YouTube is the largest video sharing website in the world. Picture: iStock
Since its advent, YouTube has been the streaming website that is the dominant force behind video creators’ success.
Many now celeb-like influencers had their start on YouTube: Jeffree Star, the Paul brothers, Poppy, The Try Guys and even South Arica’s Laziswe is a major player.
The website has shifted the way music, entertainment and even sport is shared. But right now humour is needed.
The Citizen chose three people who will make you laugh from the pit of your stomach, even if lockdown has you feeling like you are in the pit of despair. Their humour is witty, sometimes odd, but surprisingly useful.
Picture: Emilia Fart
Something of a YouTube oddity, Canada’s Emilia Fart’s success trajectory seems out of place.
She wears a bed sheet and a “forever scarf” that hides her chin. She wears plastic crowns and feather boas in public and has a penchant for devouring pizza wherever.
Yet while Fart’s online persona does involve drops of performance art, she is almost the anti-influencer. She’s raw and honest about weight issues, society’s expectation and being a woman.
She addresses dating and her flip from dating men to women and admitting she’s a lesbian. She’s rude and uncouth, eats masses of food in her bathtub, does somewhat illegal things and toys with viewers in snarky ways (like giving misleading titles to videos).
Most, if not all, of her videos will make you laugh as Fart leaves her mark on the world, whether she’s making salad in a desert or dying her hair on public transport. But she also shares messages of hope and kindness – a rarity in the sometimes vapid world of streaming entertainers.
Visit her YouTube page
Picture: Twitter / micarahtewers
Probably the only sewing tutorial and comedy blog on YouTube, Tewers offers something remarkably unique. She makes jokes while she makes dresses.
The appeal here is that it’s done with raw footage from phones, sometimes the audio cuts away, or sometimes it comes with awkward angles. Yet the content is so on-the-nose or completely serious that you can’t help but go on material adventures with Tewers.
In one of her recent videos in March, for instance, she made the giant Ariana Grande Grammy’s dress – and commented that it is the perfect outfit to wear to maintain social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. Fast forward a few weeks and the whole world wishes they had that dress.
One of the channel’s best features is that it looks at fashion from different eras and Tewers shows how to make designer knockoffs fairly cheaply. As her YouTube repertoire grows, it’s exciting to see what will come next from this newbie.
Visit her YouTube page
Picture: Jenna_Marbles
Considered among the first YouTube stars, Jenna Marbles has never dipped in popularity. The reason is simple – she just wants to make herself and others laugh.
Although recently a lot of her content is angled around her four dogs, she still does amazingly funny and original things that can entertain you for hours.
Considering she was the first ever YouTuber to get a wax statue at Madame Tussauds, if you’ve never watched her content you’ve been missing out. And while cooped up at home is the perfect time.
During the American quarantine she provided fun videos of her cutting her own hair, her boyfriend’s hair and even making a weird hand statue. It’s fun, funny and above all stupid. Which is what you need right now.
Visit her Youtube page
Trisha Peytas is somewhere between humour and complete trash. Peytas is a bizarre high-flyer in the YouTube club.
She talks too fast, says the most outlandish things, hosts Mukbangs and has an obsession with pink.
She has music videos where she grinds in skimpy outfits in church while belting out how much she likes Jesus, yet in between she is relatable and sometimes wise.
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