Twelve Year Old Turns Serial YouTuber and You Can Too!
By Omar, age 12
Have you ever thought of starting a YouTube channel? It may seem extremely daunting at first. You may be intimidated by the standard set to be monetized or by people disliking your content. But I promise you, it gets better. This is the journey of my YouTube channel, Omario786, and how I made it and how you can, too!
I started my You Tube channel, Omario786, wanting to show people my gameplay. I was eight years old at the time and didn’t really know what games to play, as I did not have a console. I also did not know of many materials and tools for video making at the time. With just an Ipad and the internet, I used to screen record myself playing mobile games and then upload them. I finally gave up after a while with 28 subscribers. I did not feel invested because the channel was getting zero views on videos and not many people were engaging in the comment section. But, I came back better than before.
Two to three years later, I started reuploading. This time, I changed the genre of my channel from gaming to Islamic content as I was watching a lot of Islamic videos, such as talks from the well known channel, Merciful Servant, and Urdu translations of the Quran. After a few months, I felt like uploading the content was not doing anything. So I pivoted to a whole new genre. Memes.
Sink or swim?
Memes are humorous images/videos that are copied and spread rapidly by internet users. I had seen this genre on YouTube grow extremely fast, with channels becoming huge in a matter of days. One of the channels that blew up through memes quickly had 1 million views on its first video. Reddit was a good source for my content at the time. I was new to that genre but not a newbie. I knew what content was good from studying channels that blew up and looking at guides. However, I was still starting out in this new industry. Two months later, most of my uploads barely had two to five views. That’s where advertising came in.
Advertising was something I turned to because I realized I was failing in the new genre. I advertised at every chance I got. I was like a lion that was seeing its prey, with the prey being my opportunity to advertise. I talked about my channel, whether it was a game chat, with random strangers, a huge group chat, and social media. Wherever it was, I used it to tell people about my channel. Mainly using Reddit to advertise my channel, I grew it from 20 subscribers to 100 in a matter of months.
When I started advertising via Reddit and game chats, views on my videos went from between zero and five to between 15 and 60. This may seem like a small number to most of you, but for a small YouTuber like me, this was huge! I was getting my content and advertising from mainly the same source, Reddit. However, I had forgotten to do one thing, to credit the source and the original creators, and I faced the consequences!
A Learning Curve
As a 12-year-old, I wasn’t aware of the rule on the internet to give credit to original content creators. When I started uploading content from Reddit without attribution, it caused many viewers to become angry at my lack of referencing the source or “sauce”, as they say online. I would often receive hate comments from many channels. I would occasionally laugh it off thinking they were internet trolls and continued on with my business. However, there was one commenter that put hate comments in every video I uploaded. And all the comments were about the lack of sources being identified and how terrible my content was. I just wanted the comments to stop and, in the way, I learned the error of my ways. I started citing/crediting the source whenever I uploaded a video. If I did not have it, I would simply note that I didn’t in the description. Nowadays, my channel is growing steadily and consistently, as I keep uploading memes.
The Ripple Effect
My channel, Omario786, has been consistently growing, without much need of advertising. I would like to think it is successful, even though it may not seem like it to others. To me it is, and it makes me feel proud of myself, even if it is a small milestone. This is something I built as a hobby.
My confidence grew because of this and now I have even diversified to start other brand new channels, such as an Islamic content channel called OmarRecites and a gaming channel called OmarioStreamz. Because of Omario786, I have met many new people that share my interests and/or also run a YouTube channel. My confidence has grown. I now find it easier to talk to people, including diverse people, and trying new things such as learning Python!
For anyone interested in a side income or just getting out there in the real world, I would recommend starting a channel. All you have to do is put yourself in front of the camera and do whatever. I literally mean whatever. Anyone can do it as a hobby, a job, or a way to advertise. It is simple, easy, and fun. Starting it made me step out of my comfort zone and you can, too!
