How Zeltik Became The Biggest Zelda Youtuber!

[Music] hello there my name is the bread pirate but everybody calls me bread today i want to talk to you about the person that convinced me to be a zelda youtuber with more than 84 million views and half a million subscribers there is little doubt that he's become one of the most influential members of the community his videos are beloved by many and his theories are some of the most polished on youtube his real name is ed king but you probably know him by a different title today we'll be exploring the legend of zeldic [Music] ed started his youtube career not with zelda but with machinimas about the fantasy mmorpg runescape in fact in 2014 uber as he was called at the time won a contest for making a christmas login screen one which is still in use today but uber's runescape videos didn't get much attention around 2014 he moved on to super smash bros content but that didn't get off the ground either it wasn't until january 28th of 2015 that he found his niche inspired by channels like the commonwealth realm hmk and mcintyre productions ed created a channel dedicated to speculation on an unreleased nintendo game which would eventually be known as the legend of zelda breath of the wild the channel was called zeltig ironically ed didn't come up with the name the name celtic was invented when his mate was making a runescape account it went a little bit like this [Music] oh i got it zelda that's a cool name yeah that's the girl's name you can't call yourself zelda zelda's a girl so his friend invented the name celtic and nine years later ed borrowed the name for his channel celtic's first video was released two months later on march 4th it was called how multiplayer could work in zelda u this is a good time to mention that breath of the wild's name was not revealed until the summer of 2016 so fans used two names when describing the sequel zelda u because the game was being made for the wii u and zelda nx which was the code name for the nintendo switch before its name was revealed the video itself was simple and the microphone quality left something to be desired however zeltek rapidly improved his video quality throughout march of that year in his next video his narration was smoother in his third his microphone quality improved and he added an intro and by his seventh video he had already ditched his first intro and made a slicker more professional one the mad lad even unlisted his most popular video at the time so that he could redo it and make it better in a single month his videos went from unscripted and barely edited to pretty well polished at the same time ed went from zero to 200 subscribers started getting shout outs by zelda informer and began collaborating with youtubers like game over jesse and mcintyre productions then on july 11th 2015 he hit 1 000 subscribers things were going great so obviously he disappeared for five months it wasn't until november that zeltic returned but when he did it was in full force because of a new zelda u teaser a full glorious 13 second teaser but that was all he needed celtic psycho analyzed the potatoes out of those 13 seconds a day after the teaser he made a three minute video about it and the day after that he uploaded a 19 minute discussion video with the commonwealth realm as we'll soon see these sonic the hedgehog talents are what gave his channel its boost in its earliest days following the teaser celtics started two series zelda focus and things zelda you could learn from x zelda games zelda focus was a little more speculative in each episode he took five minutes to discuss a single element about zelda u such as epona the blue tunic or how twilight princess textures related to the plot of zelda u actually on second thought maybe saying it was a little speculative was an understatement in the second series he talked about things he would like to see in zelda u which were present in previous games this is when zeltek's channel really started resembling the quality we see nowadays from his iconic night time hyrule introduction to smaller things like the moving triforce background that he uses in his top fives this is what i subscribed but then something even bigger than that happened zeltik uploaded his first genuine zelda theory in the past he had done theories about zelda u but they were practically speculation videos considering how little information was known about the game on the other hand this ganondorf video was based on established lore the video which was a collaboration with the commonwealth realm did much better than his previous speculation content and as a result celtic gained more than 775 subs in the span of 10 days however he didn't stick with zelda theories yet for the next few months of 2016 zeltic kept pumping out speculation content while dabbling in a few other areas for instance he started an ocarina of time playthrough experimented with live streaming and uploaded a super smash brothers video this is also when the chamber of sages went public a multi-channel collaboration between the commonwealth realm dr riley game over jesse zelda master and celtic the goal was for members to help each other with videos while running a collaborative channel called the chamber of sages that's why zeltick's 2016 videos often had this intro unfortunately the collaboration fell through due to the workload involved and by june zeltek had dropped the intro from his videos speaking of which june is when he hit 10 000 subscribers although it wouldn't stay that way for much longer four days later on june 14th 2016 the legend of zelda breath of the wild was finally revealed and with it came an insane amount of speculation over the course of the reveal which lasted three days celtic worked tirelessly to upload as many videos as humanely possible reactions timeline theories top fives and general speculation videos came one after another when it was finished he had uploaded eight videos over the course of only nine days one of these videos in particular five breath of the wild easter egg references went on to earn more than a million views making it his sixth most popular video ever not bad considering he made it in a single day and before anyone was able to play the game but holy carp this paid off in a single month he doubled the size of his channel reaching 20 000 subscribers he was earning subscribers faster than any zeltuber before him and breath of the wild was right around the corner all he needed to do was stay consistent so obviously he disappeared for four weeks what did you expect something different the man just went on a video making rampage let him catch his breath after the break zeltiq continued with speculation content the hype for the latest zelda game seemed unstoppable and this only boosted his channel more by january he was already at 40 000 subs and then on march 3rd of 2017 the legend of zelda breath of the wild released ziltek had been making videos for 23 months almost a full two years and all of it was for this moment and he did not spoil the opportunity using his sonic speed he made four videos within a week all of them doing pretty well he had reached the finish line the end of his quest his purpose in life had been completed so obviously he took a much deserved month-long break to appreciate the game and all was well but then it wasn't when ed returned to the channel he ran into a problem the point