The cluster of posters is part of a recent redecoration of his home that’s complete with deer heads and vintage maps. Apart from the One Direction posters, Oakley called his aesthetic “grandma chic.” His newly renovated digs are a far cry from his early days as a vlogger hailing from Michigan State University. Inspired by early LGBT YouTuber William Sledd’s “Ask a Gay Man” series, Oakley started making videos in 2007 as a way to update his friends back home about life in college. Since then, he is known in the YouTube community for his loud, sassy take on pop culture news and is inching towards 1 million subscribers. He’s also seen mainstream fame earlier this year thanks to a brief appearance in Pepsi’s intro to Beyonce’s Super Bowl Half Time Show, where he encouraged his legion of “professional fangirls” to submit their photos for consideration.

Many of his vlogs show him fawning over “Glee” actor Darren Criss, collaborating with mega-YouTubers like Kingsley, and promoting The Trevor Project, an organization preventing suicide among LGBT youth.

Read my interview with the “professional fangirl” to find out the moment he knew YouTube was his calling, how his videos inspire LGBT youth, and ending the debate once and for all — who is the hottest member of One Direction.

Check out the full interview below or visit the last page for the partial video interview.

I’m curious about the remodeled digs you have here.

Tyler Oakley: My new apartment, welcome.

What’s up with these deer? You have a lot of deer motifs.

I don’t know, I just like it. I think over the past few months I lived in L.A. I’ve been going to the flea market and I just keep picking up stuff, and then I looked at my collection and it’s just like a whole bunch of antlers and deer, and I’m like, “I guess that’s what I like.” But yeah, that and globes and what else do I have a lot of … I don’t know. Yeah a lot of globes, a lot of deer, a lot of owls, a lot of floral, I love floral — if you couldn’t tell — floral everywhere. It’s bad.

You got the cosmopolitan and taxidermy together.

When they were helping me figure out how to design, they were like, “What is your aesthetic?” and I was like, “Grandma chic.” I think that’s what I’ve accomplished [laughs]. Maybe.

Reminds me of visiting my great aunt.

Thank you. That’s exactly what I’m going for [laughs].

As the huge anti-government protests have taken over Turkey for a third week, protesters are finding other ways to express their frustrations after police cracked down on their gatherings. The newest meme to come out of the Turkey protests is the Standing Man, wherein protesters stand for long periods of time in silence.

Erdem Gunduz, the inspiration behind the Standing Man meme, explained why he stood in silence at Taksim Square for more than eight hours Monday to Hurriyet TV: “I am just an ordinary citizen of this country. We want our voices to be heard.”

However, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the main target of anti-government protests, would like to see none of these memes from going viral. Doubling-down on his comments that Twitter is a “scourge” and that social media is a “menace to society,” USA Today reported he and his government are creating a bill that would legislate how Turks use social media and give more powers to police in terms of future protests.

Turkey’s Interior Minister Muammer Guler explained to Hurriyet Daily News about the government’s reasoning to restrict social media: “We have a study on those who provoke the public via manipulations with false news and lead them to actions that would threaten the security of life and property by using Twitter, Facebook or other tools of social media. Still, we think that the issue needs a separate regulation.”

What started out as a protest in late May against the government’s plans to redevelop Istanbul’s Taksim Square into malls and museums has grown into a national movement against the conservative policies of Erdogan and his AK Party. The protests have since turned violent as police started cracking down on demonstrators, killing five and injuring thousands.

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Kurt Hugo Schneider just released to his channel his newest video that covers Jason Derulo’s single “The Other Side” and features vocals by Max Schneider, actress Keke Palmer and a surprise appearance by Derulo himself.

“I’ve always thought Jason was an incredible performer so getting to work with him was great!” Max Schneider shared with NMR. “I think collaboration is so important, and bringing together different audiences to enjoy a single product created by two very different artists is always amazing. My favorite experience was watching Jason dance solo. He is ridiculously talented. It was cool to get a private performance.”

Last week, Derulo collaborated on a video of the same song with YouTube musician Tyler Ward that has since been viewed close to 240,000 times.

In other collaboration news:

Jason Derulo and YouTube Musician Tyler Ward Collaborate On Newly Released Acoustic Cover

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Taryn  Southern, Alex G’s ‘I Love It’ Music Video is Hotter Than McDonald’s Coffee [VIDEO]

There is a kind of panic that sets in once you realize that a video is dangerously close to hitting that coveted 301+ marker. Once a video hits 301+ and stops, it typically means YouTube’s automated system has frozen the view counter to verify that the incoming views are organic and not computer generated.

