Observations on the top 20

[Smashing]

LG holding strong at number 1.

Geriatric moves past smosh to reclaim the #2 spot as he continues to tell his life story. A representative comment on smosh's latest vid reads: "Dissapointing. These video's keep getting worse. Guys, I loved the lip syncing. What happened to that?"

Brookers hangs on to number 4, her videos still unwatchable.

The Wine Kone remains the intentionally funniest personality on YouTube at number 5. Where's his development deal? Barats&Bereta already have one, which is probably why they don't come out with videos very often, yet they hold at number 5.

Number 6, William Sledd says in his latest vid from LA he's "meeting with some producers." A question I have for the next "Ask a Gay Man": "I get that you're gay, but why do you act so immature?"

Boh3m3 moves back into the top 8, no doubt due to his latest video being featured. Why was it featured? Cause it's a flattering video about YouTube of course. LisaNova posts her first new vid in a month, but it's too little too late, and she slips to 9, just ahead of the other gay boy-man, GayGod.

No producers are watching his show, but they ARE watching "Nobody's Watching." With the cryptic username impytherap, they climb to number 11 on the strength of yet another featured video, this time parodying Friends.

Wantlieswiththat continues to lie it's way up the charts and has displaced Danielbeast for the #12 position. RyanLeslie, renetto, and "Ask a Ninja" aka digital filmmaker slide down a notch with everyone else. Abbegirl moves back into Gemma's old 17 spot. Fellow Aussie-cute-girl-vloggers The Hill88 and Emmalina bookend Gemmers19 in her new name-appropriate position.

Recent upgrades to YouTube now mean the top 100 list can now be accessed without any tricks. With so many videos to watch, there's no time for spellcheck, and the "Politicians" category on the left hand side of the screen gets misspelled.

Mostly familiar faces populate the rest of the top 40. Supermanreturnsdvd cheats its way to number 34. And lassegg, known best for his "hyperactive" human beatbox gets a deserved jump in subscribership thanks to an even better sequel.

[jayhenry]

Nice synopsis, Smashing.

That reminds me of something I found the other day on the Internet Archive. (archive.org, if you've never seen it, is one of the most incredible things in human history -- it's a site that attempts to archive mirrors of the entire internet. Their database contains over 2 petabytes [2 million gigs {or 2 billion megs} if you prefer] of information.)

It's so enormous that it takes months to update. Anyways, this is YouTube's most subscribed list on May 17, 2006:
web.archive.org/web/20060517054525/www3.youtube.com/members?ms

Some notable users on May 17:

1) Smosh - 2986
2) Filthywhore - 1469
6) Bowiechick - 791
9) Brookers - 716
16) DigitalFilmMaker - 541

Although not good enough for the all time top-20
Judsonlaipply - 448 (subquestion: why did this guy miss the chance to be YouTube's biggest channel? He's supposedly a comedian, all he had to do was post a clip of what he already does once a month or so.)
Morbeck - 414 (subquestion: why does this guy exist?)

[hyemew]

I have taken a keen interest in monitoring the top 20 lately as well.
Congratulations geriatric, I don't watch his stuff but I have taken a dislike to the "new" smosh. When I first saw the old lipsynchic stuff a few months back I loved it, Pokemon and Power Rangers theme song stuff. But now it is indeed now less enjoyable, and I guess I've also kind of had a sore spot at how easily they were able to rocket up the subscribed list with only like 10 videos max (now around 16). However I guess they should be congratulated on that because they were able to get so much with so little. The stuff now though just isn't good, including allegedly a series of shorts (less than a minute). There's only one or two and they're horrible.
Brookers... I loved her for her numa spoof like... last year... but now she just annoys me. Does she even post anymore?
I <3 TheWineKone, LOVE. His stuff is incredible, his most recent "internet creeper" thing had me laughing non-stop. He is truly amazing. I even wrote him a youtube message a few days ago and he responded!
William Sledd annoys me to no end. What the hell. I tried watching one of his fashion tips episodes, ok I can see why girls would like it because he sounded just like my sister, but to me it was boredom beyond belief. Six minutes of THAT?! I had to turn it off around 3. I also watched the two or so most recent ones... So he says someone from LA e-mailed him so he just got up and jetted out there? WHAT? Are you THAT desprate to be famous that one person emails you and you drop everything? His one video which is said to be from LA was horrendously stupid. He says he'll have a lot of stuff to upload when he gets back, but its been over a week now at least... I hope he never comes back.
I thought Boh3m3 being featured for that recent video was lame- so if I make a video trying to start a new YouTube catch phrase and say will I get featured too? (No.)
I've never watched GayGod, but umm what does he even do? I first heard about him early on in the LG thing because he was leaving messages to Bree's MySpace and let's just say seeing someone commenting with a rainbow background and their pants essentially... down... well it stands out. I think I ended up at his youtube once and there was a video of a makeout session with his boyfriend.. was that even him? I don't even know anymore nor do I care. Does that really deserve #10 citizens of YouTube?!
I enjoy Nobody's Watching, though they are no ordinary YouTuber seeing as they almost had a show on NBC. They basically can do stuff the average YouTuber can't, not even the average group of YouTubers like The Creators (even though they're on top), so it's kind of unfair. But at least it's entertaining.
I don't really know of many of the people below these names at all, except for Emmalina (came in too late to really see her first incarnation, haven't bothered with the second), theHill88 who I rather liked with her LazyDork rap (esp. because I hate LazyDork- why did he just get on FoxNews last week? I don't see him listed in your top 20 synopsis) but now she's not so great, and renetto. I loved him in his weird incarnation that commented on lonelygirl videos, and like some of his "family life" videos as well, but I think he's gotten too serious at times and people are getting turned off. Also I don't know what the hell this is all about (I've investigated but haven't been able to figure it out), but some guy named GregSolomon (an interesting mix of the names of the Goodfried couple) seems to have it out for Renetto and keeps calling him out on-- something.. something about Steve Chen messaging renetto calling him a spokesman, but it might not have been him, and renetto apparently might not even know if it's him for sure, and something about GregSol having him on tape admitting that, and I really have no clue what the hell is going on there.

