This past Tuesday night, several hundred of you gathered in a theater on the Los Angeles Center Studio’s lot to witness the taping of the finale of our YOMYOMF Network YouTube competition series Internet Icon where we announced our first Internet Icon as determined by your votes (thanks to Truth for sponsoring the special evening). Our two finalists were the Brothers Riedell and Lana McKissack:

You’ll get to see the results when the episode is uploaded to our YouTube channel later today (no SPOILERS if you were one of the lucky few in attendance for the show) but suffice to say, it was a close race between the two and, personally, I wouldn’t have known who to vote for.

But even though only one person will be crowned the “winner,” witnessing the finale made me realize that Internet Icon is more than that—in the short amount of time that our little network and Internet Icon has been in existence, it’s become clear that the “YouTube community” that I’d always heard about had been born. It was great to see not only Lana and the Riedells, but all the top ten contestants again—Joey Held, Tahir Moore, Marlin Chan, Kyle Hatch, Justin James Hughes, Dayside Productions, Team Morgan and the Fu Music. But even better–seeing everyone genuinely happy to be back in each other’s company.

Yes, this may have been a competition show on the surface, but if you go back and watch all the episodes of Internet Icon from beginning to end again, it was also a show about the creation of a community. And nowhere was that more evident than in the video that the bottom eight finalists, along with judges Ryan Higa and Christine Lakin, produced to surprise Lana and the Riedells at the finale:

If that video doesn’t embody the spirit of what YOMYOMF and the YouTube community is all about, I don’t know what does. And although the Internet Icon winner will receive a development deal with the YOMYOMF Network, we look forward to hopefully collaborating with all the top ten contestants.

And with that in mind, we’re happy to announce that we’re already taking the first steps toward this. Next Tuesday (August 21) at 8PM EST (in the old Internet Icon slot), you will get a sneak peek at our new series entitled Always You.

It will be a series of music videos based on songs by five of the top YouTube musicians—Destorm, Tiffany Alvord, David Choi, Kina Grannis and Tyler Ward—telling one story of a couple’s relationship from the beginning until the end. But what’s even more exciting for us is that the series will be directed by the Riedell Brothers and star Lana McKissack—both our top two finalists. And to further the Internet Icon connection, our lovely Icon host Chester See is the producer and show creator. The first episode will air August 28 so you won’t have to wait too long to fill your Internet Icon void.

And speaking of which, when we announce the details for season 2 of Internet Icon (and we will), we hope to see even more of you in the contestant ranks because we’d love to see our YouTube family grow bigger. Because there’s no YOMYOMF without “family.”

Familiar faces backstage at the Internet Icon finale (photo by Tommy Su)