I guess I could say that I owe YouTube for making me the cultured person that I am today. I owe YouTube for helping me learn how to properly do my makeup. I owe YouTube for helping me cram for tests the night before. I owe YouTube for giving me an elaborate interest in fashion. I owe YouTube for letting me explore different types of music.

As you can imagine, the list goes on and on. In reality, though, it’s not only the site that I’m thanking. True, I wouldn’t have learned any of these things if it weren’t for the website but, at the same time, I wouldn’t have learned any of these things if it weren’t for the people behind the camera who take the time out of their day to plan a video, film it, edit it, and go through the sometimes-tedious task of posting it.

As soon as I entered high school, I realized that there were some tips that I needed—some tricks that I wanted to learn—that school simply wouldn’t teach me. There’s no class for makeup, no class for fashion, no class for discovering new music, and no class for learning random—and sometimes pointless—facts that make for great conversation starters. Using YouTube for more than just looking up music opened doors for me; I have a strong feeling that I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t spent countless hours of my Saturdays on the site. You can’t imagine how shocked I was when I found out that other people were as devoted to the site—to the vloggers—as I was.

But let’s start in the beginning.  After some time, I began to notice that on YouTube I would continuously be looking at videos made by the same people. By clicking “subscribe” next to these vlogger’s icons, I soon was sucked into a whole new world. When I started watching more of these same people’s videos, I also started following them on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. Everywhere I turned, I could see what these vloggers were doing. I could easily pick up on the new fashion trends based on what they were wearing, and I could easily have access to the new music they were listening to. So many other people are eager to find out about what goes on in the lives of these YouTubers—because many of them have more than 10,000 followers on Twitter (some even have millions!) and five times as many subscribers on YouTube—but the question is: Why? Why do we treat these people like celebrities? Why do we look up to people who we don’t even know that much?

I know that some people go on YouTube to find people like them—people who have the same interests and hobbies—because maybe their friends don’t like the same things they do. I think that sometimes we all want someone to share our passion for certain things with us. Sometimes, we crave to listen to what other people have to say about the things we love because we don’t have someone in our lives who can contribute an opinion regarding the things we want to talk about. It’s like some YouTubers are our friends; we look up to them because they have this persona on camera that enchants us. It doesn’t matter to us how they are off-camera because, frankly, we will probably never get to know them in real life. This doesn’t change the fact that we want to learn from them, because we still keep watching their videos; they intrigue us. YouTubers are charmers in the sense that many of them have the ability to reel us in and hold us in front of our computer screen, listening to what they have to say about random topics and interests that we have in common with them.

If we watch some videos—whether they’re about music or painting or science—to better educate ourselves, then what’s the harm in that? We should try to learn as much as we can, and