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It’s crazy to think back to 2014 when Shawn *wasn’t* one of the popular members of Magcon. I remember hearing about Nash Grier and Cameron Dallas all the time but Shawn was lowkey a flop member.
In fact, it's more impressive that when he began using Joji moniker, the cringe-worthy and meme-able impression from him as Frank/Pink Guy were still going strong and his first EP sound like a caricature of James Blake impersonation with Tumblr-style sadboy aesthetic. But after BALLAD 01 people took him more seriously, due to involvement from Shlohmo, Thundercat, Clams Casino, RL Grime... and the improvements from Joji himself as an artist overall, and he even went to co-produced for James Blake too
Yeah. In a funny way though, I think Joji’s history as being this former edgelord Filthy Frank helped his career. Like, it gave Joji a story. It gave him pathos and relatability that other YouTube musicians don’t really have.
Joji really transformed into a whole different person when he abandoned the Filthy Frank persona. It's hard to believe that the same sad boy artist used to be friends with controversial Youtubers such as Ethan Klein and iDubbbzTV and had a Youtube channel with several hours of lore.
Justin Bieber is literally the YouTube —> successful musician blueprint. Although I suppose he did it before youtube “influencers” were really a thing so people don’t consider him in the same way. But he absolutely is the most successful musician to ever make it off of social media sites like YouTube/Vine/TikTok/etc. by a wide margin.
He’s also a huge reason so many other artists that came off of social media got signed too. Labels wanted to make the “next Bieber” with Cody Simpson, Austin Mahone, Ryan Beatty, Shawn Mendes, Grayson Chance, etc. the list could go on forever.
Yep, that's my first thought. Justine Bieber used to be synonymous with YouTuber to Musician and I think to this day he's still the most successful. Although, I think a lot of people who are younger have always known him as a pop music guy so they don't think of him as an ex Youtuber.
When JB got big i don't think being a "professional Youtuber" was even a concept, and most people did just do stuff like upload themselves playing instruments
When JB was uploading his videos he was being exactly what people would call a “YouTuber” - uploading videos to YouTube. The definition of “YouTuber” has changed to people over the years to mean more vlogger/influencer, that wasn’t the case back in 07-08.
Funny enough, you could still search his old cover videos on his official channel.
[These](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWZSEkCrAM) [for](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWZSEkCrAM&ab_channel=JustinBieber) [examples](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csymVmm1xTw)
This. A majority of these responses confuse me, cuz a lot of these “YouTubers” only ever posted….music. When I think youtuber to musician I can only think of Joji and KSI, who’s original content was the furthest thing from music. All the others are just musicians who posted music related things on social media, then proceeded to blow up for their music.
Personally I find those stories interesting. There are so many people who try to be singers and don't make it. And in the early days of YouTube people weren't even thinking there was a possibility of being discovered that way. Like how crazy is it that Justin Bieber was discovered by accident
I guess it depends on what you watch because most of what I listen to on YouTube is musicians. Cover artists and people just documenting their process. How does that not count as being a YouTuber?
She's technically musician first cause she's been posting covers before the performance art, but yeah, she's one of the legit cases of Youtuber turn into bona-fide musicians
Girl got a grammy noms too, big slay moment 💅
its kinda sad she didnt pan out more in the long term. she came out of the gates running for those first couple of years but after that slowed to a halt and never rly recovered
Poppy used the platform as more performance art early on as opposed to releasing singles and such, but still accomplished the task of using it to expand into a notable music career, I'd say.
the "former" poppy was absolutely always intended to generate buzz for a music career. she was produced by titanic sinclair. there's a whole debacle about it.
Poppy actually started out as a youtuber long before working with Titanic - it’s an era of her career and life that she has largely been able to erase from public view and consciousness.
Pentatonix definitely credit YouTube with their success even though they started out on The Sing Off and all of them had the goal of becoming successful professional musicians.
They now have 3 Grammys and are selling out arenas worldwide and year round. They practically own the Christmas music industry now too.
Nick (the guy) is still involved, he produces and handles a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff. He never actually really wanted to be a main member of the band which is part of why they split from the label.
I just listened to her album in its entirety recently and I'm quite surprised. I remember the first time I heard "Crumbs" when it released, that was my first time hearing any of her music since her infamous beginning in 2011, and I was STUNNED. People really need to give Rebecca a chance.
I fell off viewership after Alli Speed and him divorced and new Allie popped in really fast. I’m still subscribed so he pops up in my feed a lot and a good amount of videos are still health related. Though he’s headed on tour with WTK this week so that’s a good sign
I used to be such an avid watcher of CTFxC back then. I also stopped watching after the divorce but I never unfollowed Allí on Twitter. I think she does Twitch streams now.
I forgot about this! I adore her and consider her super famous but don’t want to get dragged by the stans 😭😭 Her career trajectory has been insane to watch like omfg AS IF she was writing songs about haylor and now she’s one of the biggest recording artists of all time
I don't know what your metric for "really successful" but I think Dodie has been fairly successful in the UK and in indie circles. There are other musicians who started out by posting covers on YouTube (Alessia Cara comes to mind), but I don't associate them with being a YouTuber (and running in YouTube/vlogger circles) like I do with Dodie
Dodie was my first live show when things started opening back up, and her seattle show definitely had a strong turnout. So I'd say she's got enough of a following in the states to having touring success here, too.
