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An example of original programming starring vloggers, including Alfie Deyes and three other popular YouTubersIt could be argued that their inception, and subsequent rise to prominence, is not their fault, but rather the byproduct of our increasingly anodyne culture. BBC3 sitcoms with sex jokes limper than a cigarette pack left out in the rain, pop stars whose only controversy is cropping a rapper who looks like a Slush Puppy out of an Instagram photo. In a recent interview with Evening Standard Magazine, English singer-songwriter and BRIT award-winner Ben Howard was painted as a sullen, moody creature of pained art; a kind of Leonard Cohen for the reality show generation. The evidence? He doesn't like speaking to songwriter Tom Odell backstage at festivals.Our emerging cultural figureheads are distressingly bland. What people tend to forget about entertainment is that it’s an art form, the nuances of which have to be learned. Rodney Dangerfield, Tommy Cooper, Michael Barrymore, Harry Hill—love, hate or fear these British icons, you have to admit that there’s an inherent talent for showmanship in what they do. And the skills—the bare bones of it—are still something that have to be honed and crafted. These young bucks, these webcam frontiersmen, are learning on the job with no one teaching them. The result is a poorly edited mess of ego and quirk.Of course, this is partly the appeal to their fans. Successful vloggers sell them the dream that normalcy can make you famous—that you can be adored just for blurting non-sequiturs at a camera with an upward inflection, and that with a few freshman film studies classes and a half-decent haircut you could be earning a hundred grand a year.
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