JennaMarbles Passes RayWilliamJohnson As 2nd Most Subscribed Youtube Channel

Just noticed that Jenna Marbles has passed Ray William Johnson on the All Time Most Subscribed list with a massive 8,758,105 total to Ray's 8,690,622 subscriber count.

Although you probably shouldn't put a lot of weight into subscribers numbers when you're comparing those Youtube channels floating around in the Top 100, this is actually quite an achievement for Jenna as her number of subscribers has exploded in the last year and a half or so. Ray William Johnson, of =3, YourFavoriteMartian and Runaway Planet fame was running away with the title of "Most Subscribed on Youtube" for quite a while until his recent troubles (of which I'll be blogging about shortly) and both Jenna Marbles and Ray William Johnson are getting smoked by Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla of smosh, and their channel leads the way, closing in on ten million subscribers, a number which they should easily surpass before the month is out.

The Good Morning America Interview

But this is about Jenna Marbles, whose success on Youtube and other websites enticed the powers that be over at Good Morning America to dispatch one of their "topnotch reporters", Cecilia Vega, to find out what the fuss was about this Marbles girl who they dubbed "The Queen of Clicks" and "The Queen of Youtube" as a followup to the New York Times article The Woman With 1 Billion Clicks, Jenna Marbles. Kudos for getting a nice long article but, um, why did the NYT newspaper put an article about a young entrepreneur making a large chunk of cash in their "Fashion & Style" section? Seems like old media not quite understanding the new online world again, and the subsequent furor surrounding Marbles interview on Good Morning America seems to show a lack on knowledge or an unwillingness to accept the incredible success Marbles and others have garnered from Youtube as well as other parts of the online world. Below is the interview of Marbles by Vega that appeared on the program (posted on Youtube by ABCNews51.

First the obvious: Jenna Marbles has over 8 million subscribers NOT 1 BILLION. All of her videos combined recently went over the 1 billion views mark (which should warrant a little more respect from the interviewer) but no one on Youtube has a billion subscribers. And all the hype about "the most famous person you probably don't know"? WTF is that? The condescending tone throughout the interview from Vega is entirely unneeded and disrespectful. Currently Marbles has over 2.8 million followers on Twitter (you can follow her there at @Jenna_Marbles) and Cecilia Vega's Twitter has about 3,800 followers. That is a perfectly fine number, but even someone like me, who has not posted any videos or been on television ('cept for that episode of COPS, but I can't comment on that) and I have a;most 1,600 Twitter followers.

Anyway, this interview itself is RIDICULOUS. There was a storm of anger on Twitter from other Youtubers (wellknown and not so wellknown) commenting: Whether or not you follow these folks, their comments are just the tip of the iceberg of the reaction to how Vega and Good Morning America conducted the interview and just goes to show how little more traditional media understands what many who are online already understand. Shows like Good Morning America have seen an increasing amount of their audiences bleed away and they, along with many old school newspapers and magazines, seem to treat their own audiences as dunces when they try to explain Youtube, those who find success online, and the Internet in general.

Marbles' audience is NOT comprised primarily of vapid teens, tweens and those crazy "skateboardin' kids" - the online world is a burgeoning platform that includes many people over 30 which that article about Marbles that appeared in the New York Times strongly implied was all who watched her videos or followed her. That is patently untrue.

This interview was just another obvious example of the old media pandering to their increasingly shrinking audience and trying to explain what's going on with the kids and their "Interwebs and computer things". Their audiences are shrinking because a greater portion of the audience DOES understand and enjoys what they find online whether or not they follow Jenna Marbles or anyone on Youtube for that matter. By taking such a viewpoint that they need to poke fun and someone who has become wildly successful online as Marbles, programs such as Good Morning America are rapidly slouching down the road towards obscurity. If you haven't read Marbles' own reaction to the interview, check out her blog post called OH GREAT JOB GOOD MORNING AMERICA!, and I've added a link to her blog in the "Blogs I Like" section on this page way down on the right hand side if you want to read her blog or others I've recommended.

The First Jenna Marbles Video I Ever Saw

Yes, like most people, the very first video by Jenna Marbles that I saw was "How to trick people into thinking you're good looking", now with over 51 million views. I saw it shortly after it came out, thought she was funny, and subscribed to her channel. Like many who visit Youtube, you are likely to have already watched this video or maybe you haven't. Portions of the video were used as background in the GMA interview.

At the time I had NO idea that her channel would blow up like it has. When I subbed to her channel she had less than 10,000 subs and the video above was only the 6th-7th she had posted since creating her account way back in Feb 2010, so she's come a long way since then. Now Marbles has the 2nd Most Subscribed channel on Youtube. Maybe you like her videos or maybe you don't, but either way, a certain amount of respect is deserved for what she has accomplished is a short amount of time and you might want to keep an eye on her. Good Morning America, well, not so much.