By the way, steveo1kinevo recently passed the magic 500.000 subscriber mark, a hurdle which for a long time seemed unsurpassable for any purely GA-flying focussed youtube channel.
So, currently, the „big 7“ (>200k subscribers) seem to be:
1. steveo1kinevo (506k)
2. Trent Palmer (440k)
3. FlightChops (353k)
4. Aviation101 (282k)
5. Missionary Bush Pilot (245k)
6. CitationMax (218k)
7. Premier 1 Driver (206k)
I hope I haven‘t forgotten any of the very big ones. I wouldn‘t exactly count Jimmy‘s World (291k) in, as it is not strictly a GA flying channel, but more of a „tinkering“ channel (and these channels easily go past a million). Anyway, it is remarkable how the guy, in just two years, even left „everybody‘s darling“ (Josh Flowers – Aviation101) behind, who has been building his channel for 10 years now. Rebuild Rescue (617k!) is even more of a tinkering channel; in fact, they grew the channel with cars, before switching mostly to aircraft.
Are these people bringing people to GA, or just creating clickbait which goes viral?
The only way to get these numbers is by going viral. You won’t get 6 digits worth of results from people doing google searches on “how do I learn to fly” or whatever.
But anyway it is a sad fact that many people live their life on youtube.
People like Trent Palmer will have absolutely got new people into aviation. He’s flying a low cost Kitfox into some amazing places and his videos are extremely well made. There are many other such examples.
I don’t think it’s good to be overly cynical about the aviation YouTube crowd.
The number of followers of these videos vastly exceeds the size of the entire GA community in US and Europe, and I recall some “study” which found the vast majority of the followers are not into flying at all. I don’t know what they are into, but perhaps the 80k followers of Gyrocopter Girl, relative to how many are into gyros, gives you an idea 
Then that’s great, if the exposure is so high you only need 1% of those viewers to go and get a trial flight at their local flying school, and the result is a positive one.
I can not see anything wrong or bad about people watching these YouTube channels without being or becoming pilots. Yes, we need more pilots but it is also critical that even more people are fascinated by airplanes and flying even though they would never get a license.
They might become your next airfield neighbor…
Those YT videos makes GA, especially US one, look “trendy & cool” maybe better than a clubhouse full of mesirable old farts eating greasy bread with high-vis jackets and commenting every takeoff & landing (sorry for the dead oldies)
I don’t think that all these followers will be into the hobby but at least they would appreciate and understand that the thing exists…
Welcome to the new world where every kids wants to become a youtuber (you should see my kids’ excitement!)
In their eyes the ‘streamers’ are what for oldies used to be the sports heroes or music artists.
You can detect a few common characteristics amongst the popular ones – very good communicators, often one main character, fun, not too serious, and it has to have a story. Doesn’t matter what it is as long it’s well told.
Going back to the original question:
- if I write a book about my flight, do I need a CPL?
- does it threaten the livelihood of other commercial operators? – this is often a subtle argument for requiring a commercial licence amongst the lawmakers
- do I get paid for the flight or do I get paid for my video editing / story telling?
I think it’s far-fetched to put this in the commercial domain and I would be surprised if a regulator would follow that avenue. They have been known to penalize illegal activities though! There are a number of examples in FAA-land, CASA-land where the regulator opened a case against a content creator that did something illegal and made the recording publicly available.
I think having a popular YouTube channel paints a gigantic target on your back. Both steveo1kinevo and Trent Palmer have been sanctioned by the FAA, and some others on YouTube have been targeted by the FAA. The FAA have even gone after a DPE because they were drinking red wine and “didn’t speak out over waterskiing” (ask Jacko what I mean by this!) in a (purely on the ground) Zoom talk, where the DPE in question was merely in the audience. They revoked his examiner designation.
I’ve not heard of it happening for any European channels (but how long will it be before the CAA uses a UK pilot’s own YouTube channel to go after them for an alleged airspace bust?)
If I were making a living out of aviation there’s no way I would have a YouTube channel on aviation.