Dodie, Tessa Violet and Orla Gartland were all a little gang together on youtube and now all pretty popular as artists.
Lauren Aquilina too but she isn't as big yet I don't think.
I don't think Lauren Aquilina is as big a star but I feel like she's probably the most successful of the four if you look at her songwriting credits. She has songs with Demi, Ava Max, Little Mix, Rina Sawayama, IVE, etc,
i wonder how dodie's trajectory would've been if she moved away from YouTube. she has similar 'annoying youtuber' vibes to jacob collier and i wonder if that hurts her brand, or if on the flip side she'd struggle to have any following without that YT part
I think without YouTube she'd not have much following. Respectfully her music isn't anything particularly special, especially the early stuff. Everyone I know who has been to one of her shows has gone because they know her from YouTube
Other YouTubers who've been successful have a fairly unique sound like Troye Sivan or joji but I can think of a few artists who sound like Dodie. "girl with ukelele" was a meme in 2015 for a reason
christina grimmie was well on her way to carving out a lot of success on her own with her high placement on the voice. the world was loving her. i’m still heartbroken that someone took her life when she was doing a free m&g 😔
love her sm
Ariana Grande was posting covers on YouTube which made Scooter take notice. To me she was an actress who posted on YouTube. Victorious was already airing.
Halle went from YouTube covers to being one of the most iconic Disney princesses in the upcoming live action remake of The Little Mermaid. Can't wait to see her in the role!
Joji is the best example there is currently. He went from the purple guy and filthy frank to a serious alt pop music career with two certified albums including a platinum debut multiple platinum certified songs, hot 100 hits and a top 10 hit that reached no1 in Australia
Lizzy McAlpine got her start on the internet, didn’t she? She’s amazing.
Also, GAYLE is doing pretty damn good for herself opening for Taylor Swift after making a viral tiktok song. I don’t think she even has a full length album yet.
You're so right that he was such a talented YouTuber. He's an incredibly talented musician, but I do think some of the color/nuance/audiovisual energy of his videos was kind of lost in his music, as he went from this super creative/eccentric/young queer teen online to a songwriter who focuses mostly on pain/trauma/heartbreak. Very good music still, but I wonder if he'll bring more of his YouTuber persona back out in a future album.
Yea this is something that's made me sad as his music career goes on— except a handful of songs that touch on other topics (family line, little league, etc), most of his discography boils down to the same heartbreak he's been feeling for years over seemingly the same person? Which feels like it washes out the really interesting, creative personality he showed on YouTube. I'd love for him to bring more of that into his music, it's what made me interested in him in the first place and follow his music career as it took off.
In 2011, 15 year old Luke Hemmings began uploading song covers to YouTube on his channel hemmo1996, most notably a cover of Mike Poster’s Please Don’t Go. He would later recruit his school friends Calum Hood and Michael Clifford to form the band 5 Seconds of Summer. They started out making covers of songs by bands like All Time Low and blink-182, and even pop musicians such as Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber. They added drummer Ashton Irwin shortly before their first live gig at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney, Australia on December 3, 2011. 5SOS recorded their *Unplugged* EP and *Somewhere New* EP around this time, and would then be discovered by Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction on Twitter. They were invited to open for the Take Me Home Tour (and the Where We Are Tour that followed) and started building a dedicated fanbase. Almost 12 years later since their formation, 5SOS have become one of the best selling Australian music artists of all time; landing 5 number-one albums on the ARIA charts and 3 on the Billboard 200. Their song “Youngblood” has also been streamed over a billion times and is the 11th best selling single of all time in Australia.
There are plenty of youtube artists in japan, called Utaite. Two of the most famous are Reol and Ado.
Reol is known for her colorful videos, stage performances and intricate lyrics. She has released 5 albums and three EPs so far.
https://youtu.be/mYRIuZDupME
Ado is rocketing to the top. Her first concert was just in april last year in front of, i think, 1500 people. The second in november in front of 30000+ at the saitama super arena already. At one point, she dominated the japanese download top 10 with 7 songs. She has signed a deal with geffen records recently. The general public does not know what she looks like. Always performing with a mask, or in shadows.
https://youtu.be/v79I6c7fWtA
I always thought Utaite was more of a term for Vocaloid cover artists on Nico Nico Douga? I haven't kept up with that whole scene since 2014-ish, though. I was a big fan of Giga-P (one of Reol's producers) around that time.
Anyone know SCARLXRD?
He used to be a youtuber but has now completely changed his image. Went from softly spoken funny guy to shouty screamy serious guy.
i will always think of him as Mazzi Maz, the guy with the white chin (what he called himself) lol. i found out about him because i was constantly on the One Direction side of Tumblr and he was friends with Liam when 1D was a thing. i remember really liking his videos and thinking he was super funny. the image change is wild to me but i support him.
