The largest video-sharing platform, YouTube, was launched in 2005, and the largest live-streaming platform, Twitch, was launched in 2011. According to a 2023 Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) survey, 57% of people born in Gen Z would choose to be an influencer if given the opportunity. An influencer can fall under many different umbrellas, such as a social media influencer who posts on apps like Instagram or TikTok. Influencers who post videos online are known as YouTubers, and influencers who live stream online are known as streamers. Content creation has become a wanted career because anyone can do it, including the people around you.
Wyatt Orton, a content creator and senior at West Albany, reflects on his journey as a content creator and what makes his content unique.
“I like looking through my old footage because it shows different points of my journey. I do have a lot of funny moments that I dig through with my footage. It’s something that I like to do,” said Wyatt Orton. Wyatt Orton uses his channel as a time capsule in his hobby as a content creator. Wyatt Orton isn’t the only one in his household pursuing content creation.
“Someone who has inspired me to make content has to be my brother, since he was doing content creation way before I started. Seeing him work and improve over the years, and make cool videos, made me want to try and do it as well,” Wyatt Orton said. “I [also] get inspiration to stream [then] find a game and hit record and hope something interesting will happen.”
Wyatt Orton’s brother, freshman Grayson Orton, is an up-and-coming content creator who plays games like Helldivers 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Nuclear Nightmare, and he sees himself pursuing making content in the future.
“Mainly because it’s fun and maybe I could ‘blow up’ and make a few bucks,” Grayson Orton said.
Grayson Orton’s dad has been a pretty big advocate behind his content creator journey, telling him he should give it a try, but he has also been inspired by other creators. “Most of my inspiration has come from bigger YouTubers and looking at their subscriber and viewer counts,” Grayson Orton said.
Looking at the bigger YouTube channels might have led him to his success, with him gaining over 70k views in only 24 videos. For Grayson Orton, managing his academic career and his online career is no problem, as he doesn’t post too often, so he’s easily able to manage both consistently.
Another senior who is also frequent in content creation, including the West Albany Announcements, is Ryan Katin.
“The rule of thumb for me is you gotta make something that even you would watch if you wouldn’t watch it, then it’s not worth watching,” Katin said. “I think the biggest inspiration to me has to be StampyLongNose; he and iBallisticSquid were huge in my childhood”.
Katin’s introduction to gaming would not come through the traditional way of gaming; he and his brother had connected through playing games and pretending they were YouTubers.
“We would scroll for hours on the Google Play Store looking for free games. It was our way of playing, and as we played, we acted like we were recording for a YouTube video. And then we would go for like 30 minutes of silence and suddenly remember, oh shoot, we were recording and come back to it,” Katin said.
The videos he produces on his YouTube channel are things like Brawl Stars, which is a big one for him, mainly because they’re easy to screen-record and edit.
A typical video for Katin views-wise will tend to get 10-20 views, but he’s had success with certain videos. “I have had a few Brawl Stars videos get like 800 to 1000 views, and on my other channel, I average right around 100 views on some of those random videos. I made a video of the entire Fortnite storyline, and when I uploaded that, it got like 40,000 views. My gaming channel [has] 170 subscribers, and on my media lab channel, I think I have 360, but I am not yet monetized,” Katin said.
Katin gets his inspiration from discussing in a group first to see if his idea for a video is a good one to press record. He also spends a lot of time after recording to edit the video.
“If it’s good, I upload it, and if I don’t like [the video], I just have to deal with it since there is not too much more [to edit].”
For Katin, editing is pretty easy since he’s been doing it for so long. As he’s been self-editing and consistently practicing. “I tend to find it a bit easier, now it’s just a matter of getting footage, and that does take a while. So on average, I usually spend around five to seven hours just on editing,” Katin said.
Katin also has a second YouTube channel related to his Media Lab class and where he produces weekly school announcements. “[In] my media lab, we kinda just do everything like skits, we sometimes do gaming, and we do the video announcements like the Oreo one last year, but that was before I was the main editor. Now I just edit and record all of the video announcements.” said Katin.
He considers it mostly a hobby, but he has turned it into a side hustle. Katin sometimes finds it difficult to manage both his academic and online careers at the same time, especially when working on a project and having a deadline.
“I have to go to work after school, so I don’t have enough time to work on editing, and by the time I get home from work, I go eat dinner, and then I’m tired. Sometimes I just go to bed at like 6 o’clock. I would say it is sometimes difficult managing both, but all hobbies take up time,” Katin said.
A new generation of content creators and influencers is on the rise. Whether on YouTube, Twitch, or other social media, it has become a sought-after hobby and career that can turn anyone into a star, as seen with countless influencers over the years.
