Over 17 years, YouTube has transformed from a place to share home videos to a cultural juggernaut that helps elect presidents. A new book from Mark Bergen gives unparalleled insights into the platform’s rise

Technology 14 September 2022

YouTube creators can have enormous influence over popular culture

Inside Creative House/getty images

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Mark Bergen (Penguin Business)

THE sheer scale of YouTube is inescapable. The site is the world’s biggest video-sharing platform, a veritable Alexandrian library for the digital 21st century and a de facto search engine for billions of people worldwide.

Its position in our lives is all the more extraordinary when you consider its age: if YouTube were a person, it would be unable to drive in many countries, and still couldn’t legally drink in the UK, US and Australia. …