Internet or Television Icon?

The ‘entertainment’ category on this site is really for rumors and stories going on in that world with celebrities, movies, etc. It’s for reviewing TV shows and such. So it may come as a shock that I bring up something as “unprofessional” as YouTube videos.

The way the industry is going though, with videos and series on that site getting as many or more views than an actual series on TV, it’s been a big shift. As Christine Lakin claims in the Internet Icon Season Two Finale, “in a world where people can choose to watch whatever they want to watch at anytime they want to watch it for as long as they want to watch it, you know, I think the key is really in these content creator’s hands.”

YouTube’s The YOMYOMF Network’s series, Internet Icon (produced by Justin Lin, director of The Fast and the Furious 6), is a prime example of this shift. Internet Icon is a reality series and talent competition between 10 filmmaking individuals/groups that battle head to head making daily video shorts to the YouTube audience that are picked apart and critiqued by three judges (and generally a guest). This season, the three judges were YouTube sensation and icon himself, Ryan Higa (from his channel, Nigahiga), film and TV star Christine Lakin, and rapper and YouTube vlogger Timothy DeLaGhetto (from his channel, TimothyDeLaGhetto2).

Each episode, a contestant is eliminated until they reach the next Internet Icon, who receives 10,000 dollars cash, a new MacBook Pro, a meeting with a Hollywood film director, and a one year development deal with YOMYOMF. So much for being unprofessional, huh?

After the series, viewers almost religiously follow the former contestants.  It’s on the contestant’s individual YouTube channels where it is discovered that YouTube is so much more than a place of random videos; it’s a community where content creators collaborate with each other, share their work, and are seen by millions.

It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for the world of entertainment and the battle between shows on television verses shows on YouTube.