Fashion and beauty video bloggers cash in spruiking products to thousands of followers
The girls film themselves in their bedrooms talking viewers through their "haul", a collection of recently purchased items or product reviews and offering tutorials in beauty treatments.
What once was just a hobby for these bedroom video bloggers, or vloggers, is now a multi-million-dollar industry as brands discover new ways to tap into the lucrative teenage market.
The most popular bloggers are getting paid to spruik brands in the social media equivalent of "cash for comment".
American Bethany Mota, 18, is the poster girl of this new wave of YouTube stars.
She has captured nearly six million subscribers with a series of beauty and fashion videos that earn her an estimated $40,000 a month from advertisements that play alongside her videos.
And now others around the world, including Australia, are following in her footsteps.
Twenty-year-old Newcastle resident, Brittney Lee Saunders, is one of Australia's most popular beauty bloggers with just under 80,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel.
"My audience, I think, are about 94 per cent are females and most of them are in between the ages of, I'd say, 11 to 16," she said.
She admits that at least some of her videos are paid for by brands.
"A brand or company will generally contact a YouTuber and they just say, 'Hey, we like your channel, we like what you're doing, would you like to review our new lipstick' or whatever it is that they have, and then they'll say, 'How much do you charge?'" she said.
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"In the past I've done a couple of, they call them campaigns because they kind of spread them out amongst a lot of YouTubers.
"So I did a campaign for Colgate and they paid me $1,000 for two videos and I did one for Herbal Essences and they paid me $1,000 as well. So there is a lot of money in it if you can get the right product placement."
Sydneysider Dominique Amor started her YouTube channel in high school and has since turned her hobby into a career.
"My popular videos are probably my hauls. I think people like watching them because they can see what they can buy," the 19-year-old said.
"When I graduated I had two jobs and I quit them to start working on my YouTube channel full-time."
Vloggers' reviews blur line between advertising and editorial
Consumer psychologist Adam Ferrier believes it is almost impossible to distinguish between paid endorsement and opinion.
"The line between advertising and editorial is completely merged and anybody who thinks that these two things are sacrosanct and completely separate, and separate in the minds of the consumer is deluding themselves," he said.
Ms Saunders revealed that different companies have different requests for branding of videos.
"They have all rules that they want you to follow so you can either say this video is brought to you today by Colgate, they've sent me this toothpaste and I'm trying it out, or whatever. Sometimes you don't," she said.
"Sometimes it's as little as link their website in the description box of your video."
The Australian advertising industry is largely self-regulated across all media.
Best practice guidelines for advertising on social media suggest bloggers disclose if content has been sponsored, either through cash or in-kind payment, but there is no law requiring them to do so.
The most popular vloggers are now being signed up to YouTube networks – umbrella companies that represent multiple YouTube content makers and help them monetise their videos by creating deals with brands.
These YouTube networks are very attractive to large corporations looking for new ways to promote their products.
Maker Studios, a network of YouTubers with 380 million loyal viewers was recently bought by children's entertainment giant Disney, in a deal worth up to $US950 million.
"The good thing about networks is they can go 'Hey, we've got these 10 amazing girls. You know we can give you this deal where we promote your product over 10 channels and this is how much it's going to cost'," Ms Saunders said.
One network's website promised that in a sponsored product review, bloggers would touch on all the pros of the product and rarely or never talk about any cons.
Ms Saunders herself admits: "I would never make a negative video if a company sent me a product. I'd rather just not say anything at all."
The videos attract an overwhelmingly young audience who are unaware of the commercial influence.
Thirteen-year-old Aiya says she and her friends get most of their beauty and fashion ideas from YouTube.
"With a magazine it's just like a page of words and you can't see it actually happening so when you watch it, it's more believable I guess," she said.
"You can see them. They're like real people."
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