There's No Place Like YouTube

Here's the thing... YouTube has been my primary source of entertainment for a little over two years now and not only is my love for it blossoming into something beautiful, but watching and making YouTube videos gets more and more popular every day.

YouTube itself as a platform allows for anyone with an account to post videos and this creates a variety of genres to choose from. The great thing about having an account as a viewer is that your watch history gets logged and you get video suggestions on this. Being subscribed to content creators also makes it easy to stay up to date on all your favourite YouTubers' updates and activities on the website. You never miss any new videos this way.

The many different categories or genres of YouTube videos make sure that there is something for everyone. To give you a better idea, here are a few of my favourite YouTubers from a few different categories.

Booktubing
Booktubers dedicate their time and videos to the appreciation of books. They review, discuss,  recommend and showcase books.

booksandquills

booksandquills
This lovely Dutch lady got me excited about reading again. Sanne Vliegenthart is currently a digital coordinator at Hot Key Books, but in her free time she reviews books on her YouTube channel: booksandquills. 

She is also quite famous for her fondness of John Green's The Fault in Ours Stars, having written her university thesis on it.

Some of her most popular videos include: Top Ten Books of 2012, Wreck This Journal and her Bookshelf Tour.

Little Book Owl

Little Book Owl
This lovely human being is an Australian booktuber named Catriona. Not only is she interesting to look at with her bright hair and rad makeup, but her enthusiasm for the books she reads is contagious.

She participates in a lot of tag videos, but it doesn't take away from her appeal or originality.

A few of my favorite videos of hers' are her TBR Jar, WHERE I BUY BOOKS and her 2013 Bookshelf Tour videos.

Booktube is fantastic for getting book recommendations. You also get to hear other people talk about books you might love or books you might hate and get a second opinion. Another great thing booktubers do, is bookshelf tours, which is a fantastic thing to watch if you dream of your having your own personal library one day, like me.

Let's Play
Let's Play is mainly video game play-throughs with commentary.

PewDiePie

PewDiePie
His real name is Felix and he makes funny gaming videos. With over 30 million subscribers as of August this year, he has the largest number of subscribers on YouTube.

He is most famous for his horror game playthroughs because of his reactions to it. This began with Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

I have too many favorite PewDiePie videos. The guy just has SO much content. Some of the ones I really liked were FLAPPY BIRD - DON'T PLAY THIS GAME!, Skate 3 - FUNNY MOMENTS - Part 1 and Master Surgeon! (PewDiePie Animated).

Cryaotic

Cryaotic
We call him Cry and we love his voice. The best things about Cry are his love of a good story and his mystery. By mystery I mean that no one knows what he looks like, but his voice is fantastic enough that we don't care.

He's best known for the series' he plays.

The best series' he's done are The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and The Last of Us.
Other fantastic games to check out are Broken Age, Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons and Papo & Yo.  

Let's Play videos have gotten a lot of criticism since PewDiePie's fame. Many people argue that there's nothing entertaining or talented about someone playing a video game, but in reality being able to make someone laugh or cry with witty one-liners or the way you react to games is a talent. In his PewDiePie Reacts To: Elders React To: PewDiePie... video, PewDiePie compared watching walkthroughs to sport when the elders asked why you would watch someone else playing video games if you could just do it yourself.

Vlogging
Vlogging, or video blogging, is the format of choice for many content creators. It's easier and cheaper than bigger productions or Let's Play videos because it requires a lot less time and equipment.

danisnotonfire

danisnotonfire
He tells us about his embarrassing life and we stare at his face and laugh. Dan Howell is the subject of millions of fangirls' affection and also an icon in British YouTube culture.

He lives with his best friend Phil Lester and after both of their success on YouTube, the two were offered a radio show on BBC Radio 1 that aired on Sunday evenings until the 24th of August, 2014. The show will be moved to Monday nights at the same time.
His most popular videos are: How To Speak INTERNET, THE PHOTO BOOTH CHALLENGE and I Will Go Down With This Ship.

Carrie Hope Fletcher

ItsWayPastMyBedTime
Carrie Hope Fletcher is the human incarnation of sunshine and happy things. She also has the voice of an angelic choir. That is right. Her voice not equal to that of just one angel, but many angels.

She stars in the West End production of Les Miserables as Eponine and she does a very good job at it. Her trademark is her wild blond hair, but she is also known for her easygoing honesty and sincerity in her videos.

A few of her best videos are Taking Over Tom's House, Love is On The Radio Hopeful Live mix and The Guilty Biscuit. 

