The Story of Lachlan

of the 31 million active creators on youtube around 160 000 1 in 200 or 0.5 percent have passed the 100 000 subscriber milestone and as you might guess that percentage gets smaller as the subscriber count increases only 16 000 individuals have been able to cross the 1 million subscriber milestone a rate of only 1 in 2 000 or 0.05 now 1 million subscribers is more than enough to signify the competence of a creator but i want to take this to a slightly higher level and research a sample of those unique individuals with more than 10 million subscribers the hyper elites the creme de la creme the youtube creator uberolus because when we're talking about a rate of only 1 in 42 000 creators having more than 10 million subscribers you almost can't help but ask what have they done differently that has elevated them above the rest of the competition the creator we'll look at today has done way more than display his competence when it comes to ascending the creator hierarchy this specific creator has displayed an insane provision of resilience adaptability and consistency at a level causing them to become the sixth most subscribed channel in their country of origin we're of course talking about the one and only lachlan power who despite coming from extremely humble beginnings playing pixelmon hey what's going on guys it's lachlan here with scott for pixelmon has grown his channel to over 13 million subscribers then to combine this with what was said previously i want to know what makes lachlan stand out is there a specific attribute that has caused him to leave the rest of his competition in the dust i mean some of the creators he used to live with have now been featured in the downfall series so it poses the question of what did lachlan do differently to avoid the often natural path of irrelevancy that is seen by many other gaming content creators ladies and gentlemen join me as we cover the story of lachlan power aka the lachlan documentary [Music] when discussing why most youtubers begin their journey on the platform the standard circumstance is usually that they were watching other creators and as a result wanted to give youtube a shot themselves and i guess this creates the first question of the video do you think this is how lachlan started on the platform well yes kind of this was somewhat consistent with lachlan's beginning however there was a bit of a difference in the minor details lockland explained that the birth of his channel actually came out of the boredom that his university degree was producing back in early 2013. later on the line when i went to unh got really really bored i guess on top of simply being bored at university lachlan was a huge fan of pokemon okay so my favorite game growing up i think was probably pokemon i used to always play pokemon a lot and had discovered a new minecraft mod called pixelmon a mod that merged many of pokemon's mechanics with minecraft mechanics to make a kind of half pokemon half minecraft game and essentially what it comes down to is a minecraft experience but with pokemon in it lachlan concluded that since this mod was so cool he had to share it with the world and the best way to do that would be to upload his gameplay onto the youtube platform found this uh awesome mod from minecraft that had pokemon in it and i was like this is awesome i gotta share this with people and the purpose of that first video that i ever made uh was to share this awesome mod i found for the game called minecraft it's why i started doing youtube is because i just love the mod so much and it was a mod that allowed you to play pokemon within minecraft so i made a youtube account and just uploaded myself playing but it was so cool so awesome i had to share it with you people enjoyed it and then it spiraled out into what it is today i guess i definitely don't think i'd be in the position i am making content for youtube if it wasn't for pixelmon lachlan then uploaded his first ever video on the youtube platform titled pixelmon server let's play episode 1 on the 23rd of march 2013 only three days after creating his youtube channel hey guys what's going on it's craft battle judy here with my first minecraft video uh it's not really a minecraft video it's a pixelmon uh minecraft video today lachlan's original youtube name was actually craft battle duty hey guys what's going on it's craft battle judy here again and today i'm going to show you how to install the latest sus shader pack mod for minecraft a name that would later be changed to lachlan as the channel grew but then let me ask you another question do you think that lachlan was some kind of gifted youtube protege under the genius level creativity being put on this earth for the sole purpose of content creation stardom well no not really he was a pretty standard teenager who had pretty similar characteristics to the rest of us being only 17 at the time lachlan was simply working in a local supermarket still working a retail job at a supermarket while studying i t at university i would probably be finishing my final year of university for my it degree however this displayed his interest in working with computers and technology perhaps of foreshadowing for how successful his channel would become in the