301+ means your video is racking up views quicker than YouTube can verify their authenticity. It is a great sign that your upload is gaining steam and has the potential to, for lack of a better term, go viral.

Your video has been noticed, people are commenting, and views are piling up. So, what do you do now?

Check Your Analytics and Start Adjusting

If you want your video to hit that 301 count and then really climb into viral territory, you might want to consider checking out your video’s analytics. For this example, we’ll take a look at the analytics for a recent NMR YouTube upload.

For every video, YouTube provides a detailed set of analytics ranging from demographic to playback locations. These stats are key to understanding how and by whom these videos are being viewed.

Take these traffic source statistics for example:

As you can see, the majority of traffic is coming in from within YouTube through either searches, NMR’s YouTube page or through the suggested video feed. However, looking down the list, it is clear that very little of this video’s traffic is being generated from outside sources (Twitter, Google+, etc).

This tells us one thing: we need to step up our social media game. By really pushing this video within the social media sphere, we can snap up additional traffic sources. If your analytics look similar at any point, hop on Twitter or Facebook and promote the holy hell out of your trending video.

The same principles apply for analytics pertaining to in-YouTube search results and suggested video feeds. If any of those fields seem to be struggling to bring in traffic, consider changing your tags or title to be slightly more search friendly.

Tinkering with your analytics comes with a price, however. If you do decide to change any aspect of your upwards trending video, it could offset the initial magic that lead to it becoming popular. A switched tag here or one Twitter promotion too many could result in a loss of momentum.

This line of logic leads to the second route a creator can take if their video seems to be on the verge of viral, which is …

Don’t Do Anything

Listen, your video is raking in views for a reason, and that reason seems to be good enough for your steadily growing audience. If taking that risk of possibly over-promoting or screwing up your analytics seems too dangerous for you then just don’t do anything.

This option is also a gamble though, as more often than not, in the steady flood of daily uploaded YouTube videos, a potentially viral video could easily be washed away. If you decide to kick back and let the views roll in, those very same views could crawl to a stop in days or even hours. By remaining stagnant, you are relying on your audience to share with their friends and so on.

Doing nothing is probably the safest bet, but it’s still a risk nonetheless.

Where do you fall on the great 301+ debate? Should you tailor your video to hit that next level of viralness or leave it alone and pray to the gods of YouTube instead? Let us know in the comments below.

For More On How To Become The New King/Queen Of YouTube:

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I suspect that this video came into existence because everybody looks at Kourtney Kardashian’s baby daddy, Scott Disick, and thinks, “American Psycho.” I further suspect that Scott is aware of this and privately aspires to be “Patrick Bateman.” And now, because of Kanye West’s intervention, Scott has had the opportunity to “play Patrick Bateman.” The end result? It might just be the worst thing since that Timmy kid fell down the well and Lassie drowned trying to save him.

Made as a promotional short for Kanye’s new album, this riff on a classic “American Psycho” scene stars Disick as “Patrick Bateman” and Kim Kardashian’s personal assistant, Jonathan Cheban, as the “Paul Allen” character.

I used to think — when forced to watch the Kardashian show by my terrible, terrible wife — that Disick was “playing the bad guy” in order to make the show more “interesting.” I now see that this guy has exactly the opposite of whatever the fuck “acting chops” is. Quite simply, nobody does a worse job at ANYTHING than this guy does playing Patrick Bateman. Honestly, I would put Scott Disick’s acting ability in the same league with John Denver’s piloting skills, child pornography and nightmares.

The question is: Does it have the legs to topple the Holocaust as the worst thing ever? I think time will tell. The answer is probably “no” though.

Here are some more terrible things — discretion advised:

The Queen Of Hearts And Her Royal Flush Bust A Move In Creepy ‘Dancing Queen’ Video

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Some Dicks Named Their Newborn Baby ‘Hashtag Jameson’

The social media court of royals is doing a little remodeling today, as Rihanna, the “Good Girl Gone Bad” singer, just hopped over Justin Bieber on YouTube to become the most watched artist. Rihanna already had more subscribers than Bieber — her 8.73 million trumped his 4.9 million, but now she has it over him in the views department as well.

Sometime early this morning, Rihanna’s official Vevo channel pushed past Bieber’s official Vevo channel by 2 million views, bringing her total view count to more than 3.784 billion views. Also of note is that she did it with just 77 videos on her channel whereas he has 79. The numbers reveal that while Rihanna has a bigger reach amongst the varying demographics overall, Bieber has the more engaged fan base, so decide for yourself which is the better position to be in.

