Is being a YouTuber really the best job?

As the year is coming to an end, Forbes tends to post their list of richest people in the world today, and I’m sure many of you have seen that at the top of the YouTube earning list was an 8-year-old boy named Ryan Kaji. He earned an astonishing $20 million+ this year alone, I extend my congratulations to him and his family.

This then gave me the question is being a YouTuber really the best job, so I set out to ask 10 YouTubers ranging from 100 subscribers to 500k subscribers to see what it was really like being a YouTuber. Here are their replies:

Jeonqz

"When I was starting out, one of my biggest issues was being upset with how the amount of effort wasn’t worth how many views I was getting. I'd put a lot of time and effort into my videos, trying to make them the best quality and as entertaining as I can get them, they still don't get the recognition that I want them to get. It's very discouraging in my opinion. Another hard part about being a small YouTuber is having to improve your channel on your own when you don’t even know what people like/dislike since there’s no one watching, it feels like guesswork at times. So it's good to seize any opportunity at feedback when you can. In addition, YouTube has become quite a difficult place to get exposure for my content. I do anime and kpop related videos but it is quite obvious that getting noticed is really hard now especially since there are so many channels doing the same thing. It's probably just harder for me since I'm doing something that tons of people are already into and making the content of. But I do know that a lot of bigger YouTubers started off exactly where I am now, so I believe if I just stick with it, all my hard work will eventually pay off. Is all of this worth it? Yes, definitely! To me, as long as you enjoy what you are doing, even if you don't get the results you want, it's absolutely worth it."

Link: https://www.youtube.com/c/jeonqz

RapidTurtle24

"Sometimes I wake up at 4am and think, what would it be like to have every morning free to do what I like every day, every evening and then I think for a second... YouTube! It only takes me a short second to realise there is nothing better to do than feel the first views, likes and watching the counters slowly go up, it’s the best feeling. Then as I have had a regular think I rush out of bed and work on a video hastily editing and turning on my 3 computers, the start to most days but as anyone will know you can’t live the exact same every day. It can be overwhelming, some days you want to upload 3 times in a day others you might miss a month’s worth of uploads to spend time with family and do schoolwork, balance is key in life as a YouTuber and if you can’t find this then you are not ready and need to be able to make certain sacrifices to make a stupid 10-minute video. But advice if you are new, sacrifice what you need to get to the top but don’t leave behind your life: in school, at work, with family, with friends. If your channel doesn’t suit that then change it else you will just get stuck in the infinite loop of YouTube eat sleep repeat, the tee shirts don’t lie. Just remember balance is KEY."
Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC13au61KVLpSK2ypYFA9cgQ

SleepHD

"I spend about 1-2 hrs each day either doing small edits for a video. Or trying to gather video ideas. And then finally recording the actual content. I currently don't make any money from youtube and it's not all about the money. I love making videos and meeting new people and playing games. I noticed I'm becoming more friendly and not as toxic as I use to be. Aswell for younger viewers, I have tried to maintain PG13 Content but some things are out of your control. When I stream I have to appear offline or I get invites from the same people. It's not about the number of likes I get or the number of views I get for me just making someone's day and getting a laugh or learning something they didn't before makes me keep grinding to make more videos."

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqNyq0THtcKdJYBP0e7yfA

Jamify

"Hi, being a Youtuber is a great hobby - especially when your getting fans, subs, views etc (general feedback.) on average my videos take about half an hour to an hour to edit. That’s shooting, editing, promoting and uploading. Every day you gotta keep trying to find new ways to be unique, to promote and new video ideas since you have always got to be ready to change in case you can’t make the videos you want - like if your a gaming channel and your Xbox breaks. Whenever I do something special like going on holiday I always plan on talking about the whole thing and showing things I'd done during the days. At first, I was scared of improving by showing my face (before I had to do things without showing my face which was really hard but since I'd done my face reveal everything’s easier to get across in my videos - the reveal is really embarrassing but I leave it on there to remind everyone of the channels big improvement and to encourage others to push themselves to their full potential. When it comes to script making I use the notes on my iPad/iPhone to write (around 2-7 mins long) and use a teleprompter so I don't learn the script due to school tests and revision and I get to look at the camera as if I have a script in front of me."

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJIsmQo0wtboorbtY1tH3kA

So from the few that I've gotten, we can see that for some being a YouTuber is fun, buts it's not like what most people nowadays think. You can't just sit back and only spend 1 hour making a video and somehow get $1million dollars from it.

As you can see from this visual representation taken from quora we can see that if you're just starting out as a YouTuber its very hard to make any sort of money that may offset your bills, especially in the UK.

Due to Youtube's low payment, YouTubers tend to look for other means to get paid such as paid endorsements from companies or having their own brand/merchandise store where fans can pay for merchandise. Another way is through sponsors and from Grape Vine (a place for creators to find affiliate marketing deals/sponsorship deals) I found that their recommendation for CPM (cost per thousand) was $20 which with an average of 75k views on your last 10 videos could earn you a nice $150 and this is excluding the flat rate you receive and the free product/service.

Another point that was touched upon by the YouTubers I asked was the way they had to act to accommodate having a following. One of them had said that he had to become more child-friendly. Being a YouTuber means that you may need to become more socially aware and be mindful of your audience.

Personally, I think youtube is like every other social media, there's an addiction to seeing the likes increase or seeing the number of views your post has gotten, and then that becomes the only motivation to do well. That's what puts people into the wrong state of mind, a large number of the YouTubers I asked had said that the number of views they get affects them in one way or another. Then that addiction is what makes youtube so profitable, they have content creators posting videos to get views while they obtaining money from video ad revenue.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe that being a short term YouTuber isn't worthwhile, if you have quick access to fame then I would 100% tell you to be a YouTuber. But as a small YouTuber, all the odds seem to be against you, but whatever you do stick at it and someday you will be better than the people you used to look up to!

It takes a lot of effort and grinding to get to where these people are today. So if you have time feel free to check out all of their channels, they all have great content and were hand-picked by me.