Depending on their rise to fame, internet personalities may reach their audiences in different ways. Some people write journals or blogs, some make YouTube or TikTok videos, others post frequently on Instagram or Twitter (X). The Internet has made fame accessible to and attainable for the general public. In some cases, people might rise to fame through a single
viral event or
viral video, and become an
Internet meme. For example,
Zach Anner, a comedian from
Austin, Texas, gained worldwide attention after submitting a video to
Oprah Winfrey's "Search for the Next TV Star" competition. Viral videos from internet personalities could entail a funny event happening in the moment, a popular new dance, or even a post on Twitter.
Influencers Usenet personalities YouTubers and vloggers is an internet personality and the fourth most subscribed individual
YouTuber. Overall, he has the ninth-most subscribed
YouTube channel. YouTube has risen as one of the biggest platforms for launching internet personalities. YouTube creators (known as
YouTubers), regardless of the genres or types of videos they make, have created an industry that can generate revenue from video views and online popularity. For example, Swedish internet personality
PewDiePie uploads
gaming and comedy videos on YouTube. , he has around 110 million subscribers and is the fourth most-subscribed non-corporation YouTuber. Every minute, 300 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube, and 5 billion videos are watched every day. In August 2014,
Variety wrote that YouTubers are more popular than mainstream celebrities among U.S. teens. Advertisers, in an effort to reach teenagers and millennials who do not watch regular television and movies, have started contacting YouTubers and other internet personalities. YouTube's
AdSense program enables creators to earn money from advertisements. AdSense has certain requirements—a YouTuber must have more than 1,000 subscribers, live in an eligible country, and have more than 4,000 hours of watch time within a year to be eligible.
Lifecasters Lifecasting is streaming continuous live video of a person's daily life. This often is in the form of first-person video from a
wearable camera but can also be from cameras directed at the person or ubiquitous cameras where the person lives. The first person to do lifecasting was
Steve Mann whose experiments with wearable computing and streaming video in the early 1980s led to Mann continuously transmitted his everyday life 24 hours a day, seven days a week starting in 1994.
Jennifer Ringley's JenniCam (1996–2004) attracted mass media attention, as noted by Cnet: "JenniCam, beginning in 1996, was the first really successful 'lifecasting' attempt." In early 2007,
Justin Kan founded Justin.tv, a platform for live video streaming online. By the fall of 2007, Justin.tv had expanded to nearly 700 channels, generating 1,650 hours of daily programming.
Micro-celebrities A micro-celebrity, also known as a micro-
influencer, is a person famous within a niche group of users on a social media platform. Micro-celebrities often present themselves as public figures. The concept of the micro-celebrity was originally developed by Theresa Senft in her 2008 book,
Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks. According to Senft, the concept of the micro-celebrity "is best understood as a new style of online performance that involves people 'amping up' their popularity over the Web using technologies like video, blogs and social networking sites". A micro-celebrity is also known as "a form of identity linked almost exclusively to the internet, characterizing a process by which people express, create and share their identities online". However, micro-celebrities differ from more traditional forms of celebrities associated with
Hollywood stars because a micro-celebrity's popularity is often directly linked to their audience, and the audience comes to expect a certain degree of authenticity and transparency. Similarly, a micro-celebrity within the
brony fandom is called
horse famous.
Viral video star A viral video star is a person (or people) who became well known primarily through their being in a
video that went viral. Viral videos are videos that become popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, primarily through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email. For a video to be shareable or spreadable, it must focus on the social logics and cultural practices that have enabled and popularized these new platforms. Examples of viral video stars are the
CPDRC Dancing Inmates (best known for their
Thriller video) and
Star Wars Kid.
Wanghong Wanghong () is the Chinese version of Internet stardom. The
wanghong economy is a
Chinese digital economy based on
influencer marketing in social media. Some
wanghong celebrities generate profits via retail or
e-commerce, through attracting the attention of their followers. Internet celebrities have become a popular phenomenon in China. For example,
Sister Furong (
Fúróng Jiějiě, 芙蓉姐姐) received worldwide notoriety and fame for her
self-promotion efforts through online posts. According to CBN Data, a commercial data company affiliated with
Alibaba Group, the Chinese internet personality economy was estimated to be worth () in 2016, more than China's total cinema
box office revenue in 2015. There are two main business models in the
wanghong economy: social media advertising, and online retail. In the online retailing business model, e-commerce-based
wanghong use social media platforms to sell self-branded products to potential buyers among followers via Chinese
customer-to-customer (C2C) websites, such as
Taobao. Internet celebrities may promote their products by modeling for their shops by posting pictures or videos of themselves wearing the clothes or accessories they sell, or giving makeup or fashion tips.
Zhang Dayi (张大奕)—one of China's best-known
wanghong according to
BBC News, with 4.9 million followers on
Sina Weibo—has an online shop on Taobao, reportedly earning () per year. This is comparable to the made by
Fan Bingbing (范冰冰), a top Chinese actress.
Li Ziqi (李子柒), a celebrity food blogger with more than 16 million followers on Weibo, has inspired many bloggers to post similar content on traditional
Chinese cooking and crafts.
Censorship in China has created an independent
social media ecosystem that has become successful in its own way. For every Western social media platform, there is a comparable Chinese version; Chinese social media platforms, however, generate revenue differently. The greatest difference between Chinese internet celebrities and their Western counterparts is that the profits generated by Chinese celebrities can be immense. Unlike YouTube, which takes 45% of advertising revenue, Sina Weibo, one of the largest Chinese social media platforms, is not involved in advertising, which allows internet celebrities to be more independent. The monthly income of Chinese
influencers can exceed ().
Net idols In
Japan, a specific type of internet personality is known as a , a sub-category of the
idol industry in Japan. Net idols first emerged in the 1990s through personal websites and blogs when internet became more accessible, with some selling personal merchandise such as photo books through their websites. Around March 2007,
dance covers (known as ) became popular in video-sharing websites such as
Niconico, which in turn led people into performing choreographed dances from anime series and idol groups. Notable creators of dance covers, known as , who later debuted as idols include Kozue Aikawa from
Danceroid,
Beckii Cruel, and
Keekihime.
VTubers , the first
VTuber VTubers or virtual YouTubers are entertainers that use digital 3D model avatars that are computer generated. VTubers originated from Japan, beginning in the early 2010s, and have risen in popularity in the 2020s. The first virtual YouTuber was Ami Yamato, who debuted on May 18, 2011; the first VTuber who had used the phrase "virtual Youtuber" is
Kizuna AI, who began entertaining in 2016. The appeal of VTubers is similar to a real person, except the entertainer may choose to remain anonymous through their VTuber persona. The 2D anime virtual avatars appealed to many Japanese fans and popularity began to spread internationally. In October 2021, there has been reported to be 16,000 VTubers around the world. VTubers function in a similar fashion to YouTubers and
streamers, with some VTubers being music artists. These VTubers that were music artists or broadcast their musical talent would be dubbed "VSinger" (virtual singer). Agencies such as
Hololive and
Nijisanji, scout and hire these VTubers to aid in marketing and build popularity. Their trademark character being the VTuber avatar or a 2D anime form of that character on the album covers, allowing recognition of the avatar and for the agency. == Income ==