I spent a day with FAMOUS YOUTUBE GAMERS (ft. Valkyrae, Arin/Game Grumps, Mini Ladd)

the first three years of YouTube's existence were almost completely void of gaming videos until 2008 when YouTube user blame truth began uploading daily Call of Duty four videos whose chance but gaming on YouTube didn't blow up in popularity until 2012 when PewDiePie's commentary videos for horror games captivated millions of people in a way no one ever had before this spawned a new generation of gamers who hope to turn their passion for gaming into their own successful YouTube careers but what about the YouTube gamers of today seven years after the gaming boom on YouTube do they still enjoy playing games or do they just do it to put food on the table what are the unique struggles these gamers deal with that no other creators on YouTube face are they really what some media has portrayed them as lazy my name is Anthony Padilla and today I'm gonna sit down with some of these creators to find out exactly what it takes to be a famous YouTube gamer in 2019 [Music] hi ray hey Aaron hi hey hey it's good to meet you for the first time ever yes why would it get got it soon oh my sir Craig how you doing good thank you so much for coming out and teaching me about the wondrous world of being a YouTube gamer I love you too real YouTube that's what you are how do you refer to yourself is it YouTube gamer professional gamer I just say comedian comedian just cuz then people are like oh you know there's nothing there's nowhere to go right right but once I say like I'm a youtuber or something right they're like oh how do you so what's the deal with how do you mean what we don't use the professional no no professional words in my channels until like a few years ago I just said Tom tank Raider even mean you've been around a while you know you couldn't say youtuber that some 50 year old going who and you describe what it is that you do I mostly stream on Twitch but I've recently in the past couple years of an uploading to YouTube so I guess I'm a youtuber yeah okay we play video games and then we commentate over it in a hilarious manner it's a lot of video game stuff it's a lot of game play so for me I try and get seven videos on the main channel which is gaming how did you come up with your channel name game grumps it was about me and the original co-host John we argued all the time mmm-hmm so we should just call it game grumps cuz we're always my real name's Rachel and I wanted people to hear first I wanted people call me I also thought it was easy to remember I was just googling words that Ray could go attach to Valkyrie you know the Nord mythology lady warriors Valkyrie Valkyrie was a guy who lived two doors up for me his name was Craig as well alright well I just glue just call you mini because you're younger and I'm like okay and then the lad part was general and Irish a lad is like how you just call it like a friend this whole time I thought it stood for miniature ladder it's what sets you apart from other gamers on youtube I feel like what sets us apart a little bit is that we don't give ish I feel like there's a there's a there's a sort of desire to like chase trends and stuff which is fine but we did you we just don't care so we just kind of do whatever I feel like you have a legendary status because of that Wow that's really sweet oh man was that on your note that came right from the heart is there purpose but is it just a prop that you're carrying a notepad so it's like I wrote these down but it's really on your phone I need to look professional for me instead of just having you know a 20 minute let's play video where there's no real like back-end to or and it's like that they're trying like emphasize certain emotion so it was like a sad thing I'll have like enough rain and sad music you know yeah I'll try and play it out in certain ways instead of just saying like I am sad now I can provide some quality gameplay but I also provide not quality gameplay I think people like to watch me struggle so what's the most difficult part about being a YouTube gamer now with just gamers it's tough you feel like you have to put a video every single day just to keep up with the demand for it even though the recording doesn't take that long sometimes it's for me it's the editing which some videos can take you know eight ten twelve hours each put one video together staying healthy cuz it gets grindy because like if you just stop like streaming if you just stop providing content and doing stuff you're all lose everything right now you're in lose your community everyone's gonna watch someone else like if I were to take a vacation like a one week vacation the amount of guilt that I feel for not streaming is a really bad I had to get over that and realize I need to take this time on mental health I feel like most people who do stuff in the public eye who perform have some sort of insecurity about being seen and getting immediate feedback about your performance or about who you are mmm-hmm you know it's like a knife when somebody gets like exactly what you feel about yourself like your biggest insecurity though there's one person that says the the perfect thing you're like I was worried about that and I didn't think anyone else noticed so therefore I thought that it wasn't yeah it's so obvious like they can see right through me you know keeping a distance from that has been the biggest challenge do you not look at comments does that help no so we I I have people that that sort of look at the feedback for me because like I don't want to not be connected to what our community is saying but I can't be immediately connected to it super helpful I wish I had that I look at all my comments and you know the positive comments are fantastic and I love them yeah and I appreciate them but then every once while there's that comment that says that things it's hard enough to deal with that on your own you know to go to therapy and like didn't talk to it therapist and be like hey this is out what I'm good but to get that from the world coming at you all at once is like that that's it's too much on average how much gaming do you do in a day um I mean I try and record every single day so record a single day I try I upload like ten videos a week you know you don't take any days off not really no so how much gaming is that in a day so there's some videos like a mini golf video would take twenty minutes but there are some games which may take you know leftovers like a counter-strike csgo video it may take you know play for five hours and you get thirty seconds worth of clips I used to when I went full time I was streaming maybe six to nine hours a day yeah yeah yeah and I started feeling you know