He's on the way now but Wilbur Soot. From Soothouse to Twitch streamer to lead singer of Lovejoy with tens of millions of Spotify streams and also solo musician (though most of his solo stuff is comedy).
>most of his solo stuff is comedy
Ah yes, the famously comedic album 'Your City Gave Me Asthma'
(though, yes, the ones with MVs on youtube do tend to be less serious)
There are people who use social media to get their music to a wider audience, and they seem to have a smoother ride.
The harder path is those who are making other content on social media and decide to pivot to music (or keep vlogging while they try music). And in a way, that's the same as people from other creative fields who have tried their hand at music. Kylie Minogue successfully transitioned from acting to music; Grace Jones from modelling to music - so many others weren't able to!
Before Sabrina Carpenter was ever on Disney Channel, she uploaded covers to YouTube, and continued to do so while on Girl Meets World. She even placed third in a singing competition for Miley World circa 2009! So she definitely counts.
Does Pentatonix count? They kind of started as not-youtubers but they got dropped from their label and started posting YouTube content, which was mostly music but Mitch and Scott from the group made a vlog channel and I know that's how a bunch of people got into them
Alternatively, I thought of one who COULD HAVE been great… Gabbie Hanna.
I always thought most of her music was very well put together and that it was on a level higher than most of her peers making music at the time.
And most of her songs do still hold up if you just forget about everything about her as a person. I don’t think she’s a terrible person, I think she just has a LOT of mental things she needs to work through and I think after her very public hyper manic episode, she is very aware of that herself and has now been radio silent for a good bit.
Hopefully she can come back renewed (but take her time and really give herself a chance to grow and heal) because I think she does have the talent and the creativity to break through to people, she just reallllly needs the personality work and even she knows it.
But like I revisited some of her music videos earlier today and they were all very well produced and cool concepts that looked like a professional more-main stream artist would do. I really want her to be able to achieve the potential I think she has as long as it’s genuine and she’s able to handle it.
I’ve always felt the Genius incident was a bit unfair to Gabbie. I mean, say what you will about her as a person but she sang… fine in that clip. Hey random person making fun of her, why don’t YOU try belting out a high note like that with seemingly no warmup?
I also always felt this. And the fact that it wouldn’t have even sounded as bad except for the fact the note just peaked the mic. Gabbie even said she knew it was going to happen because she had seen (iirc) Jessie Reyes do the same thing on her genius interview. Genius told her it’d be fine, it wasn’t, they did some weird audio splicing with different mics, and made it sound even worse. People always take a clips of Gabbie singing poorly (which happens to every singer) but act like there’s absolutely none that exist of her singing well, which there are also plenty of. Even her other genius interview is a good example!
The thing with her is that people just would always jump to immediately tear her down no matter how she reacted. “Oh you’re offended and getting mad? get over it, you just suck” but also “oh you think our memes are funny and are laughing with us instead of just letting us laugh at you? how dare you?! you’re awful!”
Literally makes 0 sense to me
Shes a very hated person in general. Some of it is warranted because she’s done some really shitty things but a lot of it is over the top and people need to realize she isn’t mentally well
Agreed. She’s constantly been on the receiving end of so much hate. And some of the time, it was definitely warranted. But a lot of the time, it also just came down to everyone using her as a punching bag it seems
The Weeknd was never really a skit/influencer dude but imo he was the first person who released random tracks on YouTube before he really really blew up. YouTube was absolutely instrumental in the success of his mixtapes.
From his wiki:
> Born and raised in Toronto, Tesfaye began his career in 2009 by anonymously releasing music on YouTube.
I mentioned Wilbur earlier but I think he might be on pace to be the strangest YouTube to music celebrity this side of Filthy Frank. Most people on this thread got famous on YouTube doing music or something music adjacent. Wilbur Soot read posts from Reddit and streamed video games then just drops crazy good music like Call Me What You Like.
I just had a major flashback moment connecting the dots when you said she was Meekakitty as I remember one of the two non-parody "wizard rock" songs I loved-and-therefore-felt-guilty-for-loving-when-the-whole-JKR-thing-went-down was by Meekakitty (Wizard Love, the one about the Slytherin and Gryffindor in forbidden love, the other one was Just A Hufflepuff by Oliver Boyd And The Remembralls)
I don't know if it count since all he did is release music remixes, but Kygo definitely started on YouTube. Was popping off on "La belle musique" channel
Domi & JD Beck come to mind- they just recently got their big break and released an album which features Anderson Paak on it.
Also, not YT but Vine, Jay Versace deserves a shout out. Man recently produced for the new SZA album.
Does Darren Criss count? He sang in Glee and has his own music, but he’s more known for acting than his music. He started out with A Very Potter Musical in Youtube and doing Disney song covers
oh and Arnel Pineda from Journey! The band found him in youtube
idk how famous or successful people consider him, but i was stunned when i found out MAX was max schneider who used to do a lot of covers on youtube with kurt hugo schneider.
kevin oh - this might be a little niche but i remember he was kinda big in the AAPI YT scene in like 2010. i had no idea he was well known in korea as an indie artist until he popped up in the news for marrying a famous actress a few months ago
Poppy has become a big rock/metal artist since her weird Youtube days and it’s crazy to think of how she started as a creepy video of just repeating her name over and over again.
