In 2005, YouTube launched as a video-sharing platform. Two years later, it became a global sensation. Not long after its launch, a select number of users started to gain attention and views on the site. Soon enough, the term YouTuber was coined, and it became a massive part of the YouTube community.
YouTubers not only became a sensation, but they also became an occupation. What started as a hobby became profitable for people such as Joe Sugg, Lilly Singh, and Pentatonix. And as their influence expanded and the number of followers grew, they ventured into other endeavors. Some have made a name in fashion and made films, and others have even won Grammy Awards. But no matter where YouTubers have made their mark, they will always have one thing in common: their humble beginnings on YouTube.
1 Troye Sivan
Troye Sivan was just a nine-year-old South African-born Australian boy when he started singing at Channel Seven Perth Telethon, an annual charity event. In 2007, Sivan released his debut EP, Dare to Dream, which consisted of five cover songs, and started his YouTube channel, where he would upload song covers and video collaborations with other YouTubers, such as Tyler Oakley and Zoella.
Not long after the success of Sivan’s YouTube channel, he signed with the Australian record label EMI Australia, where he released his second EP album entitled TRXYE. His leading single, “Happy Little Pill”, blew up and became increasingly popular, marking the start of his musical success. Since then, Sivan has released many more popular songs, such as “Dance To This” (ft. Ariana Grande), “YOUTH”, and “Angel Baby”, and even starred in a feature film titled Boy Erased, alongside Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges. As a member of the LGBTQ community, Troye shares his thoughts on how he played his role in Boy Erased, and what it meant to him.
2 Tori Kelly
Recognized as the wavy blonde-haired girl with her acoustic guitar, Tori Kelly has been uploading videos of her song covers to YouTube since 2007, when she was just 14 years old. Kelly auditioned for American Idol and failed to reach the “Top 24” but did not let the disappointment get in her way of being a musician. After this, she began composing, recording, and engineering her songs, and uploaded them to YouTube.
After the channel gained a million subscribers, Kelly was recognized by manager Scooter Braun, who managed artists such as Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. Braun later signed her to Capitol Records. Before she knew it, she was selling thousands of copies and opening Ed Sheeran’s Madison Square Garden show. Her songs have appeared on countless Billboard charts, and she continues to do what she loves: making music.
3 Bo Burnham
In 2006, Bo Burnham had written two songs that he wanted to show to his brother, who had moved away to New York City. As YouTube was in its early days, a friend of Bo suggested that he record himself performing his songs and uploading them onto the platform. Bo’s song “My Whole Family…” quickly took off and was shared to other sites, such as break.com.
As his audience grew, Bo continued to produce and share what he would describe as “pubescent musical comedy” online. At 17, Bo became the youngest ever person to perform at Comedy Central’s The World Stands Up, and what soon followed was a four-record deal with Comedy Central, where Bo produced four comedy albums. Not only that, but he also successfully pursued other ventures such as stand-up and filmmaking, for instance, his film Eighth Grade which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, garnered critical acclaim and an approval of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.
4 Alessia Cara
Canadian singer Alessia Cara began uploading videos of herself singing covers of pop songs to YouTube at the age of 13. In an interview with NME, Alessia noted that her videos were only watched by friends and family, “I remember making a ‘thank you’ video when one of my videos got to 50 views!”. People started to notice Alessia after she posted a song cover of The Neighbourhood’s “Sweater Weather”.
Before Alessia knew it, she was on her way to New York for a songwriting session. One of her songs, “Here”, quickly became popular, and even Drake told Alessia he knew her song. Later, pop star Taylor Swift, who also took notice of Alessia, endorsed her cover of Taylor's song, “Bad Blood”. Although meeting Drake and Taylor Swift played a big part in Alessia's popularity, her artistry ultimately made her the success she is today. And in 2020, Alessia transitioned from singing to doing her first voice acting gig for Netflix's The Willoughbys, where she voiced the role of Jane Willoughby.
5 Pentatonix
Pentatonix is a five-person a cappella group that won the third season of The Sing Off and earned the grand prize of $200,000 and a contract with Sony Music’s Epic Records. But not long after their big win, they were dropped by the record label. This moment prompted the group to start their YouTube channel. What distinguished Pentatonix from other artists is their ability to put a unique and modern twist to popular songs, a cappella style.
With 20 million subscribers and a staggering 5.5+ billion views on their channel, Pentatonix has taken the world by storm. Pentatonix is a larger-than-life a cappella group that has sold millions of album copies and won three Grammy Awards in three consecutive years: 2015, 2016, and 2017.
