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 “l(fā)ike”. 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的簡(jiǎn)稱，即視頻形式的博客，指在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上發(fā)布的視頻形式的網(wǎng)絡(luò)日志；bewitch： 使著迷，蠱惑。

2. clip： 視頻片段。

3. bizarre： 古怪的。

4. tweenage： 10—12歲之間的。

5. bona fide： 真正的，真實(shí)的。

6. gallon： 加侖，液體計(jì)量單位，復(fù)數(shù)形式也指“大量的”。

7. stationery： 文具。

8. hyperactive： 異?；钴S的； Nebraska：內(nèi)布拉斯加，美國(guó)中西部的一個(gè)州；flog： 出售，賣(mài)；bow： 蝴蝶結(jié)。

9. havoc： 混亂，浩劫。

10. tat： 不值錢(qián)的東西，質(zhì)量低劣的東西。

11. entrepreneurial： 創(chuàng)業(yè)者的，企業(yè)家的；narcissism： // 自戀，自我陶醉；materialism： 實(shí)利主義，物質(zhì)主義。

12. catchy：（曲調(diào)或口號(hào)）悅耳易記的。

13. YouTube上大受歡迎的視頻博客類型主要有兩種：“好物測(cè)評(píng)”和“開(kāi)箱分享”。前者指博主分享新入手物品的使用心得，后者則是分享物品拆開(kāi)包裝的過(guò)程，并對(duì)其進(jìn)行探討。haul： 捕獲物。

14. 并非每個(gè)女孩都如佐拉那樣，因此，一如既往，真正的贏家是那些科技公司，它們不斷地優(yōu)化系統(tǒng)，在獲取消費(fèi)者數(shù)據(jù)的同時(shí)從觀眾那里榨取最大收益。tweak： 對(duì)（機(jī)器、汽車(chē)或系統(tǒng)）作小小的改進(jìn)。

15. uncharted： 無(wú)人涉足的，未經(jīng)探測(cè)的；territory： 領(lǐng)地，領(lǐng)域。

16. recess： 凹處。

17. algorithm： 算法，計(jì)算程序。

18. dashboard： 儀表板；tablet： 平板電腦。

19. 但盡管這些措施似乎保護(hù)了脆弱的兒童，使其免受圖謀不軌的成年人的侵害，卻無(wú)法保護(hù)其不受那些可惡的同齡人，以及他們利益熏心的家長(zhǎng)所帶來(lái)的負(fù)面影響，這些人鐵了心要一步步踏上YouTube熱門(mén)視頻的榜首。paedophilic： // 戀童癖的；bratty： 無(wú)恥的，討厭的；pushy： 急于求成的，執(zhí)意強(qiáng)求的；trample： 踐踏，踩。

20. stake out： 立樁標(biāo)出。

21. cynical： 憤世嫉俗的；cut-throat： 殘酷的，競(jìng)爭(zhēng)激烈的。