Every summer, a convention called RTX is held in Austin, Texas. It’s a kind of merger between gamer culture and internet culture, and last year’s event brought in around 30,000 attendees. This is especially amazing because the first RTX was only a few years ago in 2011, and the attendance was only a few hundred. The convention has been growing exponentially over only a few years, almost always exceeding expectations.
The convention is organized by Rooster Teeth Productions, one of the most successful internet based production companies, and attended mostly by Rooster Teeth’s fans. Started by five friends in their 20s in 2003 and dealing mostly in Machinima with the Red vs. Blue series, it has now grown into a large company with around 100 employees and creating all kinds of web content. Machinima, animated shows, let’s plays, live action skits, podcasts, and gaming news to name a few.
That’s the thing about Rooster Teeth: it’s nearly all web-based. Rooster Teeth as well as the popularization of YouTube has given rise to the web celebrity. Sort of mini-celebrities, these people have relatively small but still sizable and vocal fan bases. For example, Rooster Teeth’s creative director Burnie Burns has 370,000 followers on Twitter, and the Rooster Teeth YouTube channel has over 8 million subscribers.
Many of these kinds of celebrities have been based in YouTube, such as Markiplier or the Game Grumps, but now people are gathering fans from other websites as well. Vine in particular seems to have given rise to several new web celebs, who consistently make vines for the entertainment of their followers.
It’s an interesting phenomenon, because these celebrities share similarities with what we think of as regular celebrities in that people will line up at cons to see them, to hug them or to get an autograph. But many of these celebrities have a more connected relationship with their fans. Danny of Game Grumps for instance poured his heart out in one episode of the show, speaking about his struggles with depression and OCD. He gives advice and several times speaks directly to the viewers.
Even more recently, Rooster Teeth lost employee and animator extraordinaire Monty Oum to a severe allergic reaction during a medical procedure. The fan community took the news hard; thousands took to social media to offer their condolences and celebrate his life. It revealed how connected the community is as they came together on social media to talk about Monty and the ways he and his work affected their lives.
The bottom line is that web celebrities feel more like our friends than other celebrities. They so often connect to fans directly, and most are extremely happy to meet fans out on the street. They show extreme humility, likely because they were at one time fans of someone or something the way we’re now fans of them. I know that personally, having been watching Game Grumps for about two years now, feel like I know everyone on the show pretty well (though in reality I probably don’t). There’s just a much more personal feeling to web content than other types of media.
These celebrities are going to keep growing in stature and popularity for a long time. Companies like Rooster Teeth are continuing to branch out into other things. Rooster Teeth’s own Burnie Burns, Gus Sorola, and Gavin Free were on an episode of Comedy Central’s @midnight, and the company even has a feature film in post-production.
Rooster Teeth is likely the first of many web-based companies and groups to break into the mainstream in such a way, and they will surely continue to do so. They will keep moving forward while maintaining their relationship with fans, which is what makes them so unique in the first place. The Rooster Teeth fan base, and that of Game Grumps, are made up of lovely and enthusiastic people who I’m happy to share a community with.
That sense of community is what makes all this web content so special. It’s not just the videos themselves, it’s knowing that there’s hundreds of thousands of other people out there who like the same thing, and who you can easily talk to and make friends with. These already tight-knit communities will keep growing, and more will show up as more content creators break into fame. Internet fame has created a relationship between fans different than any others before, relationships that will continue to blossom for years to come.
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Joel Wallick is currently pursuing a degree in film studies at Bowling Green State University with a minor in creative writing. He has been gaming since early childhood, beginning with Pokemon Silver. Follow him on Twitter @SuperNerdJoel.
