> The ideal creator has no distance between themselves and their persona. They have been interpellated by audience metrics; their subjective experience already takes audience reactions into account.
> Or more simply, YouTubers are not “Creators” but Creations. Audiences, rationalized by the platform, and the vloggers who upload the videos those audiences consume are not separable either theoretically or empirically.
It's pretty obvious, too, because these YouTubers have a distinct theme where their popularity is dependent on 1) the whims and algos of the platform on one side, and 2) the ability for their audience to care and relate to something pretty dang detached and irrelevant from their everyday lives (unboxing, aggressive acts of charity, etc).
While you hear plenty (Most? All?) YouTubers complain about the ranking algorithms & capriciousness of their overlord, I don't believe most channels are quite as vapid as those at the top of the heap. Lots of deep subjective content, and lots of freaking annoying CapCut edits, but also a primary focus on meaningful content relevent to viewers. These people may not be getting rich from their vlogging, but it's also not fair to call what most of them are doing "vlogging", either. It's video-based short form content curation for a clearly identified audience. Not remotely the same as how the big guns like Mr Beast have to view their work [where they're much more similar to a cable TV network or a commercial production company than an independent producer].