Meh, there are people who consider Stephen King, Kiss, and Nicolas Cage talentless as well, and they've gone through all the traditional and/or corporate channels.
Well, you are not alone in this feeling. You are thankfully also from the UK. Imagine all those fuck-nuts you saw in Big Brother controlling our media... welcome to YouTube. I want attention... I want, I want, I want. In this day and age you just need to shout louder than the competition, and that includes EL James. Make enough noise and some idiot will buy what you sell.
I mostly watch Let's Plays. I like to see how someone else reacts to a game I'm also playing. I love Markiplier. It took me a while to warm up to him (at first I thought he was overreacting to everything) but he's a pretty awesome guy. I've watched The Yogscast for years now, they're one of my favourites. Also Jesse Cox I watch now and then -his Scary Game Squad is the best. There are a few channels I'm subscribed to, but those are my regulars.
There are pros and cons of having an intermediary between you and the creator. On one the plus side they sort the wheat from the chaff for you. On the downside they decide what the wheat is. If you happen to agree with them that is fine, if you don't its not so good. With regards to music the mainstream industry has been unwilling to take any risks for the last 20 or so years, the result is radios crammed with bland, innocuous noise. 99% of 'different' music will fail to sell, but the 1% is what drives change, with out that the whole industry is stagnating. I recently came across Post Modern Juke Box, I can't imagine Simon Cowell giving them the time of day, but they released videos on youtube and as a result have become very popular.
They're awesome - they do so much more than RvB nowadays, there's bound to be a subsection of something for everyone.
Markiplier Jacksepticeye Armored Skeptic Creationist Cat Planet Dolan/Super Planet Dolan Horrible Reviews ADoseofBuckley Logicked CoolHardLogic DoctorRandomercam ALONZO LERONE iDubbbzTV (only for his Kickstarter Crap show) MattShea Skallagrim I Hate Everything The League of Nerds Martymer 81 Vsauce (but not the other ones, they kinda suck) ERB TYT Secular Talk I think that covers all the subscribed channels I follow regularly.
Here are my favorite channels.... Gaming: PeanutButterGamer / Pbggameplay Traveling/vlogs: Funforlouis Pranks/awkwardness: Jstutudios Science: Vsauce
Movie reviews: JeremyJahns Chris Stuckmann ColliderVideos Beyond the Trailer Also, Markiplier sometimes. Plenty of random react channels. I like when people from one culture react to another culture. I also just love seeing people be enthusiastic or curious about something. And some cute animal / pet channels like Cole and Marmalade. I think YouTube is great in that you don't need a lot of money to take a video and get your content/opinions heard. It reminds me of public access radio and television, but of course, the frontier is already becoming corporatized and plenty of the biggest names have sponsors and networks. But, if you don't like one channel you have millions of other options. PBS is on there, so is CNN, and late night talk shows. You can find something as inane or as serious as you like. And we've had celebrity culture for a while, its just evolved to include reality stars and YouTubers.