unhealthy the effects on your body effects cuz like you don't have co-workers you know you talked to a screen there's no real social interaction you know in-person interactions yeah you don't start going a little bit crazy yes yes okay but when we're recording it's like it's like a six or seven hour of recording then does it ever get to the point where it's not enjoyable because it's just too much gaming in one day too much gaming no no not really I mean cuz Dan and I we've been doing this for so long and we're such good friends that it just feels like hanging out can you do an impression of what it's like when you play games with the cameras and lights off he goes my sushi burrito my legs up on the table yeah literally at this Stormtrooper wants to know do you have legs oh and he's got painted nails grime content Connor wants to know do you get butt problems from sitting so much yeah that's why I started working out because I would actually lose circulation in my legs I have a giant ass so no because it's fantastic padding so much surface area so much surface area what's been your most bizarre fan interaction there was one I was doing a signing a long time ago this kid came up and you know people are always like so I'm gonna get tattooed or whatever he was like you summit leg and I was like yeah I guess I've never had anybody asked me to sign their leg before sure they just went scientist prosthetic leg do you play any games that you don't enjoy just because you know it'll perform well with your audience so at the end of the gmod span I was literally recording just to make sure that people were okay so I've cheated more to their sites the point where I just wasn't enjoying anymore because I mean doing the same thing every day for like four years it just got to the point where it's kinda like an office job well not anything for me the best part of my job is making sure that my fans are happy I still try and make sure my content is good like throw up anything yeah but I want to make sure that people have something to come back to and some to escape from it's funny you ask that because well I have a reputation for like I'm like the the angry guy that like plays the frustrating games and shouts at them to me I'll kill you okay you like weights there's something cathartic about like screaming in a video game right because it's like it's not a person it's not it's not kind of like it's not gonna have its feelings hurt it's fun to like get to that place to sort of like be like ah this throw the controller and a lot of people think the idea of watching someone play games online rather than playing it themselves is just insane why do you think so many people enjoy watching you play games nobody wants to be lonely even I do it sometimes but I was away from my wife and everyone and I was like staying somewhere alone in a hotel room and I was like like I couldn't I couldn't sleep and so I turned on like a friend's which stream just cuz I was like oh they're here this is cool and then I like fell asleep like a baby and how do your parents feel about you being a YouTube gamer and just your career they're stoked really yeah they're like my biggest stalkers like each doctor is like I checking all my posts and all the report replies and they'll text me and they'll be like the school my dad passed away and because of streaming I was able to take care of him like at home which is just I'm so thankful for that and because of streaming I've like remodeled my mom's entire house and I got ya and had been taking care of her for the past year when she lost her job so I just they loved it my mom was on board my mom saw like the hours I was putting in my mom saw how happy it made me my mom saw you all I kind of stopped so whenever I dropped at a college she was like I've seen what you do I seen how much you love it you enjoy it and like if it's for a year we'll see what happens what would you say to someone who thinks YouTube gamers are lazy people who just record themselves doing something they would just do in their spare time I just got no interest in that discourse man like it's like we work hard and it's really difficult to sort of convey that for people donors that's always gonna be case cuz it's just like you just play games for a living it's like yeah you're right like you can't argue with that we just play the games for a living you're totally right but also you know I have I have I have three or four companies now and I'm you know participating in each one I have two we have a game dev department we have you know social media we have streaming we have recording videos we have merchandise we have so it's like I'm running all those and air traffic controlling it's kind of one of those things where you can't really explain to people that don't do it they're always just gonna think it's easy yeah yeah you're you play games for a living it's easy you know the cliche of like oh you try it you do this if it's so easy let me see you try it so I feel like I have been out of the loop for a while with games and everyone has been asking me to do a fortnight dance I was wonder if you could to help teach me wine this is a fox aren't you yeah yeah it's called I dialer and it's just this that's the dance yo shout yourself out let everyone know where they can find you you can find me mini loud no space 3ds or just type in mail out into youtube subscribe to game grumps youtube.com slash game grumps go ahead and check it out oh man all of my social is just Valkyrie and that's it alright well thank you so much coming after spending the day with these gamers I've come to realize there's no other genre like gaming on YouTube while critics may say that making money playing games as lazy the reality is these creators work hard to entertain their viewers just because they're doing what they love doesn't diminish the impact these creators have in bringing joy to their millions of fans lives see you later bye guys press the like do it why are you making me do this you are in mourning please I don't want to

Channel: AnthonyPadilla

Views: 1,221,017

Rating: 4.9711947 out of 5

Keywords: anthony padilla, padilla, anthony padilla youtube, youtube anthony padilla, anthony, smosh anthony, anthony padilla smosh, game grumps, arin hanson, egoraptor, craig thompson, mini ladd, miniladd, valkyrae, rae, fortnite

Id: dQacKjnPwro

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Alertcircuit]

Anthony Padilla & Egoraptor, this woulda been crazy in like 2008.

[u/DJ_Aftershock]

I'm glad Arin actually mentioned he and Jon came up with the name together.

[u/Houeclipse]

Arin own 4 companies? Is it all gamegrumps but different division or does it including something outside of gamegrumps?