Top 10 YouTube Lifestyle Vloggers - TopX Ep.4

#10: Grace Helbig youtube.com/gracehinabox

Also in:

Top 10 Jack & Karen Moments on Will & Grace

- Kicking off our list is vlogger is Grace Helbig, who’s been publishing on YouTube for the past 8 years. Since then, her channel has featured a variety podcasts, video diaries and mailvlogs. Actually, her podcast “Not Too Deep” debuted at #1 on the iTunes podcast charts when it premiered. - Grace is super involved in the YouTube community, in so much that she collaborates frequently with other prominent YouTubers, like Tyler Oakley and Lilly Singh to name just two. - She’s also super involved with her fans. During her show when she reads comments and questions from her fans, she gives every fan that’s commenting for the first time a special little introduction. It’s a nice touch that shows she’s deeply invested in connecting with her fanbase. - Despite that fact that she’s on the lower end of subscriber numbers compared to other channels on this list, Grace has had an impressive amount of success off of YouTube: she was a correspondent on G4’s Attack of the Show, has appeared in a series of commercials for Lowes, and has most recently published a New York Times Bestselling book.

#9: Natalie Tran youtube.com/communitychannel

Also in:

Top 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Natalie Portman

- Natalie Tran is from down under and her personality shines through as her videos are peppered with a fair amount of self-deprecating humor. Even her tag line reflects this, as it current reads “Community Channel: Even my cat doesn’t like me”. As far as style goes, it’s a pretty standard vlog: 1 talking head, explaining what grinds her gears on the day in particular. - One of my favorite things in her videos is instead of employing other people in her videos, she often will just duplicate herself thru camera tricks. This not only creates some rather funny scenarios, but it also reinforces the self-deprecating humor that’s prevalent throughout the whole channel. - Now, when I say self deprecating, that’s not to say that the whole channel is based around her just taking the piss out of herself. Rather, it actually just adds to the charm because it demonstrates that she doesn’t take herself too seriously without diminishing the effect of whatever she’s talking about.

- The Shaytards are known as the “First Family of YouTube”, and it’s a name they’ve certainly earned. They’re a channel that follows the exploits of the Butler family, helmed by Shay Carl Butler, or, Shay Carl if you wanna get technical. - Though founded by Butlet, the Shaytards are a family unit first and foremost, and their videos focus almost entirely on their intimate family life. This is something that’s even reflected in their tagline “If it’s worth living, then it’s worth recording”. - They’ve certainly decided that theirs life is worth living, because they’ve been uploading 5 videos a day for almost 5 years. This means that not only are they a great channel to follow because of the sheer volume of updates, but they also provide a rather heartwarming record of a young family of 6 growing together in real time. - That said, its never especially hokey, never too hallmark. While not every video is meant to be funny, the whole channel has an overarching feeling of fun and adventure.

- Next up we have Lilly Singh, who’s technically cheating because she has 2 channels, but we can let that slide cause she’s also technically Canadian like us wink face - While she does skit videos that are extremely popular, stuff like “what girls do when getting ready” (I’ll give you a hint, it’s not efficient) The bulk of her actual vlogging is very much a day to day chronicle of her life. Since she’s gained so much popularity, this day-to-day stuff takes her all over the world, so it’s not just her describing what she’s had for breakfast that day. - One angle that she takes that definitely separates her from her peers is her Punjabi heritage. This mainly shines thru, both subtly and overtly, whenever she’s talking about parents, which you’ll notice make up a good portion of her most viewed clips. This is most emphatically exemplified in her Shit Punjabi Mothers say video, but it’s also quite evident in pretty much anything that deals with her family life. - Being superwoman, she’s not just confined to YouTube either: she’s also a motivational speaker and stand up comedian, and has a website devoted to merchandise based on her show.

- Swoozie is the master storyteller. While other vlogs focus on day to day updates, and others on the “what grind my gears” sorta rants, Swoozie at his best when he’s setting the stage with an elaborate story. On top of his natural talent for storytelling, he also collaborates with animators to bring his stories to life, making for surprisingly engaging tales. - While not all of his stuff is fully animated, it’s also slickly edited with visual aids, music and other cutaway jokes, which makes it very engaging to watch. One thing that vlogs are frequently guilty of is being sort of visual unappealing, which causes them to drag. Swoozie finds some really creative ways around this and his videos definitely flow better as a result. - I’d say his vlog is specifically appealing to guys, cause he strikes the right balance between geek culture, relationship advice, and just day-to-day foibles.

