Simpler times on the internet.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Jramale. Picture this. The year is 2014.

The year is 2014.

Happy by Ferell Williams is playing on every top 100 station.

The Ellen De Generous star-studded Oscar selfie has just broken the internet.

The short-form video app Vine is still going strong and millions are

posting videos of themselves being showered with freezing water as part of

the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge including Oprah.

I am ready for the ice now.

As all this is happening, in some corners of social media,

a bunch of content creators are about to start making a whole lot of money.

As culture writer, Steph E. Salle writes in the ringer, 2014 shaped the internet we know today.

Since social media is like first beginnings in the early aughts, it was really just a way for you

to connect interpersonally with people within your network, right?

Like the early days of my space, we're very much about like... in your personal

personal friends.

And as things began to go viral and views began to surpass into the millions multi millions the billions

Social media became a place for everyone to reach out to not just their friends but anyone in the world.

And so that's really the beginning of that you really see in the 2010s

as more young people are hopping on to YouTube and Tumblr to create a brand for themselves

whether you know they recognized it or not.

...