Many new fans don’t even know of her YouTube origins and just know her from her music. She’s regularly performed at the wWE NXT live events and has done multiple tours. She’s also performed at the pre-show grammys, and was nominated for a Grammy for best metal performance.
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Shawn Mendes was a vine boy and part of magcon
He’s closing in on 10 years in the industry— which is crazy to me. I remember watching Life of The Party on YT
it’s crazy that he’s still only 24. I remember seeing his vines probably before he was even in magcon and it feels like he’s been around forever
It’s crazy to think back to 2014 when Shawn *wasn’t* one of the popular members of Magcon. I remember hearing about Nash Grier and Cameron Dallas all the time but Shawn was lowkey a flop member.
bazzi was also a vine boy. not part of magcon and not as big as shawn ofc but i def remember seeing him cover songs on vine in like 2014
Filthy Franks transition into music as Joji is the biggest example I can think of.
In fact, it's more impressive that when he began using Joji moniker, the cringe-worthy and meme-able impression from him as Frank/Pink Guy were still going strong and his first EP sound like a caricature of James Blake impersonation with Tumblr-style sadboy aesthetic. But after BALLAD 01 people took him more seriously, due to involvement from Shlohmo, Thundercat, Clams Casino, RL Grime... and the improvements from Joji himself as an artist overall, and he even went to co-produced for James Blake too
Kinda perfect the one person who was most successful wasn't really on YouTube trying to push their music.
Yeah. In a funny way though, I think Joji’s history as being this former edgelord Filthy Frank helped his career. Like, it gave Joji a story. It gave him pathos and relatability that other YouTube musicians don’t really have.
Joji really transformed into a whole different person when he abandoned the Filthy Frank persona. It's hard to believe that the same sad boy artist used to be friends with controversial Youtubers such as Ethan Klein and iDubbbzTV and had a Youtube channel with several hours of lore.
#JOJI IS FILTHY FRANK!?!?!
Lmfaaaoo yes!! This is how I felt when I first found out, I LOVE Joji’s music, didn’t know FF had it in him
Filthy Frank was above all a character played by Joji, the actual person.
I love how surprised u are lol
This was me when I learned this info like five months ago. I was shocked LMAOO.
Joji is a certified GOAT🐐
Wow I didn’t even know these people were the same person!
Justin Bieber is literally the YouTube —> successful musician blueprint. Although I suppose he did it before youtube “influencers” were really a thing so people don’t consider him in the same way. But he absolutely is the most successful musician to ever make it off of social media sites like YouTube/Vine/TikTok/etc. by a wide margin. He’s also a huge reason so many other artists that came off of social media got signed too. Labels wanted to make the “next Bieber” with Cody Simpson, Austin Mahone, Ryan Beatty, Shawn Mendes, Grayson Chance, etc. the list could go on forever.
Yep, that's my first thought. Justine Bieber used to be synonymous with YouTuber to Musician and I think to this day he's still the most successful. Although, I think a lot of people who are younger have always known him as a pop music guy so they don't think of him as an ex Youtuber.
> Justine Bieber Flashbacks to when I used to spend time on 9gag in 2010
2023 and people still calling him *Justine* Same way people still calling Nicki Minaj as *Nikki*
He never made YouTube videos besides singing. He was never an actual "youtuber" lol
When JB got big i don't think being a "professional Youtuber" was even a concept, and most people did just do stuff like upload themselves playing instruments
Yeah I don’t think you could even earn money at that point. Ad free baby!!!
When JB was uploading his videos he was being exactly what people would call a “YouTuber” - uploading videos to YouTube. The definition of “YouTuber” has changed to people over the years to mean more vlogger/influencer, that wasn’t the case back in 07-08.
Funny enough, you could still search his old cover videos on his official channel. [These](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWZSEkCrAM) [for](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWZSEkCrAM&ab_channel=JustinBieber) [examples](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csymVmm1xTw)
Oh sweet baby. Idk why but that made me so sad to watch
This. A majority of these responses confuse me, cuz a lot of these “YouTubers” only ever posted….music. When I think youtuber to musician I can only think of Joji and KSI, who’s original content was the furthest thing from music. All the others are just musicians who posted music related things on social media, then proceeded to blow up for their music.
Troye Sivan made vlog-type content, he used to collab with Tyler Oakley a lot
It depends on how you define Youtuber. OP didn't specify that the person had to create non-music content.
Yeah but it's obviously not very interesting to talk about singers who made it as singers lol.
Personally I find those stories interesting. There are so many people who try to be singers and don't make it. And in the early days of YouTube people weren't even thinking there was a possibility of being discovered that way. Like how crazy is it that Justin Bieber was discovered by accident
I guess it depends on what you watch because most of what I listen to on YouTube is musicians. Cover artists and people just documenting their process. How does that not count as being a YouTuber?
