I vividly remember the first time I watched a YouTube video. It was from a channel called popxo. The title of it was so catchy and relatable, I felt someone is telling my story. It was "struggles of a girl with strict parents". I was in 11th standard when I first discovered YouTube. In the words of Michael Scott, I didn't work for 5 days straight. I used to get 1GB of internt, on which I had to survive for a whole month. I used to watch content in the least quality, so that I could watch more and more. Now, I cannot imagine surviving on 1 GB data for a month. But it surely made YouTube much more pleasurable for me.

I was mesmarised by the range of content available on the application. I must say, my personality is a result of the kind of creators I used to watch and admire. Ranging from Komal Pandey, Sejal Kumar in the Indian context to Emma Chamberlain, Hannah Meloche in the west, I've watched almost all of their videos. Be it fashion and lifestyle videos or funny skits, I realised that YouTube isn't just limited to watching music videos. And the amount of effort and energy these creators used to put in their videos, ranging from production quality to video structuring to dialogues, it was a delightful experience to watch those 10 minutes videos. The planning and execution was top notch and it made me believe in passion and working for oneself.

Coming back to the year 2021, I believe that these OG creators have lost their true essence. They see their audience as target market for their clothing lines. The trend that have taken place in the recent years is that grow your channel, build your audience's trust and then start your clothing line and profit off of that. Another very crucial thing that happened when creators reach a milestone like 1 million subscribers is that they change their posting schedule. The reason they put forward is their mental health, which is quite justified, but hiding behind the bar of mental health to cover for your inconsistency is not what we as viewers want to see. As consumers of content, we need good quality videos that we used to get before, because we've made these creators what they are and we expect that much in return.

Let's see how this trend turns out in the near future, and if creators are able to maintain their essence!