This is the script for the ‘infinite scroll podcast’ episode: ‘The History & Legacy of The Brit Crew: Lessons From One of The First Creator Collectives.’
While some of us first discovered YouTube creators through icons like Jenna Marbles, Smosh, and Michelle Phan, others—mainly younger millennials, zillennials, and older Gen Z—were drawn in by the Brit Crew: a friendship group of around nine YouTubers who completely dominated the platform throughout the 2010s. If you were online and sentient between 2012 and 2017, chances are you are familiar with the Brit Crew (and probably struggled to avoid them). The core group was made up of: siblings Zoe and Joe Sugg, Alfie Deyes, Jim Chapman, Tanya Burr, Marcus Butler, Niomi Smart, Caspar Lee and of course, Louise Pentland.
Zoe was arguably the most famous member of the Brit Crew. She first gained traction in 2009 with her blog, Zoella, where she wrote about everything from makeup and beauty to more personal stories. Her first post, “I LOVE LUSH,” was a review of some products her boyfriend at the time had bought her for Valentine’s Day. While juggling her blog with an apprenticeship in interior design, Zoe continued to grow her following, which eventually led her to start a YouTube channel. That same year, she posted her first video – though it has since been deleted. Zoe gradually became more comfortable on camera, posting content like “The Sibling Tag,” where she introduced her brother, Joe Sugg, and Primark hauls (which became extremely popular).
One of Zoe’s first friends in the online world was Louise Pentland. The two met in 2010, though the exact story varies depending on who you ask. In Zoe’s “Draw My Life” video, she mentioned that Louise reached out after reading her blog, asking if she could send her a card. They stayed in touch and formed a close friendship. Louise, on the other hand, recalled meeting at a blogger event. Either way, their bond grew quickly. Louise was already running her own blog and YouTube channel at the time called “Sprinkle of Glitter,” where she posted beauty and lifestyle content along with pregnancy updates. She was expecting her first child, Darcy, who soon became known to her followers as Baby Glitter. Louise had also been open about the challenges in her life, particularly the abuse she experienced from her stepmother after losing her mum at a young age.
While Zoe and Louise began their careers as bloggers, the path was different for other members of the Brit Crew. Tanya Burr, a makeup artist, began her YouTube channel in 2009 with tutorials. Her earliest videos were celebrity-inspired, featuring looks based on characters like Serena Van Der Woodsen from Gossip Girl and Emma Watson. Tanya was encouraged to start a channel by Samantha and Nicola Chapman, the creators of Pixiwoo, an iconic beauty channel at the time, and the founders of the makeup brand Real Techniques. Tanya had modelled for them on their channel and was also dating their brother, Jim Chapman, who was another member of the Brit Crew.
Jim launched his channel “j1mmyb0bba” in 2009, where he posted travel content, lifestyle videos, and grooming tips catering towards men. In his “Draw My Life” video, Jim explained that he was inspired by Tanya after appearing in one of her videos. He quickly fell in love with content creation and followed her lead. The two eventually married in 2015.
Creators like Alfie Deyes and Marcus Butler also jumped straight into making content on YouTube. Alfie, who gained popularity through his channel Pointless Blog, started in 2009. In the early days, his content didn’t have a specific focus—he shared everything from compilations of different colourful t-shirts to rants and chatty videos. Marcus Butler’s story was similar. He initially created music and video mixes, but by January 2010, he pivoted to a more personality-driven channel, MarcusButlerTV, where he posted challenges and conversational content.
Funnily enough, many members of the Brit Crew ended up coupling up. Tanya and Jim were already together when they got big on YouTube, but Alfie and Zoe started officially dating in 2013 after being shipped relentlessly by their viewers (but more on that later). Marcus was dating Niomi Smart and helped her launch her own YouTube channel in 2011– which was, of course, a bit later than the rest. Once Niomi got into YouTube, she made videos focused on wellness, nutrition, and beauty.
Zoe’s younger brother, Joe Sugg, was also brought into the fold through his sister. On November 14, 2011, Joe launched his YouTube channel, “ThatcherJoe,” named after his then-apprenticeship as a roof thatcher. In his introductory video, Joe explained that people had been asking him to make YouTube videos after he appeared on Zoe’s channel. He quickly carved out his own niche, becoming known for his pranks, impressions, and challenge videos—he even originated the popular Whisper Challenge.
