I just made random videos with my mom's camera, before YouTube even started. It was just my family and friends in a few spoofs of scary movies and mock talk shows. And then I found out about YouTube so I posted a ton of those videos on there.
I'm perfectly happy for my videos to be on YouTube, whether I'm getting paid for them or not. If they're on YouTube, people will see them. If for some reason my videos get taken down from YouTube, well, I apologize. If it was up to me they'd all be up there and they'd all be free.
I was doing YouTube before YouTube was a thing. I was making videos on my camcorder for my friends. I would do parodies of Britney Spears videos and stuff like that.
The videos I put on YouTube have expanded my audience beyond what I could have done at just a Hamburger Mary's. People saw the videos, started booking me, and literally 40-plus countries and thousands of gigs later I can basically say that YouTube has bought me a house.
If you think about YouTube, YouTube is a 'searching the world's videos' problem, right? They all have to be there, but how do you find them? What I guess I'm trying to say is that search is still the killer app.
YouTube has changed my life in a huge way. I mean, I wouldn't be able to pursue music and do what I love each day if it wasn't for the YouTube platform and for the people who watch my videos and share them.
With my YouTube videos, I used to edit a lot of my own videos, so I've gotten used to seeing myself on camera.
To me, YouTube isn't just, 'Watch my videos!' It's, 'Let's have a conversation and get involved in each other's lives.' I want to make [my fans] feel like they have a reason to have a YouTube account because they can comment and have a voice.
For me, it's always fun to have people that do the same thing as you or and have the same work ethic as you. A lot of my friends have YouTube channels, and I use them in my videos, and I'm in their videos.
I'd always loved watching YouTube videos, and that's what inspired me to make them myself. Initially I was drawn to makeup tutorials - I learned everything I know about makeup from YouTube.
As soon as I was getting YouTube comments and hit 100 subscribers, I was thinking 'maybe there's something to this. I could keep going. I don't know how far I can really push it just reviewing random indie bands on YouTube, but it seems to have more gas in the tank.'
Our users were one step ahead of us. They began using YouTube to share videos of all kinds. Their dogs, vacations, anything. We found this very interesting. We said, 'Why not let the users define what YouTube is all about?'
I have 60-plus videos on YouTube and over 30 million views. Of those 60, only three or four are branded videos. I built that audience by telling stories the way I like to tell them.
How it works: it's like I have a tour, so there's, you know, some income from that. We have merchandise. There's income from that. Then on YouTube, there's ad revenue... so, you know, YouTube puts ads on the videos, and we need a little bit of that.
For whatever reason, whenever I'm having a get-together, I'll turn on my projector and play YouTube videos of 'Russian driving fails.' Russians all have dashboard cameras in their cars, so there are all these videos of crazy wrecks and people almost getting hit in the street. It's a conversation starter, for sure.
Fueled by Ramen was maybe the first company to see YouTube as a place where music videos would go. The music video, which could never quite find a place on TV, has found its final form on YouTube.