I have been watching a lot of YouTube lately, which you are right to interpret as a cry for help. If you haven’t juddered over to YouTube in the last nine or so years – since that first glossy explosion of “vloggers”, when Zoella was somehow the most loved and loathed person in the UK, often by the same people – it has changed over there, drastically. People still say “Hi guys!”, obviously. There’s still a lot of ringlights and people talking too loudly in their cars. But the production values have shifted: instead of a constant loop of prank channels or people tediously detailing their trips into town, the big content creators make elaborate sets, take months to tell one story, employ studios to host setpieces and collaborate constantly with other channels. Being a YouTube creator is like being a cross between Ant and Dec, an elite athlete, a production company and a legacy TV channel, and YouTube itself looks completely different to that first cultural boom 10 years ago. And yet, the basis of every viral video – be it a celebrity going sneaker shopping or a group of lads battling over football challenges for 45 endless minutes – is always more or less this: put enough charismatic people in one room together and let them banter, and it will be fun to watch.
Which brings us to Big Zuu’s Big Eats (Monday, 10pm), the double-Bafta winning Dave flagship show now entering its third series, and an example of a modern TV concept that is willing to learn from YouTube without trying to be YouTube. The rough idea remains the same – Big Zuu and best mates from school Hyder and Tubsey travel around the UK in a food van, preparing a sweetly customised three-course meal for one celebrity each week – but now all the tiny niggles from the previous 20 episodes have been ironed out.