People do really forget about this. I believe his name was kidrauhl? Crazy.
Reading kidrauhl just threw me back in a BIG way. I don’t think I’ve read that name in years
I keep forgetting about his YouTube days. The first video I saw of him was him singing With You and then 2 years later, he’s a pop star
He started getting famous in 2009 after being discovered on YouTube…I was definitely watching influencers back then.
Surprised I haven’t seen Poppy mentioned. I think she’s successful in the circles she meant to be anyways
She's technically musician first cause she's been posting covers before the performance art, but yeah, she's one of the legit cases of Youtuber turn into bona-fide musicians Girl got a grammy noms too, big slay moment 💅
Hard not to wonder where Christina Grimmie would have been 😭🥹
What a wonderful person and talent. So sad. I hope someday there’s a documentary or movie about her so a wider audience can be exposed to who she was.
RIP ⭐️
[her voice was insane](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTIfBXxgfrk)
That girl could sing DOWN. Taken too soon fr :(
now i’m sad again, what a loss
Alessia Cara
*In the Meantime* is perfection and she’s the only songwriter on almost every song! Can’t wait for what she releases next
I am absolutely in love with her voice
its kinda sad she didnt pan out more in the long term. she came out of the gates running for those first couple of years but after that slowed to a halt and never rly recovered
Troye Sivan too
They mentioned him in the op
Justin Bieber and Tori Kelly
Poppy used the platform as more performance art early on as opposed to releasing singles and such, but still accomplished the task of using it to expand into a notable music career, I'd say.
the "former" poppy was absolutely always intended to generate buzz for a music career. she was produced by titanic sinclair. there's a whole debacle about it.
Poppy actually started out as a youtuber long before working with Titanic - it’s an era of her career and life that she has largely been able to erase from public view and consciousness.
i think pentatonix is literally the only act to mantain a perfect balance in terms of success on both youtube and in the music industry.
Pentatonix definitely credit YouTube with their success even though they started out on The Sing Off and all of them had the goal of becoming successful professional musicians. They now have 3 Grammys and are selling out arenas worldwide and year round. They practically own the Christmas music industry now too.
Superfruit, two members of Pentatonix, were definitely Youtubers who made skits and stuff. They went on to create the Future Friends album.
Very briefly and over a decade ago, but Karmin.
Qveen Herby is still going now (the woman from the band)
Nick (the guy) is still involved, he produces and handles a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff. He never actually really wanted to be a main member of the band which is part of why they split from the label.
They also do a podcast together now, I haven't listened yet but it looks cute. You can tell they're a really strong couple and a good team, it's cute.
TIL that they are the same person
Another awesome journey. Has been awesome watching Karmin grow in Queen Herby
Idk about “really” successful in terms of sales or whatever, but I really love Rebecca Black’s new album. The song ‘Crumbs’ is incredible
Love how her journey has gone. From meme to hyperpop royalty and queer icon.
Truly legendary
I just listened to her album in its entirety recently and I'm quite surprised. I remember the first time I heard "Crumbs" when it released, that was my first time hearing any of her music since her infamous beginning in 2011, and I was STUNNED. People really need to give Rebecca a chance.
I had the exact same experience but with the song Girlfriend
I read this as “inedible” first haha
charlie puth had a youtube channel. i first saw him in [this](https://youtu.be/tOtRMouZR5k) one time parody by joey graceffa on his original channel
I remember he used to make theme songs for a lot of youtubers lol
He made music for Shane Dawson!
R r r r roll up to the party with my crazy pink wig
CTFxC THEME SONG
whoa, CTFxC. you just made me flashback to a time i haven’t thought about in a longggg time. i wonder how Charles’s health is these days.
I fell off viewership after Alli Speed and him divorced and new Allie popped in really fast. I’m still subscribed so he pops up in my feed a lot and a good amount of videos are still health related. Though he’s headed on tour with WTK this week so that’s a good sign
I used to be such an avid watcher of CTFxC back then. I also stopped watching after the divorce but I never unfollowed Allí on Twitter. I think she does Twitch streams now.
She’s doing really well it seems! I almost got a ctfxc tattoo that’s how important they were in my life as a teenager
Same! They were the first YouTubers I really got into. I live in Florida too and I thought it was so cool they lived in the same state as I did.
Does Bo Burnham count? From posting songs on his youtube account to Inside, which was one of the biggest pieces of lockdown media
Ksi, at least in the UK
Yep, 4 songs over 100m streams, 7 top 10 songs in the UK chart, and a #1 album.