Some of Joe’s most popular videos were with Caspar Lee, another member of the Brit Crew. The two would go back and forth pranking each other as they were housemates around 2014. Caspar, who was born in England and raised in South Africa, started his channel 3 years earlier, under the name “dicasp,” because he “wanted to be a director and [his] name is Caspar so I put the two words together.” He had tried to build a following on YouTube three times before cracking success on the platform. That being said, his earliest videos were very much similar to others in the Brit Crew – with many of them being comedic in nature and vlog-style content.
Alongside the main creators, there were several influencers closely associated with the Brit Crew, though not exactly part of the core group.
Some of these included Tyler Oakley and Troye Sivan—neither of whom were English, but both frequently collaborated with the Brit Crew at YouTube conventions like VidCon. Then there was JacksGap, a channel run by twins Jack and Finn Harries. Jack originally launched the channel to document his gap year in 2011, but it soon evolved into a more casual vlogging channel with Finn regularly featuring in the videos. Despite its massive popularity, the duo stepped back from YouTube, deleting their social media presence around 2017—well before anyone else in the Brit Crew.
Dan Howell (formerly danisnotonfire) and Phil Lester (AmazingPhil) were also linked to the Brit Crew. Dan and Phil were beloved for their Phil is not on fire collaborations, and many fans shipped them as a couple. While not core Brit Crew members, they were friends with many of the group’s creators and had notable collaborations, especially with Louise.
Lastly, FunForLouie (actually FunForLouis) and OliWhiteTV had ties to the Brit Crew as well. FunForLouie, known for his travel vlogs, gained popularity around the same time as the Brit Crew and often appeared at the same events, making regular cameos in their vlogs. However, since his niche was travel, he wasn’t entirely associated with the group. Meanwhile, Oli White was associated with the Brit Crew through frequent collaborations with Joe and Caspar.
With this context, it’s clear that the Brit Crew formed partly due to existing friendships and partly because they were all gaining traction on YouTube around the same time. In a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone journalist Amelia Tait, Jim reflected on how the group naturally came together.
“Chapman reveals that before influencing was a career, vlogging was “underground” — those who did it naturally bonded over the strange new world they inhabited,” Tait writes. “Once that friendship was cemented, the crew posted on a schedule and promoted each other in “collabs”.
It also helped that, at the peak of the Brit Crew’s fame, they were all represented by the same talent agency: Gleam Futures. This connection not only solidified their identity as a group but also played a significant role in their collective success.
One of the first social talent management agencies, Gleam was founded in 2010 and quickly capitalised on the rise of influencers. By signing the entire Brit Crew, Gleam tapped into a ready and eager audience willing to go to great lengths to support their favourite creators. And that audience was massive— and honestly still is. As Amelia Tait noted in her Rolling Stone piece, “Combined, the Brit Crew still have more than 42 million subscribers,” — years after their peak.
The Brit Crew’s rise to success
The reason the Brit Crew has managed to maintain such a huge following comes down to a couple of reasons. But one of the most important aspects of their success was the rate at which they collaborated with one another.
While collaborations between YouTubers have always been popular, the Brit Crew took it to the next level by forming a tight-knit group of creators who consistently appeared in each other’s content. Almost every week, one member would collaborate with another or make an appearance in someone else’s vlog (especially during Vlogmas). It was this constant cross-promotion that helped cement them as a group and contributed to their massive shared audience.
Some of the most iconic collaborations from this era include Louise and Zoe’s beloved “Chummy” Christmas Gift Exchanges, Joe Sugg’s popular “Innuendo Bingo” challenge videos, and any collab between Zoe and Alfie, which fans loved because they felt they were witnessing the couple’s relationship develop in real-time. One of the most iconic collaborations is Zalfie’s “How well do we know each other?” video, which has become the second most popular video on the Zoella channel, amassing over 20 million views.