Expect their positions to swap every time one of them releases a new song though.

For more social media statistics, check out this infographic:

Rihanna, Gaga, Bieber Lead Top 10 Most Social Media Savvy Celebrities [INFOGRAPHIC]

Americans are particularly known worldwide as being a mostly monolingual culture; despite its ethnic diversity and rich immigrant history, only 1 in 5 Americans are competent or fluent in a foreign language.

New Yorker Tim Doner is one of the few Americans who are hyperpolyglots — people who speak more than six languages fluently. In fact, Doner can speak 20 languages fluently or competently, including French, Urdu, Hebrew and Arabic. What makes him stand out even more is that he’s only 17 years old and has been learning languages since he was 13.

YouTube channel THNKR followed the young hyperpolyglot in this viral video as he goes around New York City talking to strangers in various languages on topics ranging from the Middle East conflict to which Urdu book to buy.

See Doner explain how he learns multiple languages in the viral video above.

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Luckily, Subblime — a new social hub co-created by YouTube creator Elle Walker (What’sUpElle) — is trying to make brand integration more accessible for creators. Subblime, which already launched with Big Frame as a partner, is a hub where YouTube “influencers” can share their favorite items ranging from cosmetics to lifestyle products.

Upon joining Subblime, a follower can subscribe to their favorite creators’ pages where they can access lists and product recommendations as chosen by the creator. Of course, if the products are available for sale, a user can also “Get It,” which directs them to a purchase page.

According to a press release, Subblime “provides a revenue opportunity through affiliate product sales, sponsorships and other product-driven marketing campaigns.” This translated from press jargon means that participating creators, if working with a brand, could receive a percentage of any given sale.

Founder of Subblime Adam Winnick explains the genesis of the platform: “Fans frequently inquire about YouTube influencers’ favorite things and now Subblime can help facilitate community and commerce around those curiosities. We’re already seeing off the chart click through rates and engagement from our beta testing.”

It’s tough to see Subblime working for any other creators beyond beauty gurus, as they work with specific cosmetic products. However, other avenues could open up for YouTubers down the road. Maybe DeStorm could sell New Era hats and MysteryGuitarMan could recommend sunglasses. Just spitballing here.

Beauty Gurus, YouTubers and So Much More:

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No wonder my fortune cookies are always broken …

1.8 million YouTubers have cryptically tuned in to be surprised at this video of an employee doing something disturbing. It’s good that stuff like this still makes waves — I was worried it was becoming commonplace.

There is an almost comical Charlie Chaplinesque way to the manner in which this cargo loader at a Chinese airport operates. Grabbing boxes and throwing them at the conveyor belt used for loading them onto the plane, he winds up dropping more boxes to the ground than he successfully loads. In the end, since all the boxes need to end up on the plane, he then expends more labor having to reload them correctly. He is sort of madcap in his ignorance for this fact. You almost want to point this notion out to the man, but in the end, it is more fun to watch the mayhem. Really, if you sped up the video and added a sort of “Yakety Sax” theme, you’d have a fun, silly montage instead of this terribly inept employee being busted on the job.

Of course, anything sped up with a “Yakety Sax” theme to it seems comical. Except 9/11. Probably.

For more inept employees getting busted, check out the following link:

Walmart Employees Caught Tossing, Breaking Apple Ipads On Video

Americans celebrated Flag Day a few days ago, and what better way to celebrate the Stars and Stripes than rapping in front of it for a music video? Lil Wayne took it a step further, however, and not in a patriotic way.

Someone caught the rapper stepping on the American flag on a mobile phone video over the weekend during a shoot for his music video for the song “God Bless Amerika.” At the start of the video, Lil Wayne is rapping on a microphone in front of an American flag. As soon as the beat drops, one of the crew members drops the flag and Lil Wayne dances on top of it. It doesn’t help the rapper that his lyrics for “God Bless Amerika” includes: “My country tis of thee/Sweet land of kill em all and let em die.”

The rapper explained his side to the flag-trampling music video shot in New Orleans on his Facebook page: “It was never my intention to desecrate the flag of the United States of America. I was shooting a video for a song off my album entitled ‘God Bless Amerika’. The clip that surfaced on the Internet was a camera trick clip that revealed that behind the American Flag was the Hoods of America. In the final edit of the video you will see the flag fall to reveal what is behind it but will never see it on the ground.”

The video garnered more than 300,000 views and mostly negative feedback on YouTube. More than 3,400 dislikes have been recorded since the video went live on Sunday.

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