Users are generally referred to as active internet contributors, who put in a ‘certain amount of creative effort’, which is ‘created outside of professional routines and platforms’. The term ‘prosumer’ has been used to denote how users interact as producers and professionals. Newly coined terms are now ‘produser’ and ‘co-creator’ have also become more prevalent since 2007 to accentuate users’ increased “production prowess”. Users are a collective power that will ‘change the way the world changes’. 

YouTube serves as a case inquiry to further research how the user influences media and the way the world is changing towards a more complex society. With the emergence of Web 2.0 applications, theorists like Henry Jenkins (2006) see a shift in the way media content is produced and circulated. Previously, media recipients had little direct power to shape media content and faced prominent struggles to enter the marketplace. Now, “the new digital environment expands the scope and reach of consumer activities”. This allows users sufficient leverage to renegotiate their relationships with media companies. Dijck states that this new interactive media is partly due to the availability of cheap and easy-to-use digital technologies that allow for “do-it-yourself distribution”. 

In most current times, users have become “influencers” who are self-employed by being such large parts of Web 2.0 applications, such as TikTok, YoutTube and Instagram. For example, Jhava Brown is currently a stay-at-home mom who runs a full-time influencer business and her monthly income comes from working with brands like Walmart, Amazon, and Disney on paid partnerships. Brown has 196,000 followers on Instagram and she charges an average of $5,000 for a single Instagram post and $3,000 for an Instagram Story. This is a common story of hundreds of thousands of influencers that can thank their inspiration to other users to applications such as Instagram and TikTok, while simultaneously these platforms can show gratitude towards their user population to influencers like them.