of his videos were to speculate about the legend of zelda breath of the wild but what do you speculate on when the game is fully revealed the channel needed a new purpose for months zeltiq experimented with various topics ranging from breath of the wild dlc analysis to mario odyssey tips and even a zelda let's play his videos during this time were doing all right but his channel wasn't growing nearly as fast as before whereas he used to get 10 000 subscribers a month now he was barely getting a thousand yet believe it or not something much worse was happening behind the scenes celtic didn't enjoy making videos anymore in the past it was fun for him a hobby project but now he was forcing himself to make videos as a result his upload schedule became less and less frequent so with the channel stuck in a rut no motivation and no new zelda game on the horizon it seemed like things were going to take a turn for the worst but then this happened a year after breath of the wild's release in march of 2018 super smash bros ultimate was announced zeltiq was a hardcore smash fan and if you'll recall he was making videos about it well before he was making zelda content this was his chance to shine and shine he did his first smash video on the channel uploaded on march 13th 2018 speculated on what link's moveset would be in the new game unfortunately most of his ideas didn't come to fruition but that hardly mattered celtic was back baby for the next few months ed worked on zelda content alongside super smash bros content and for time it was the best of both worlds speculation smash bros and zelda all on one channel but it wasn't meant to last as ed soon discovered the majority of his fans weren't interested in his super smash bros content unless it was linked to the legend of zelda series his first few smash videos did amazing but after that they started getting fewer and fewer views the situation really came to a head on november 17 2018 when he uploaded the video smash bros most terrifying item a physics theory about the black hole item from super smash bros ultimate the video was received generally well by the people who saw it but the problem was nobody saw it as a result celtic unlisted the video making it almost impossible to watch almost i might have included a secret link to it in the description don't tell him i said that the final nail in the smash coffin came that october when his legend of zelda content jumped in popularity subscribers began to pour in again and two of the videos from this month went on to be in his top 10 most popular videos ever but he wasn't quite done yet he decided to release one more smash video a ganondorf combat montage the footage was impressive but compared to all his other content got hardly any views so smash finally went out the window since then zeltick has only ever uploaded zelda content a few months after leaving behind a smash content on january 23 2019 celtic hit the huge milestone of 100 000 subscribers every single video since then has gotten just as many views the next month on february 24th he uploaded his most popular video ever which link is the strongest a video which compared the strength equipment skills and experience of each link in zelda timeline to see which is strongest today the video sits just under 4 million views then on june 11 2019 the sequel to breath of the wild was revealed which led to a string of speculation videos on the channel which went well into the summer however instead of focusing solely on speculation ed continued to make other types of zelda content such as theories top 5 or top 10 rankings and eventually easter egg compilations by the end of 2019 he had reached 300 000 subscribers this begs the question what is it about his videos that made them so successful i think we can pin a few things down on a surface level he's professional his editing is smooth yet not overdone and he has a great voice for it but we can go deeper than that zeltick is a master in the art of storytelling annie joe schmoe can make a top 10 list or spit out facts that prove a theory but it takes much more talent to tell a good story and that goes a long way to getting people invested in his videos on top of that his theory videos are incredibly sound which is rooted in the way he goes about his research instead of starting with a conclusion and finding clues to back that up ed starts with a question for instance what are the aliens in majora's mask or how do ancient arrows work then after doing his research he tries to come to a logical conclusion this makes his theories highly convincing and gives people one more reason to watch his content then last but clearly not least celtic puts an insane amount of work into his thumbnails they're eye-catching but simple to understand and succeed at making people curious and if you can make people curious then you can get them to watch your video all of this together contributed to his success as a youtuber so by the end of 2019 zeltick finally became a full-time content creator it was about this time that a dreadful virus hit the world stage and forced everyone indoors so zeltic took advantage of this and returned to an old love of his runescape this became his creative outlet in the spring of 2020 with a channel called wizards mind bomb he uploaded a total of five videos to the channel each ranging from 1 000 to 4 000 views however due to its lukewarm response he ended the series in may of 2020. the channel has had no uploads since when age of calamity released in the fall of 2020 he jumped on the bandwagon and released two of his chunkiest videos to date an age of calamity story analysis and a 50 minute long theory about which age of calamity champion is the strongest obviously he needed a break and finally he took one nowadays ed still keeps himself busy with ranking videos zelda theories and when there is news about a new game speculation according to social blade zeltic is slated to become the largest zelda theorist by the summer and in the future it's entirely possible he'll become the largest zelda youtuber ever but until then that's a secret to everybody hey there normally this is when the video ends but i had a lot of fun facts about zelda that i wanted to share but i just couldn't fit into the main section of the video so here we are ed's first zelda game was ocarina of time although he couldn't get past the second dungeon in the game because it was so scary his seconds of the game which was the wind waker became his favorite 3d zelda game however his favorite 2d zelda game is the minish cap his old username uber doesn't mean anything but it's still really funny beltick used to record his videos in his garage and car because he thought it made his audio sound better celtic's editing software is sony vegas and lastly the current outro used in his videos was composed by his younger brother well that's all i got until i see you next time have fun storming the castle [Music]

Channel: The Bread Pirate

Views: 58,553

Keywords: Zeltik, The legend of Zelda, zelda, breath of the wild, legend of zelda, zelda theory, theory, Nintendo, Switch, documentary, history, zelda history, zeltik history, speculation, zelda u, zelda nx, easter eggs, secrets, analysis, legend of Zeltik, Zeltik Zelda, Zelda Youtube, history zeltik, career zeltik

Id: ztuRYSSy3ts

Length: 14min 22sec (862 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021