On top of their regular collaborations, whenever the Brit Crew attended an influencer event, fans knew they could expect up to nine different vlogs—each showing a slightly different perspective of the same experience. Viewers loved this, as many of them had developed some sort of parasocial relationship with the friend group by this point. Watching videos from all the members left viewers feeling like they were truly part of the day… even if they were essentially watching the same video nine times over. This was particularly popular during major YouTube conventions like VidCon, Playlist Live, and Summer in the City, where the Brit Crew’s overlapping content was at its peak.
Aside from bringing their audience into their “friend group,” the Brit Crew managed to build such a strong following by leaning toward family-friendly and brand safe content. While they occasionally cussed or touched on more adult topics, those moments were often censored. The idea that an entire friend group of content creators – who cater to teenagers – would choose to censor out every mature subject that comes up may seem unusual today. But this was before the rise of storytime content, true crime, and other unfiltered genres that now dominate YouTube.
There were definitely non-family-friendly moments, and teens were watching it, but the Brit Crew’s general approach made them incredibly brand-safe—paving the way for their financial success.
And their financial success was abundant. The Brit Crew managed to snag various brand deals, commercial opportunities, and sponsorships, but through it all, they still maintained a sense of relatability. This relatability, in turn, became one of the key drivers of their viral success. After years of watching skits and scripted comedic content, audiences found a welcome change in seeing a group of friends casually doing random challenges and sharing their everyday experiences.
Teen girls, in particular, found themselves drawn to this kind of content. Much of the Brit Crew’s core audience would have been about 10 years younger than the creators themselves. For these viewers, it felt cool to have these sibling-like relationships with them. These creators offered a glimpse into their lives that felt personal, especially as their friendships solidified, inside jokes emerged, and they began coupling up. It gave a young audience a sense of insight into a world that felt both aspirational and relatable.
However, we should also acknowledge that many of the Brit Crew benefited from the privilege of being white, conventionally attractive creators—especially the men. Their content wasn’t necessarily revolutionary, but it clearly resonated. The standard for quality content creation was also extremely different from what we see today. Nonetheless, their appeal came from offering viewers a window into their “ordinary” lives, making them feel connected and invested in the group as they grew older.
With all that in mind, let’s dive into some of the iconic moments that helped shape the Brit Crew’s digital footprint.
The first iconic moment was the accidental leak of Zoe and Alfie’s relationship by Jim Chapman. Despite fans relentlessly shipping “Zalfie”, the two YouTubers denied any romantic involvement, stating they were “just friends” in a 2013 Valentine’s Day-themed video. However, this all changed in August that year, when Jim uploaded what seemed like a normal vlog. Internet sleuths quickly spotted a screensaver on Zoe’s laptop—a photo of her and Alfie kissing—which sent the internet into a frenzy. Zoe later confirmed their relationship in a now-deleted blog post, stating, “We decided to keep it to ourselves and hang back a bit until we were ready to chat about it with you all.”
Aside from being one half of the YouTuber power couple “Zalfie,” Alfie was also a member of the short-lived “Youtube Boy Band” alongside Marcus, Jim, Caspar, and Joe. The boy band followed a 2013 video posted on Marcus’ channel, featuring Alfie, Joe, and Jim singing some rather questionable karaoke. Nevertheless, the group came together to cover McFly’s “It’s All About You” as part of Sport Relief’s charity fundraiser. In the video, the creators embraced classic 2010s boy-band aesthetics, wearing matching white suits and sunglasses. The video has since reached over 15 million views.
With members of the Brit Crew being tapped for philanthropic pursuits, it wasn’t long before they started capitalising on their viral fame in a commercial capacity. Zoe, for instance, launched Zoella Beauty—a bath and body line—in September 2014. The initial launch featured seven products, including a body mist and bath bomb, all adorned with polka-dotted, pastel designs. The line was well-received by her fans, especially because of the reasonable price point.
Zoe continued to work on Zoella Beauty until the brand was discontinued in 2019. In a video, Zoe explained her decision saying, “I didn’t find working with my licensing company as positive as I had once found it. I just didn’t feel that we have the same vision for what the brand could be.”
Many members of the Brit Crew would also go on to publish books. Louise published a series of novels and lifestyle books centred around motherhood and beauty. Joe authored a graphic novel, Username: Evie, and a semi-auto-biographical guide to navigating life in the digital age. Alfie also published three books as part of his interactive Pointless Book series, and later penned an autobiography, The Scrapbook of My Life. Marcus also joined the ranks of published authors with his autobiography, Hello Life!.
