YouTuber Spotlight: Alex Day

Ever since I started this column on my favourite YouTubers, most of the people I’ve covered have been from the U.S. and Canada. I did focus on French YouTuber trudbol a while back, but I noticed today that I’ve yet to feature someone from the U.K. So I thought, “Who better to represent that country’s YouTube stars than Alex Day?”

Also known by his channel name ‘nerimon’, Day is a musician and vlogger with more than 500,000 subscribers and 74 million collective views. While most of his videos take the form of vlogs, he also posts occasional music videos and sketches. Perhaps his biggest hit was the series “Alex Reads Twilight”, a set of videos where he reads and ridicules Stephanie Meyer’s first novel for his viewers. Read on for more about why Alex Day is a dependable addition to your YouTube subscriptions!

YouTuber Spotlight: Lindsey Stirling, the “Hip Hop Violinist”

It occurs to me that I’ve been talking about a lot of male YouTube stars in my YouTuber Spotlight series, so in this edition I decided to focus on a very talented woman. Her name is Lindsey Stirling, and she’s an American violinist, performance artist and composer running the YouTube channel  lindseystomp.

Stirling’s rock-influenced style of playing the violin, combined with her dancing skills, makes for a captivating collection of videos. It helps that she partners with cinematographer Devin Graham for some jaw-dropping camera work, but there’s no question that Stirling’s kinetic style and positive attitude are the real attraction.

YouTuber Spotlight: Rhett and Link

Exploring the ever-expanding field of YouTube artists, I’ve noticed that some of them are easy to define: French musician Trudbol, who I profiled two weeks ago, is an a cappella performer. Philip DeFranco is all about news. Rhett and Link, on the other hand, have built so many genres into their work that it’s difficult to pin them down to one type of video – still, there’s no denying the quality of the videos they produce.

Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal (Rhett and Link) are a pair of self-proclaimed “Internetainers”, who over the past  5 years have built an audience of 827,000 subscribers and regularly bring in hundreds of thousands of views to their videos. Read on for more on this duo, including some embeds of their work!

YouTuber Spotlight: Julien Neel, a.k.a. “Trudbol”

A cappella – it’s a genre of its own on YouTube. A number of channels are devoted to groups who perform well-known songs using only their voices for lyrics and accompaniment. To some, a cappella might be a bit cheesy, but I happen to like it. I find the style offers an admirable display of a person’s range and talent, especially if they can use it to put a new twist on a well-worn song.

There’s one YouTuber out there who I think does a cappella better than most. Julien Neel, username Trudbol, is a French musician who posts regular a cappella videos, in which he performs four or more tracks (lead, tenor, baritone and bass) and edits them together to become a one-man quartet.

YouTuber Spotlight: Freddie Wong

One of my favourite experiences on YouTube is finding people I call “YouTube Triple Threats”. I define a YouTube Triple Threat as a YouTuber with three important traits: an engaging onscreen personality, filmmaking talent, and an understanding of the “business” of YouTube. For me, Los Angeles-based Freddie Wong is an excellent example of this sort of content creator. Wong has built an audience of 2 million subscribers based on the action-heavy videos he makes with creative partner Brandon Laatsch, videos that showcase Wong and Laatsch’s impressive skills with visual effects.

Over the past five years, Freddie Wong’s two channels, freddiew and freddiew2,  have become reliable destinations for viewers looking for explosive stunts, inventive gunplay and a celebration of all things nerdy. Read on for more on Freddie Wong, including some embedded videos of his material!

YouTuber Spotlight: Philip DeFranco

If I asked you to think of a “YouTube institution”, someone whose content is almost a staple of the site, who would you come up with? Shaycarl? Shane Dawson? Ray William Johnson? Personally, my first choice would be Philip DeFranco, a.k.a. “sxephil”. In the space of five years, DeFranco has established himself as the preeminent source of news and commentary on the site. He is also a reliable source for analysis of the YouTube platform, by sometimes posting his thoughts about the future of the site or about promising new talent.

Even though his own content has taken a number of forms over the past five years, DeFranco’s motivation to post videos hasn’t changed: he wants to inform his audience of how he feels about current affairs and pop culture, and possibly bring important issues to the attention of a viewer demographic that wouldn’t otherwise become involved. Read on for more on Philip DeFranco and why he makes for a valuable YouTube subscription!

YouTuber Spotlight: MysteryGuitarMan

It’s been a while since my last YouTuber Spotlight, so I figured I’d bring you another one today, this time on the fantastic Joe Penna, better known as MysteryGuitarMan! Over the past four years, MysteryGuitarMan has built an audience of 1.8 million subscribers on his main YouTube channel, negotiated a deal to become a YouTube Partner and established himself as a consistently creative filmmaker and animator. I’ve been following his videos for the past year, and I’m constantly amazed at his dedication to his material and his efforts to encourage audience participation.

Read on for more about MysteryGuitarMan, including embeds of my favourite MGM videos, and to find out why his work is such a positive example of the YouTube “brand”.