One thing that has helped Mac
speed up the process is having a
library of reusable assets, “...things
I collect from friends and things I
see on the internet.” This lets Mac
edit more quickly while also crys-
tallizing his comedic brand in the
mind of viewers.
His expansive sound and clip
library, however, doesn’t imply
good organization. Most classes on
editing emphasize the importance
of labeling your work and using a
consistent file structure, but Mac
foregoes this for a simpler ap-
proach — using the search func-
tion of his file browser:
“I’m not very organized on my
computer, but I know the titles of ev-
erything ... so I just search the titles.”
This just shows that you don’t
need to adhere to traditional best
practices if another system works
better for you. This is also one of
the advantages of working for
yourself. The only person who
needs to understand your system
is you. As a creator, you just need
to find out what works best for
your workflow.
THE JOURNEY TO YOUTUBE
SUCCESS
Though Mac studied marketing, he
believes that the digital landscape
moves too quickly for traditional
schooling to keep up:
“When it comes to digital media
and marketing classes, you can
only learn so much, because digi-
tal media is such a fast-moving
frontier.” He credits most of his
success in creating his brand to
observing how the internet works
and how content surfaces on YouTube.
Mac has been on YouTube since 2012, but it wasn’t
until 2016 that he began to consider himself a true
full-time creator. Today, he makes a living from a
combination of AdSense, brand deals and his merch.
His time and effort put into MacDoesIt paid off.
“2016,” Mac says confidently, “That was the year I
actually felt like I was a ‘YouTuber’ rather than just a
person doing this as a hobby. That was the time when
I was like, OK, this is a thing. I’m making the revenue
that I guess everyone has been talking about.”
For Mac, true success goes beyond paying the bills
with advertising dollars. “I was also getting recog-
nized by VidCon and by the industry itself,” he says.
“I felt like, in 2016 was the year I became an industry
YouTuber, and before that, I was just like, a hobby
YouTuber ... When I started to feel like my voice was
actually being heard within the community and
within the industry, that’s when I was like OK, I guess
I’m making an imprint in this world.”AN ALTERNATIVE ENDING
Surprisingly, Mac almost abandoned his YouTube
career before ever getting to this point. “I was actu-
ally going to quit YouTube in 2015 because college
was getting too rigorous for me and I was like, I can’t
balance the both,” Mac remembers, citing the stress
of trying to create content in a dorm room with a full
class schedule. Luckily for us, someone intervened:
“A friend pulled me aside ... and they gassed me up,
basically ... and I believed it. For that entire summer,
I started uploading a video a week and I was like, let’s
see what happens.” Looking from his current vantage
point, Mac can see that it was the right thing to do.
“They were right,” he says, “exponential growth on
YouTube is a thing.”
Mac explains how he was able to gain traction on
MacDoesIt and send his viewership skyrocketing: “All
it takes, literally, is that one video that, some way in
the world, falls into the algorithm. And then people
hitch onto that, and then that video on top of your
content you’re uploading will keep people interested
and float you on top even more. And then suddenly,
you’re blowin’ up.”MACDOESIT
HOW MACDOESIT USES COMEDY TO BREAK OPEN REAL CONVERSATIONS ON YOUTUBE