I have been meaning to write this blog post for a long time now and, since attending SITC it has helped me understand a little bit more about YouTube culture. So I am going to talk about my SITC experience and then talk about Fangirls and then give you guys my overall opinion.

I attended SITC (Summer In The City) for all three days of the weekend. I got to attend one scheduled meet up, watch live shows on the main stage and attend a few panels. The scheduled meet up was on the Sunday for DoddleOddle (Dodie Clark) and I was aware that for the first time this year the organisers of SITC made all meet ups have a ticketing system. Some disagreed with it but I thought it was a great idea. It meant that people attending SITC were not just sat in a queue for 5-6 hours and realise they did nothing but wait for people. I only attended one meet up and the rest of the meet ups I attended were all impromptu. These were far better as it gave you a chance to hang around with them for a little longer and talk to them. I was worried that a lot of people who went to SITC had only the intention of going to meet ups, but SITC offers more then just meet ups. Personally I wanted to see a lot of live shows and also attend a couple of panels. I managed to sit down a couple times especially on the Saturday and watch some live shows. I got to see comedy sketches to musical performances and this was something I really enjoyed about the weekend. A lot of people who went did end up sitting or standing for the performances, which for me was amazing. Not everyday do you get to see a comedy sketch, which you would normally watch on a laptop screen, appear in front of you and have a collect feeling of happiness. I only attended two panels at the event and both were really good and very insightful. I attended one of the Friday and then another on the Sunday. A lot of people do attend panels and I think that is fantastic that people have a keen interest in the said subject. The panel on Sunday, which I attended, was for mental health and I went away learning a lot more about the issue.

Fangirling is a thing that happened a lot over the entire weekend of SITC and happens generally anytime anyone meets or sees something about their obsession.  I have to admit I did fangirl a little when I was meeting a few YouTubers at SITC. I think regardless of the subject we all fangirl about something. Mine just happens to be about YouTubers. When I met a few YouTubers I had the quick heartbeat and got shaky but I managed to bottle it and not go too crazy. I have no objection to fangirling what so ever, but I find the concept of people chasing people around a venue just to get a picture completely bizarre. I witnessed it quite a lot over the course of the weekend and you just saw one person with a swarm of fangirls around them. I know that these people on YouTube never expected to get such a massive following and I am sure that at some point they must have fangirled over meeting someone they liked. I respect those YouTubers who say they do not call their viewers fans and hate the idea of having a massive following and just want the interaction between video maker and viewer as normal as possible.  I wanted throughout the weekend just be able to have a one on one conversation with YouTubers. I was lucky enough to talk to them on Friday very briefly and have a great discussion, about content and video making. I wish it could be a lot easier to talk to YouTubers and be able to talk about content. Since being an older viewer of YouTubers I am a lot less interested in the whole gossip side of things. I would rather sit down with a YouTuber and have a civilised chat with them. Then at events like these you put everything into perspective and it is not safe or logistically does not work. So it gets harder now to talk to them one on one, but I sometimes wish that at panels they would extend the questions from viewer to panel members to a lot longer because by the time it gets to that they have to hurry up. With the rise in popularity in social media as way to connect with people it gets harder to talk to a YouTuber. I appreciate when a YouTuber replies to my comment on a video, as it is a great way to start a discussion about a certain topic. I think this is very effective way of talking to YouTubers. I think over the years the divide between YouTuber and viewer has become a load wider then what it used to be. I think of it, as the YouTuber in their own right is a viewer themselves. I make videos so I do call myself a YouTuber but I am equally a viewer as well. I love talking to my viewers and discussing certain things I never treat any of them like I am superior to them.

Overall I found my time at SITC very over whelming and I went away learning a lot more about YouTube then I did before. I am glad I was able to gain better knowledge about YouTubers and YouTube Culture. It would be great to see a change in the ability to talk to YouTubers. I would love to start a discussion about what I wrote in the comment section below. I will happily reply to tweets about this subject as well. Since I think this subject is a great talking point. Thank you so much for reading this and if you got this far then cheers. I really appreciate it.

Thanks

Akika

xxxx