Oh good lord. Wtf? I know butt-butt is not the sharpest tool in the shed but is he really that dense? I wonder what gleam had to say bout it? Any damage control?

OH shit that's a thing for drama :O

I feel that I'm late on this thread but I'm gonna comment anyway.

My way to the Gleamers was quite short: Tyler Oakley->Jacksgap->Alfie (I think that was it) and then the rest, Zoe, Joe, Caspar, Jim, Tanya & Louise. I'm subscribed to all of them but never watched their videos, maybe the ocassional Louise vlog.

I used to love all of them, like with burning passion I even had a blog on tumblr dedicated to them, as many other had pointed out I loved Zoe's 2013-2014 era, also I found them funny and stuff, when the shit met the fan for me was when Zoe announced her first book and it all went to shit, they started to get really greedy and stuff specially knowing the ghost writer stuff (as a person who dreams of having a book published this was quite an insult for me), and the failed convention did it for me too.

I hate how they have handled everything since then, I found them mostly boring and predictable, the only one I really like is Louise now. I think apart from her close relationship with Zoe, Alfie and Marcus, she doesn't really belong there. But her videos are fun.

Also I don't know how Zoe even dares to have a third book after what happened, srsly?

I'm not hating on them but they have become very basic youtube content for me, I see people with 1k subs that does the same things as them and they do it better. Ah, and Caspar is really funny I still watch him sometimes, he was great in the third Spud movie.

So with public financial records being discussed in the main thread, I decided to have a nosey around the Gleam people's companies and it's pretty interesting tbh. Gleam seems to be a bunch of companies and they're making pretty big money, mostly because all the YTer companies like Tanya and Zoe's beauty, Caspar & Joe's movie, Jim's stationary stuff have 20% of the shares belonging to Gleam, so I guess they get 20% of the profits?
People who were with other management before / on their own don't seem to have those deals though, Alfie, Marcus, Niomi & Louise just run their own stuff without Gleam..
Also they had a big joint company for 'The Crew' that did those mini convention show things? But none of them were shareholders, only Gleam, which I thought was pretty weird.

tldr: I did some research and don't know enough about accounting/business, but figured it might be worth bringing up so someone more in the know can shed some light..?

I did search around gleamers company financial stuff months ago but I can't remember the 20% thing. Probably because I didn't dig in deeper (or only skim read. Haha) or anything

swofro wrote:I did search around gleamers company financial stuff months ago but I can't remember the 20% thing. Probably because I didn't dig in deeper (or only skim read. Haha) or anything

In the paperwork about shares in the company it shows that 80/100 shares belong to the YTer and 20/100 shares belong to Gleam, so 20%

idk if someone has already mentioned this here but Louise has a book/diary i honestly don't know what it is but on the cover there's like a collage of her instagram photos and d&p are on it not once but twice interesting.

Maybe they were just the photos that Louise liked the best (as in the way she looked, camera angles etc.). There are quite a few other people as well, so maybe she just didn't notice the double-up. I don't feel like she would do it on purpose because shes their friend, not someone just using them for views.

On another note I actually find I do watch quite a few gleamers videos. I quite like Tanya Burrs makeup tutorials as I find them really helpful given my very limited makeup knowledge. I actually don't mind Zoellas main channel videos because they tend to be hauls/favourites and I quite like her taste in things.

I also quite like Joes videos, as I find that they are actually very creative (ie. not just tags like others). I really love the impressions videos, and wish that he would bring back youtuber whispers as none of the other similar videos seem as good as his.

I quite like Niomi for when I'm trying to feel better about myself with healthier options. Not sure how many I actually take on, but its nice to watch and pretend that I could

The others I find a bit more boring/repetitive and don't watch. My favourite vlogs from the group probably come from Jim though, but I find his main channel videos can be a bit hit and miss given the types of videos I like watching

Old news: Niomi's book come out ( Eat Smart), I saw some of it on yt and it seems good and affordable. I'm not vegetarian nor from the uk , I'm thinking about buying it later on, maybe for Xams, does anyone have it? How did you find it? I like her and the product is interesting but I wanna know if it's worth.

Honestly alot of the gleam team use as clickbait and wonder why some people get annoyed

Reviving this dying thread.
What is up with Gleamers (Joe, Alfie, Marcus) suddenly do livestreams all in the same week. And Joe said it's gonna be a regular thing. Is it a Gleam strategy to keep their viewers interested in them?

my demon phannie self wanna says that gleam stole the idea from deppy haha

swofro wrote:Reviving this dying thread.
What is up with Gleamers (Joe, Alfie, Marcus) suddenly do livestreams all in the same week. And Joe said it's gonna be a regular thing. Is it a Gleam strategy to keep their viewers interested in them?

my demon phannie self wanna says that gleam stole the idea from deppy haha

That is really interesting. About a week ago Louise did livestream on youtube. It was short, no more than 30 minutes, but she said that she planning to do this more. I think she streamed sometimes on facebook, but probably audience there much smaller and she was advised to go to youtube.
Will Alfie and Joe make go-pro giveaway every livestream like they did in 2013

I'm not really a fan of the Gleam Team, but I've resubscribed to Louise ever since she rebranded her channel and I sometimes watch Niomi.

