$ it Fwd: An Ex-YouTuber’s Take on Video

Growing up as an only child in the mid 80s, MTV was my everything. While most kids my age watched Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, I begged the cable TV gods to Pour Some Sugar On Me. It was a pivotal era where audio and video collided before the world inside of a television. One summer night in 1989, at the international height of glam rock, something even bigger was hitting the airwaves: The Moscow Music Peace Festival. But I faced two problems: it only aired on pay-per-view and also kicked off way past my bedtime. Because I didn’t control the family finances or my own sleep patterns, I was forced to miss a first-of-its-kind event that brought together rock legends like Motley Crüe, Bon Jovi, and Skid Row to hundreds of thousands of adoring?—?and raging?—?Soviet fans. Sadly, I’d have to rock with the Russians in my dreams.

Fast-forward to 2006 in San Francisco. I’d heard about a new website where you could watch all kinds of music videos, from classic MTV productions to concert bootlegs taken by fans. It was called YouTube and would change my life forever. The first time I landed on the homepage, I saw a search bar and wondered ‘could I really find anything?’ I rubbed my palms, flexed my fingers, and unknowingly stepped into a time machine when I typed “Moscow Music Peace Festival.”

A column of tiny images populated the left side of the page. To the right of the thumbnails were bold blue titles. Below were numbers in the tens of thousands?—?proving I was not alone in my quest. The results were organized yet plentiful, just like searching Google. I clicked the first result and a video opened to the sea of Russian fans experiencing the majesty of American metal rock for the first time. In that moment, I was a kid again, hypnotized in front of my TV. The footage was vintage but it felt like I was right there. My heart pulsed alongside the crowd as Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi played his three neck guitar, taunting us with the haunting opening chords of “Wanted Dead or Alive”. Then the man himself?—?my hero, Jon Bon Jovi?—?appeared on the stage. The fans went nuts. Then I went nuts. In less than five minutes, YouTube had transported me back to a far away place and given me an experience I thought was gone forever. I had to be a part of this new phenomenon.

Before becoming a 7 billion dollar machine, YouTube was a bulletin board for grainy home movies, vintage TV, and niche micro-genres that people never knew they were obsessed with. A fiercely loyal community of YouTubers chose to maintain the site’s integrity. It was the first major screen beyond television people began spending time on. The upload button catapulted new faces and trends towards global stardom, and for the first time, the audience was not limited to viewing. This was an invitation to become creators.

In 2005, Matt Harding?—?a regular guy with no star power by Hollywood standards?—?filmed himself in 93 different countries dancing the same goofy jig. ‘Where the Hell is Matt’ introduced a new paradigm in popular content. It was simple, silly, and connected people worldwide through something universal: dancing. Harding’s video racked up tens of millions of views within weeks. Through YouTube, he had a global stadium of adoring fans, cheering him on and screaming for more. I sat in the front row, loving his video more each time. While Bon Jovi had inspired me to watch, Matt Harding unearthed a burning desire to participate. YouTube was becoming the Mack truck, helping users like Harding to bust through the thick traditional barriers of the entertainment industry.

Lesson Learned: If you don’t try, it can’t happen.

One night in July 2006, my roommate came home from her agency job telling me how two guys from “that new website I liked” stopped by her office. Like a Willy Wonka golden ticket, she handed me one of the executives’ cards and the next morning I emailed Tony Nethercutt, YouTube’s then-head of sales. I doubted getting a response, but to my surprise, he wrote back immediately.

The following week, I arrived at YouTube’s San Mateo office for a formal interview. I’d imagined the building looking like the epicenter of technology, crawling with people making videos. In reality, it smelled like an attic and felt very empty. The first person I encountered was a guy asleep on a couch and immediately wondered if he was some sort of slacker. Turned out he wasn’t. This schlep was a lead engineer, a total badass. This was my indoctrination into startup culture: engineers ran the roost, grinding out all night to ship something new or fix a bug, then sleeping all morning to recharge for the next burst of invention. I was eating it up.

As the day unfolded, excitement pulsed through me. YouTube was a rocket ship mid-flight and I wanted in, even if it meant sweeping the floors or swaddling wiped out engineers. As my conversations concluded, then-head of HR, Jeff Novack, introduced me to Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO. It was like meeting Bon Jovi himself. Here was the guy who’d built this whole thing, a leader of this video NASA enterprise. Nerd-struck, all I could do was thank him for what he’d created.

