The Views: Dolls, Drinks and DIY's
YouTubers are always looking for the next challenge, game, or weird food combinations to try. Most recently, a trend has been circulating where non-artist YouTuber attempt to follow Bob Ross painting tutorials. With Ross’s emphasis on ease and positivity in his tutorials- how hard can it be? As part of his “Ryan Tries” series on his channel, Ryan of nigahiga tries his hand at the legendary feed good practice of painting happy little clouds. Instead of simply watching a tutorial and following it step by step, Ryan inhabits the role of Ross, following the calm, quiet voice and positive reinforcements. Thus, viewers can follow Ryan following along to Ross. While Ryan masters the beginning credits and soothing tunes that Ross uses, he incorporates his own personality into the tutorial, reaching over a million views in just a few days. Through familiar humor that his 21.3 million subscribers look for, Ryan challenges himself and succeeds by encompassing the joys of painting by Bob Ross.
Kassie, known as “Gloom” on YouTube puts her pranking skills to the test with her newest collaboration with fellow YouTuber, Azzyland. Collaborations among popular YouTubers always do well views-wise, so Kassie racking up over 4 million views on this video alone is no surprise. In the video, Kassie explores a recently popular corner of the internet where pranksters reign supreme. Some creators take to the streets and kiss women as so-called pranks while other children channels promote elaborate and intricate DIY doozies. Kassie explores the latter along with her almost 4 million subscribers. These include pouring flour on Azzy’s hand as she sleeps then tickling her face so flour splatters everywhere and pretending to sneeze while spraying water posing as snot. After a few pranks in a short amount of time, Azzy began to catch on. The two end the video by reacting to the pranks together. Whether a lot of these actions can be considered pranks is questionable. As is whether Azzy was in on the pranks from the beginning or not. Either way, the two friends have a chuckle at the ridiculous and complicated DIY’s that children channels are pushing on their followers.
The Try Guys are no stranger to internet success. Rarely, they are not seen weekly on YouTube’s trending page. This attests to their creativity and diversity in the content they deliver to 6.42 million subscribers. In their most recent video, Try Guy Eugene sets out to rank the best cocktails from all around the world. With his “Rank Skanks,” a drag queen and a transgender supermodel, the three examine the look, flavor and “drunkability” of every cocktail. Highlights include Black Russians from Belgium, Caesars from Canada and Sangria from Spain. After 16 drinks, the three determine their definitive rankings, but as Eugene says, it is his show, so only his ranking matters. Over one million viewers (of age) can learn from his video the must-try cocktail from 16 destinations around the world and hear at least a few opinions on each one. The banter between the three and facts about each drink make the thirty-minute video a must-watch.
With Halloween approaching rapidly, those without costumes look to the internet for a last-minute idea. For most people, breaking the banks for one day out of the year is out of the question. But what happens when a personal stylist creates a beautiful costume from scratch? Three ladies from Buzzfeed’s As/Is channel put this to the test as they each try to find the cheapest version of a classic costume and compare it to the expensive workings of a professional stylist. Jazzmyne, Chloe and Nina scour the internet for the cheapest versions of witches, flappers and pirates. Jazzmyne also expresses the struggles of shopping for any clothing items online, especially for plus sizes. The girls then display their cheap finds to each other to 10.7 million subscribers and measure up its look to its low-price tag. A professional stylist then chooses individual items to capture the classic costume in a high-fashion and impressive way. These upgrades ‘stumes may win you “best costume” but can cost upwards of $2000 to put together. Is it worth it? Be one of the one million viewers who watch the video to see what the girls think!
Spooky content continues for creators through the last week of October as they try to squeeze their last bit of horror into the month. For Katherine of the channel, Dollightful, horror rarely shows its face amongst videos upon videos of beautiful doll repaint videos. Katherine delivers cute and creative content to more than one million subscribers. But, throughout October, Katherine shows off a much creepier skillset, though one million viewers don’t seem to mind the change. Katherine narrates her process in every video. In this case, she intends to create and paint an OOAK doll into the fabled goat-man rumored to terrorize the American South. She then draws out inspiration for her design and tries out a few different color combinations before actually getting to paint. Katherine gives step-by-step directions as she cuts, paints, attaches and blow-dries and magically creates a terrifying half-goat, half-man that would surely terrorize any town it visited. Katherine’s overflowing creativity and detailed videos set her apart from other creators and open her up to a wide range of viewers who can admire her talent or try her designs for themselves.