The internet has many different faces of self-expression. It would seem that every waking day a new phenomenon is on the cusp of being born. With a constant evolution, it cannot be denied that different platforms have made unique and new dreams come alive.
With the birth of large online communities for sharing, such as YouTube and SoundCloud, ordinary people are able to turn their hobbies into successful businesses. These social websites have opened doors for the general public to become noticed and the need for their expertise is now reachable from any country as long as you are online.
Bethany Mota, a YouTube celebrity, is a perfect example. She is an 18-year-old girl who video logs (vlogs) her shopping experiences to over 5 million subscribers on YouTube, and millions of followers on Twitter and Instagram. The California teen has appeared in Seventeen and Teen Vogue magazine, and currently has her own line of clothing and accessories at Aeropostale. All of these accomplishments are thanks to social media. Mota’s new agent, Max Stubblefield from the United Talent Agency, said in a recent interview with Business Insider that the partnership with Aeropostale, “was, by design, to prove the model.”
Mota has a lot of support from family and friends, but questions have been raised about the integrity of her video logging concept. If you are not a teenage girl, the concept behind these vlogs may look like a new breed of capitalization and manipulative business. Either way, Mota has achieved something millions of YouTubers try to accomplish every day. Not only has she learned how to catch the attention of viewers in minutes, but she has also learned how to make a business out of it.
Iconic social celebrities span many industries. People are making a name for themselves in every marketable venue online, including SoundCloud. SoundCloud, a relatively new phenomenon born five years ago, has 40 million registered users, around 200 million listeners and an upload rate of about 12 hours of audio per minute. 31-year-old Alexander Ljung, SoundCloud’s CEO, and Eric Wahlforss, created the social platform in 2007 to share music using one site. Ljung and Wahlforss have an amazing story of their own about creating a phenomenal new platform for the general public to use in their everyday lives, and their creation has opened the doors for musicians and producers around the world to share their work.
Kyle Vande Slunt, sound and games audio designer for a video game development studio called Volition, says he chose SoundCloud because, “it is the perfect format to very quickly and easily share audio to the entire world.” Slunt shares his experience with SoundCloud for their five year anniversary that happened three months ago. “When I first started [using SoundCloud] I thought ‘no one is going to listen to sound design, it’s not the easiest thing to listen to’, then I started uploading tracks and started sharing with my friends and kept doing it…It’s very surprising the kind of response, comments and reactions that I’ve gotten. I have met a lot of cool, talented and creative and just genuinely nice people through the community.”
Slunt has been on SoundCloud for nine months, has gained over 1,200 followers, and has uploaded almost 300 audio files. Slunt’s most recent project was creating audio for Saint Row IV, a comedic action-adventure video game which sold over a million copies in the first seven days of launching.
The explosion of social platforms and the ability to network with people from across the world has created a shared connection between people and has allowed for the growth of a new creativity.
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