future lachlan would state at a later date that his first video on pixelmon led to numerous other minecraft videos many of which focusing around the pixelmon mod i didn't know it back then but that first video would lead to a lot of other videos in the beginning of the channel lachlan's upload schedule was all over the place posting about two videos per week which like all beginner channels got very few views however as time progressed the view count steadily increased likely due to people searching specifically for the pixelmon mod on youtube with every single one of his videos having that keyword in the title this increase in views caused lachlan to hit 1 000 subscribers in may 2013 exactly two months after originally starting the channel at which point a video was uploaded celebrating the milestone i hit 1k subs today so we're going to do a special tournament i want everyone to come on to the server then only two months after hitting 1000 lachlan hit 10 000 subscribers 10 times what he was able to achieve in the first two months of uploads hey guys what's going on it's lachlan or craft battle duty as most of you know me by and this is my special 10 000 subscriber vlog in only four months lachlan had proven himself to be one of the biggest authority figures in the pixelmon genre and people were subscribing left right and center as they couldn't get enough of the series the lachlan power who was somewhat clueless on the platform only a few months previously had started to get the intuition for what can make a channel grow people took a liking to lachlan for the lighthearted commentary be sure to leave a like rating below it's always great to have your support and i am just loving this series so far um just going through this map is amazing advanced production value dude look how cool my intro was it was so cool i forgot about that intro that was such a sick intro and knowledgeability for the mod i'm chilling in cerulean with everyone that got all their cool pokemon some guys flying a shiny black charizard i am really hoping to get my hands look at these guys these guys like facing off in the streets these aspects caused lachlan to once again continue the growth at an astounding level hitting a hundred thousand subscribers in november 2013 only eight months after beginning the channel uh it's in celebration of the hundred thousand subscribers so pretty much i'd just like to thank everybody for subscribing to the channel it really does mean a lot that you guys take the time out of your day to subscribe and enjoy my content and uh yeah so pretty much celebrate i've got a couple things to go through now for many creators finding the formula for consistent growth takes years but for lachlan like laser beam has previously covered the formula was figured out in only a matter of months by early 2014 just over a year after initially starting the channel lachlan passed 200 then then 400 then 500 000 subscribers in september 2014 only one year and six months after starting the channel well guys we did it 500 000 subscribers the growth literally would not stop and you could probably argue that during this point in time lachlan couldn't have had a problem in the world but unfortunately this wasn't true [Music] by november 2014 lachlan was facing somewhat of a large problem that he was struggling to overcome his channel was almost entirely dedicated to minecraft but he wanted to upload videos on other games he also didn't want to pollute his main channel with a bunch of variety content as most of the viewers had subscribed for the minecraft content so the question arose how could lachlan upload variety content without polluting the main channel lachlan's solution to the problem was to create a second channel called lachlan plays where he would upload variety content without potentially annoying his dedicated fans from the main channel what would you say if i told you i have this channel and that is minecraft and then what if what if i told you i had another channel then the lachlan plays channel was an instant hit gaining a hundred thousand subscribers in the first few months now gaining the subscribers was significant of course but the more significant discovery of the channel was that people wanted to watch lockland regardless of whatever game he was playing the channel primarily revealed that as long as it was lachlan making the content he could be playing anything from super mario odyssey ladies and gentlemen it is back welcome to super mario odyssey the series back again to ark survival welcome back to arc i am so happy to be here and still get decent views on his videos so things were really looking up for lachlan he had overcome the challenge of wanting to play variety games which was a win but not as much of a win as what he would do next for his youtube channel at around the same point in time as when lachlan was creating his second channel lachlan began playing minecraft with a group of friends who would later become known as the pack what's going on guys it's preston here today with the entire pact now i want you to tell me something what do you think the end result of grouping together a load of prominent youtubers to all make consistent collaboration videos together we're talking about people