Although three quarters of Swiss teenagers mention at least one Swiss YouTuber as a favourite, no Swiss YouTubers can be found in the top ten. Swiss teenagers’ typical YouTube star is male, aged between twenty and thirty and lives in a large country neighbouring Switzerland with one of the same languages, so Germany, France or Italy. PewDiePie is the only English-speaking YouTuber who has made the top ten. These findings appear in the current JAMESfocus report by ZHAW Media Psychology and Swisscom. The study examines the specific media content consumed by twelve to nineteen-year-olds in Switzerland, such as films, games and YouTubers.
While the trend of “YouTubising” has reached Swiss media – SRF has multiple YouTube channels, such as “Youngbulanz” or “Zwei am Morge” – it is unclear why Swiss YouTubers are underrepresented.
“It is possible that the YouTube algorithms have been programmed to detect language regions rather than national borders. In addition, teenagers buy magazines from the neighbouring countries and thus read more about YouTube stars from these countries,” says ZHAW media psychologist Daniel Süss. This phenomenon can also be observed in other Swiss media formats. Hardly any Swiss films and games took a top position in the ranking.

The most popular YouTubers belong to the comedy and entertainment genres, followed by how-to & style. Comedy, the most sought-after genre, is well received regardless of age, gender or region. People and how-to & style genres, however, are especially favoured by girls. It is only in these two categories that female YouTubers such as BibisBeautyPalace are among the favourites.
The videos often revolve around parodies, games, pranks, challenges or life hacks. In these videos, the YouTubers sometimes communicate through singing or rapping instead of spoken text. Particularly with pranks, it is not always apparent whether they are real or staged and whether teenagers can detect the irony or identify a staged prank. Moreover, teenagers might struggle to recognise when the line between product placement and advertising is crossed.
“New forms and channels of communication make the distinction difficult. This is why parents and teachers have to help teenagers to differentiate between real and staged,” says Michael In Albon, who is responsible for media protection for minors at Swisscom.

For years, film series like Harry Potter, Fast & Furious, Star Wars and The Hunger Games have been the most popular of all the films mentioned by Swiss teenagers. In terms of genre, science fiction/fantasy films are the favourites by far. The second most popular film genre is action/thriller, with just under half as many mentions, followed by drama and comedy in third and fourth place. Science fiction and fantasy have been combined into one single genre because many of the teenagers’ favourite films relate to both.
As far as video games go, differences between boys and girls are not so pronounced when it comes to their choice of genres. It is more a question of whether they play video games at all, and whether they have a favourite game. Those boys and girls who do play video games in Switzerland favour three games – GTA, FIFA and Call of Duty – although the order of popularity differs depending on gender. The most popular video game genre is shooting games, closely followed by sports games and open-world games. In third and fourth places are action/adventure and racing games.