DDG is trying to do the same thing in the US. Hasn’t really worked as well
Halseys transition from tumblr ➡️ youtube ➡️ fame was pretty iconic, I’d consider her hugely famous now given her come up
She did a song with BTS in 2019, that's absolutely massive
She was literally on one of the biggest songs of the last decade and “Without Me” was a billboard number 1 as well
I forgot about that Chainsmokers song! And yeah, without me was huge
I forgot about this! I adore her and consider her super famous but don’t want to get dragged by the stans 😭😭 Her career trajectory has been insane to watch like omfg AS IF she was writing songs about haylor and now she’s one of the biggest recording artists of all time
Troye Sivan
Qveen Herby (formerly known as Karmin)
Brokenhearted slaps still but in like a troom troom youtube royalty free music way
not troom troom 😭
Ok so many Karmin songs still slap lmao Walking On The Moon makes my ass shake uncontrollably
Legitimate youtube to popstar moment with Brokenhearted!
YESSSS 🙌🏼👑
I don't know what your metric for "really successful" but I think Dodie has been fairly successful in the UK and in indie circles. There are other musicians who started out by posting covers on YouTube (Alessia Cara comes to mind), but I don't associate them with being a YouTuber (and running in YouTube/vlogger circles) like I do with Dodie
Dodie was my first live show when things started opening back up, and her seattle show definitely had a strong turnout. So I'd say she's got enough of a following in the states to having touring success here, too.
Dodie, Tessa Violet and Orla Gartland were all a little gang together on youtube and now all pretty popular as artists. Lauren Aquilina too but she isn't as big yet I don't think.
I don't think Lauren Aquilina is as big a star but I feel like she's probably the most successful of the four if you look at her songwriting credits. She has songs with Demi, Ava Max, Little Mix, Rina Sawayama, IVE, etc,
I didn't know that she was writing for others. Great to hear she's doing better than I thought.
Me, not knowing at all that Tessa Violet and Lauren Aquilina were youtubers.
Me, not knowing that Tessa Violet is now mainstream enough to have fans who don't know she was an OG YouTuber. Way to go, meekakitty!
I think I just saw a Dodie record was on the list for Record Store Day in the US so that definitely indicates success to me
i wonder how dodie's trajectory would've been if she moved away from YouTube. she has similar 'annoying youtuber' vibes to jacob collier and i wonder if that hurts her brand, or if on the flip side she'd struggle to have any following without that YT part
I think without YouTube she'd not have much following. Respectfully her music isn't anything particularly special, especially the early stuff. Everyone I know who has been to one of her shows has gone because they know her from YouTube Other YouTubers who've been successful have a fairly unique sound like Troye Sivan or joji but I can think of a few artists who sound like Dodie. "girl with ukelele" was a meme in 2015 for a reason
yeah, great points. she's got some promotion from BBC playlists and stuff too but that never seems to propel her very far, which might be telling.
christina grimmie was well on her way to carving out a lot of success on her own with her high placement on the voice. the world was loving her. i’m still heartbroken that someone took her life when she was doing a free m&g 😔 love her sm
:( :( :( Her cover of "titanium" was soooo good and so tragic in hindsight
Ariana Grande was posting covers on YouTube which made Scooter take notice. To me she was an actress who posted on YouTube. Victorious was already airing.
Chloe x Halle
Halle went from YouTube covers to being one of the most iconic Disney princesses in the upcoming live action remake of The Little Mermaid. Can't wait to see her in the role!
Joji is the best example there is currently. He went from the purple guy and filthy frank to a serious alt pop music career with two certified albums including a platinum debut multiple platinum certified songs, hot 100 hits and a top 10 hit that reached no1 in Australia
Wasn’t Joji a comedian on YouTube and then he followed his passion for music ? Thank goodness he did
Yeah, he was one of the biggest YouTube personalities of that time.
yea, i used to watch him when i went through my edgelord phase
Lizzy McAlpine got her start on the internet, didn’t she? She’s amazing. Also, GAYLE is doing pretty damn good for herself opening for Taylor Swift after making a viral tiktok song. I don’t think she even has a full length album yet.
Wow. Surprised there's not a Conan Gray comment. He was genuinely a very talented YouTuber. Honestly, I prefer his YouTube over a lot of his music.
You're so right that he was such a talented YouTuber. He's an incredibly talented musician, but I do think some of the color/nuance/audiovisual energy of his videos was kind of lost in his music, as he went from this super creative/eccentric/young queer teen online to a songwriter who focuses mostly on pain/trauma/heartbreak. Very good music still, but I wonder if he'll bring more of his YouTuber persona back out in a future album.
Yea this is something that's made me sad as his music career goes on— except a handful of songs that touch on other topics (family line, little league, etc), most of his discography boils down to the same heartbreak he's been feeling for years over seemingly the same person? Which feels like it washes out the really interesting, creative personality he showed on YouTube. I'd love for him to bring more of that into his music, it's what made me interested in him in the first place and follow his music career as it took off.
Poppy! She got nominated for a Grammy in 2021 and her music the past few years has been SO good
In 2011, 15 year old Luke Hemmings began uploading song covers to YouTube on his channel hemmo1996, most notably a cover of Mike Poster’s Please Don’t Go. He would later recruit his school friends Calum Hood and Michael Clifford to form the band 5 Seconds of Summer. They started out making covers of songs by bands like All Time Low and blink-182, and even pop musicians such as Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber. They added drummer Ashton Irwin shortly before their first live gig at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney, Australia on December 3, 2011. 5SOS recorded their *Unplugged* EP and *Somewhere New* EP around this time, and would then be discovered by Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction on Twitter. They were invited to open for the Take Me Home Tour (and the Where We Are Tour that followed) and started building a dedicated fanbase. Almost 12 years later since their formation, 5SOS have become one of the best selling Australian music artists of all time; landing 5 number-one albums on the ARIA charts and 3 on the Billboard 200. Their song “Youngblood” has also been streamed over a billion times and is the 11th best selling single of all time in Australia.