like mr woofle's preston plays jerome asf beijing canadian vicstar123 well the almost inevitable result in my eyes is a load of cross growth as the fans of each individual creator will naturally be introduced to the other creators in the pack through collaboration videos hey what's going on dudes it's mitch orbash and canadian here with the pack we've got vic lachlan jerome and preston and making videos together made perfect sense because they had all met previously via various different avenues and were making personal videos anyway so why not start a little group to accelerate the growth of each individual channel well it turns out creating the pack was an excellent decision because between november 2014 and april 2015 lachlan went from 600 000 to 1 million subscribers becoming the first ever australian gaming youtuber to hit 1 million subscribers not only did we reach a million subscribers and that's crazy enough for the goal as itself but being the first australian gaming channel to reach a million like that is absolutely mind-blowing lachlan then moved to florida to live with two other members of the pack bayesian canadian and jerome asf with the intention of pumping out content under the same roof this is lachlan's room when he's here lachlan mitch and jerome made challenge videos to drink whatever you throw in this cup that's what the loser has to do prank videos do you see those fish yeah all right all right no no no no no no and most important of all video game content this is skyblock an old school map with mitch and jerome once again it seemed as though lachlan had overcome all of his challenges with nothing in the way that might potentially derail his channel in the near future since i've temporarily moved in it has been an absolute blast for these two guys we've been getting up to some awesome stuff however unfortunately that doesn't seem to be how life works every time something is solved you'll always have a new challenge to overcome in mid to late 2015 lachlan began to face a problem that many other content creators were facing at the time creators such as stampy bayesian canadian jerome asf and skydes minecraft all began to receive a decline in views due to the drop in minecraft's popularity and unfortunately lachlan wasn't exempt from this phenomena either if i remember correctly and i want you to fact check me here you were crushing on minecraft right and then there was a lull for a lot of minecraft creators where the viewership wasn't as high lachlan's views began to take a bit of a hit stemming from the decline in minecraft's popularity not a good situation for any creator and he needed a solution and i'd say that in lachlan's mind it was better to jump ship than to go down with the boat he needed to start posting videos on a new game because what i did for like two months during that like lull of minecraft i like first video because we got pokemon go first in australia so as soon as it came out went outside like midnight when we're mates fought charmander did all that lachlan discovered pokemon go when the game first came out back in july 2016 and since he loved it so much he decided that he would try posting it on youtube to see how it would perform like banged hard got like woke up to like a million views and i was getting like 100k views maybe at the time so i was like all right that we dropping everything we do on pokemon go every day and that was that one million views straight off the bat was more than enough for lachman to make pokemon go his main game lachlan explained that he loved going outside with his friends to record a video instead of having to sit inside playing minecraft so perhaps it wasn't only attractive for the video performance but also attractive for the outdoor lifestyle but yeah we're going to be onto the gold coast so i can go catch hopefully some watertight pokemon we're going to go right on the beach and i i just want to try and find but once again lachlan was facing an issue similar to what happened with minecraft pokemon go was somewhat of a fad exploding in popularity in the beginning but dying off as it left the mainstream this caused lachlan to once again take a hidden view count going from 74 million views when the game was first released to 18 million views in october only three months later so by this point it became a question of should lachlan play the not as enjoyable game minecraft for more views or the more enjoyable game pokemon go for less views well lachlan decided to choose the more enjoyable game in exchange for fewer views then all of the content on the channel became focused on pokemon go after dropping back down to 18 million views in october 2016 lachlan's view stabilized at around 15 million per month significantly less than what he was receiving when uploading minecraft but still high comparative to many other creators at the time by mid-2016 lachlan's success on minecraft and pokemon go afforded him the opportunity to get his own impressive home which was displayed on the channel in september 2016. let me take you outside this is where this is where everything's just amazing this is the view from the backyard um amazing italian now this property shown was only rented but it was still a representation of the success he