- Remember before when we said that Natalie Tran likes to mix in self deprecating humor? Well Dan Howell’s channel is built almost entirely around ripping on himself, as a quick look at his trailer will show you. - He calls his channel an “Internet support group for people that hate people”, and that kinda says it all. So, while ripping on himself is a major staple, one of the key aspects of his posts is that they’re meant to be relatable. - If there was one thing that characterizes a lot of his most popular videos, it’s his take on advice columns. While this are more rants than actual advice, videos like “how to ruin a meme” or “what not to do at the movie theatre” often offer a humorous take at something that’s been bugging him at the time. - His vlog covers all aspects of life, from crushing, life changing embarrassment to day-to-day trivial stuff like how to get out of bed. And I mean that literally, he has a video titled “How to get out of bed”.

- Vlogbrothers is the brainchild John and Hank Green, who, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know, are brothers. - Much like Seinfeld, the vlogbrothers describe their channels as “a channel about nothing”, and, much like the legendary sitcom, they manage to make their show-about-nothing into something that’s quite fun to watch. - What’s ironic is that lately, they rarely appear together in their videos: a lot of their most recent stuff either features only one or the other, although both are appear in a more or less equal amount of videos. - I mentioned before that they have a show about nothing, but after careful viewing I think a more accurate description would be a show about everything. I can’t for the life of me find a unifying theme, other than the brothers themselves. They cover everything and anything; allow me to read a few of the titles from the list of their most popular clips: “A Goat giving birth”, “53 Terrible Jokes” “, “understanding the Ukraine” and finally “Tumblr: The musical” ….all of these have over 2 million views.

#3: Tyler Oakley youtube.com/ tyleroakley

Also in:

Top 10 Times The Mary Tyler Moore Show Tackled Serious Issues

- A lot of the YouTubers we examine on TopX do collaborations with other channels, but it seems to that no other personality has popped up on other channels more than Mr. Oakley here. He loves to collaborate with and appear on other channels, making him that much more ingrained in YouTube culture as a whole. - That’s not to say he doesn’t have a whopping amount of content on his own channel. He has a Q&A show called Ask Tyler, Travel Videos, Day in the Life videos, and a series of interviews that are seriously impressive. Of course, he also does collaborations with other YouTubers on his own channel, and those happen to take up the lion’s share of his most popular stuff. - So we’ve mentioned that he collaborates a lot, and he’s probably gotten to do so many of these collaborations lately because he’s actually become a bit of a celebrity. He’s appeared at the Teen Choice Awards, raised huge amounts of money for suicide prevention in the LGBT community, and has scored so incredible interviews with the likes of One Direction and even Michelle Obama.

- BfvsGF is a channel run by a couple that you may already be familiar with from their other channel, PrankvsPrank. Unlike their prank channel, which naturally focuses on pranks, their vlog channel is almost entirely devoted to their day-to-day lives. - When I say day to day, I do me that quite literally, as they upload a new video once a day. - What’s perhaps most interesting about their vlog is while they do seem to have a disproportionate amount of fun, its not all smiles and sunshine. As in any relationship, there are ups and downs, and all of this is chronicled in intimate detail in their videos. - That’s not to say its all drama. Far from it in fact. They lead rather exciting lives and their vlog about it the whole time; so between getting a new cat and deciding how to spice up their relationship, you get to follow them as they go on vacation, go bungee jumping, and, of course, play the occasional prank on each other. - All in all, it makes for a very well rounded and engaging experience, especially after you’ve become attached to the personalities of the two hosts.

#1: Good Mythical Morning youtube.com/rhettandlink2

Also in:

Top 10 Good Mythical Morning Episodes - TopX

- Back from their appearance on our YouTube Comedians list last week is Rhett and Link, who’s second channel is Gooood Mythical Morning. - While other vlogs follow their creators anywhere and everywhere in their everyday lives, Good Mythical Morning, as you may have guessed from it’s name, formatted much more like a morning show, with a podcast kinda spin. - Aside from the clean, professional format that the show has evolved into today, it’s clear that one of the reasons their show is so popular is that each episode is themed in some way. So, instead of simply titling each episode by date and number, recent videos almost always feature some sort of challenge, question or countdown. Examples include “weirdest websites on the internet”, “6 animals that can speak Human” or “can you give yourself hiccups?”. - Despite the variety of themes, it’s all packaged in the same dependable, fun format, meaning you can know essentially what you’re in while still not knowing what’s gonna happen next… if that makes any sense. - As with a lot of popular YouTube Channels, they like to collaborate, and have had guests like the guys from SMOSH and Pewdiepie on their show. Even more impressive though, is an episode with Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliff.