YouTube is very culturally recognized. When we started in 2007 YouTube was very relevant, but completely unrecognized.
When my YouTube videos started to get really big, I was like, 'Man, this is pretty sweet.' It started as my hobby, and then I started traveling and learning how to play different instruments, and then it just kind of became my life.
Acting had been a hobby that turned into a career, the directing was a hobby that turned into a career, and music just really allowed me to find another way to express myself. I started playing bass in November 1996, and by June 1998 I was doing my first live show.
Bodybuilding is a hobby. At least for me it is. I've trained since i was 12 or 13 years old. It's a hobby I just have so much fun with it. I get so much enjoyment from it. To have your job as your hobby - life don't get better than that.
I'm so inspired by people like Issa Rae who started on YouTube or Abbi and Ilana from 'Broad City' who also started on YouTube.
I used to put like, 'Yo Gotti type beats,' 'Future type beats' on YouTube. And uhh, I started getting paid off YouTube. Like YouTube started giving me Google AdSense checks.
I started out poking fun at this YouTube thing.
I'm not too big on stylists. I find it fun just looking for myself, seeing if I can put things together. It's like a secondary hobby for me.
I was too shy to do any vocal lessons or go to choirs; I just didn't want to be seen doing it. It's something that I kept to myself. I started easing into it, and I started doing talent shows, and YouTube really helped with that, too.
I never went to school for photography and started when I was pretty young. I was somewhere around 12 or 13. I started photographing as a hobby and carried that hobby through high school and university.
I always believed in the YouTube community and myself. I saw something there. The most difficult thing was others not believing in me. I had a lot of friends in Los Angeles who really thought I was crazy for leaving a steady acting job to start on YouTube.
That's what is really cool about this whole new wave of makeup artistry and people on Instagram and YouTube: It's about doing it for yourself and experimenting. People don't wear makeup to impress people or because they'll be seen in public. It's more of a hobby now, just because it's fun.
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.
People don't tend to notice, but in the past 10 years especially there's been a lot of growth in how I write songs and what goes into them. You can listen to Mountain Goats from 1991 to 2007 and never hear a seventh chord. In 2007 or 2008, I started working on the piano to grow as a songwriter. I started throwing major sevens in and sixes and more interesting stuff.
When I first started YouTubeing, the idea was, 'Oh, YouTube is going to be a stepping stone to get to other places,' and I just totally don't agree with that. I think YouTube is amazing. The digital space is amazing.
I started writing songs when I was 10. It was a natural way to express myself as a kid. It wasn't until I started listening to jazz, joined the choir and picked up a guitar that my little hobby became something far more serious.