was able to achieve by only 21 years of age so that's that um then we got in this is the upstairs hallway on the right over here is my office but the success was fleeting for lachlan by mid-2017 the interest in pokemon go had really dried up and lachlan's views were steadily declining he continued to upload videos on pokemon go alrighty ladies and gentlemen welcome back to a brand new episode of pokemon go but it was obvious that it wasn't a viable long-term strategy given the declining popularity of the game perhaps it was once again time to move on to a new game but the real question was what could this new game even be minecraft had already been done and there wasn't many other big games that would get views at the time was there even anything lachlan could play on his channel besides minecraft or pokemon go well lachlan actually answered this himself during a q a with preston in april 2017 a viewer asked lachlan what game he would be playing if he wasn't uploading videos on pokemon go if there was a game you think you'd switch your channels to focus on besides minecraft pokemon in general which would it be lachlan explained that he didn't really know and that there wasn't many available games that he expected to have success with cause there's games that we enjoy playing but they wouldn't do well on youtube during the same period as the q a with preston it was becoming obvious that lachlan was getting tired of pokemon go stating firstly that pokemon go was becoming extremely repetitive views on the current pokemon go same repetitive content or it's different so pokemon go pvp when the game first came out [Music] pokemon go now please add some depth to your pvp and secondly that he was pretty disappointed with the development team where in the world would you want to travel purely because of pokemon go uh i'd probably have to say niantic's head office to let them know how disappointed i am it was becoming obvious that perhaps lachlan needed to move on to yet another game or endeavor but as stated previously he didn't really have another game to move on to lachlan jokingly talked about playing zelda or runescape three two one five you were supposed to say runescape that game's forever you know what runescape would have been me about coming back because don't know because the thing is runs out until it steals yeah like what like dude you vote runescapes up there but it gets a bit boring they're runescape but let's reinforce the fact that lachlan knew that they wouldn't do very well on youtube comparative to pokemon go however this would change only six months later when a new incredibly popular game was released giving lachlan an opportunity to boost his popularity tremendously the game would go on to become one of the most popular games in gaming history providing ample opportunity for new content on the lachlan channel the game we're talking about is of course the now incredibly popular fortnite battle royale we've done it oh lachlan found out about the game through muselk who did a brand deal for save the world and invited lachlan to play with him elliott muzel got me on it um at the time um he did like a brand deal for like their save the world yeah yeah kind of thing and it was right around when they launched it a brand deal for fortnite was then offered to lachlan as well which he accepted resulting in the first fortnight battle royale upload on lachlan's second channel lachlan plays dated the 9th of october 2017 approximately two weeks after the game was released fortnite battle royale and this is actually a sponsored video really awesome i've wanted to try out this game for a while now however lachlan wasn't really sold from the beginning he was still uploading pokemon go and considered pokemon to be his main gig this was supported by a question asked by a fan in a q a from november 2017. is fortnite gonna be the new pokemon go for your main channel no i love it but you guys seem to like it in the sense that it'll do all right but the moon views are coming from non-subscribers only one month after fortnite was released where lachlan didn't seem 100 sure about transitioning to fortnite full-time however this attitude wouldn't last long because shortly after lachlan announced that he was totally addicted to the game and just like half the population i feel like on earth i have now become addicted to fortnite lachlan's addiction to the game combined with the explosive growth of fortnite's popularity inevitably led lachlan to make fortnite the main game on the channel only one month after uploading his first video lachlan began to exclusively upload fortnite after racking in an insane amount of views owing to his creative video ideas and impressive thumbnails some of these initial ideas include the rainbow gun challenge 11 million views welcome everybody to the rainbow challenge and the penta rpg strategy 4.8 million views there we go surely one of those rpgs has got to get him however fresh content on a fresh game wasn't the only upside of switching to fortnite there was another advantage to swapping games that lachlan utilized better than many other creators who were switching to fortnite at the time a new network of collaborators on top yeah i know i want you to pick i want you to pick