The Death of Collaboration

When I started watching YouTube, I was searching for something I didn’t have access to in real life. Sometimes it was practical—natural hair care advice from @heyfranhey. Sometimes it was laughter, via @jennamarbles. Other times it was guidance on navigating African identity in the diaspora from @dontjealousme, the beauty of womanhood from @jackieaina, or the promise of coming from nothing and becoming something through @arnellarmon. Each of these creators holds space in my personal YouTube hall of fame.

I felt seen. And in that moment, I understood something quietly radical: being seen could transcend proximity. The relationship was simple but mutual. They committed to showing up; I committed to watching, commenting, liking, subscribing. It wasn’t intimacy, but it was continuity. A rhythm. A shared expectation.

Early YouTube amplified that feeling through collaboration. Crossover episodes. Shared channels. Creators stepping into each other’s worlds without over-explaining why. It didn’t feel strategic or monetized. It felt like a cultural experiment—inefficient, messy, unpredictable. The chaos was the chemistry. Something emerged that couldn’t be optimized or replicated alone.

Somewhere along the way, as platforms matured, the logic shifted. Creators were encouraged to own their audiences, protect their metrics, avoid dilution, maintain brand coherence. Collaboration stopped being a practice and became a tactic. What once felt like shared discovery hardened into temporary alignment between competing brands.

Today, collaboration is resurfacing. But the return feels different. Maybe creators are burned out. Maybe the algorithm is restless. Maybe audiences are tired of solitary performances. Still, the collaborations are often brief, controlled, and carefully branded—togetherness without shared risk.

We remember that collaboration felt good. What we seem to have forgotten is how it changed us.

So the question isn’t whether collaboration will return, but whether we’re willing to let it cost us something again. In a culture that rewards isolation and performance, it’s worth asking whether we’re still chasing visibility—or quietly longing to build something with others that requires risk, patience, and shared consequence.