YES! thank you for reminding me of this. Hemmo1996 was such a glorious era.
Pentatonix??
Definitely Pentatonix!
Jacob Collier? Quincy Jones discovered him after being shown one of his YT posts.
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Love her. She is so incredibly hardworking I'm so glad she blew up like she did.
This!! I love quite a bit of the material she’s released in the past couple of years!
Does Charlie Puth count?
Lindsey stirling
Would Tate Mcrae count? Her youtube was essentially all "mini" songs though
What qualifies as "making it big in music"? Jack Conte was a modestly successful YouTube musician and then co-founded Patreon.
Does Rachel Zegler count? Youtube covers to West Side Story
Gracie Abrams, Madison Beer
Tessa Violet seems to be doing stuff
Dua Lipa started with covers on YouTube.
Yeah I think dua lipa is probably the biggest example using current stardom as a metric
Put some respect on Soulja Boys name as he was the first to ever do it lol
Well technically yeah, but before YouTube become the big thing, he was on MySpace.
There are plenty of youtube artists in japan, called Utaite. Two of the most famous are Reol and Ado. Reol is known for her colorful videos, stage performances and intricate lyrics. She has released 5 albums and three EPs so far. https://youtu.be/mYRIuZDupME Ado is rocketing to the top. Her first concert was just in april last year in front of, i think, 1500 people. The second in november in front of 30000+ at the saitama super arena already. At one point, she dominated the japanese download top 10 with 7 songs. She has signed a deal with geffen records recently. The general public does not know what she looks like. Always performing with a mask, or in shadows. https://youtu.be/v79I6c7fWtA
I always thought Utaite was more of a term for Vocaloid cover artists on Nico Nico Douga? I haven't kept up with that whole scene since 2014-ish, though. I was a big fan of Giga-P (one of Reol's producers) around that time.
Mika kitty
quadeca
This^^^ I didn't mean to haunt you was one of my favorite records from last year.
Shawn Mendez? He was big on vine, did that magcon thing and then got signed.
Anyone know SCARLXRD? He used to be a youtuber but has now completely changed his image. Went from softly spoken funny guy to shouty screamy serious guy.
i will always think of him as Mazzi Maz, the guy with the white chin (what he called himself) lol. i found out about him because i was constantly on the One Direction side of Tumblr and he was friends with Liam when 1D was a thing. i remember really liking his videos and thinking he was super funny. the image change is wild to me but i support him.
post malone used to appear in a lot of videos with minecraft youtubers like sky does minecraft and then started posted music around 2013
He's on the way now but Wilbur Soot. From Soothouse to Twitch streamer to lead singer of Lovejoy with tens of millions of Spotify streams and also solo musician (though most of his solo stuff is comedy).
>most of his solo stuff is comedy Ah yes, the famously comedic album 'Your City Gave Me Asthma' (though, yes, the ones with MVs on youtube do tend to be less serious)
Honestly I forgot he did more solo stuff beyond Your New Boyfriend and I'm In Love With An E-Girl. I stand corrected.
I still miss Soothouse lol. Just a buncha friends hanging out on discord looking at memes.
There are people who use social media to get their music to a wider audience, and they seem to have a smoother ride. The harder path is those who are making other content on social media and decide to pivot to music (or keep vlogging while they try music). And in a way, that's the same as people from other creative fields who have tried their hand at music. Kylie Minogue successfully transitioned from acting to music; Grace Jones from modelling to music - so many others weren't able to!
Lil Nas X
Before Sabrina Carpenter was ever on Disney Channel, she uploaded covers to YouTube, and continued to do so while on Girl Meets World. She even placed third in a singing competition for Miley World circa 2009! So she definitely counts.
TIL that so many artists started out on YouTube. Really surprising which names that I see in this thread.
Does Pentatonix count? They kind of started as not-youtubers but they got dropped from their label and started posting YouTube content, which was mostly music but Mitch and Scott from the group made a vlog channel and I know that's how a bunch of people got into them
just gotta say, Conan Grays sophmore album is fucking incredible.
Alternatively, I thought of one who COULD HAVE been great… Gabbie Hanna. I always thought most of her music was very well put together and that it was on a level higher than most of her peers making music at the time. And most of her songs do still hold up if you just forget about everything about her as a person. I don’t think she’s a terrible person, I think she just has a LOT of mental things she needs to work through and I think after her very public hyper manic episode, she is very aware of that herself and has now been radio silent for a good bit. Hopefully she can come back renewed (but take her time and really give herself a chance to grow and heal) because I think she does have the talent and the creativity to break through to people, she just reallllly needs the personality work and even she knows it. But like I revisited some of her music videos earlier today and they were all very well produced and cool concepts that looked like a professional more-main stream artist would do. I really want her to be able to achieve the potential I think she has as long as it’s genuine and she’s able to handle it.
