I really like computers, so at school I quickly
became The Computer Kid which was fine, but I always felt like I was so much more than
that, ya know? One thing that helped was a project I did
in the sixth grade. Our teacher split the class into three groups. We were gonna make ~movies~ (woahh) My friend
Scott and I wrote our group’s script about a nerdy kid who wins a basketball game and
finally gains the respect of his whole class. You know, because obviously I knew how it
felt to be liked by everyone, I just wanted to show everyone else. I played the main character, and since I was
the only one who knew how to use the camera, I also ended up filming and editing the whole
thing. I was a little upset that I did so much by
myself, so I put my name in the credits like a dozen times. When everyone finished their movie, we threw
a little red-carpet premiere so parents could come and watch. My mom couldn’t get off work, so I was kinda
on my own. While the seats filled up, it hit me that
this would be the first time anyone else had seen mine and I got really nervous that people
would hate it. I worked so hard, but I had never done this
before, and my name was all over it! If it was bad, everyone would know that I
was bad. So I sat in the back of the room while everyone
watched. I couldn’t really tell what they thought,
but when it finished, they clapped. They really seemed to like it, and the best
part was when my crush said that my movie was her favorite. Hi Morgan! I was still The Computer Kid, but now I was
also kinda The Video Kid, when I wanted to be. It felt, cool. In the eighth grade I met Jeremy, who introduced
me to Rob. They were into filmmaking too, and Jeremy
had a camera! So after school we’d make little sketches
for Jeremy’s channel. He had almost 30 subscribers, which I remember
thinking was a lot. Also, his mom made us use fake names, and
I guess I didn’t pick mine fast enough because suddenly, and without being consulted, I became... Barry. We never got a ton of views, but that didn’t
matter! We were having fun. I wasn’t always the most confident in school,
but I was The Video Kid, so I felt like I could try things. Even if they were cringey. Like in one video, I had to run down a path
but there was a bunch of branches in my way. I ducked and dodged, but it’s not totally
clear what I’m doing, so it looks like I just run weird. But then I do a totally sick parkour roll,
so I guess that makes up for it. I was embarrassed by those videos for a long
time, but now it’s fun to look back and see how far I’ve come. Besides, I had nothing to be embarrassed about! Making stuff is always cool. Luckily Jeremy didn’t delete his channel,
but most of the vlogs and sketches and claymation things I made when I was younger are gone
forever because I didn’t think they were good enough. Which is dumb, because everything I learned
making stuff for fun got me a job working for a YouTuber I really admire: Hank Green. (He’s the guy who started VidCon.) I was so excited to move out of my mom’s
house, I made sure to take everything I owned with me. I got my dream job, and now I was a VidCon
employee! Everything clicked into place. It was like the random projects and videos
I had been making for fun had actually been designed to make me the best life I could
imagine, all along! I felt really lucky to be there, even if I
didn’t fit in too well. My coworkers were really nice, I was just
way younger than them. This was my first real job, and I was living
on my own for the first time so I was figuring out how to grocery shop, while they were having
kids. We were at different stages in life, but it
was hard for me to see at the time. Like, I’m the only one who doesn’t have
things figured out. What’s wrong with me? And since I was new in town I didn’t know
anyone outside of work. One time I went to a computer meetup thing
to hopefully find some people my age. But like, three old dudes showed up who already
knew each other, and I guess they weren’t very good with computers after all because
I never got the invite to the next one. I was pretty lonely. But this is my dream job! This is as good as it gets! I’ll never find anything this good ever
again! I should be happy... Why aren’t I happy? One day, on a whim, I asked my boss something
like “If I quit, how much would that mess things up for you?” I think part of me was hoping he’d say “You
can’t quit! We need you!” but he didn’t. We talked about everything I’d need to do
to before leaving, we even decided what my final day would be, and before I knew it,
it was over. After more than two years, I wasn’t a VidCon
employee any more. I really did like working there. And my coworkers really were so good. I didn’t even know what I was gonna do next,
but I was quitting my dream job? What was I thinking? After my last work day, I remember sitting
on the floor of my apartment with my mom. She had come to help pack, and as the boxes
filled up, it hit me that I had just thrown away the best thing that would ever happen
to me, and there really was no going back. My mom let me stay with her until I figured
out what was next, so we moved all of my stuff back to her house. One morning my mom came in and asked if I
had been on the phone in the night, but when I told her I fell asleep really quickly she
said “Oh. It sounded like you were saying ‘I’m sorry,
I’m sorry’” I was straight up crying in my sleep. Leaving was supposed to make me feel better,
but I didn’t even know who I was any more. So I told myself that quitting VidCon would
be the biggest mistake of my life, until I made something better happen. Working there taught me enough about the inner
