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Whatever Happened To The First Viral YouTube Stars

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Before there were influencers with talent agents and brand deals, there was just a webcam, a bad haircut, and a dream.

YouTube launched in 2005, and within a year or two it had minted an entirely new species of celebrity — people who became famous not through a studio or a label, but through sheer repeat views. More than a decade later, some of those original viral names are still uploading, some pivoted into entirely different businesses, and at least one of them is a cat. Here’s where the platform’s first breakout stars actually ended up.

• Smosh co-founder Anthony Padilla left the channel in June 2017 to launch a solo project, leaving Ian Hecox to run Smosh and its ensemble cast under Defy Media.
• Michael Buckley retired his rapid-fire “What The Buck?” gossip series to focus on motivational speaking and personal coaching.
• Michelle Phan walked away from YouTube in 2015 citing burnout, then relaunched her cosmetics line EM Cosmetics in 2017 after co-founding the subscription beauty box Ipsy.

The Sketch Duo That Split In Two

Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox started Smosh as two teenagers lip-syncing to the Power Rangers theme song, and it snowballed into one of the biggest names in early digital comedy, eventually growing into a full production operation under Defy Media with its own ensemble cast and spinoff channels. That run of the two of them together ended in June 2017, when Padilla announced he was stepping away to build an independent solo channel. Hecox stayed put, keeping the Smosh name and its cast of performers moving forward without him.

From Gossip Vlogging To Life Coaching

Michael Buckley’s “What The Buck?” debuted in 2006 and turned into one of the most-subscribed shows on the entire platform, built on fast, opinionated takes on celebrity news delivered straight to camera. Once he retired the regular series, Buckley didn’t just quiet down — he rerouted into motivational speaking, personal coaching, and lifestyle vlogging, a pretty different lane from ripping through tabloid headlines every week.

William Sledd followed a similar arc from a different angle. His “Ask a Gay Man” series, which debuted in 2006, made him one of YouTube’s first official partners and landed him actual TV appearances as a fashion and lifestyle personality. Sledd eventually stepped back from regular uploading and moved into retail and interior design work instead.

The Fountain That Never Really Stopped

Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, working together as EepyBird, are responsible for one of the most replicated stunts in early internet history: dropping Mentos into two-liter bottles of Diet Coke and filming the resulting geysers in 2006. Rather than let the bit fade, the pair turned it into an actual business, running a creative agency that stages live science demonstrations and brand campaigns built on the same do-it-yourself spectacle that made the original video take off.

A 300-page phone bill was all it took to turn Justine Ezarik into “iJustine.”

The Tech Vlogger And The Beauty Mogul

Justine Ezarik built her following through lifecasting before her 2007 video showing off an actual 300-page iPhone bill went properly viral. From there, iJustine turned into a long-running technology and lifestyle channel, with hosting gigs and brand partnerships that have kept her visible well past the initial spike in attention — the kind of longevity plenty of early creators never managed.

Michelle Phan’s rise tracked a similar path but through makeup tutorials starting in 2007, eventually building one of the biggest beauty audiences on the platform and co-founding the subscription box service Ipsy. She stepped away from YouTube entirely in 2015, citing burnout, before re-emerging in 2017 to relaunch her own cosmetics brand, EM Cosmetics — proof that even a full retreat from the platform didn’t kill the business built on top of it.

The Cat That Outlived The Meme

Keyboard Cat traces back to 1984 footage of creator Charlie Schmidt’s cat “Fatso” pawing at an electronic keyboard — footage that didn’t actually go viral until Schmidt uploaded it decades later, in 2009, when it exploded into one of the platform’s defining memes. Fatso himself had died back in 1987, long before any of it happened, so Schmidt kept the bit alive using a rescue cat named Bento, who took over as the meme’s new face and brand ambassador going forward.

Add it up and the split is pretty even: some of these names cashed out into speaking tours, retail jobs, and design work, while others — iJustine, Michelle Phan, Smosh under Hecox — never actually left, they just kept adjusting the business model around whatever the platform wanted next.