Ryan Higa. PewDiePie. Jenna Marbles. Tyler Oakley. Bethany Mota. Lohanthony. Rebecca Black. Smosh. Justin Bieber. Psy. Chances are, you recognize at least one of these names. What do all of these people have in common?

Each person’s stardom has been birthed and bred by one simple website: YouTube.

Rewind several years to Valentine’s Day, 2005. Three men, Chad Hurley, Steven Chen, and Jawed Karim, registered a website under the domain YouTube.com. Little did they know that their simple action would draw aside the curtains of a whole new world, leading to the technological age of today.

A little less than a year after YouTube officially became a corporation, Google sunk $1.65 billion dollars into the project and YouTube’s journey has only been uphill from there. Though its pathway to success has had its share of nicks and dings (copyright infringements, sex scandals, and piracy complaints, to name a few), YouTube has been used continually to shape the culture of America and the world, hosting about a million personal channels and providing content for each of its one billion users to watch.

Among those one billion users rests the 1700 students of YLHS, and, like much of the world, many students here are avid YouTube fans. Joann Fu (11) stated that, “During the week, I rarely have time to watch, but if I do, then [I spend around] forty-five minutes [watching YouTube]. During the weekend, …[I usually spend] two hours.” When asked what channels she watches, she said, “Mainly [the channels] ‘eatyourkimchi’…and ‘asapscience’…I also watch FungBros and WongFu Productions too.” Another student, Cherise Lewis (10), enjoys the work of “Ryan Higa, Jacksgap, Danisnotonfire, and…YouTubers React, and Teens React.”

These names are impressive–take the name “Danisnotonfire,” for example–but what’s the real reason behind watching YouTube?

“It’s fun! It’s funny.” Cherise laughed. “Not like school.”

“It relieve[s] me of my stresses,” said Joann.

Because, really, high school is hard. And sometimes, when you come home, all you want to do is lie on your bed, grab your iPad or laptop or phone, and laugh the creepiness of “Salad Fingers” away with the rest of the Teens React cast.