Can you create a bubbly, cheeky two-dimensional persona that hides the emptiness of your life? Enjoy this careers service-style primer

How to be a vlogger: a guide for wannabe YouTubers

A survey of 1,000 children has revealed that three-quarters would consider a career in vlogging. But is there a viable market for YouTubers, and how do you even get started? Here’s a career guide.

1. Entry requirements

YouTubing has an abnormally low entry threshold. So long as you have a laptop with a webcam, a YouTube account and a flair for endless insincere grinning that barely masks the swirling vortex of abject nothingness that consumes your every waking moment, you’re ready to take your first steps.

2. Skills required

You’ll need:

• An amiable manner.

• A cool haircut.

• Enough time on your hands to believe that filming yourself opening a box isn’t a grotesque waste of the precious life you’ve been given.

• Decent lighting.

3. What you’ll do

• Create a bubbly two-dimensional persona that’s both cheeky and inspiring.

• Document your entire life in a series of well-edited videos.

• Review products that you’re sent, being careful to avoid saying anything critical.

• Back up your brand with endless Instagram and Snapchat posts that show your young followers just how cool your entire life is.

• Be slightly vague about who sponsors you.

• Convince an out-of-work journalist to spend three days listlessly ghostwriting a book for you, then watch their face as it goes on to outsell all the important work they have ever cared about.

• End all of your sentences with the phrase: “Thanks guys, don’t forget to subscribe!”

4. Salary

Starter: Literally nothing.

Experienced: Almost nothing, unless you manage to sign with an experienced vlogger agency.

Highly experienced: Hundreds of thousands of pounds a month (note: you will never reach this stage).

These figures are a guide.

5. Career path and progression

With experience, you could use your vlog as a way to leapfrog into acting, or singing, or writing, or any of the other old-fashioned industries that vlogging is ostensibly supposed to disrupt. But make the jump quickly, because there’s an army of younger and more enthusiastic vloggers nipping at your heels, and you’ll be on the scrapheap before you know it. This will be a shame, because you have no other marketable skills to speak of.

Related careers

You may be interested in:

• Television presenting.

• Opening local fetes.

• Staring at yourself in a mirror for days at a time.

• Smiling! Smiling like you’re thrilled by everything! Smiling so hard it hurts! It hurts so much!