YouTube celebrities: you’ve heard the term a lot of times. KevJumba and Ray William Johnson have lots of comedic talent and subscribers to lap it up. Cimorelli, Lisa Lavie, Sam Tsui: just a few of the many singers doing well on YouTube. The talent that’s spurned off YouTube is also commendable: Charice, Greyson Chance and, of course, the Bieber-meister himself.
Now, add Singapore to the fray. (If you’ve noticed the change in the YouTube icon on its homepage.)
YouTube officially launched its Singapore partners’ programme yesterday and now has a Singapore site that enables you to check out all the hot and dangerous videos in our sunny island. What this means is that Singapore YouTubers can now earn money from their videos by ads and the number of views their vids have. According to ZDNetAsia, what’s cooler is that YouTube has signed partnership deals with Singapore-based media companies such as Warner Music Group, Refinery Media and Interactive SG, to distribute their content on YouTube.
(Yes, Warner artistes’ MVs & episodes of SupermodelMe will finally be on YouTube – officially!)
Video creators & filmmakers will also get to be part of the program, so that spells good signs for Singapore films to get the recognition they deserve (and for us to be able to find them). Note to filmmakers: it gets pretty difficult keeping track of releases when there’s no official media info to tap on, so this is a GODSEND.
Let me be really honest here: I see this programme growing a lot. I don’t have to randomly search to find the next Inch Chua or Shigga Shay music video because it’s already on the Featured sidebar on the homepage! However, it will take a while to let Singapore content thrive on YouTube, seeing that there are more viewers than content creators on YouTube. Ellen DeGeneres is doing a great job constantly profiling YouTube breakout talent on her talkshow and bringing it into mainstream attention. Surely Channel 5, Okto or E! Asia can do something similar?
Just in case you thought I was kidding about the Featured sidebar.
This may all be great news for the music and movies scene in Singapore, but it doesn’t stop there. I think Singapore artistes are doing lots of things to promote their works but more can be done. Entertainment’s no longer just about performance, it’s now about showbiz. Munah & Hirzi are good examples of how they’re reaching out to the mainstream: they’ve successfully crossed over into acting on TV having been popularised on YouTube by their “10 Dares” videos.
It’s still very early days but there is promise that there are good things to come. Publicists just need to get their act together and stop neglecting Singapore talent and start promoting – and fast. Now when will iTunes open up a Singapore music store?
Hopefully this is what Inch Chua needs to reconsider staying in Singapore.
xx Shah