But it was Zoe’s 2014 novel, Girl Online, that stirred the most controversy.
Commercially, the book was a huge success, selling over 78 000 copies in the first week, “five times as many as Fifty Shades of Grey sold in its first week,” as The Independent reported.
However, when it was revealed that Zoe had received help from a ghost-writer, many internet users were outraged, accusing her of being misleading. One Twitter user wrote, “I’m happy for Zoella doing well for herself and all but having a novel ghostwritten for you and then slapping your name on it isn’t cool.”
Penguin Publishing later confirmed, “Zoe Sugg did not write the book Girl Online on her own.” Zoe responded on Twitter, saying, “Everyone needs help when they try something new. The story and the characters of Girl Online are mine.”
Now, it is worth noting that ghostwriting is a common practice, especially among celebrities, and Zoe certainly wasn’t the first or last public figure to get help writing a book. However, given her rise as a blogger and the close parasocial relationship she developed with her audience—built on honesty and access—the revelation didn’t sit well. Despite the backlash, Zoe went on to write two more novels as part of the Girl Online series.
While Girl Online was controversial, it wasn’t what led to the demise of the Brit Crew.
As Amelia Tait so rightly puts it for the Rolling Stone, there were three things that made the Brit Crew famous, “they were relatable, they were wholesome, and they were young. But with money, scandals, and the slow march of time, none of those things could last.”
The bubble around the Brit Crew finally burst around 2017. Although there were no Shane Dawson-level cancellations, the group gradually began losing relevance in the latter half of the 2010s. That’s not to say these creators are irrelevant today—many have moved on to new ventures and continue to hold an important place in internet history. However, several factors contributed to their decline in viewership and relevancy.
First and foremost, the group began to lose their sense of relatability and authenticity. It’s not uncommon for “relatable” vloggers to become unrelatable as they land lucrative brand deals and enjoy other high-profile opportunities. When a creator has established a strong parasocial relationship with their audience, viewers can sometimes be happy to see their success. However, many viewers were unaware of how influencer brand deals, affiliate links, and sponsorships worked during the Brit Crew’s rise. As more people began to understand how much these creators—and their friendships—had become commodified, the magic started to fade.
Still, there were a few specific moments that ultimately shattered the Brit Crew’s facade of relatability.
First, there was the HelloWorld Convention in October 2017– or as some might call it, the Tanacon before Tanacon. HelloWorld was designed to offer a new way to attend a YouTube convention and meet popular creators. In a promotional video on the event’s YouTube channel, it was described as a “daytime experience [with] a nighttime show,” according to Jim Chapman.
The plan was to feature different stages and areas with various activities. As Alfie Deyes put it, “It’s not about queuing up for hours to meet YouTubers and having nothing else to do while being bored out of your brains.”
However, things didn’t go as planned. On the day of the convention, fans and parents were left disappointed. According to BBC’s reporting at the time, attendees felt the event was oversold, with minimal activities and supposedly very few YouTubers present. Some even likened the event to a money grab – especially because the Brit Crew formed a company, Crew Live Limited, to launch the event.
That being said, in the 2022 interview with Rolling Stone, Marcus Butler clarified that he never received any money from the event. Jim went on to reflect on the group’s failures, telling the journalist: “We rushed it… I think we were all a bit like, ‘We can do it better because we know what’s up.’ In reality, we might have bitten off more than we could chew.”
Whether or not the Brit Crew’s intentions with HelloWorld were genuine, it didn’t matter. It was one of the first times audiences had enough insight into the viral space to recognise what had gone wrong and demand better from the Brit Crew—a trend that would only grow as cancel culture intensified and apology videos became the norm.
Just a month after HelloWorld, Zoe found herself in another scandal. Known for her love of Christmas, she decided to incorporate this into her lifestyle brand, releasing a 12-day advent calendar that was priced at 50 pounds. Consumers quickly complained that the contents didn’t justify the price. The calendar included items like a key ring, pen, bauble, cookie cutter, jotter, candle, and stickers—none of which were considered particularly pricey.
