Since its birth in 2005, YouTube has boomed into a hub for creativity and innovation for anyone, including students, to share their passions and interests. Palo Alto High School students who have traditionally been represented in many different job fields are now also making their jobs from this surprising outlet.
Sophomore Eoin O’Kramer goes by PixelDip on YouTube, and since the start of his channel in 2014, it has grown to 200,000 subscribers.
O'Kramer works on a YouTube video before class.
O'Kramer’s channel focuses on Pixelmon, which is a combination of Pokemon and Minecraft. His channel is comprised of Minecraft Roleplays, which are stories that are told through playing Minecraft. Through a delicate balance of trendy content and original ideas, as well as consistent video releases, O’Kramer has created an extremely popular channel.
For O’Kramer, being a YouTuber is a difficult and time-consuming job, but one from which he reaps many benefits.
“Normally I spend three to five hours per video, and usually I do that on a daily basis,” O’Kramer said. “Sleep can be rather hard to come by sometimes.”
Many of O’Kramer’s videos require texturing and 3D modeling, which takes a long time. Additionally, he has to set up and script each video, with scripts ranging from five pages to 72 pages. He also edits, makes thumbnails, tags, and writes out the description for each video.
One of the most challenging parts of the job is dealing with the analytics that YouTube provides. These analytics are helpful but can also serve as a constant reminder of a channel’s underwhelming performance.
“YouTube flashes red arrows and negative curves at you when your channel did worse this month than last month, which sometimes can be pretty demotivating,” O’Kramer said.
However, there are many benefits to his job as well, especially the strong sense of community that he has found.
“It’s always been positive comments and general support that I love the most about doing YouTube,” O’Kramer said. “I’ve also gotten to meet quite a few people in the industry, and now, the people who developed games and products that I used to play and use are coming to me for sponsorships.”
Additionally, YouTube is O'Kramer's main source of income, with profits coming in from advertisements in his videos.
O'Kramer could not divulge how much money he makes due to a general confidentiality agreement with the British MCN Paragon that established a privacy clause.
His past job experiences are ones that are similar to those of many Paly students and include babysitting, tutoring and working at summer camps. However, being a YouTuber is a job that offers more substance than his previous ones did.
“YouTube is something which provides enough income to actually be a real job, and could very well be a second job I do when I grow up as a way to add to my future salary,” O’Kramer said.
He encourages everyone to try their hand at YouTube, emphasizing that he started his channel just for the fun of it.
“[You don’t] need a reason for doing it. The beauty of the platform [is that] anyone can do it,” O’Kramer said.
However, he has a simple piece of advice for anyone aspiring to do so.
“Don’t do it for the money,” O’Kramer said. It's obvious to people watching that you’re just clickbaiting and trying to get views but don’t actually care about the content you produce.”
"The beauty of the platform [is that] anyone can do it," O'Kramer said.
In the future, he hopes to keep his channel growing and producing more content, and of course, he wants to meet the infamous video game YouTuber PewDiePie.
"I'm not really sure where the channel will go, or where I'll go, but at least while moving around, I'll have the knowledge that 200,000 people are there to support me on the way," O'Kramer said.
