‘OG’ YouTubers returned to their roots this year — and fans are loving it

A handful of “OG” YouTubers — the original batch of stars from the platform’s early days — fulfilled fans’ dreams this year by coming back or rebooting old favorite series.

YouTubers were among the first to build and monetize their online platforms by creating content about whatever they wanted.

Since the partnership program started in 2007, which was one of the first opportunities for digital creators to make money off of their content, the Google-owned platform has seen many stars rise and fall — and numerous trends cycle through.

But many fans have been nostalgic for an earlier era of the platform and the creators that dominated it.

Here’s a look at the creators who returned to YouTube in 2023 in a big way.

Smosh

Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla were among the first to make it big on YouTube, joining the platform in 2005 with their comedy channel Smosh. After over a decade of producing videos together and growing the Smosh brand, Padilla announced he would be leaving the channel in 2017 due to disagreements with the creative direction of the content.

But ahead of VidCon in June of this year, the duo announced they were buying the Smosh channel back after years of acquisitions by a series of production companies, most recently Mythical Entertainment, owned by fellow YouTubers Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. Hecox and Padilla said they would be returning to their original sketch comedy format on their main channel. They also said that they would maintain their spinoff series.

While the Smosh brand has remained popular over the years, fans were excited to get back to the magic of the original Smosh videos. Under their first new sketch as a duo, which received over 6 million views on YouTube, many commenters celebrated the return of “classic” Smosh.

“After all these years they still know how to make people laugh,” one viewer wrote.

In a joint email statement, Hecox and Padilla said the response to their reunion was “so overwhelming.”

“We started this company 18 years ago, to make people (and each other) laugh and who knew we would still be here nearly 20 years later,” the duo said. “Since we’ve been back, we’ve had so much fun revisiting old favorites like ‘Food Battle’ and ‘Stop Copying Me’, but we’re so excited to continue working with the hilarious cast at Smosh, return to our live shows and share all of our new projects with our fans. We can’t wait for another 20 years of Smosh.”

Dan and Phil Games

Dan Howell and Phil Lester, known as danisnotonfire and amazingphil, respectively, have been collaborating on YouTube since 2009. They launched a gaming channel called DanandPhilGAMES in 2014, which has garnered over 2.8 million subscribers. Their gameplay of The Sims 4 was particularly popular, and fans became invested in their Sims character Dil Howlter.

But the DanandPhilGAMES channel went dark in December 2018, leaving subscribers wondering if the duo would ever return. Howell then left YouTube for nearly three years after posting his coming out video, returning again in 2022. Finally, this October, the duo gave fans their answer and announced in a video that DanandPhilGAMES “is back from the dead.”

The return video received 1.3 million views and supportive comments from fans who said they were overjoyed to have a big part of their young adulthoods back.

The duo did not respond to requests for comment. In their first video back, Howell addressed why the duo returned to the channel.

“You may recall I stopped posting because I was gay, or because I needed to accept that,” Howell said in the video. “I also wanted to discover and express myself outside of the nonstop YouTube for 10 years.”

Lester added that he was “ready to record” whenever the time came to reboot the channel. He assured fans that they would “make all the content that you guys liked before” as well as “try some new things.”

Charlie McDonnell

Charlie McDonnell, known as charlieissocoollike, was the first YouTuber in the U.K. to reach 1 million subscribers. After joining the platform in 2007, she became known for her sketches and “Fun Science” videos before quitting the platform in 2019 to focus on screenwriting.

In January, McDonnell returned to the platform to reintroduce herself in a video. McDonnell came out publicly as a transgender woman in an October 2022 Instagram post and said that she uses she and they pronouns. She discussed her coming-out journey in her January video and how YouTube had affected it.

“I came up with this internet persona ‘charlieissocoollike’ when I was 16 years old, and you know, clearly I was not that person,” she said in the video. “So I felt like it was really beneficial to me to take this big step away from YouTube to be able to really figure out who the hell I am.”

Now that she’s done that, she said, the “idea of coming back to YouTube feels kind of good” because she’s able to “bring my true self to this platform.” McDonnell also explained that she made all of her old videos private in an effort to make her internet presence reflect the person she is today.

Many viewers celebrated her return and thanked her for creating a warm and inclusive community for her subscribers.

McDonnell did not respond to requests for comment. While she regularly streams on Twitch, she has only posted one other YouTube video since her return, titled “The Clues That I Was Transgender.” In it, she said she wanted to be more active on YouTube eventually.

“Being a public trans person brings in some less-than-desirable folks, so it can take a lot of time sometimes for me to build up the confidence to be back and be perceived,” she said in the video. “So I appreciate you all having patience while I navigate that.”

Joey Graceffa’s ‘Escape the Night’

Graceffa, a YouTuber known for his vlogs and lifestyle videos, in 2016 created and produced “Escape the Night,” a murder mystery series that incorporated both scripted and unscripted elements, for YouTube Red (later known as YouTube Premium), the platform’s first subscription service. At the time, YouTube funded and distributed a number of original series from creators as a part of its premium offering.

“Escape the Night” gained a cult following across its four seasons, garnering millions of views and becoming one of YouTube’s most successful original productions. The fourth season aired in the summer of 2019 and the series was canceled by YouTube in 2020. Graceffa told NBC News in an interview that the series became too costly for the platform to back. He said he was excited to potentially find a new home for the series and planned to meet with different networks.

“I can now take this show that has shown proven success of this unique concept to other platforms and possibly get bigger budgets than YouTube would have been able to afford,” Graceffa said. “Because like every season, I always wanted to take it to the next level.”

But the traditional film and television industries move much slower than social media, Graceffa said. The pandemic made it even more difficult for him to pitch the series, so he decided to take matters into his own hands and crowdfund for an “Escape the Night” movie. After a Nov. 2 Instagram post announced he was raising money for the project, Graceffa took in over $50,000. While some people were hesitant about turning the concept into a movie, the Indiegogo for the movie has nearly 900 backers.

“There’s definitely people who want a Season 5 over a movie, but I don’t want people to think that this is in replacement of Season 5,” Graceffa said. “This is kind of an intermediate. Let’s just create something fun for now.”

Juicystar07

Blair Fowler, better known as juicystar07, was an early beauty and lifestyle vlogger on YouTube, starting her channel in 2007. For many young women, she was the person who taught them how to curl their hair and do their makeup. After over a decade of vlogging and filming tutorials, she stopped posting in 2020.

In July, Fowler briefly returned to the platform and stated her intentions to start filming content again, including updated makeup, morning and nighttime routines. She also expressed hope that filming room tours of her new house for her channel would motivate her to finish decorating.

“This is bringing back childhood joy for me,” Fowler said in her video. “And I’m just excited to see what can happen, if I can kind of use this to motivate myself to whip my house together.”

Fowler has not uploaded any new content since July, but she said in the video that she wouldn’t commit to a regular upload schedule. She also clarified that YouTube would be a hobby, in addition to her three day jobs.

Fowler did not respond to requests for comment. Fans were happy that Fowler was entertaining a comeback and shared how much she had impacted them as a prototypical influencer.

“You were the sweetest role model for me as a kid. So happy to see you doing well. Can’t wait for more updates,” one commenter said under her video.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com