Meet The YouTube Stars Taking Over America

If you've taken a ride on the New York City subway anytime in the past few weeks, you may have noticed Bethany Mota smiling down at you from one of the many ads YouTube has plastered across the city's public transit system.

Though it's entirely possible you've never heard of her before - especially if you're an adult without children - the 18-year-old Mota has nearly 6 million subscribers to her YouTube channel, where she serves as a curator of sorts for adoring teens and tweens seeking guidance on which clothes they should buy and how to decorate their bedrooms.

But while Mota's position as a tastemaker and her loyal audience of affluent young people make her show a perfect fit for fashion advertisers, YouTube's advertising clients have expressed the sentiment that Mota and other top YouTube creators could attract even more eyeballs if they were properly promoted to the general public.

And so, in its quest to convince brands that YouTube is a better place to advertise than television, YouTube has gone about promoting Mota and two other popular creators - Rosanna Pansino and Michelle Phan - in much the same way big networks like ABC and CBS promote their new TV stars.

The Google-owned video platform is advertising these stars with ads on national television, in print magazines like Seventeen, and on billboards, subway trains, and metro stops in Chicago and New York City.

The campaign will run until mid-May, after which YouTube will begin a new campaign touting a different batch of stars. YouTube declined to say which stars would be featured in the new ads.

But if you're interested in learning a little bit about the people staring out at you on your morning commute in the campaign that's running now, you've come to the right place.