it up [Music] good shots good shots good shot lachlan had learned how to effectively leverage off the popularity of other youtubers back when he was making videos with the pack but by this point many of the former members of the pack had dying youtube channels and were no longer useful in the growth of lachlan's channel so switching to fortnite provided the opportunity to befriend a new network of creators wow i could build the tallest tower but i knew i'd need friends you guys weren't in the dream by the way i did it on my own somehow lachlan began playing regularly with individuals like muzok who was a former pro overwatch player there's a fun little twist elliot makes a couple appearances you'll find out in the video laser beam who is a former madden and variety youtuber so today myself and landon are going to be hitting some 1v1 and loserfruit who was also a former overwatch player lachlan basically took his original method of playing with other creators from the pack days and applied it to fortnite kind of creating his own new age pack similar to the old school minecraft days the new game mixed with a new audience new ideas and a new network caused lachlan's views and subscribers to absolutely skyrocket going from 10 million views per month during pokemon go to 100 million per month only six months later then 200 million per month only two months later again everyone thinks of ninja as being the biggest creator in the beginning of fortnite right well lachlan was getting the same amount of views at the time and while lachlan wasn't as skilled as ninja the level of entertainment from each creator was comparable over the years lachlan had basically developed the skill of knowing exactly what the audience wanted to watch when it came to gaming content from every single perspective from the gameplay perspective to the thumbnail perspective to the video type perspective and it seems as though lachlan discovered the best video type for fortnite was challenge videos anyway like i was saying welcome everybody back to another fortnite challenge video today it is kind of like a no build challenge we're not going to be able to build back in the day when lachlan first started youtube the most successful gaming videos were let's plays hey guys what's going on it's craft battle judy and today i'm going to start my 1.6 hardcore survival series but as time passed the desire for medium length action-packed challenge videos had increased dramatically lachlan discovered this and subsequently pumped out as many challenge videos with as much creativity as he could manage alright ladies and gentlemen you've seen the random pickaxe challenge you've seen the random skin challenge hell you've even seen the random glider challenge ladies and gentlemen welcome to the random backlink challenge this skill of understanding exactly what the audience wanted to watch caused lachlan to go from 3 million subscribers at the start of 2018 to 9 million by the end of 2018 growing at a rate of approximately 500 000 subscribers per month then just after lachlan hit 10 million subscribers vikkstar uploaded a video titled visiting lachlan's house and five hundred thousand dollar fortnite australian pro-am this video would include multiple events that would add to lachlan's character development firstly the audience got the opportunity to see lachlan's personal residence for the first time displaying some of the cool mechanics he had installed when it was built okay lachlan has my favorite thing i've ever seen in a house the marble in the bar changes color look at this you can oh what that's okay that is absolutely stupid then in the second half of the vlog lachlan and vic star headed to the fortnite australian prime event we are now leaving brisbane flying over to melbourne for the fortnight summer smash where lachlan unfortunately didn't qualify yeah look didn't make the qualifiers but like you know what happens um come back in next time i hope they do another one here and uh yeah hopefully fresh goes on to win it thank you now despite not qualifying it was still an indication of how notorious lachlan had become in the fortnite scene at this point in time early 2019 lachlan was absolutely riding the wave of success getting an average one to 200 million views per month but just like minecraft back in 2016 lachlan's success was very much tied to the popularity of the game he was playing the fortnite audience just like minecraft back in the day was beginning to lose interest by mid-2019 this inevitably led to a decline in views for lachlan's channel going from around 150 million per month in early 2019 to around 50 million per month by late 2019 then in november and december 2019 following a drop in motivation and a loss of interest after the release of fortnite chapter 2 lachlan took a bit of a break from youtube but perhaps this two-month slow down was exactly what lachlan needed for the longevity of his channel as it was also at the same point late 2019 that lachlan signed an exclusivity contract with youtube meaning that he would only stream on youtube rendering him unable to stream on mixer or twitch did i make this up in my own head that you signed an exclusivity deal with youtube yeah no i did i did sign an exclusive video