To be or not to be underrated

Through my YouTube recommended I have recently discovered Youtuber Kelly Wakasa who does short form well edited, entertaining videos that show case his charismatic personality. But despite having 450k subscribers his comments are littered with people calling him underrated and I don’t understand why.

Youtuber Kelly Wakasa 
has over 400k subscribers 

The amount of people on YouTube as both consumers and content creators has increased dramatically in recent years. More and more of these creators are reaching the milestones  of 100k, 1 million and 10 million. Veteran Youtuber PewDiePie received a ruby bro fist to mark 50 million and has since obtain over 50 million more. 

But amidst all these large numbers the smaller ones are beginning to get undervalued, even those that aren't so small.

It’s easy to look at Wakasa’s subscriber count and only see it as numbers on a page but in reality that is at least four hundred and fifty thousand individuals that have watched his content at least once and enjoyed it. It is also enough to leverage into monetary success but whether income the platform is something you should rely on is a different discussion.

Regardless Kelly has reached a level that many creators on the platform may not ever reach and that should be applauded.

YouTube isn’t the only career path where the word underrated is thrown around. In music, particularly Hip Hop, the term underrated is used by an artist's fans almost as a badge of honour to say that they believe the artist creates music so unique and interesting that it should be heard by the masses.

It has even become a theme in some artist’s music. One of the latest signing of J.Cole’s record label Dreamville, Lute makes reference to people waiting for him to blow in his newest track GED (Getting Every Dolla).

Still of rapper Lute from his
GED music video.

My biggest problem with the term is that many of the people who comment this aren’t actively doing anything to promote those who they believe should have a bigger platform. Not a single retweet or share which can be very beneficial for creatives. What’s more if these creators every reach mainstream success it is more than likely that these same people will complain that the creator has changed due to their bigger platform. 

Additionally, it is always assumed that people in the entertainment industry always want to be the biggest star with large amounts of attention but there are people who are happy earning just a living wage from their passion. Singer Jade Novah even calls fame an ‘occupational hazard’ because of the lack of privacy that comes with it, when discussing the pitfalls of having a bigger platform.

Fame has and may always be seen as the most desirable career path especially as it has become more accessible as a result of the power of social media influencers. But as social media intensifies its onslaught of unwarranted hate and invading people’s privacy, it seems that being underrated can provide more benefits than once initially thought, it has even become some people's goals.