The rise and fall of YouTube's celebrity pioneers

The rise and fall of YouTube’s celebrity pioneers:

From Wired UK:

“I remember Chad and Steve parading celebrities onto YouTube which made the community go fucking ape-shit,” said Paul.  “We completely mobbed their videos with shitty comments and the corporations said, fuck this! We’re out. The community for one second knew that we were YouTube. Everyone had to go through us, because we owned that bitch.” And for a very brief moment, that “bitch” was indeed owned by the content creators — until Chad and Steve sold YouTube to Google.

For all the recent fuss about YouTube, it’s easy to forget how far it has come and the struggles and evolution it has weathered so far. Looking at this, twitter and co, the message is clear: Change or die. If you get a bit of negative sentiment through the process, it comes with the territory.