At the height of its success, Minecraft attracted a massive audience on YouTube who were looking for simple walkthroughs to help them understand the game.

Around 2011, a community of YouTubers emerged who ruled this niche, sharing videos about Minecraft such as how to dye armor or build castles in Minecraft. 

These videos quickly gained traction and rose to become some of the most watched videos on YouTube, which motivated content creators and gamers to follow the same trend and create videos related to Minecraft.  

However, as time passed and the game fell in popularity, the YouTubers and their glory began to fade.  

What was Minecraft YouTubing about?

The original Minecraft YouTubers were creators who produced content related to the Minecraft gameplay. 

Since this is a game that promotes creativity, many YouTubers created videos showing their audiences how to build unique houses and bridges. 

When ‘survival mode’ was added to the game and grew in popularity, YouTubers began to introduce ‘hardcore survival’ videos and series. This did very well and there is still some appetite left for them on the platform. 

Soon, Minecraft YouTubers began to post ‘challenge’ videos, where they tasked themselves with completing a high-stake task such as surviving in survival mode without any tools, or surviving a hundred days on a deserted island. 

Then, Minecraft introduced ‘mods’. These are other animals and objects the players can interact with. Minecraft YouTubers had new content for their videos. 

The audiences were keen to see unique ways to interact with these mods, and YouTubers showed them how they could do that, which is why you can still find some videos related to Minecraft mods on YouTube. 

Who is the most famous Minecraft YouTuber?

Over the years many YouTubers rose to prominence by creating videos centered around Minecraft. Some YouTubers became more famous than others, increasing subscribers to their channel and more views on their videos. 

One popular example for this is the paulsoaresjr YouTube channel that has more than a million subscribers. He was widely known for his ‘How to Survive and Thrive’ Minecraft series which taught beginners how to play the game.

In 2010 when Minecraft was still in its infancy, this YouTuber released his first video about Minecraft: ‘How to Survive your First Night in Minecraft’. The video immediately began to gain traction (9 million views in total) and that put him on the map. 

However, this YouTuber does not only focus on Minecraft anymore. Instead, he covers numerous games on his channel now.  

Another more active and popular YouTube channel famous for Minecraft is EthosLab. The Canadian YouTuber running this channel is part of the famous Hermitcraft server with over two million subscribers. Its main purpose is to talk about this game.   

EthosLab is famous for its single-player Minecraft ‘Let’s Play’ series that started in December 2010. Till date, it has more than 500 episodes in the series and it is still going strong in 2023. 

Another one of its famous Minecraft series includes “Etho plays Minecraft”. Recently, he introduced a new series featuring his favorite mods and explaining his choices.     

ItsJerryAndHarry are a Dutch duo famous for creating Minecraft machinimas and skits. The channel has over 2 million subscribers. They are famous for featuring fart jokes in their videos, which soon became their signature.

The brothers frequently began publishing videos for a new series called “Minecraft vs. Real Life”. These videos portray a particular action acted out in the game and then compared to a “fail” video that tries to enact that action in real life. 

Even though the channel is still active and pretty famous, the Dutch brothers are slowly expanding their niche and moving on to videos that are unrelated to Minecraft.

The Carlz0r is also a famous Minecraft YouTube channel with over 7 thousand subscribers. 

Some of his videos include walkthroughs about Minecraft, showing beginners how to play the game and succeed. 

Even though the YouTuber does not have as many subscribers compared to other channels, some of his Minecraft videos have many thousands of views. Such as Let’s play Minecraft Alpha which has received more than 94 thousand views till date.  

The first ever video about Minecraft posted on YouTube was by the YouTuber jwaaaap on May 17, 2009. Since then, his reputation as a YouTuber has only increased. 

With more than 66.7 thousand subscribers, Jan Willem Nijman is a game designer and distributor. He has several videos showing how to build intricate structures and buildings in Minecraft.

Even though Minecraft made him famous, like all other YouTubers, he realized he had to expand his niche to remain on the top. 

Currently, this YouTube channel features diverse games along with some videos about Minecraft.  

What happened to old Minecraft YouTubers? 

The simple answer is that they moved on. 

Since Minecraft is not as lucrative as it used to be due to the emergence of other games, lots of Minecraft YouTubers had to pivot.

Minecraft YouTubers – and gamers – began testing the waters for new and engaging games, often finding a replacement and sticking with it.  

This didn’t happen because the YouTubers lost interest in the game, it happened because the audience demanded more than just Minecraft. 

Lack of frequent updates from the game developers is also one of the vital reasons why YouTubers and gamers moved on from Minecraft. 

However, the massive world-building game hasn’t completely vanished. There are still plenty of YouTube channels that feature videos on how to survive in Minecraft and how to use cheats in the game, along with videos related to other games. 

EthosLab is an example of such a channel where Minecraft is covered along with other games. 

In 2019 the game received a massive update. New content related to Minecraft began to trend on YouTube and channels like AntVenom that only published Minecraft videos increased in popularity – with millions of views and subscribers.   

Regardless, since there are better and more sophisticated games than Minecraft in the gaming world now, some YouTubers were unable to adapt to them. Those channels that had nothing but Minecraft videos were forced to close their shop and leave.  

Conclusion

Minecraft’s popularity on YouTube has been a rollercoaster ride. Content creators have been attracted and repelled by the game on numerous occasions. But for the fact – this game has been responsible for several YouTubers’ fame.  

Even though original Minecraft YouTubers are rare in 2023, new content related to the game’s gameplay is still widely available on YouTube. 

YouTubers are still creating content centered around Minecraft, ranging from memes to actual walkthroughs, and are receiving decent views and subscribers in return. 

This shows there is still some following around the game, and it may take a few more years until Minecraft completely disappears. If you want to know more about Minecraft and its history on YouTube, we recommend you click here to check out YouTube’s official Minecraft channel, where they share news and stories about the game.