Okay so I have a confession to make: I started my YouTube journey through Vlogmas 2014 via Zoe. I don't watch normally but I love vlogmas. It makes me feel all warm and tingly. I love all the advent calender's she gets and opens, I love when they put up the Christmas tree. ugh I am vlogmas trash, I can't lie any longer. It's all just do f*cking pleasant. Does anyone one else watch vlogmas? or her other Christmas vids on her other channel. I watch most of them. It makes me want to move to GB (I normally do) but Christmastime seems wonderful. All the decorations and Christmas markets etc. I live vicariously through her.

BBC 3 made the funniest gleam/zoella/pointlessblog parody, I loved it

^ that's hilarious, thanks for sharing. (There was an article about it in the Guardian a couple of days ago which didn't make it sound that great, so I'm glad it is!)

lmao that's fantastic! I can't wait for more eps, GO IN bbc3.

Caspar Lee has been slowly introducing a girlfriend to his subscribers.... it will be interesting to see has this affects his numbers.

uglyamerican wrote:Caspar Lee has been slowly introducing a girlfriend to his subscribers.... it will be interesting to see has this affects his numbers.

Do people genuinely believe in Kaspar? Or this just to do with thirst subscribers or even those who just wouldn't like the girlfriend?

My apologies in advance in case this comes across as too ignorant or obvious for me to not know but I've only recently started watching Zoe (the only person apart from Louise I know from the Gleam team). I've heard of the process of her writing and editing the third book in the vlogs and as someone new, only saw the support, comments and immense sales and was wondering what the hype was about the series. I don't know why or how the allegations of her not writing the books came about? Has she addressed them? How are they still being sold?

misakichan274 wrote:My apologies in advance in case this comes across as too ignorant or obvious for me to not know but I've only recently started watching Zoe (the only person apart from Louise I know from the Gleam team). I've heard of the process of her writing and editing the third book in the vlogs and as someone new, only saw the support, comments and immense sales and was wondering what the hype was about the series. I don't know why or how the allegations of her not writing the books came about? Has she addressed them? How are they still being sold?

I’m not 100 percent sure on the details here but I think it came out because of Zoe’s own thank you note in the book. She thanked Siobhan Curham for being there every step of the way. Some people then checked Curham’s blog (she’s a writer in her own right) and found a blog post where she stated she had to write 80k words in six weeks (which is, by the way, a lot, oh my god). The fans figured out that this matched the length of “Girl Online” and the time it was written. I don’t think it’s really been confirmed that Curham was talking about “Girl Online”, could have been another book, but Zoe and her publishers then admitted that she hadn’t written the book on her own. How much she wrote and how much Siobhan Curham wrote isn’t really clear though.

Could be that Zoe only created the storyline and characters and Curham did the hard work. Could also be that Zoe wrote the bulk of the story and Curham just fleshed it out because Zoe had never written a book before and they wanted it to be good. I think nobody really knows how much Zoe actually wrote of the book. I’ve got strong opinions on this – not on having a ghostwriter but on trying to take the whole credit for “Girl Online” – but basically there was massive backlash when this came out because of course Zoe’s fans felt betrayed.

The books are still being sold because having a ghostwriter is not a crime. Siobhan Curham has said that she didn’t want credit for writing “Girl Online” so that’s that. I still wish Zoe would have been honest about not having written the whole book herself. If Curham didn’t want her name involved she could’ve just said that there was a ghostwriter. But yeah, basically she didn’t do anything wrong or even forbidden. She was just dishonest and a lot of fans were disappointed. I don’t know if Siobhan also worked on the two sequels or if Zoe wrote those herself though.

Here are two articles from way back when this happened: x x

What’s the hype about the series… I think it’s basically just Zoe’s name on the cover. It’s a cute YA story about a girl with anxiety but it’s not very original and I doubt it would have outsold Harry Potter, had it not been written by Zoella. Siobhan Curham’s novels under her own name never did this well even though they’re similar stories and obviously written in a similar style too. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand I think “Girl Online” is completely overhyped and it’s not fair that Zoe’s getting all this hype over a mediocre YA book just because of her name. On the other hand a lot of teenagers and kids who were reluctant readers read the book because they wanted to read Zoella’s novel and it got them into reading. That’s a good thing to come out of this for sure. The only thing I really despise about this is how Curham's own novels will never be as successful as "Girl Online" because she's not famous. They're good books.

