I Miss YouTube
Getting hyper-analytical about something incredibly silly
Mylifeaseva. Alisha Marie. Wassabi Productions. LaurDIY. Meredith Foster.
If you’re like me, these figures occupied your screens throughout middle school, saturated in sheen and exploding with neon color. I was singing “Literally My Life” with my friends on the school bus to class trips (side note: “I’ve got my life laid out in a visual space” is a fantastic line) and making note of life hacks for school. Famously, my friend Ke’ea and I stood in the 40 degree Utah weather with my mom waiting for a meet and greet with Mia Stammer because the ticket distributor didn’t tell us the event was cancelled…
Mid to late 2010s lifestyle and beauty YouTube looks like chaos now, but at its core it’s actually well-produced and well-planned. The videos seem, to me, to have a deeper core essence than many videos now (Taylor; Baudrillard). While influencers’ goals have remained the same – creativity, money, fans, etc – I think the effort, or at least the transparency of it, has decreased.
Going back to my nostalgic YouTubers’ pages and sorting videos by “Most Popular” physically transported me to 2015. It was a whirlwind of neon and life hacks and unadulterated fun.
Alisha Marie’s “Roommate Wars” prank videos not only featured classic pranks to pull on your roommates, but also entire skits featuring her sister, Ashley, and props. Alisha was not just making YouTube videos documenting her own life, as is the trend nowadays, but (not to sound overly dramatic about 2010s YouTube) world building. She and Ashley play feuding college roommates in various scenes accompanying the life hacks in one video.
Mylifeaseva, or Eva Gutowski, made expectations versus reality videos that were simultaneously entertaining and relatable (maybe not in their specifics, but in terms of general vibes). Eva was really not afraid to be goofy in her videos, a symbol of how we all were more uninhibited back then.
I was with Emma Chamberlain (virtually and metaphorically) throughout the various eras – COOKING WITH EMMA (back when her videos were titled in all caps), the James Charles/Dolan Twins/”LA changed her” era, and the fashion ambassador/contemplative film-esque era she currently occupies. Speaking of which, Emma Chamberlain’s trajectory from girl filming herself and editing in an extremely silly way to Met Gala darling is a career that I aspired to as a teenager (perhaps still) and makes me kind of emotional. Say what you will about Emma, she made a dream come true.
Lifestyle YouTubers used to post pranks and life hacks and DIYs — entertaining content that prompted real-life action once the video ended. Now, people post day in the lifes, what I eat in a days, and get ready with mes. The camera has become a way to see through someone else’s eyes rather than a way to watch productions or art.
Rather than providing entertainment, a lot of social media now feels like it’s providing a substitute for living your own life.
YouTubers like Alisha Marie used to have separate vlog accounts, underlining how main channels were for their more produced content. Now, most YouTube channels (at least, on my Explore page) have become very vlog-centric.
I do love a good vlog. Eva Meloche offers peaceful meditations on the post-college transition and reviews of books she’s read in the midst of melancholy shots of scenery in Copenhagen and Montreal interspersed with her very chic life, from classy dinners to fashion week fittings. Ava Jules, who I feel like I’ve grown up with, shows weeknight recipes and supports local businesses on Oahu in videos that feel like FaceTime calls (and she’s getting married 😭).
And to address the elephant in the room, YouTube still exists. There is still tons of well-produced content that is supported by millions of viewers – from Boyfriend I learned about Beard Meets Food, a very nice man who eats a ton of food in videos just short enough to watch without feeling secondhand nausea (most of the time).
However, online today, there’s a missing space of Internet Silliness. Posts on Substack, for example, are typically very curated to seem professional and authoritative. We are each not a legacy media source, therefore we have to build our own credibility. I miss the days when people built their Internet presence on pure nonsense – backed by marketing and editing skills.
There were, of course, pitfalls to this former era of YouTube. Shane Dawson and “The Fall of Jake Paul” come to mind. Hauls in general were probably not the most environmentally friendly or sensitive to viewers. (But to my point, the “empties” trend where people now show their empty products is a very apt metaphor for the emptiness of social media now. It literally and figuratively lacks substance while romanticizing consumption through the notion of emptiness).
To get technical about it, French philosopher Jean Baudrillard said that a “simulacrum” represents something but lacks the core essence of it (Taylor). 2020s lifestyle YouTube is like a simulacrum of 2010s lifestyle YouTube – the videos are still there, but many of them lack a core essence of authenticity.
It’s as if we have stopped acknowledging that social media is a performance, which has somehow made it less authentic.
Many young people are experiencing nostalgia for something they never had – a lot of people now like collecting records, using digital cameras, idealizing meeting a significant other in a public place instead of on an app. I wonder if YouTube will ever become nostalgic for Gen Alpha and younger generations. Will they want to aesthetically drink a pumpkin spice latte in cat ears while blasting Cher Lloyd and making slime?
I don’t know if it’s possible to return to an online era as goofy as 2015, but I genuinely think it’s important that we all embrace cringe.
Sources
Chamberlain, Emma. Emma Chamberlain YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/@emmachamberlain/featured.
“Expectations Vs. Reality : Fall Season | MyLifeAsEva,” uploaded by MyLifeAsEva, 16 October 2014.
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“FUNNY PRANKS!! ROMMATE WARS!! Alisha Marie,” uploaded by AlishaMarie, 5 February 2017.
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Jules, Ava. Ava Jules. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/c/avajules.
“Literally My Life (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) | MyLifeAsEva,” uploaded by MyLifeAsEva, 16 April 2015.
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Meloche, Eva. Eva Meloche. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/EvaMeloche.
Moran, Adam. Beard Meets Food. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/beardmeatsfood.
Taylor, Sarah. Introduction to Religion, Media, and Culture, 1 May 2025, Kresge Centennial Hall, Evanston, IL. Class Lecture.
Taylor, Sarah. Syllabus for Introduction to Religion, Media, and Culture. Spring 2025, Northwestern University.
“10 Life Hacks for LAZY College Students!! Back to School! Alisha Marie,” uploaded by AlishaMarie, 24 July 2016.
I have to admit we missed this whole You Tube vlog stuff!!