with youtube like end of last year yeah yeah with my boy cards oh yeah um youtube gang while the amount for the deal remains undisclosed his body language in a recent podcast indicates that the deal might be worth north of 10 million dollars i want you to look into the camera and blink twice if your deal at youtube was worth more than 10 million dollars he's covering his face i'm just i'm chilling yeah if you were told right now following lachlan's exclusivity deal with youtube his views once again started to climb back up to that 100 million per month that had been seen previously in early 2019 and indicated that his motivation was back up to where it needed to be to continue the growth of his channel but even after everything we've covered was this really enough to satisfy lachlan well no because in june 2020 lachlan announced that he was launching a new esports organization spelled pwr and pronounced power similar to lachlan's surname so i've been planning on making a fortnight team for a while now and i thought what better players to pick on my first roster than a whole bunch of oc talent lachlan explained on the hundred thieves podcast that his goal with power esports is to get more oceania pro players recognised saying that the talented pro players in australia don't really get a platform where their skills can be put under the limelight there's like two main like motivational points for doing it and i think one of what you said is like building something bigger than yourself building a brand because of like australia's bad infrastructure for like internet and just the ping we don't compete with anyone in the world so many amazing players that just don't get seen because you know they might have something unfortunate happen trying to enable like oce pros and it makes sense really there are so many huge content creators like laser beam muse elk mr fresh asian as well as countless australian pros who never get the opportunity for recognition so maybe lachlan is on to something with his new esports team but we'll have to wait and see what happens then since the creation of the power esports team lachlan's views have dipped slightly since a minor peak in june 2020 when the team was announced possibly leading to a loss in motivation for lachlan considering in august 2020 he announced on stream that he had been thinking of taking an extended break from youtube let's take a break i don't know dude i've thought about taking my first extended break for a while right now like from youtube and everything in general extended break or not it's highly unlikely that lachlan will be quitting fortnite or youtube for that matter any time soon i'm like ride or die fortnite like that that's another thing i didn't really touch on like fortnite dies i i think i'm going to throw up the white flag and i'm just going to ride it like forever because i love the game so much and god forbid there probably might be another game in the next five years because when minecraft was poppin i loved minecraft so much and i was thinking the same thing so to wrap this video up let's answer the question we posed at the very beginning what did lachlan do differently to avoid the often natural path of irrelevancy that's seen by many other gaming content creators in the youtube landscape how has lachlan remained so relevant and hit peak after peak while many of his other former collaborators have seen nothing but a drop in views what's his secret well i'd say the main thing i've discovered from making this video is that lachlan is totally willing to drop his pride and innovate to ensure the success of his channel he's not scared to experiment with different forms of content until he finds something that works experiment until you find something and then just double down on it and that's kind of like what i've done like minecraft find something to experiment you know you'll sit you'll find something something will hit double down on it and i think this has been the key for lachlan if we just put his obviously insane work ethic aside for just two seconds it's clear that he knows how to succeed regardless of the outlook on the youtube landscape he did it firstly with minecraft then pokemon go then with fortnite and despite saying that he'll never stop uploading fortnite he's shown that if he needed to upload videos on a new game he would absolutely have no problems in succeeding with whatever game it might be that provides himself as well as his audience with a level of confidence that's rarely seen amongst other creators so lachlan thank you for your journey and we wish you the best of luck in the future you

Channel: SunnyV2

Views: 879,425

Keywords: Lachlan, PWR, Lachlan PWR, Lachlan Power, Lachlan Fortnite, Lachlan Fortnite Battle Royale, fortnite, fortnite storyline, chapter 2, chapter 1, entire fortnite storyline, chapter 2 fortnite, the entire fortnite storyline, documentary, youtube documentary, rise and fall, Biography, narration, video essay, twitch, youtube, entertainment, education, joon the king, family friendly, sunnyv2, fortnite downfall, fortnite battle royale, season 4 fortnite, lachlan lazarbeam, lachy, lachy dachy

Id: c4U5Xqs1gNk

Length: 28min 23sec (1703 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020