In recent years, we have witnessed the meteoric rise of influencers. Ordinary individuals expose their most intimate lives, generating massive followers. YouTube, as one of the most popular online platforms in the twenty-first century, has birthed influencers, including Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie and YouTube's youngest millionaire Ryan Kaji as examples. In the Philippines, YouTubers such as the late Lloyd Cadena, Michelle Dy, Zeinab Harake, Ja Mil, Ivana Alawi, and Mimiyuuuh, to name a few, have occupied the platform, with their channels becoming embedded in the Filipinos’ everyday lives. These figures have essentially become constitutive of Filipinos’ appetite for the consumption of informative and entertaining content. Whether based in or outside the Philippines, they are already part and parcel of Filipino households. Notably, their creative take on genres, unique performances, and interactive branding strategies are paving the way for their visibility, popularity, and even amassing fortune within and beyond social media. In a networked space, they produce, distribute, and monetise mundane, intimate, and random content, ranging from exclusive confessions, skills and knowledge enhancement, talent showcase, up to as outrageous as playing a prank on someone. At the other end of the screen, diverse audiences watch, like, or share these contents and can opt to subscribe or follow content creators that resonate with them. It is through this dynamic and networked environment where sociality, aspirations, and profit-making coalesce.

Of late, YouTube's role in the media ecosystem has expanded from catering to lifestyle videos into being somewhat of an “academy,” where we find a broad range of information that build skills and exchange know-how, or what Utz and Wolfers (2020) call “epistemic communities.”