Platforms like Vine and Tiktok have allowed everyday people to become some of the most recognized names on the internet. However, some of them seem to be bound to the platform that they gained their popularity on. Many of these stars have tried to make the transition onto Youtube, but have not reached the same level of success. Why is this? There are so many creators that I like/ liked on Vine or Tiktok that I just do not find interesting on Youtube. I think the bottom line is: it is easy to keep people interested in 6 second or minute long increments. A story time that only has one exciting part to it can easily be told on Tiktok, but stretching it out into a 10 minute long Youtube video is where the audience starts to get bored. It is easy to exert a high amount of energy to make an unboxing exciting on Tiktok, but only so many people can keep that excitement for a long period of time. At the end of the day, most of these stars just are not made for long form media.
Another issue is the type of content that gets famous on these platforms. Vine and Tiktok have a set maximum amount of time that a video can be, however, on Youtube, if I person wants to make money from their content, it has to be at least 8-10 minutes long. A trendy dance can be entertaining for only so long before people want to move on. People also need to have a personality that can be entertaining, and sadly not everybody does. This is not knocking those people who have "boring" videos on Youtube. People can be funny and charismatic in their own live, but this does not always translate into a Youtube video.
I think the greatest example of someone who transitioned from Vine to Youtube could be David Dobrik. However, looking more closely at his content, it isn't really that different. David's videos are typically 4 minutes and 20 seconds long, containing multiple different sketches or clips from different days or events. So, David's vlogs are essentially just slightly stretched out Vines. I was curious and watched some of his longer content that is on his second channel, and it just was not as interesting as what is on his main. The spotlight is also being shared by 20+ different people, so could any of them deliver the same amount of excitement and entertainment alone?
This is not to say that this applies to everyone. Of course some people can make the transition onto Youtube. This can also be switched, where some people who are good at long form entertainment struggle to chop down their content and still deliver the main message. But if Tiktok were to suffer the same fate as Vine, I do not see the majority of it's creators transition well onto another platform.
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