YouTuber Squeezie will slow down after the release of his documentary “Thank you internet”

“Squeezie is taking a break or not?”. For several hours on the social network X (formerly Twitter), questioning messages from Internet users have multiplied. In truth, the successful YouTuber Squeezie (18 million subscribers) will simply “slow down the pace of his activities”, explains his press officer, while the documentary series “Thank you internet” is released on Friday on Prime. The latter looks back on the rise of the young man from his beginnings in his bedroom at just 17 years old to becoming the most followed content creator in France.

Having become a multimillionaire with the sale in 2015 to Webedia of his shares in the advertising agency Mixicom, Squeezie (or Lucas Hauchard, his real name) launched his own influencer communications agency Bump and diversified its content. Last September alone, it brought together up to 60,000 spectators for the second edition of the GP Explorer, a Formula 4 race where popular videographers compete.

If “YouTubers are all monsters of work, Lucas is still a notch above, to the point that he completely put his personal life aside for ten years”, declared to AFP the director of his documentary and friend Théodore Bonnet, praising its ability to “renew itself from year to year”. Enough to justify the “real break” which, according to the latter, would take place on his channel for “several months” after the release of the documentary. “To come back strong,” adds the director to AFP.

According to our information, the YouTuber would indeed like to step back from his YouTube channel to take the time to develop new concepts. He could slow down the pace for two or even three months.

However, his press officer does not confirm this information and explains that there is no “total stop in Lucas’ career”, she insists to Le Figaro. “At the moment there is nothing more to know. All our strengths are mobilized by the release of the documentary on which its teams have been working for ten years.

In an interview with Society magazine published this Thursday, January 18, Squeezie admits to having often been caught up in the statistics of his videos and to having sought a form of recognition from which he learned over time to distance himself. “YouTube provides us with a tool called YouTube Studio. You feel like it’s Google behind it: you have a billion data points that never end,” he describes. “You become addicted to recognition, you like the arrows to point upwards. It’s frantic and what’s more, it’s very precise. It’s the stock market.”

A pressure that most popular YouTubers on the platform experience. In recent months, several have announced that they are ending their activity on YouTube. Last December, the duo of YouTubers Vilebrequin declared that they were putting an end to their channel dedicated to their passion for automobiles. Recalling that this same channel occupied a lot of space in their lives until it “became a burden”.

Also read: Vilebrequin, “it’s over”: the duo of YouTubers announces that they are stopping their automotive videos

More recently, on January 14, it was the YouTuber Théodort (2.8 million subscribers on the platform), who announced that he was ending his activities as a videographer to “make a new start”. In the only video remaining on his channel he recalls having started his activity on YouTube, like many YouTubers, at just 10 years old. His sidekick, the YouTuber Mastu (followed by 5.8 million people), also explained, at the end of 2022, that he was burned out after the rise of his channel.

It must be said that in recent years, the most popular content on the platform is also that with the highest production quality. The videographer's activity has become considerably more professional, a far cry from the days of simple in-camera videos for humor. This year alone, YouTuber Inoxtag (7.13 million subscribers) plans to climb Everest and recount this adventure, on his YouTube channel, in a documentary video worthy of the formats available on television.

An evolution that is sometimes difficult to follow for creators, who have to constantly renew themselves. Elements also shared by the duo of YouTubers Mcfly and Carlito in March 2023, announcing that they were taking a break from their own channel. They resumed their activity last September, after 7 months of shutdown.