Best Youtuber: JAMES STERLING vs ALAN WALKER

JAMES STERLING

James Stephanie Sterling is an English-American freelance video game journalist, critic, pundit and YouTuber. Prior to becoming independent in Septemb...

James Stephanie Sterling is an English-American freelance video game journalist, critic, pundit and YouTuber. Prior to becoming independent in September 2014, they were the review editor for Destructoid, and an author for The Escapist. Sterling is noted as one of the main examples of a YouTuber achieving success through crowdfunding. Sterling presents The Jimquisition, a weekly YouTube video series in which they discuss current issues surrounding video games, primarily involving unethical business practices in the video game industry, of which Sterling is an outspoken critic. The series originated on Destructoid's YouTube channel and was later moved to The Escapist's channel, before being released on Sterling's own channel. Sterling's main gameplay series is Jimpressions (formerly known as "Squirty Play"), where Sterling discusses their impressions of a recently released video game while showing their own pre-recorded gameplay. Sterling has often spoken against sexism in gaming, and has been open about the fact that their position on this subject has slowly evolved. In November 2014, Sterling announced that they were leaving The Escapist and intended to seek funding for their work independently through Patreon. On a 2020 episode of The Jimquisition, Sterling stated that they had departed The Escapist after the publication had refused to publish their negative review of Assassin's Creed Unity, citing that parent company Defy Media was afraid of damaging any sponsorship opportunities with Ubisoft. Sterling also stated their desire to go back to writing articles and recording podcasts, which they were not able to do since leaving Destructoid. Sterling currently maintains their own website, The Jimquisition, in addition to producing a podcast titled "Podquisition", which is shared with fellow British game journalist and founding host, Laura Kate Dale. The third founding member/co-host Irish musician Gavin Dunne had his final permanent appearance on episode 250, leaving on good terms to pursue his passion for music while stepping away from engaging with the negativity, stress and anger of the game industry, saying “outside factors, for example having my music blacklisted from being promoted by certain companies due to my involvement with the podcast. My music is my heart & soul, my life's work. It is too important & hard earned to have it be impaired due to other peoples' controversies & it's also not fair to have that hanging over their heads every time they want to speak about a controversial topic.” Gavin was replaced on episode 251 with Conrad Zimmerman who had previously worked alongside Sterling at Destructoid, co-hosting The Dismal Jesters, Boston’s Favourite Son, The Spin-Off Doctors, and FistShark Marketing podcasts.

Read more ↓ Vote

ALAN WALKER

Alan Olav Walker (born 24 August 1997) is an English-Norwegian DJ and record producer. In 2015, Walker received international acclaim after releasing...

Alan Olav Walker (born 24 August 1997) is an English-Norwegian DJ and record producer. In 2015, Walker received international acclaim after releasing the single "Faded", which received platinum certifications in 14 countries. In 2020, he was ranked 26th on DJ Mag. He released his debut studio album, Different World, in 2018. In 2012, Walker was listening to a song by Italian DJ David Whistle (also known as DJ Ness) and reached out to him to find out how he produced his music. He was inspired by EDM producers K-391 and Ahrix, and by film composers like Hans Zimmer and Steve Jablonsky. He started producing his music on his laptop using FL Studio. In July 2012, with the help and feedback from his fans online, he began pursuing his music production career and slowly began posting his music to YouTube and SoundCloud. Starting as a bedroom producer, he was better known as DJ Walkzz before signing a record deal and releasing his debut single in 2014. Walker released the track "Fade" on 17 August 2014. The track gained attention after its re-release via the record label NoCopyrightSounds on 19 November 2014. Walker stated that the creation of the track was inspired by K-391 and Ahrix, whose tracks were also picked up by the record label. The track has over 400 million views on YouTube, 115 million plays on Spotify, and 41 million streams on SoundCloud. The tracks "Spectre" and "Force" followed in 2015. Walker signed with MER Musikk under Sony Music Sweden and released his next single, "Faded", a remastered vocal version of "Fade". It was released on 8 December 2015 and featured uncredited Naustdal pop singer Iselin Solheim. The single topped the year-end charts in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, iTunes charts in 33 countries, as well as entering top 10 in Spotify Global Chart. The music video on YouTube has over 3 billion views and 18 million likes, placing it among the top 10 most liked YouTube videos. It has over 1.1 billion plays on Spotify, and is also one of the Top 10 Most Shazamed tracks of 2016. The single also received official remixes from Tiësto, Dash Berlin, and Hardwell. He later released an acoustic "restrung" version of the song, with all the EDM elements taken out.

Read more ↓ Vote