[jayhenry]

Something else interesting happened today. Lonelygirl15 somehow added 2,000 subscribers since yesterday (5,000 since Tuesday) and now has more than twice as many subscribers as anyone else.

[noasinger]

I really don't want to believe this means they have stooped to gaming the numbers.

[hyemew]

Hmm, if true this probably goes hand in hand with that new article about the shopping for sponsors. They need more subscribers to make their 350,000 number look real. Can't believe it...

[milowent]

I can't believe lg15 would be faking subscribers. I think YouTube is continuing to grow, so its not completely suprising that the top channel benefits from that.

When Smosh was #1 most subscribed on May 17, he had only 2986 subscribers (and he had twice the number of FilthyWhore at #2!). Bree now gets more than that in just a few days. You can't even make it on the top 20 without about 12,000 subscribers now -- thats about 50% more than you needed just a month or so ago. That's amazing growth.

[jayhenry]

jayhenry said:

Something else interesting happened today. Lonelygirl15 somehow added 2,000 subscribers since yesterday (5,000 since Tuesday) and now has more than twice as many subscribers as anyone else.

I'm an idiot. Subscribers have increased 5,000 since Tuesday, eh, Jay? I wonder if that had something to do with the 8 million people who saw lonelygirl15 featured on Law&Order: Criminal Intent.

[buckwheat]

Naw, it had to be that last Jonas vid....

[Smashing]

Renetto vs. Solomon in 500 words or less: Renetto, prominent user and cheerleader of YouTube made a video complaining about YouTube cheating, saying the management seemed disconnected from the "Community." Co-founder of YouTube, Steve Chen left a comment (his username is simply "steve") on the video saying (paraphrasing), We're aware of the problem, bare with us as we work on it. Renetto began an email discussion with Chen, and later Chen called Renetto on a conference call with some other users to discuss some things they were working on. Renetto asked, "Can I tell people about this in a video?" Steve Chen said, "Yes." Renetto took down his complaint video, and made a video telling people what had happened.
The controversy stemmed from the fact that Renetto, some months ago, made a video where he pretended to be talking to co-founder of YouTube Chad Hurley on his cell phone. That video was obviously a joke, but some took it as real, and he later clarified he was joking. So months later, when he really was talking to Steve Chen, some refused to believe it.
The most prominent critic was/is vlogger Greg Solomon. A mysterious character that spouts out long-winded nonsense in a calm, authoritative, condescending tone while chewing on an unlit pipe. Almost all of his videos are responses to renetto, leading some conspiracy theorists to speculate that they're working together, but there's no evidence of this.
Led by Solomon, a contingent of users called renetto a liar, and called on him to prove his story. Amused by this, renetto made a video where he bet any and all takers $100 each that he was telling the truth. I think one person took the $100 bet, but Greg Solomon bet his video camera, and some other nutjob bet $1000 renetto was lying.
After a few days, renetto presented his evidence: The comment page of his original video with Steve Chen's comment, along with verification that this was indeed the real Steve Chen's account; a comment from Maryrose, an employee of YouTube, saying that yes, they'd been in contact with renetto; a video by YourTubeNews reporting that Steve Chen confirmed renetto's story to them though email; a video made by a much less prominent YouTuber showing emails he got from Steve Chen complete with headers, proving at least that he is contact with users.
Presented with this evidence, many critics apologized. Renetto made it clear that he didn't really want anyone's money, or Solomon's camera. Solomon, either in denial or in character or both, declared victory. Renetto then posted a video titled "Greg Solomon...may I show everyone your emails?" where he promised not only more proof of his contact with Chen, but also to "expose" Greg Solomon, that is, with Greg's permission. Greg's channel has been silent since...
The end?

[hyemew]

Ahh yeah, today I saw the may I show everyone your emails thing. That is hilarious the GregSolomon is creepy to the extreme, which kind of makes me laugh. Incredible, incredible.

[Smashing]

Gemma is off the top 20, dropping to 21.
Wisconsin-based comedy filmmakers BlameSocietyProductions, who hit it big with their "Chad Vader" series, jumped from #24 to #19 this week. That filthy whore, Filthywhore, jumped from #31 to #16!