Clickbait and Controversial YouTubers

Everywhere on the internet you’ll come across clickbait content. Whether you’re reading online news articles, scrolling on social media platforms or searching YouTube. As discussed in my last blog post, all clickbait doesn’t have to be a negative thing, it just depends on whether the content of the video is relevant to the title or thumbnail. YouTubers use their audience as an advantage and sometimes manipulate or trick them into clicking onto videos just to gain revenue. During my daily scroll of YouTube, I came across more than a handful of clickbait and controversial creators. Perhaps controversial for the wrong reasons too. Here are my top 5 most clickbait YouTubers out there:

•   Adam Saleh – 2.4 million subscribers

Adam, who’s 23 years old from New York City has been under big scrutiny as of recently due to the content that he’s been creating. He posted a video earlier this week on his Twitter account aboard a Delta Airlines flight exclaiming that he was getting kicked off the flight for “speaking on the phone to his mum in Arabic'”. It has been of debate among many on social media on whether Saleh is telling the whole story, or in fact twisting the original story to create a filmin
g opportunity to then be uploaded on his channel. See the video at this link:https://twitter.com/omgAdamSaleh/status/811531782982078464.It has been reported by passengers on the Delta flight that Saleh was being disruptive on the flight, counting down in Arabic, attempting to scare the passengers on board. He has also been in online news this week because of his video “I SENT MYSELF TO ANOTHER COUNTRY” (a clickbait title), where he placed himself inside a suitcase with a camera for his one hour flight to Sydney. The video was soon was proven to be fake when Saleh was photographed going through check in. This makes viewers weary on whether Saleh’s intentions of his Delta video were genuine and he really was being subjected to racial subjection or whether he wanted to create negative tension surrounding the airline and publicity towards his channel. Saleh has previously posted videos trying to make a statement that a certain group eg. police are racist and discriminate those of a different race or religion, therefore makes it easy for us to believe that he was doing a similar thing with us towards Delta. Not only do these clickbait headlines mislead us, the relevant content is faked for the benefit of views.

• PewDiePie – 50 million subscribers

27 year old Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg is possibly one of the biggest creators of controversial and clickbait content. He even said when hit 50 million subscribers he would delete his channel. This was then covered by lots of news outlets, for PewDiePie then to say that it was a joke. It was also PewDiePie that very recently says in the video “YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS CLICKBAIT”, “I have to clickbait just to stay relevant”. Which if I’m honest is quite true, all YouTubers need to keep up with what’s a trend at the time if they want to stay on top. However, it can be argued that PewDiePie completely over uses clickbait titles and thumbnails to gain more viewers and advertising revenue, which perhaps could be the reason why he is the most subscribed YouTuber ever. Check out his humorous video of him investigating clickbait videos by popular YouTubers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNbitDDW3A

• LeafyIsHere – 4.5 million subscribers

21 year old Leafy otherwise known as Calvin Lee is known for causing drama with his other fellow YouTubers. Keeping up to date with Leafy’s channel over the last few days, his video titles consist of  ‘how long till youtube dies’ and ‘this girl wants me to go to jail for cyber bullying her’. Lee also has various playlists on his channel that he has created, one even called rants. Everyone knows that if you mention other YouTubers in a video title, that immediately creates clickbait because YouTuber feuds are what creates tension and views on the website. In his playlist ‘THE INTERNET’, the videos contain titles saying ‘THE WORST THING ON YOUTUBE’, people who know YouTube know that as soon as you make bold statements like that then you’re immediately creating clickbait.

Vitalyztv – 9.2 million subscribers

Russian born Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, aged 24 years old is known for making very co
ntroversial videos. Vitaly is especially known for his prank videos, in particular getting the police involved with his infamous hitman videos. The famous YouTuber has also made some completely crazy videos,
including climbing the Hollywood sign in LA and getting his jaw
broken in a bull fight. Watch that video right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r007t5qYcZs&t=1s

blndsundoll4mj – 2.4 million subscribers

28 year old American Trisha Paytas is known on YouTube for being very open about her personal life on YouTube. She recently made YouTube news over the discovery that her boyfriend was actually gay. After this relevalation Trisha created a series of videos expressing how saddened she was by the news, however with very clickbait titles and thumbnails. To gain views Trisha has posted videos such as ‘my miserable christmas’ and ‘i have concussion right now’. It’s this outspoken attitude that Trisha has that brings her following in.

There was the top five, don’t forget to follow my Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Till next time 🙂