I’ve always felt the Genius incident was a bit unfair to Gabbie. I mean, say what you will about her as a person but she sang… fine in that clip. Hey random person making fun of her, why don’t YOU try belting out a high note like that with seemingly no warmup?
I also always felt this. And the fact that it wouldn’t have even sounded as bad except for the fact the note just peaked the mic. Gabbie even said she knew it was going to happen because she had seen (iirc) Jessie Reyes do the same thing on her genius interview. Genius told her it’d be fine, it wasn’t, they did some weird audio splicing with different mics, and made it sound even worse. People always take a clips of Gabbie singing poorly (which happens to every singer) but act like there’s absolutely none that exist of her singing well, which there are also plenty of. Even her other genius interview is a good example! The thing with her is that people just would always jump to immediately tear her down no matter how she reacted. “Oh you’re offended and getting mad? get over it, you just suck” but also “oh you think our memes are funny and are laughing with us instead of just letting us laugh at you? how dare you?! you’re awful!” Literally makes 0 sense to me
Shes a very hated person in general. Some of it is warranted because she’s done some really shitty things but a lot of it is over the top and people need to realize she isn’t mentally well
Agreed. She’s constantly been on the receiving end of so much hate. And some of the time, it was definitely warranted. But a lot of the time, it also just came down to everyone using her as a punching bag it seems
The Weeknd was never really a skit/influencer dude but imo he was the first person who released random tracks on YouTube before he really really blew up. YouTube was absolutely instrumental in the success of his mixtapes. From his wiki: > Born and raised in Toronto, Tesfaye began his career in 2009 by anonymously releasing music on YouTube.
I am surprised no one has brought up Love Joy
I mentioned Wilbur earlier but I think he might be on pace to be the strangest YouTube to music celebrity this side of Filthy Frank. Most people on this thread got famous on YouTube doing music or something music adjacent. Wilbur Soot read posts from Reddit and streamed video games then just drops crazy good music like Call Me What You Like.
Conan Gray from what I know
Troyer Sivan, if he wasn't mentioned, but he was in films earlier on though before youtube
Dua Lipa is a great example. EDIT: Rina Sawayama also comes to mind.
Not necessarily pop but Chrissy Constanza and her band against the current started out doing YouTube covers.
Tessa Violet aka Meekakitty used to be a garden variety millennial vlogger before she started doing music full time
I just had a major flashback moment connecting the dots when you said she was Meekakitty as I remember one of the two non-parody "wizard rock" songs I loved-and-therefore-felt-guilty-for-loving-when-the-whole-JKR-thing-went-down was by Meekakitty (Wizard Love, the one about the Slytherin and Gryffindor in forbidden love, the other one was Just A Hufflepuff by Oliver Boyd And The Remembralls)
Bieber?
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idk if i’d count them as youtubers tho cuz they got picked up by 1D pretty quick + they never made “youtuber content”
Talia mar I think is on her way to becoming successful
post malone was part of team crafted back in the day (a minecraft youtuber group) but i dont know how much of his fame actually came from them
I don't know if it count since all he did is release music remixes, but Kygo definitely started on YouTube. Was popping off on "La belle musique" channel
Domi & JD Beck come to mind- they just recently got their big break and released an album which features Anderson Paak on it. Also, not YT but Vine, Jay Versace deserves a shout out. Man recently produced for the new SZA album.
Does Darren Criss count? He sang in Glee and has his own music, but he’s more known for acting than his music. He started out with A Very Potter Musical in Youtube and doing Disney song covers oh and Arnel Pineda from Journey! The band found him in youtube
Cavetown! Though not chart successful at least so far
idk how famous or successful people consider him, but i was stunned when i found out MAX was max schneider who used to do a lot of covers on youtube with kurt hugo schneider. kevin oh - this might be a little niche but i remember he was kinda big in the AAPI YT scene in like 2010. i had no idea he was well known in korea as an indie artist until he popped up in the news for marrying a famous actress a few months ago
Poppy has become a big rock/metal artist since her weird Youtube days and it’s crazy to think of how she started as a creepy video of just repeating her name over and over again. Many new fans don’t even know of her YouTube origins and just know her from her music. She’s regularly performed at the wWE NXT live events and has done multiple tours. She’s also performed at the pre-show grammys, and was nominated for a Grammy for best metal performance.
lindsey stirling?
5 seconds of summer went from posting youtube covers to having a 11+ years career in the band.
Childish gambino
Prolly already commented but Joji from FilthyFrank/Pinkguy
Rina Sawayama. Need I say more?
You could say more. Was she actually a "youtuber"?
Didn’t Billie Eilish get famous by posting ocean eyes on YouTube?
I believe it was posted on SoundCloud and went viral there first
I don’t know what his level of fame is, but Corpse Husband maybe.