S Reignite

  Love Island used to be what some planned their summer’s around. Making sure they were free at 9pm Sunday to Friday, watching in groups, live-tweeting rapidly. But for years, the British reality show has been losing it’s grip on the nation.  It’s seemingly reached it’s peak this year as the American version of the show has become the focus of social media discourse. Even the American bombshell on the British series is the focus of the villa.   Since the seventh season of Love Island USA started in June it has been dominating everyones social feeds as viewers sared clips of sweet but more often questionable actions by the couples. Most of the conversation surrounded the outbursts of islander Huda during her time on the villa as well as a now viral meme with her, revealing to fellow islander Nic that she is a mother. Even people in the UK have been weighing in despite the fact the series isn’t available to watch yet. The Americans continued to be the topic of conversa...

Recently I have actually been making use of the Shorts tab on YouTube and this only because I have been sucked in by funny and out of pocket clips by basketball and pop culture podcast Let's Keep it a Buck, hosted by YouTubers BSOLZ, TSO_SAGE, Omar (Ohmeezzy) and DOMO .   Unwilling to commit to another podcast because I already spend more hours than I care to admit consuming audio content (the average podcast listener spends almost 7 hours a week listening to podcasts), I’ve spent time watching their shorts and podcast clips. In one of their latest clips they discuss the fact that numerous content creators have turned to podcasting, spurred on by a video created by one quarter of the podcast BSOLZ, titled YouTubers are Getting Lazyand I LOVE IT . In the 12-minute clip they share their range of opinions on the topic. TSO_Sage argues that creators are lacking innovation and instead rely on videos that they know will rack in views. While he and co-host Omar agree that podcastin...

                 ‘these people make me sick, but a law has been broken’ – Joe Miller. Last summer on the All Def Digital podcast SquADD Cast Versus , they debated which of the two juggernaut actors was better- Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington . After some conversation about their different styles of acting and whose catalogue would be better to take to a desert island, Denzel Washington won the debate by one. I’ve watched few films from the two Oscar award winners, so I haven’t made enough of a dent into their filmographies to seriously join the conversation or critique their final ruling. But why choose between the two when I can watch both. In Philadelphia , two once opposing lawyers, Andrew Beckett (Hanks), and Joe Miller (Washington), work together to argue the wrongful dismissal of Beckett from his law firm. The two lawyers meet briefly at the start of the film. They’re both underhanded lawyers, just on different sides of the cour...

  On the 13 of December businessman and new Dragons’ Den investor Steven Bartlett uploaded an almost two-hour podcast interview with former Love Islander and newly appointed creative director of Pretty Little Thing, Molly Mae Hague to his YouTube channel, The Diary of a CEO. The pair discuss Hague’s success, her ambitions and relationship with boxer Tommy Fury. I, like the rest of the internet, have not watched the full interview but at the start of the year Molly’s comments became the centre of controversy. The social media influencer claimed that everybody has the same 24 hours in the day and so are then able, via hard work, to reach the same level of success that she has. Although she makes a brief mention to the different circumstances that mean we all don’t start on a level playing field, this wasn’t enough for most online who believe Molly failed to acknowledge the role that luck, like appearing on hit reality TV show Love Island and both her white and pretty privilege h...

  As I scrolled through YouTube for the umpteenth time a few days ago, I noticed that yet another youtuber I watch had opened a Patreon account. It wasn’t a creator that I’m personally interested in seeing more content from but still I scrolled through the comments on their community post. In the comments, I was disappointed to see the number of so-called supporters begging for the content to be released for free. I’m sure many of the commenters meant no harm and as many struggle to find financial stability during the pandemic, paying for yet another thing isn’t the greatness news. Still, demanding that content should be released for free is offensive to the creator. YouTube is increasingly becoming a popular career path for many but not everyone is able to earn a living wage from the platform, even with a sizeable fanbase. Popular American youtuber David Dobrik saw his ad revenue drop from $200,000 a month to $2,000 a month after many advertisers stopped using the Google owned...

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 Y ou Tube as both consumers and content creators has increased dramatically in recent years. More and more of these   c reat o rs 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...

On the 22 nd of April, British YouTuber James Marriott uploaded a video where he made fun of the mainstream media's obsession and lack of information on social media platform’s particularly TikTok based on a BBC article . He then turned his attention to the ByteSquad, a new TikTok content house based in London that was the subject of the BBC’s article. He pokes fun at how much the ByteSquad’s house pales in comparison to the lavish LA mansions of their American counterparts, then suggests some of the group’s gimmicks are outdated. To finish James wishes the England’s newest content the best on their new endeavours. Despite the video being comedic and light-hearted, there were a few BtyeSquad supporters that insisted that James not critique the house because its members are ‘unproblematic’.  Comments under Marriott's video that praise the ByteSquad for being unproblematic. Unproblematic, a word that is now used regularly on social media when fans explain to others why who ...

In 2015 Barclays ran a series of adverts that taught people LifeSkills such as to keep your email address professional and how to use your social media to get a job. There’s a lot pressure on job hunters to make sure that their social media is presentable with a bad social media history and a promotion of unpopular ideas nowadays costing people their jobs. However, what is still deemed unprofessional for employees seems to be fine for brands. At least three years ago American fast food chain Wendy’s started joining in on the social media fun by sending comedic clapbacks to it followers on Twitter. Since then companies have invested so much more into their social media marketing. A method brands, predominantly fast fashion brands, take is to tweet along with their customers about the most popular TV shows. In the United Kingdom this means tweeting about summer smash hit and winter flop Love Island . Despite the many complaints people have had about the show Brits sti...