What makes vlogs in particular so entertaining is the fact that vloggers are more often than not regular people talking about their own personal experiences. The element of relatability draws an audience, because hearing someone else's opinions on experiences you've had yourself make you feel like there's someone out there who gets you. They understand the everyday struggle, because they've been there themselves.

And there is your taste of the wonderful world of YouTube. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg though.  I haven't covered beauty vlogging, daily vlogging, educational videos or animation in this post, but know that there is much more than just this.

From what I've shown you in terms of the fact that four of these people live in the UK, it's probably easy to gather that the UK has a very rich variety of content creators.

An interesting series to check out for more information on YouTube content and culture, specifically in the UK, go check out Becoming YouTube.  

Get Your Sim On

Let's talk about The Sims 4.

Firstly, let me just say that I am super excited to actually play the full game at some point in the future. The Create-a-Sim Demo was enough to send me into a fit of happy bounces.

So, from what I've heard, a lot has changed in the Sim world, the most notable being that there won't be pools and toddlers anymore. I get that this is upsetting. I am upset about this myself, but I can appreciate all the other details they've added by giving toddlers and pools a miss. I like the idea that my Sims will actually have personalities this time and that those personalities will dictate their lives in a way the previous games couldn't do. However, I'm really going to miss the toddlers. Changing straight into children from babies just seems weird... and painful. The pools I can get over, because drowning my Sims hasn't been my go-to murder method since the Sims 3 came out back in 2009. I'm looking forward to seeing what new ways of killing Sims there are in the new game, if there are any.

I also heard that there won't be create-a-style or a color wheel in the game, which is honestly going to suck, because I've gotten really used to that in the Sims 3. It only makes sense that some elements had to be cut for the new system to work though.

As far as the looks of the new Sims go, I've heard a lot of people complain about their cartoonishness. Personally, I like it. I've always been a fan of cartoons in general, so I don't mind my Sims being a little less realistic. They're not called humans for a reason. I feel that if people insist on having a more 'realistic' experience, they should just go outside and stare at people on the street. The Sims is just that. A simulation. For the hardcore Simmers who just won't be able to get over this, I've already seen mods pop up to change certain things, particularly the eyes. There were complaints that the available eye colors are too saturated, so there are mods available now to fix that. They replace the original colors and don't add to the pallet of colors for more variety though, which is kind of a bummer.

In the end it doesn't really matter. When the game comes out, I'm only going to play it for, like, the first few weeks and then forget about it. Alas, that is the life cycle of a Sims game.

A brief, disappointing intro to Siridian Falls

I realised that I haven't actually posted my art on here in what feels like a very, very long time and if I'm being honest, it's because I've been in a drawing rut for most of that time. A few months ago, I came up with the perfect fantasy comic story idea and I planned out the characters to the very last detail. But then it happened. My laptop, with the 14 page outline of the story arcs and character designs, was wiped clean.

I'm not sure how it happened or why, but my Macbook somehow formatted itself and I lost everything on it. So I gave up on that idea. Well, not entirely. I still have the most important details in my head, but I just can't make myself write everything down again. I'm just not a big fan of doing the same thing twice.

But wait! I had a little bit of luck on my side. I'd saved a few pictures on deviantArt and for once I was very grateful for having that account.

Nelle, The Thief

Roald, The Bastard

So there you have two of the three main characters. Alas, I did not save a picture of the third on deviantArt. I did save a picture of him on Tumblr, but that picture is not nearly pretty enough to earn its place here.

To give you an idea of what I planned for this comic, let me tell you the story of a far away land...

There once was a prosperous city, nestled between mountains in a beautiful valley. The king was a great ruler with a penchant for magic. As time passed, the king's love of magic overwhelmed him and he became hungry for power. He chose to consort with dark wizards, who only led him further from the path of righteousness. So his power grew and as it did, soon he was no longer the king his people knew. He became a monster. The only way to stop him was to destroy him with magic of equal strength and so every mage in the kingdom came together and sacrificed themselves to save the people, destroying the evil king and themselves. All the riches within the castle was lost with them.

Today, people speak of it as the Old Kingdom, but in its prime it was called Siridia. 

Blah, blah, blah, adventure, blah. The three main characters set out and risk their lives to get this treasure. The thief wants the gold, because duh. The bastard wants to make it out of the city alive, because he wants to prove to his dad that he's more useful than everyone thinks. And the third character, a woodcutter, wants the gold because he wants to treat his elderly mother. Also, he wants an adventure, because in the same place your whole life is unbelievably dull. 

Nelle in a shady forest looking surprised.

There you have it! A taste of something that might never come to fruition. I do hope I can pick up this project again at some point. I'm rather fond of the characters.