Marine Slavitch is a journalist at Médianes. She loves magazines, fanzines and all the weird things people print, but she also enjoys watching everything funny and not-so-funny happening on the Internet. Welcome to her half-paper, half-pixel press review.
Which media outlets did YouTuber Inoxtag approach after his Everest climb? How did traditional media cover this Internet culture moment? What angles did independent and specialist media choose? A Pixel Paper in the form of a case study on media coverage of web culture.
Between traditional media and internet culture, it's never been a match made in heaven. From the arrival of the first YouTubers in the 2010s, this relationship has been marked by misunderstanding and, at times, a certain condescension. Creators like Cyprien, Norman fait des vidéos, and Hugo Tout Seul embodied the first generation of made in YouTube talent with short-form content shot in their bedrooms, facing the camera. Then came beauty YouTubers, vloggers, gamers, and so on. The tension intensified with these latter groups.
A key moment in this misunderstanding, often cited as an example, took place during the Salut les Terriens ! broadcast in November 2017, when Squeezie, alias Lucas Hauchard — already one of the biggest YouTube stars in France at the time — was invited by Thierry Ardisson. The conversation, dripping with condescension, illustrated how much traditional media struggled to take web creators seriously, often dismissing them as niche phenomena or reducing them to stereotypes such as the "magnificent slacker" who makes money filming himself eating pizza and playing video games.
Since then, a lot has happened on the internet. Among these, the ZEvent, a streaming marathon where content creators take turns over several days to raise donations for charitable organizations. The initiative led by streamer ZeratoR has become an unmissable annual event on Twitch, skyrocketing in popularity and donations with each edition. Another example is the GP Explorer, a Formula 4 race organized by Squeezie bringing together content creators and broadcast live on Twitch in 2022 and 2023. And then, recently, the documentary by YouTuber and streamer Inès Benazzouz — also known as Inoxtag — about his climb of Mount Everest, released on YouTube (over 31 million views to date) and in cinemas (over 340,000 admissions).
Let's take this event — Everest — as a case study and take a new look at how the media covers Internet culture.
To start, which media outlets did Inoxtag grant interviews to following his ascent? From France Inter's morning show to Montagnes Magazine to Le Dauphiné Libéré, Clique, Quotidien, M6 and France Télévisions, there are actually quite a few. Historically, this may be the first time a content creator has shown such accessibility to mainstream media. This openness is largely explained by the fact that the documentary was released not only on YouTube, but also in cinemas. The goal is therefore twofold: to attract new viewers beyond the YouTube community, and to maximize visibility to offset the costs associated with the expedition, production and distribution of the film.
« Not a boomer, don't pass by… »
This is especially true since, as Webedia's "exclusive talent" (one of France's most influential agencies for managing creators), the video creator is bound by an agency strategy with dedicated press relations teams on hand to ensure creators maximize their visibility when launching major projects. Finally, this proximity is certainly due to personal preferences: while Squeezie avoids traditional interviews and favors direct communication through his own platforms, Inoxtag seems more intent on having his project recognized by figures outside the web sphere. An interesting difference in style and public image management.
"Not a boomer thing, don't just keep scrolling…," writes Le Dauphiné Libéré. The regional daily (read, presumably, largely by people who have probably never heard of Inoxtag) conducts a standard interview about the content creator's motivations. How did the meeting with his guide go? How did the preparation unfold? What did he feel at the summit of Everest? These are all questions already answered by the documentary but which help introduce the scale of Internet-born projects to an audience unfamiliar with it.
Often, articles with repetitive or familiar angles are the ones that serve readers best. In this article, Ezra Klein, founder of the media outlet Vox, explains that he recommends to the journalists in his newsroom not to write for their editors.
"Your editor-in-chief will often want something "new". In other words, something they've never seen before as a hyper-consumer of information. But your readers don't necessarily want the same thing. They want articles that explain their world to them. Often, these won't be very original and may seem repetitive to you: What's in this bill? Why worry about inflation?… Your editor-in-chief will certainly tell you that your outlet, or another, already published this article last June. But your reader probably didn't read that article, and if they did actually read it, they don't remember it." — Ezra Klein, Vox.
For further reading, the reader can turn to Montagnes Magazine. The specialized publication raises the question of the budget for such a project (one million euros), the number of people who worked behind the scenes (around a hundred), and how the YouTuber's audience has evolved since announcing a year ago his intention to climb Everest: "It didn't divide my community. Young people stayed because they didn't necessarily know about mountains, but today, I'd say my community is a bit older." As for Allociné, there's no shortage of flattery directed at the creator who, "deeply moved and very humble," graciously "gave a few minutes" to the site run by Webedia. "The film, beyond the challenge of climbing Everest, is above all a life lesson. And besides, all your fans we met before the screening told us how much you inspire them. What do you want them (sic) to take away from Kaizen?" We'll spare ourselves the answer.
« Finally, you're discovering real life. »
That's already enough for the print press—let's move on to broadcast media. On France Inter, Léa Salamé welcomes the YouTuber on her morning show two days after his documentary's release. After a game of Chinese whispers and invoking Arthur Rimbaud ("One isn't serious when one is seventeen, are they at twenty-two?"), the journalist questions Inès Benazzouz about her documentary's message: put down screens to discover "real life". "In the documentary, we hear your mother say: 'you exhausted me when you wouldn't leave your room at 13, now I have no regrets because finally you're discovering real life', that's one of my favorite sequences," she admits, moments before asking the creator if he has any flaws, "you're too perfect, it's not possible."
