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full screenprintcontentsfull screenprintYOUTUBER I 42
video goes live (which, if you’re
not doing during peak hours, you
might as well not do at all), have a
blast go out on Instagram, Twit-
ter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Facebook,
Words with Friends, Myspace,
whatever you’ve got. And you’d
better not be planning on posting
about it once and stepping away.
Persistence is key. Someone sees
a tweet about your sweet new
unboxing video once? They might
forget it. They see it twenty times
in a row, pinned to your account
and promoted to their feed? They’ll
remember it. But a middle ground
is probably ideal if you don’t want
to get blocked. You’ll want to have
semi-regular reminders going out
every day or two, at least until your
next video is live and you can start
the process all over again.
Now, yes, social media is go-
ing to be your bestie, but you’re
going to need to chum it up with
everyone else on it, too. Network-
ing needs to be in your bones
from here on out. Pass out cards
at conventions, on the street, in
a bed in post-op. You never know
where your next influencer friend
is going to be. Collaborations and
shout-outs are going to get you
in front of a whole new audience.
Going to guest in a video with
someone with a similar subscrib-
er count? Get ready to potentially
double your viewers. Finally,
friendship has a purpose. Plus,
the more you collab, the more
faces you get in front of, the more
people may want to collab with
you. The spiderweb of network-
ing just never ends.THE REAL HOW:
There’s no reason to be shy about it. We all know
the reason to be on YouTube is that good ad reve-
nue. The big question, though, is how much money
and effort should you be willing to drop to get
there? If it takes money to make money, just what
all is it going to take?
The easy choice is to go the Emma Blackery
route: charge an expensive DSLR to a credit card
with no way of paying it off, wait six years, then
have over a million subscribers and multiple inter-
national tours. That’s always going to be on the table.
No matter how vehemently she advises against it, it
seems to have worked out well for her.
If that’s not in the cards for you, it’s a tough balanc-
ing game. This is where things get tricky. It’s easy
enough to know all the right steps to become popular
and profitable if you’re the right person. It’s some-
thing else entirely to be practically able to get there.
YouTube success, mental health and general life
stability exist on a triangle, and most of us can only
afford to pick two of these at most. Do you have
enough money to invest in yourself and your con-
tent while not living in financial peril? Great. Do you
have the extra hours in your week to plan, film, edit,
upload and manage your content without running
yourself into the ground? Sweet. Do you want to live
a life spending money on the important things, being
happy and healthy and content with where you are?
That’s cool and all, but YouTube might not be the best
career for you.
The fact is, it’s a long road from launching your
content to seeing any sort of return on your invest-
ment. If you’re in it for the love of the sport, fantastic,
but you’ve got to be prepared for a lot of work, time,
and possibly actual money to go into what you’re do-
ing before you can expect quantifiable success.
With the huge commitment of making both consis-
tent and quality content, you really have to be some-
thing special to make it all the way to stardom.
Then again, you already are, aren’t you?Tom is an avid consumer and creator of adequate-quality content
and is always looking for his next ridiculous project.GUIDES
How To Become The Biggest YouTuber Ever383 Guides - General Become Bigges YouTuber.indd 42 2/19/19 2:56 PMYOUTUBER I 43
TRENDS BY SCOTT NISWANDER
Early uses of animated GIFs online were
mainly for decoration. Web designers
unironically plastered their sites with tacky,
digital animations seemingly in a competi-
tion to see who could make their website
the loudest eyesore on the internet.Almost all of these sites are gone or updated by now,
but you can get an (admittedly toned down) idea of
this period from the still-functioning website for the
1996 film Space Jam.The point is GIFs were decora-
tive, not conversational.
That changed in recent years as social media users
saw the inherent potential in GIFs being used for
reactions and personal expression — a visual analogy
to emphasize or clarify your current state of mind.
Occupying the space between a still image and a full-
on video, there are many technical reasons the GIF for-
mat became popular in communication. They capture
your attention more than a static image, and they haveTRENDS
GIFS ARE IMPROVING MODERN LANGUAGE. HERE’S HOW.
the ability to autoplay in a loop,
making them perfect for deliver-
ing responses in a context where
timing is critical. A witty retort that
forces you to click play on a video
clip would undoubtedly kill — or at
the very least maim — a joke.
Moreover, GIFs are silent, which
makes them less intrusive and more
accessible. You don’t need to crank
up the volume or grab headphones
in order to understand these handy
bundles of looping frames.383 009 Trends - Gifs .indd 43 2/19/19 2:57 PM