The lights go out. A man is laughing. Someone begins to wail. Sitting at home on your laptop, you’re nervous, but safe. (We hope.) However, Felix Kjellberg, better known online as PewDiePie, isn’t. He’s in an abandoned room of a hospital that he’s trying to escape. He grabs a video camera covered in cockroaches. He's filming the scene with a handheld recorder as another camera, which is strapped to his chest, films his reactions. Patients are screaming. PewDiePie is screaming. You also might be screaming—or, you know, laughing.

Welcome to Scare PewDiePie, YouTube's first original series launching today on the company's new subscription service Red. PewDiePie is best known for his clips of videogame reactions on his immensely popular YouTube channel. But Scare PewDiePie takes him into real-world horror scenes (videogames IRL, essentially), and brings you the same rubber-faced responses he'd give you from a dark corner of Kholat.

This takes a lot more production gloss than his typical videos—but the additional shine was made possible thanks to the cash YouTube is infusing into its new slate of originals. Along with Scare PewDiePie, YouTube is also launching three new original feature films today, including A Trip to Unicorn Island, Dance Camp, and Lazer Team, all featuring some of YouTube's biggest stars. The company also announced two new original projects today, a series called Foursome with Jenn McAllister and Logan Paul, and a feature-length documentary about the journey of a transgender woman called Untitled GiGi Gorgeous. It also outlined the next wave of originals we can expect to see in coming months.

For YouTube, the launch of Red Originals is a pretty significant step for a company that practically invented online video.

For YouTube, the launch of Red Originals is a pretty significant step for a company that practically invented online video. YouTube, after all, has long been the place where pretty much everyone shares homemade clips. But with these new offerings the company is getting more hands-on, helping stars (and production companies) make videos with much higher production values while also drawing an audience to its new paid subscription service.

“YouTube has had a huge impact in the history of video,” says Burnie Burns, the cofounder of *Lazer Team'*s production company Rooster Teeth. “It only makes sense that we would take the next step in our evolution together.”

And ultimately, as high-quality online videos become a more central part of how we watch entertainment, YouTube is in a place where it has to evolve. With Red, it's proving that it can do its own thing—essentially, just by being a flashier, more niche YouTube—while avoiding having to compete with Amazon or Netflix, or losing talent to its competition.

Artist-Driven Stories

Founded in 2005, YouTube has been one of Internet video's biggest sandboxes for a long time. Today, one billion people watch videos on the site each month. But, unlike back in the mid-aughts, there are a lot more options today for people who want to watch (and create) online entertainment, and YouTube now competes with originals served up by newer players ranging from Amazon to Vimeo. So why would artists want to launch their bigger films or shows on YouTube Red?

For one, YouTube still offers a creator-centric environment. It's also the place where many of those creators have built enormous fan followings. By working with YouTube Red, artists—like PewDiePie or the folks at Rooster Teeth—are able to keep their stories close to their core base. “The fans are there already," says Judy McGrath, founder and president of Astronauts Wanted, which produced Lilly Singh's A Trip to Unicorn Island.

"The idea was to see if we can help tell the kind of story [the fans would] expect to see," McGrath says, "but take it a little deeper in terms of story, challenges, and overcoming odds.” She adds that, even as Astronauts Wanted worked to make the production value a bit higher than Singh's normal videos, they wanted to make sure it didn't look "too manufactured."

More than anywhere else online, YouTube also has an incredibly vast range of substance, style, and storytelling. The originals offer a way to keep that same YouTube DNA while adding in the higher production value that comes with financial support. “One of the things that was great was, because we did it for YouTube, we didn’t have this standardized length format,” says David Alpert, The Walking Dead executive producer and president of Skybound Entertainment, which produced *Scare PewDiePie *along with Maker Studios. “We said, ‘Let’s just make the episode great.’ That part was really freeing.”

“When I watch Netflix, it doesn’t feel any different than when I watch AMC or FX. It’s TV delivered on a different platform,” Alpert adds. “But YouTube, they feel different. We’ve never seen a 17-minute show on Netflix, or a 3-minute show. But you see that on YouTube all the time.”

Alpert adds that in producing Scare PewDiePie he felt free to think about how much time was needed for each episode as well as what were the most important parts that they needed to include, rather than conforming to how networks and studios have long structured shows. “For us on YouTube, it’s really more about, what is the most fun we can have? How can we fit in as much terror? How can we put as many gags on him as possible?” Alpert says.

YouTube also gives artists and production companies the chance to focus on, well, what both they and their fans want: the stars. The film Dance Camp, for example, features YouTube stars Meg DeAngelis along with actor Nadji Jeter but is also peppered with cameos of other YouTube stars that young superfans will recognize. "Red is about giving YouTube's biggest fans what they want," says Tim Shey, the head of scripted originals for Red.

YouTube About YouTube

YouTube is not only helping artists tell more in-depth stories, but it’s also providing a way for more diverse stories to be told. Netflix and Amazon may be able to serve up different kinds of tales than some of the traditional studios, but by tapping into the range of talent already on its platform YouTube can reach and capture an even broader population with its originals.

“Anything you want, you can find on YouTube,” Susanne Daniels, the global head of original content at YouTube, said in a presentation at the Sundance Film Festival last month. “These independent creators are exactly who we’re seeking to support with YouTube Originals."

So, what’s in it for YouTube? As a business, the new originals are a way to get the superfans to pay for Red. The original films and shows will only be available for subscribers to the service, which costs $9.99 a month for access to ad-free videos, unlimited music streaming, and, yes, the originals. (The success of these originals may depend, however, on whether YouTubers are willing to pay.)

Beyond that, Red is also a way for YouTube to make sure it doesn’t lose its stars to more traditional studios or newer digital upstarts. Online video celebs Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, and Hannah Hart, for example, sold their feature film Dirty Thirty to Lionsgate. YouTubers Lauren Elizabeth Luthringshausen and Jenn McAllister, meanwhile, starred in the teen comedy* Bad Night*, which streamed exclusively on Vimeo.

By funding high-quality films and shows, YouTube is creating a way for its stars to make the big, high-quality shows and films they now want to make (and can market with their star power)—but to make them with YouTube. Every entertainment company, after all, is trying to find and capitalize on the hottest new talent. YouTube has been a very real part of creating the stars on its platform—with Red, they don't have to lose it.

If Red is able to attract a real audience with its YouTube-star-studded originals, its future may even include celebs from, well, beyond the Internet. "We plan to continue to develop programming that celebrates and supports YouTube creators," Shey says. "But down the road we may welcome creators from other places to create movies and series that we feel will resonate."