We prefer content creators off the Internet
This sequence is particularly revealing of how mainstream media has treated Internet culture in recent years. We see Internet once again portrayed as a culprit, as a devalued space compared to "real life." There seems to be appreciation for climbing Everest primarily because it happens outside the digital realm, as if projects completed online or content produced on Twitch or YouTube weren't worthy of the same recognition. Yet it was precisely by streaming video games that Inoxtag became known and built his community. But this step is often overlooked or downplayed in traditional media discourse, as though online success were somehow less legitimate. And I can't help but wonder why Inoxtag himself follows this line of thinking that pits screens against some supposed higher reality. As long as this vision persists, content creators from Internet will never be fully valued for who they are and what they contribute to culture and entertainment.
Besides, the only moments when the Internet becomes interesting and newsworthy is when creators step off the screen, such as with the GP Explorer, the opening of Léna Situations' pop-up stores or the Zénith events from the Twitch show Zen, which gave its co-host Maxime Biaggi a profile in Libé. The event is the consecration. The rest of the time, creators don't get real, balanced media coverage that's continuous (and specialized!), unlike any other cultural object.
The idea isn't necessarily to please them, but rather to offer journalistic treatment. Because we could have raised two or three criticisms of the documentary itself. About the complete absence of women, about the product placement sequence filmed like a music video, about the relatively limited prominence given to sherpas in the documentary's narrative, about the ecological absurdity that such an expedition represents,… To dig deeper into all these questions, I invite you to follow the work — and in particular this extremely rich and well-constructed live stream — by Vincent Manilève, a journalist specializing in Internet culture.
While these questions weren't addressed by traditional mainstream media (and we can understand why—the main idea being to present Inoxtag and his project), they were covered by certain independent outlets and specialized media.
In the latest edition of the newsletter Rule 30 hosted by Numerama, independent journalist Lucie Ronfaut reflects on the absence of women in Inoxtag's documentary. Throughout the film, the YouTuber references the shōnen spirit, an editorial category from manga culture that evokes values of friendship and self-transcendence. Like him, "on YouTube and other social networks, many young men take Japanese pop culture very seriously. Inoxtag's sports coach, under the pseudonym Manga Workout, for example offers workouts in videos inspired by the most epic manga. Almost all of them are aimed at men." In his documentary, the creator shows no other woman than his mother. "Even when Inoxtag concludes his adventure with a sequence dedicated to his future child, he addresses it to a hypothetical son", notes Lucie Ronfaut.
For its part, the ecology-focused media outlet Reporterre chose to tell the story of the commodification of mountains in an interview alongside Fiona Mille, president of the environmentalist association Mountain Wilderness. While she acknowledges that "it's a good thing that people are interested in mountains," she regrets that the YouTuber never once conveyed an engaged message about the environment. "This race for 'always more, always further' has a negative aspect, it caters to a society of immediacy, where we must go fast and do lots of things, because that's how we gain recognition. Yet the message being conveyed is no longer coherent with the challenges of our century. It continues to sell this imagination of unlimited resources when we have an imperative of sobriety," the activist explains.
A question also raised by Arrêt sur images, in this programme presented by Paul Aveline alongside Amélie Deloche, co-founder of the Paye ton influence movement and Adam Bros, a video creator who analyses the cultural world on his YouTube channel. While Inoxtag briefly mentions the pollution present in the highest camps and shows particular concern during the most dangerous passages of the ascent crowded with hundreds of tourists, "He completely sidesteps the issue, Amélie Deloche notes to Arrêt sur images. It's not their fault at all. "
Why has Inoxtag never been directly confronted with these inconsistencies?
While specialized media outlets covering ecology, feminism, or media issues fulfill their role, media coverage of content creators from the internet, such as Inoxtag, reveals a persistent problem: the absence of journalists specializing in web culture within traditional newsrooms. Without genuine expertise in digital culture in the media, online content creators will continue to be underrepresented and misunderstood. And the media will thus never be able to move to the next level: that of critical, investigative, and rigorous coverage that goes beyond mere sensationalism.
It's on the radar
A few good reads on the subject
★ Journalism covering web culture is often perceived as superficial, focused on trends launched and adopted by younger generations. Yet this culture impacts politics, media, and society as a whole. A call for hiring specialized journalists in newsrooms, signed by independent tech journalist Morgan Sung, founder of the rat.house newsletter about Internet culture.
★ Why are influencers so reluctant to grant interviews to the media? Vincent Manilève, independent journalist and author of YouTube Behind the Screens: Its Artists, Its Heroes, Its Scammers (2018, Lemieux) describes in this article the full complexity of relationships between journalists and web creators. « Today, whether my Internet projects get coverage in the press or not, it doesn't change anything », says Cyprien in La Revue des médias.
★ Why do the most-followed YouTubers invite far more men than women to their channels? In this video, illustrator and YouTuber Lapeint breaks down the numbers. In the top 10 most-followed YouTube channels – owned 100% by men – only 16% of invited guests in 2023 were women. A boys' club, you say? To dig deeper into the subject, I recommend this interview with Lapeint, conducted by independent journalist Manon Boquen for Télérama.
★ This series of articles from Figaro on the behind-the-scenes workers of content creators is a goldmine for understanding the scale of the machinery behind a simple video published on YouTube.
