The school year is coming to an end which means more YouTube marathons and, of course, more reading! In the past year, I've been watching Youtubers such as danisnotonfire, Amazingphil, ThatcherJoe, Pointlessblog, Zoella (a little), Tyler Oakley, etc. And what I noticed is that all of them (in addition to others not mentioned here) have written some form of a book. It seemed a little strange to how everyone decided to write something. None of them are known for their writing, so what's the big deal with all of them getting published?
Each of them has their own story behind their published works. For example, danisnotonfire and Amazingphil are creating a book together about their lives - a memoir perhaps. Tyler Oakley says he turned down a publisher, practiced writing for many years, and then approached different publishers himself. And to be honest, I don't really care if these YouTubers writing books or not. I probably won't buy them; The Pointless Book seems like its title - pointless, and I'm just not interested. But if they want to make a book - whether its for the money or because they really like writing - more power to them.
What inspired me to make this post was an incident the other day while I was at my local bookstore. I had finally begun to read books again (I had forced myself to only read required books these past few months), and I need to replenish my to-read shelf. As a browsed the shelves, I noticed two young girls, one in middle school and one in late elementary school. They were looking at the books on the shelf parallel to the one I was at.
Inevitably, I was able to hear their conversation. Typically, I try to tune everyone else out when I'm shopping, but the mention of some familiar names caught my attention. One of them was on the phone with their dad, telling them about the books they were going to buy, and she had mentioned Zoella's book, Girl Online. She had paused as her dad spoke and then said, "Oh yeah, I'm going to get some real books too."
This surprised me because unlike Dan and Phil's book, Girl Online was suppose to be a fictional novel. What this made me realize was that some people don't recognize the credibility of some of these YouTubers, including their fans. I'm not saying that they should (or shouldn't) be considered credible, but it was interesting how even the most supportive fans, who even go as far as to purchase the books, may have an unexpected perspective.
