After furthering my career as a writer, finding online success, and even now, writing for Affinity Magazine -the idea that the online, self-made, self-promoting, self-branding, mildly narcissistic way of generating large amounts of viewership, followers, and revenue through ads and monetization, all seems to attribute to the thought of, the modern ‘American dream,’. You have your Pewdiepie’s , streamers, and gangs of people you can name in your head that have a tremendous online presence through a podcast, blog, or Youtube. They’re all achieving MASSIVE sums of revenue, due to a source of income that not many people are economically savvy enough to commonly know about, and that’s ‘monetization.’
The Wikipedia definition of ‘monetization’ states that ‘Website monetization is the process of converting existing traffic being sent to a particular website into revenue.’ So someone like Pewdiepie, despite recent controversy, still upholds over 53 million Youtube subscribers, and has a potential earning of over 36 million dollars. Simply: the more eyes on you, the more advertisements companies can put in front of them to sell a product. Thus, them giving you more money. The ‘American dream’ comes to mind because what represents the idea of constructing your business and brand from the ground up more than creating a product from scratch and building viewership that equates to wealth. It’s a whole other breed of branding that is still fresh and a new idea to a lot of people.
So, how does this tie in to the claim that, self promoting, essentially yourself, through the internet and benefiting from the easily navigated, advertising and monetization process be defined as a ‘modernistic,’ American Dream. And I say “easily navigated” because it’s simple, if people aren’t watching you, you’re making almost little to no money. But, if you’re generating viewership or a good intellectual product, royalty checks will become your friend. And advertising companies, for some reason, love to pay out. Often times, you are paid in correlation to the viewership or traffic you generate on your posts. In turn, making it very easy to acquire wealth through royalties if you’re good at drawing a crowd.
Now, the whole reason I mention this is to make clear; It is BEYOND simple to get started and hop into the business. Take it from someone who’s had two podcasts and a blog. If you’re vlogging or podcasting, all you need is equipment that allows for a product, with tolerable quality and content, that will generate, and be easily received by an audience. Young adults and folks in their early 20’s are moving out of their parents’ homes, all by this way of self promoting which, in my opinion, is easier now to get into than ever before.
The phrase, “The Modernistic American Dream’ might be overkill, but I really have reached enlightenment with the subject, and found confidence in the opportunities that are there for teens and young adults on social media to get their name, brand, and ideas out there. Regardless of which platform or medium they choose to promote themselves, I say best of luck to anyone trying to ‘make it’ online.