workings of YouTube that I was pretty sure I could be a YouTuber. And I got to work. I tried a few things but eventually decided
that I like telling stories the most. A few animated story channels were suddenly
doing well too, so it seemed like a smart move. I spent a month planning things out, writing
scripts, and sending audio clips to everyone I knew to get their opinions. I didn’t know how to draw yet, but I did
have a theory. When it came to the type of videos I wanted
to make, the visuals might just be the least important part. It doesn’t matter how beautiful a video
is, if the story is bad, nobody will want to watch. And I had listened to enough podcasts to know
that stories could be incredibly entertaining with just audio. As everything shaped up I became convinced. This would work. I had never been The Art Kid before, but I
wasn’t gonna let that stop me. So I did something recklessly optimistic,
and spent very almost all of my savings on a drawing tablet. Now this had to work. I’M GONNA TEACH YOU A THING ABOUT YOUTUBE! When you first create a channel, the videos
you upload aren’t recommended. YouTube doesn’t know who will like them,
or how much they’ll watch, so starting fresh can be hard. Before you get in recommended, you first need
to get enough organic views that THE ALGORITHM can decide how good your videos are. OK BACK TO THE STORY
I uploaded my first animated story and tried my best to promote it. It got a couple hundred views, and people
seemed to like it, but it didn’t get any recommended traffic. I posted my second video, promoted it more,
and people liked it too! But no recommendations yet. I thought they were genuinely entertaining,
I just needed to get them in front of more people. There was a channel with over a million subscribers
that would sometimes collab with people who were just starting out, which seemed like
a good bet. I emailed him and asked if he would read lines
for me. I used to work for Hank Green, after all,
so I kinda know what I’m doing. But he said no, so I said... please? He agreed, but later I found out that it was
just because he thought I could get him into VidCon. Like, I quit! I couldn’t even get myself into VidCon. Jaiden told me that when she saw my first
video she was like “Holy crap how did he start good?” which was so nice! Little did she know… Anyway, I worked as hard as I could to make
my third video AWESOME. I stressed over every detail and even spent
a whole day on the thumbnail so I didn’t waste the opportunity. Then one morning I woke up in really bad pain. I didn’t have health insurance, and even
though I didn’t have too many expenses - thanks mom - the reckless optimist in me had just
gone all-in to buy equipment! I couldn’t afford to go to the hospital. But the pain got worse, and that night my
mom had to take me to the emergency room. Turns out that everything was fine, I just
needed to eat more fiber. (It helps ya poop) What can I say, being super
stressed out does weird things to you. So I loaded up on Metamucil because suddenly
I had a huge hospital bill to worry about. This had to work, now. In all honesty, I should have stopped. I should have switched to plan B, get a job
at the first place that hired me, go back to college and stop wasting time. But I had spent more than two years working
for a YouTuber, I learned first hand what it takes, and I couldn’t let myself throw
all that away for nothing. There was a part of me that just wanted to
give up. I don’t want to get too dark, but honestly? There’s been a lot of times that I really
wanted to give up, and this was one of them. I told my mom, and if there’s one thing
she was right about, it’s that you never know what tomorrow will bring. She always says that. Thanks mom. So I finished the video. There had been a few dozen collabs like this
before me. The most viewed one at the time had about
a hundred thousand views, and the lucky ones got an impressive five percent of people to
subscribe. So, it seemed like the best-case scenario
was that I might get five thousand subscribers! I tried not to get my hopes up though. That first week, I gained almost six hundred
subscribers from being in a collab playlist, which was awesome! I remember sitting at dinner with my mom and
cheering when I hit seven hundred. Then things started to slow down, but THE
ALGORITHM must have finally gathered enough data to decide how much to recommend my videos,
and I guess it decided that EVERYBODY SHOULD SEE THIS because suddenly all three of my
videos were being recommended like crazy! The next week, I rocketed to a million views
out of nowhere, and a whopping ten percent decided to subscribe. Thanks for that, by the way. Everyone has those moments where just when
it looks like things can’t get any worse, they do. Which is like, what the heck, life!? But the opposite is true too! After years of trying to figure out who I
am, and sometimes having to fight really hard to not give up entirely, the pieces eventually
came together. I’m still The Computer Kid, and The Video
Kid. I never would have guessed that I’d become
The Art Kid, let alone The YouTube Kid, but now I get to be all of those people, and more! Sometimes I still want to give up, but by
now I’ve learned not to. Like my mom always says “You never know
what tomorrow will bring.” If you want to see the videos I made way back
in the day with my friend Jeremy, click here to check out A Brief History of TimTom by
my other friend Ryder where he talks about all the stuff that I did before making cartoons. Most of what I made as a kid is long gone,
but we were able to dig some of it up, and he turned it into a video! How cool is that? Ok Bye!
