to make lifestyle blogging content annually, Shyla’s channel consists of a two-part web documentary series, charting her recovery from the end of her relationship to her founding Soulmate88, a clothing company with a special focus on form-fitting women’s athleticwear.

There is one important takeaway that can be gleaned from the development of this channel and the style of entertainment these creators have adopted. The truth is that while THIS IS L&S may be over, Shayla Walker and Landon McBroom did not lose their social media savvy. Instead, they keep walking, albeit on different paths.