6 Lilly Singh
Formerly known as Superwoman (or IISuperwomanII), Lilly Singh started out on YouTube in 2010. Her videos mainly consist of comedy sketches such as “What Clubbing Is Actually Like (feat. Liza Koshy)”; “Types of Parents”; “A Geography Class for Racist People”. A year later, Lilly created a second channel, SuperwomanVlogs (now Lilly Singh Vlogs), where viewers get to see what her day-to-day are like and some behind-the-scenes footage of the videos from her main channel, Lilly Singh.
She quickly gained popularity: embarked on her first world tour, A Trip to Unicorn Island; wrote a book, How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life; and landed her own late-night talk show with NBC, A Little Late with Lilly Singh. Although the talk show was canceled after two seasons, Lilly has achieved so much more than just being a YouTuber. She is a comedian; a writer; a talk show host; an actor; a voice actor; and most importantly, an inspiration to many.
7 JacksGap
In July 2011, Jack Harries had just graduated from high school when he decided to take a gap year before attending university. During this time, Jack decided to create a YouTube channel, JacksGap, a name inspired by his gap year. Although Jack was doing well on his own, the views nearly doubled when Jack’s twin brother Finn Harries joined the channel. Less than a year later, the twins were earning enough revenue from their videos that it could entirely finance their gap year travels in Thailand, which they documented for their channel.
Within a few years, the twins have become global YouTube superstars. But as their success peaked, Finn decided to move to New York City to study Design and Architecture in the Parsons School of Design, while Jack became inclined towards telling stories via documentary filmmaking. In 2021, they, along with Jack’s filmmaker-photographer-campaigner girlfriend Alice Aedy, relaunched the JacksGap channel as Earthrise, a digital platform that allows them to discuss and share stories about environmental issues such as the climate crisis.
8 Grace Helbig
Grace Helbig was discovered in 2008 after uploading YouTube videos on her channel, GraceHInABox, by CEO and founder of My Damn Channel (now Omnivision) Rob Barnett. Grace was allowed to host her web series on My Damn Channel, which later became progressed into its own YouTube channel known as DailyGrace. She quickly became popular in the YouTube community and by 2014, had left the network to become an independent channel.
Grace began to venture out of YouTube to take on numerous projects such as hosting other web series, starring in several films (Camp Takota, Dirty 30) and television series (Electra Woman and Dyna Girl), and even voice acting for the animated series Jellystone!. In 2018, she also premiered her podcast Not Too Deep with Grace Helbig and more recently co-hosting the Pile It On podcast alongside Elliott Morgan.
9 Joe Sugg
Joe Sugg is the younger brother to fellow YouTuber Zoe Sugg (or Zoella). Joe started with his channel ThatcherJoe in 2011, where uploaded videos of pranks, impressions, and challenges (Whisper challenge; Youtuber Innuendo). In 2015, he tried voice acting, which started with an uncredited voiceover role as a seagull in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. In the same year, Sugg also wrote the graphic novel Username: Evie and later sequels Username: Generated and Username: Uprising.
A few years later, he became the first social media star to appear on Strictly Come Dancing, where he partnered with Australian dancer Dianne Buswell and reached the final as runners-up. The pair also became romantically linked and are still together today. In 2019, Joe was cast as Ogie Anhorn in the musical Waitress in West End, where he stayed for two months. Today, Joe has voiced many characters in animated films such as Wonder Park, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, and more. He is also actively managing the management company, Margravine, which he co-founded with his former flatmate Caspar Lee in 2018.
10 Marcus Butler
Marcus Butler started his YouTube channel in 2010 when he was just 19 years old. Like many YouTubers back then, Marcus' channel consisted of many challenge videos and collaborations with other YouTubers such as Joe and Zoe Sugg, Alfie Deyes, Tyler Oakley, Jim Chapman, and Connor Franta. In 2015, he released his first book, a part-autobiography and part self-help book, Hello Life!.
After a public breakup with fellow YouTuber girlfriend Niomi Smart, Marcus got into another relationship with German model Stefanie Giesinger, who introduced him to modeling and fashion. Now, Marcus has walked the runways for the likes of Dolce & Gabbana and L’Oreal. Although Marcus and Stefanie are no longer together, they continue to collaborate in the sustainable clothing brand they founded, nu-in Fashion. Between fashion modeling and managing nu-in, Marcus also co-owns a music management company, Stripped Bear.