By Lara Prendergast

My friends ten-year-old daughter has a new hobby. Like many of her school pals， she hopes to become a video blogger—a“vlogger”. She has started to record clips2 of herself for others to watch， share and “like”. She showed me a few， then gave me a list of famous vloggers to watch： JoJoSiwa， iJustine， Noodlerella， Zoella. Their names sounded so bizarre3. But they are totally familiar to tweenage4 girls.

Like an earnest-marketing executive， my friends daughter then explained to me that it was all a matter of numbers. If her videos are viewed 40，000 times on YouTube， she can have adverts placed on them； 100，000， and companies would start sending her products to promote. One million and shed be a bona fide5 YouTube star. Her most recent video， about a doll she had been given for Christmas， had 11 views. There was still a way to go.

This seemed a peculiar phenomenon but my friends daughter is not alone. In fact， her dream is perfectly normal for her generation： one in three children between the ages of 11 and 16 have uploaded a video to YouTube. In a survey last year， 75 per cent of the children asked said they wanted to be YouTube stars. The research also revealed that many of the children would rather learn video-editing than history or maths.

Who can blame them？ Vlogging can now be a well-paid career. Unlike the more traditional dream jobs—pop star， doctor， footballer， astronaut—it doesnt take much effort. All it requires is a smartphone and gallons6 of youthful self-confidence.

There are plenty of people with that. The 27-year-old British vlogger Zoella and her boyfriend Alfie Deyes have both made millions from their respective channels. Ryan， the six-year-old American host of the YouTube channel RyanToysReview， made ￡8.5 million last year from reviewing toys and sweets. At the pocketmoney end of the scale is Erin Rose， an eight-year-old British girl who reviews stationery7 on YouTube， and made ￡200 last year. JoJoSiwa， a hyperactive 14-year-old from Nebraska， has made more of a fortune flogging her colourful “JoJo bows”.8 They are more than “just a hair accessory”， she explains to her millions of viewers. They are “a symbol of power， confidence， believing-ness.” They have also caused havoc9 in playgrounds， and a number of British schools have banned them.

In reality， the most theyll end up with is an embarrassing collection of videos theyll want to delete later in life. But I suspect these vloggers offer us a glimpse of the near future. A cynical， cut-throat world in which many traditional jobs and skills are replaced by robots21—and real people， young and old， are instead forced to compete with each other to sell， sell， sell. If so， these young vloggers are probably well prepared for whats coming. My friends daughter was right： its a numbers game.

1. vlog： video blog的简称，即视频形式的博客，指在互联网上发布的视频形式的网络日志；bewitch： 使着迷，蛊惑。

2. clip： 视频片段。

3. bizarre： 古怪的。

4. tweenage： 10—12岁之间的。

5. bona fide： 真正的，真实的。

6. gallon： 加仑，液体计量单位，复数形式也指“大量的”。

7. stationery： 文具。

8. hyperactive： 异常活跃的； Nebraska：内布拉斯加，美国中西部的一个州；flog： 出售，卖；bow： 蝴蝶结。

9. havoc： 混乱，浩劫。

10. tat： 不值钱的东西，质量低劣的东西。

11. entrepreneurial： 创业者的，企业家的；narcissism： // 自恋，自我陶醉；materialism： 实利主义，物质主义。

12. catchy：（曲调或口号）悦耳易記的。

13. YouTube上大受欢迎的视频博客类型主要有两种：“好物测评”和“开箱分享”。前者指博主分享新入手物品的使用心得，后者则是分享物品拆开包装的过程，并对其进行探讨。haul： 捕获物。

14. 并非每个女孩都如佐拉那样，因此，一如既往，真正的赢家是那些科技公司，它们不断地优化系统，在获取消费者数据的同时从观众那里榨取最大收益。tweak： 对（机器、汽车或系统）作小小的改进。

15. uncharted： 无人涉足的，未经探测的；territory： 领地，领域。

16. recess： 凹处。

17. algorithm： 算法，计算程序。

18. dashboard： 仪表板；tablet： 平板电脑。

19. 但尽管这些措施似乎保护了脆弱的儿童，使其免受图谋不轨的成年人的侵害，却无法保护其不受那些可恶的同龄人，以及他们利益熏心的家长所带来的负面影响，这些人铁了心要一步步踏上YouTube热门视频的榜首。paedophilic： // 恋童癖的；bratty： 无耻的，讨厌的；pushy： 急于求成的，执意强求的；trample： 践踏，踩。

20. stake out： 立桩标出。

21. cynical： 愤世嫉俗的；cut-throat： 残酷的，竞争激烈的。