Birdie wrote:

misakichan274 wrote:My apologies in advance in case this comes across as too ignorant or obvious for me to not know but I've only recently started watching Zoe (the only person apart from Louise I know from the Gleam team). I've heard of the process of her writing and editing the third book in the vlogs and as someone new, only saw the support, comments and immense sales and was wondering what the hype was about the series. I don't know why or how the allegations of her not writing the books came about? Has she addressed them? How are they still being sold?

I’m not 100 percent sure on the details here but I think it came out because of Zoe’s own thank you note in the book. She thanked Siobhan Curham for being there every step of the way. Some people then checked Curham’s blog (she’s a writer in her own right) and found a blog post where she stated she had to write 80k words in six weeks (which is, by the way, a lot, oh my god). The fans figured out that this matched the length of “Girl Online” and the time it was written. I don’t think it’s really been confirmed that Curham was talking about “Girl Online”, could have been another book, but Zoe and her publishers then admitted that she hadn’t written the book on her own. How much she wrote and how much Siobhan Curham wrote isn’t really clear though.

Could be that Zoe only created the storyline and characters and Curham did the hard work. Could also be that Zoe wrote the bulk of the story and Curham just fleshed it out because Zoe had never written a book before and they wanted it to be good. I think nobody really knows how much Zoe actually wrote of the book. I’ve got strong opinions on this – not on having a ghostwriter but on trying to take the whole credit for “Girl Online” – but basically there was massive backlash when this came out because of course Zoe’s fans felt betrayed.

The books are still being sold because having a ghostwriter is not a crime. Siobhan Curham has said that she didn’t want credit for writing “Girl Online” so that’s that. I still wish Zoe would have been honest about not having written the whole book herself. If Curham didn’t want her name involved she could’ve just said that there was a ghostwriter. But yeah, basically she didn’t do anything wrong or even forbidden. She was just dishonest and a lot of fans were disappointed. I don’t know if Siobhan also worked on the two sequels or if Zoe wrote those herself though.

Here are two articles from way back when this happened: x x

What’s the hype about the series… I think it’s basically just Zoe’s name on the cover. It’s a cute YA story about a girl with anxiety but it’s not very original and I doubt it would have outsold Harry Potter, had it not been written by Zoella. Siobhan Curham’s novels under her own name never did this well even though they’re similar stories and obviously written in a similar style too. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand I think “Girl Online” is completely overhyped and it’s not fair that Zoe’s getting all this hype over a mediocre YA book just because of her name. On the other hand a lot of teenagers and kids who were reluctant readers read the book because they wanted to read Zoella’s novel and it got them into reading. That’s a good thing to come out of this for sure. The only thing I really despise about this is how Curham's own novels will never be as successful as "Girl Online" because she's not famous. They're good books.

Thank you so much Birdie for such a detailed and articulate post, I had only ever read comments in passing so getting to know the whole story was incredible. The articles were so informative too. I feel honestly disappointed too, as someone who has had close friends struggle for years to have their original works published, its frustrating how easily things come to those with money and 'connections'. I'm surprised at how surprised she felt that people expected to her write the book all on her own smh.

Super random but Zoe and Alfie's house looks VERY nice. Must be crazy expensive but still, I love the look of it.

Just watched an unboxing of the Zoella £50 advent calendar fully expecting it to not be worth the price tag and was still shocked by how bad it was. As it is only a 12 day calendar I was expecting every door to at least contain a tiny tiny tube of one of her beauty products and there wasn't even one. It basically contained two candles and then the other 10 items were things like stickers and cookie cutters. She should be embarrassed to put her name on that.

pearshaped34 wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2017 1:14 pm Just watched an unboxing of the Zoella £50 advent calendar fully expecting it to not be worth the price tag and was still shocked by how bad it was. As it is only a 12 day calendar I was expecting every door to at least contain a tiny tiny tube of one of her beauty products and there wasn't even one. It basically contained two candles and then the other 10 items were things like stickers and cookie cutters. She should be embarrassed to put her name on that.

I just saw some videos of that last night. There's even just a tiny bag of confetti in there. Confetti! This is such blatant exploitation of a vulnerable target group that I don't even know where to begin, and honestly in my mind Zoella's lost a lot of my trust and appreciation (I'm not subscribed to her, but she does generally come across as a nice and decent person and I appreciate her honesty about her anxiety.)

Honestly, this makes me so glad D&P's advent calendar is just a 5 pound silly thing. I appreciate that so much more all of a sudden. Things could've been so much worse for us.

I'm genuinely a bit shocked over how bad the Zoella calender is. She and her team really don't give a shit. Cookie cutters and an actual bag of glitter.. what a rip off. Imagine being a young fan and spending your allowance on that. Or just being a parent and thinking you'll make your kid happy only for it to end in very expensive disappointment. Essence Cosmetics has one for like half the price full of actual products in 24 doors. Even the design is cuter.

I can't wait for all these money hungry assholes to flop into irrelevance. It gotta be soon.