YouTuber JaackMaate was one of the most vocal critics, making a video reviewing the advent calendar and accusing Zoe of “exploiting” young fans’ loyalty. At the time of recording, it currently sits at 6.4 million views, being Jack’s second most popular video on his channel. All in all, this controversy further damaged Zoe’s image, with many seeing the advent calendar as another cash grab.
Around the same time, viewers began speculating whether Louise and Zoe had fallen out – leaving Brit Crew fans feeling even more distant from their favourite creators. Essentially, the two had stopped appearing in each other’s content. Their last gift exchange was in 2016, sparking rumours that something significant had happened between them—potentially at Hello World. Despite the speculation, neither Zoe nor Louise have ever addressed the situation directly.
While some believe something specific caused the rift, others suggest they simply grew apart and now have a more mature, distant friendship. The pair did appear together in a livestream in 2020, but beyond that, they rarely interact publicly. This perceived decline in their friendship led some viewers to question whether the Brit Crew’s dynamic had been more manufactured by management than genuine. Many began to wonder if Zoe and Louise were more like colleagues than the close friends they once seemed, further eroding the group’s authenticity in the eyes of their audience.
As the bubble burst around Zoella, Alfie faced his own scandal that further questioned the relatability of these creators. In June 2018, Alfie posted a challenge video titled “Spending £1 in 24 Hours,” where the goal was to spend less than £1 on food and drink for the entire day. The video drew criticism for its insensitivity, as Alfie complained about having to drink tap water and went on a shopping spree, saying that the purchases didn’t count because they were not food or water. Many social media users accused him of failing to acknowledge his privilege and being ignorant of the reality that many people live under such financial constraints every day.
Alfie later apologised for the video, which sparked one of the most iconic memes to emerge from the Brit Crew. In the video, he clarified his political stance, saying “I am not a Tory,” referring to the Conservative Party in the UK. Many social media users would go on to mock him for feeling like he had to make this clarification.
Ultimately, this video from Alfie is emblematic of another reason why the Brit Crew declined. The creators – and their viewers – simply aged out of the wholesome, cookie-cutter content that made them famous in the first place. Through the late 2010s, many Brit Crew creators seemingly struggled to rebrand or find content that resonated with their more grown-up audience– Alfie’s attempt at the 1 pound a day challenge is a case in point.
In a 2022 interview with Steven Bartlett of The Diary of a CEO podcast, Joe Sugg reflected on this transitional period and why he believes that his viewership changed.
“The audience I had back then, they’ve all gotten older, I presume, a lot of them started watching me when they were 14 or 15. They’re all now in their 20s, they’ve got their own stuff going on, and the content that I knew how to make back then is not what they want to consume now. That’s what I sort of gauge from it,” Joe explained.
Even Zoe – who had become one of the most well-established and popular creators in the space – also appeared lost during this period. She continued to make her typical lifestyle content through 2017 and the first half of 2018, but later cut down on her frequency of uploads. The last video Zoe posted on her Zoella channel – which currently sits at 10.6 million subscribers – was a Pizza Taste Test from June 2018. With Zoe and other Brit Crew creators stepping back, it was also clear that many of them didn’t necessarily enjoy making challenge and trend based content anymore.
While Zoe continued to gain millions of views, the excitement was no longer there—partly because we had seen it all before. This leads to the third reason for the Brit Crew’s decline: the digital landscape had shifted entirely, and the content they were producing years earlier just wouldn’t cut it anymore.
By 2017, as the internet became increasingly oversaturated, we saw the rise of intense, fast-paced (and often, confrontational) content and creators. The internet had moved away from wholesome YouTubers and embraced characters like Tana Mongeau and Jake Paul— this was the peak of Team 10, storytimes, and flex culture. Audiences had grown tired of sanitised and family-friendly content— exactly what the Brit Crew thrived on.
While videos like Jake Paul’s “It’s Everyday Bro” weren’t exactly something to write home about, they symbolised how much YouTube had changed since the Brit Crew first emerged. The algorithm evolved, viewer preferences shifted, and the OG British YouTubers either couldn’t keep up—or didn’t want to.
