YouTubers

More than 100 YouTube insiders spoke to the author

'Absorbing and highly illuminating' – The Bookseller
'A must-read book for anyone who wants to understand the future of media' – MEL Magazine

YouTube didn’t just disrupt television — it quietly reinvented fame, creativity, advertising, and power itself. YouTubers by Chris Stokel‑Walker is the definitive, deeply reported account of how a scrappy video‑sharing website became one of the most influential cultural forces of the 21st century, creating a new generation of stars, entrepreneurs, and global media brands.

From the very first shaky upload to today’s billion‑view channels, YouTubers explores how ordinary people turned cameras on themselves and built vast audiences, lucrative businesses, and devoted fan communities. Through vivid storytelling and behind‑the‑scenes access, Stokel‑Walker follows the rise of vloggers, gamers, pranksters, beauty creators, child stars, and influencers — and reveals what success on YouTube really costs.

This is not just a book about internet celebrities. It is a sharp, authoritative guide to the creator economy, unpacking how YouTube actually works: the algorithm that decides what goes viral, the metrics that govern visibility, and the hidden systems that reward some creators while quietly burying others. You’ll learn how watch time, recommended videos, monetisation, demonetisation, and brand safety shape online video — and why creators are often forced to adapt at breakneck speed just to survive.

YouTubers also examines the business of influence. As traditional advertising faltered, brands moved to YouTube, fuelling the rise of influencer marketing, sponsored content, and creator‑led brand deals. The book explains how creators make money through ads, partnerships, merchandise, Patreon, and live events — and why relying on any single revenue stream can be dangerously unstable. The “Adpocalypse,” burnout, and platform crackdowns expose the fragile reality behind the glamour.

Crucially, the book doesn’t shy away from YouTube’s darker side. It investigates extremism, conspiracy content, children’s programming scandals, and the ethical challenges of algorithmic recommendation at scale. As YouTube grows more powerful, YouTubers asks urgent questions about responsibility, regulation, and what happens when a private platform becomes the world’s most influential broadcaster.

Inside, you’ll discover:

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  How YouTube’s algorithm and recommendation system shape culture and attention
  
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  The rise of vloggers, influencers, and internet celebrities
  
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  How monetisation, ads, sponsorships, and brand deals really work
  
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  Why burnout, authenticity, and parasocial relationships define creator life
  
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  The global expansion of YouTube across languages, countries, and cultures
  
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  The battle between YouTube, traditional TV, Facebook, and emerging platforms
  

Written with clarity, insight, and narrative drive, YouTubers is essential reading for content creators, marketers, entrepreneurs, media students, parents, and anyone curious about internet culture and digital media. If you want to understand how YouTube reshaped entertainment — and what that means for the future of creativity, influence, and power — this book is your indispensable guide.

Reviews
'No one understands the intricacies of YouTube like Chris Stokel-Walker. His reporting on the platform and its creators has been groundbreaking and unparalleled.' – Taylor Lorenz, The Atlantic

'For anyone trying to understand the bonkers world of YouTube, this is essential reading. Full of entertaining dispatches from the front line of streaming, Stokel-Walker has written the preeminent guide to the new celebrity world - and what it means for the rest of us.' – Sam Parker, Esquire

'Brilliant, witty and extraordinary... This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to truly understand the future of media, as well as the internet itself.' – Hussein Kesvani, MEL Magazine

'If you want to understand the inner workings of your favourite YouTube influencers, or perhaps if you want to understand why your children are always talking about them, you should read this book. It is smart, sweeping, and significant.' – Simon Clark, YouTuber

About the Author
Chris Stokel-Walker is a British journalist whose work regularly appears in WIRED, The Economist and Newsweek.

He is known for breaking major news about social media and often reports on YouTube and TikTok for television, radio and podcasts.

For YouTubers he travelled around the world, speaking to behind-the-camera producers and powerbrokers, including creators KSI, Hank and John Green and Emma Blackery.

His follow-up books are TikTok Boom and How AI Ate the World, both published by Canbury Press.
First Chapter Extract

Jake Paul: cars, money and a burning swimming pool
Make your way the 100 metres or so up the gated driveway of a mountainside home in California and your eye is drawn to the rust-coloured statue in the middle of the front yard. Cast in metal, a stick man holds up four large boxes that appear to be toppling out of reach. Look left and you’ll see a newly installed skate ramp on the front lawn. To the right of that you’ll see the dirt ramp where the owner jumps his luxury cars, among them a Lamborghini Huracán Performante, a Tesla Model X P-100 D (nicknamed Bloodshark), and a tie-dyed Ford Focus RS called Rainbro.

But don’t get distracted by the flashy motors and the general hullabaloo taking place in the grounds of this three-and-a-half acre property. Otherwise you’ll miss the 15,000-square-foot, eight-bedroom mansion, which has a custom-designed fish tank in the master bedroom and a ‘merchandise shop’ (which the public can’t visit) showcasing a custom line of T-shirts, hoodies and sweatshirts.

The owner of this $6.9 million mansion is a high school dropout with a short attention span. A decade ago Jake Paul might have been consigned to a low-wage future scanning groceries in a supermarket in his native Ohio. Instead, he is the modern face of YouTube; a boisterous millionaire with a frenetic lifestyle and a booming business. His story shows how YouTube is throwing jokers into the pack of modern media...
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