Personally I don’t watch videos on software (except for skimming tutorials) since I prefer to learn about topics with written tutorials or Reddit. Software influencers have been on the rise for the past several years, everything from grifters claiming they can help you start an SWE career, to ones that make tutorials and showcases on software.
I’m more interested in hearing about the later. I came across found this discussion: What can we learn from Neovim’s rise in popularity? : emacs, with comments claiming that Youtubers like ThePrimeagen have helped a lot with making Neovim popular. I crossposted it to r/neovim and many so far many users there said that they found Neovim through ThePrimeagen’s videos.
CRYPT-- oh, you mean how the nice tutorial peeps have affected us.
Vimjoyer has increased the adoption rate for flakes on NixOS. And also NixOS use in general.
Mental Outlaw has probably contributed to new Gentoo users, quoth the meme, but Gentoo is still a dying breed compared to its heyday in the early naughts.
Fireship has made people – particularly CS students I believe – more comfortable with trying out new programming languages. (The “I’ll check out the Fireship video first” approach. But then again, ChatGPT has arguably had the same effect across undergraduates… that’s a digression)
Asahi Lina’s longform Rust dev work, while less of a network effect, has had its own substantial effects within the Asahi Linux “Linux on the M-series” sphere. I believe she also helped port a kind of anime mocap engine onto Linux, which could over the longterm boost the anime-nerd Linux-nerd center Venn diagram. But that’s speculation.
edit:
In a broader perspective, with the combination of SteamOS and large YouTubers trying out Linux, Linux desktop adoption will probably increase more than it has now. I doubt it will pass 10% though with Linux’s reputation (tech nerds, compile all day, games don’t run, command line – even though these are improving, it’s hard to kick)
Mutahar (SomeOridinaryGamer) is… possibly? probably? … the most popular youtuber who regularly uses linux, games on linux, explains to people how to do so, has come up with many of his own methods and tutorials.
He does a whole bunch of other kinds of content, but he functionally serves as a linux evangelist for pc gamers, with general appeal.
He’s been gaming and daily driving linux for … probably half a decade now, starting to do so back before Proton really started to take off.
Mutahar’s initial exploration into, and then just casual usage of linux for gaming, has probably/possibly done more to normalize amd destigmatize the idea of gaming on linux than any other youtuber I can think of.