The Brit Crew today
With that being said, many of the Brit Crew members have moved on from the content they became famous for. Zoe and Alfie are engaged with two children, with Zoe frequently vlogging on her second channel: Zoe Sugg. Her vlogging channel has almost five million subscribers, with each video gaining hundreds of thousands of views.
While Zalfie is going strong, other Brit Crew couples haven’t stood the test of time. Tanya and Jim divorced in 2019, after 12 years together. Viewers, who felt invested in their relationship, were shocked by the announcement. Both YouTubers took to social media to announce their split, with Tanya writing, “Jim and I made the painful decision to no longer be together. We have a huge amount of love and respect for each other and will continue to remain friends forever.” Funnily enough, viewers seemed to be most concerned about the whereabouts of their shared dog, Martha. People continued to obsess over Martha, with Tanya allegedly blocking the words “Martha” and “sausage dog” from her Instagram comments, which led users to find workarounds by commenting “where’s the hound?”
Despite the Martha debacle, both YouTubers have remained in the entertainment world. Tanya is pursuing an acting career, while Jim continues to post on YouTube, focusing on family and lifestyle content. Jim has remarried and has two children, while Tanya has one child of her own. Tanya has also recently returned to YouTuber after taking a 5 year hiatus from the platform.
Niomi and Louise also continue to post on social media. Niomi is mostly active on YouTube, Instagram and Substack, creating wellbeing and healthy lifestyle content. Louise continues to post on YouTube and TikTok; However, she now posts under her name, rather than SprinkleOfGlitter. She has even started including her daughter – a now-13 year old BabyGlitter – in her content.
Other members of the Brit Crew have taken a step back from content creation all together. Marcus left YouTube in 2018 and is now living in Germany to pursue modelling and DJing.
Meanwhile, Caspar has pivoted towards investment and entrepreneurship, founding multiple businesses, and was named in Forbes 30 Under 30 for his work in media. His last YouTube video, posted in 2023, was his surprise proposal to his fiance, Ambar Driscoll.
One of Caspar’s ventures is MVE Management, a global talent management company he founded with Joe Sugg. Like Zoe, Joe continues to post vlogs on his second channel, ThatcherJoeVlogs. However, he has also shifted towards mainstream media, appearing on various television shows such as The Great British Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing, and performing in Waitress on the West End.
What did the next Gen of creators take away from the Brit Crew?
While the last few years of the Brit Crew’s journey were marked by scandal and difficulty adapting to the changing digital landscape, their impact on influencer culture remains profound. As one of the pioneering YouTuber friend groups, they set a precedent for online content creation. Their frequent collaborations and ventures into publishing and brands were among the earliest successful transitions into mainstream fame. Just thinking back to 2014 and 2015, you couldn’t walk into a bookstore without seeing Girl Online or The Pointless Book on display.
Their collaborations, though they may now seem simplistic, were revolutionary at the time. They transformed vlogging by largely moving away from scripted skits and focusing on their genuine everyday lives and friendships—even if some moments, like Caspar and Joe’s prank war, were a bit over the top. This shift towards more authentic, relatable content paved the way for years to come.
Since then, we’ve witnessed numerous creator friend groups and content collectives rise and fall. While the Brit Crew wasn’t billed as a content house per se, their constant collaborations and business ventures certainly operated like one. But one major difference remains: The Brit Crew managed to maintain a sense of authenticity for a long time, partly due to the absence of a central platform. Take the Vlog Squad, for example, which gained prominence primarily through David Dobrik’s channel. This was quite different from the Brit Crew, where each member shared content on their individual channels, helping to build a deeper parasocial connection with their followers.
Ultimately, the Brit Crew proved that influencers could be valuable, not just individually but as a group.
With the likes of The Clout House, Team 10, Hype House and Sway House, the next generation of creators honed this approach. While there have been some breakout stars in each group, none have seen every member establish their niche as successfully as each Brit Crew member. Whether this is due to a more crowded landscape or viewer fatigue from constant drama within these groups, it’s clear that no other friendship group or content house has matched the Brit Crew’s longevity, influence, and success—and who is to say if that will ever happen again.
Listen to the full episode via the ‘infinite scroll podcast’ on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.