UC Irvine

In recent years, YouTube has evolved from a platform of home videos and news media into a premiere platform for amateur content creators to create and distribute content. As YouTube continues to progress towards a media platform that promotes amateur creators and their content, the work and interactions of these creators becomes relevant as a study of the architects of digital labor. This thesis takes an ethnographical approach to examining creators within a certain subset of YouTube creators – video game Let’s Players – and analyzes their varying forms of interaction with three key points. First: the relationship and interaction between creators and their created content. Second: how LP content creators interact and work with other content creators, either within their own sphere or otherwise. And third: how creators interact and communicate with their audiences. This analysis and compilation of interview data is transferrable to other amateur content web platforms whose primary business model focuses on user-generated content.