What happened to the former YouTube star Bart Baker?

 The era of over-the-top YouTube personalities, parody videos, and Vine comedy is truly dead and gone, and the case of Bart Baker is proof. 

Formerly one of the most prolific creators on YouTube, Baker’s story took an unexpected and unfortunate turn, and he suddenly stopped posting on the platform. As expected, longtime fans and those seeking a dose of nostalgia have been wondering: What on Earth happened to Bart Baker? 

Who is Bart Baker?

Bart Baker is a YouTube personality and singer best known for his parody videos. At the peak of his career, he made elaborate parodies of music videos by famous pop artists, imitating their images and video sets while changing their song lyrics to humorous and often crass versions. Some of the artists he parodied were Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Lorde, Childish Gambino, and Nicki Minaj, among others.

Baker was extremely successful in the early 2010s and his channel boasted over 10 million subscribers. However, it has been years since he posted a parody, especially since that style of video went out of fashion, and is now widely regarded as distasteful to many. While some people have still expressed support for Baker for nostalgia’s sake, it is clear that there isn’t really an audience for this form of content anymore. 

Despite his success on YouTube, Baker unfortunately had to leave YouTube, as the platform began to crack down on channels and content that were deemed not family-friendly. Baker had already received some criticism for his content, both from fans of the artists he was parodying and members of his own fanbase, who found his content quite annoying.

This culminated a few years ago when his content was no longer acceptable on YouTube, essentially bringing his career to an abrupt halt. So, what did Baker venture into when he could no longer create his parodies on YouTube?

What happened to Bart Baker?

The details of where Bart Baker went after leaving YouTube were all made public in a report from Vice News. He spoke about the impact the sudden rejection of his brand of content had on him. After all, back in the day, when it came to YouTube content, Baker said: “the more edgy, the better.” Losing his income and platform on YouTube eventually led him to depression, and made him to seek therapy. However, sometime later, a Chinese company named Douyin reached out to him.

Bart Baker’s work on Douyin consists of content-making, albeit on a much smaller scale than before. He translates Chinese songs for the platform and performs them in live videos. Nonetheless, former fans of Baker have commented on how he “sold his soul,” and find the trajectory of his career very saddening. Baker announced that he was moving to China to further this career path, but from the Vice report, his work didn’t seem very satisfying. 

In 2021, Baker released his first YouTube video in years, where he explained his absence from the platform and revealed that he was moving back to the States. He also spoke on how he had ventured into cryptocurrency, which he claimed would be able to fund his passions to make parodies and other kinds of projects. His next release was an original song called “Polydoge,” which wasn’t received very well by fans.

So, what’s next for Baker? He has no publicly revealed plans in the pipeline, which means we will have to keep our eyes peeled for his next announcement.