Jeff asked me to come back a few hours later and while I expected more interviews, he made me an offer join their small but growing sales team. By October, the rocket ship got closer to light speed. 100 million daily video uploads became 500 million seemingly overnight.

Then it happened. On October 9, 2006, Google acquired us. Yes, it was exciting, but what did this big futuristic company from Mountain View actually know about video and User Generated Content? Well, they knew a lot?—?namely enough to let us keep doing our thing. My sales job quickly evolved from Account Manager to “evangelist,” helping Google’s very systematic search sellers understand video’s power and why it was uniquely different than what they were used to. Everyone thought I had some secret sauce, yet all I did was watch the creators closely, then speak about what they were teaching me. I began jet-setting to Google offices around the globe, helping anyone with video who asked for it. These journeys taught me more and more about the creators?—?their motivations, their inspirations, and their ambitions.??It was their side that truly intrigued me.

Lesson Learned: Follow the creators.

By February 2010, years after sending that Hail Mary email to Tony, an offer came to push YouTube advertising strategies in Sydney, Australia. That May, a week past my 30th birthday, I boarded the 18 hour Qantas flight with my entire life stowed under the plane. While both scary and exciting, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Over the next 15 months, I began to realize that, while living in Australia addressed the wanderlust within me, the experiences I sought lay not in travel and exploration but in creation and self-expression.

As this call to follow my unique path continued, Google’s golden handcuffs gave me pause. Instead of exploring the creative world, days were booked with presentations and meetings around how brands could be more like the creative powerhouses I’d fallen in love with at the start of the journey. Throughout this YouTube career, having the best job on the planet, I’d seen how this new medium could positively impact humanity like never before.

After nearly 6 years going full speed, I knew it was time for a break. I worried about money, health insurance, and if time off would look like a blemish. Visions of promoting social good through video energized me; however, opportunities to do that at Google were limited. In May of 2012, I was offered and accepted a 3 month unpaid sabbatical. It was a scary leap and something I’d never done before. I wrote a basic list of goals to treat as my temporary job requirements and was ready to knock them out of the park.

I left Sydney the morning after my last day in the office, threading time in and out of the U.S. for 3 months. My tiny camera came everywhere and I’d shot 30 hours of footage over those 90 days. While the experience was a crash course in what a video creator actually does, to my surprise (and horror), none of it was interesting. Only a few minutes, a small fraction, seemed YouTube worthy.

Lesson Learned: Video means jack shit if there’s no purpose.

It wasn’t clear what I was creating or for whom I was actually creating for. Those 30 hours were intended to serve as visual memories, but there was something deeper. Through the process of reviewing, editing, and learning, it became apparent that my audience was actually…me. Throughout my life, in times when I’d had felt a little down, isolated, or disconnected, it was video?—?whether a single event on pay-per-view or millions of experiences on YouTube?—?that made me feel connected. Those 30 hours of recording awakened something that wanted to spread this feeling of connection. I would never be Jon Bon Jovi, but I could explore my surroundings, take people with me, and hopefully inspire them. Through personalized, vicarious adventures, I could try to bring the world’s experiences to people through video. I could use this medium to pay it forward.

Lesson Learned: Only one view matters. Yours!

The experiment was incredibly simple: just ask people what they wanted to watch, give it to them by creating it and reflect pieces of their imaginations back to them. One by one. Carefully. With intention. What if when they watched these personalized videos, tiny shocks pulsed in their brains; reminders that their ideas not only still mattered but were required to make the world a better place? What if their authentic requests became the intention of my videos? People would participate, but the goal here was not to make money. Therefore, in exchange, each person was asked to donate to The DeMarillac Academy, the heart of San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.

By definition, this was a crowd-sourced philanthropic web series where users lived vicariously though its host, but that was a mouthful. So, what could I call it? One Sunday afternoon in January 2013 in San Francisco, I sat in a bar called O’Greenebergs, watching the 49ers wildcard playoff game with 5 close friends. Somewhere in the 3rd quarter, after discussing the web series concept, a friend looked directly at me and said the one word that blended my name and the intention of the idea:

Audience requests began simply, like sending me to get a virtual coffee and film it. Someone asked me to see their favorite artist in concert and I ended up interviewing the band backstage after telling a groupie about how my project was a fundraiser. Another had me film a marriage proposal. Another sent me on a date with her sister (it didn’t go anywhere). Another asked me to go to the Redwoods and deliver a poem to their partner on camera. Friends from all over and artists of all types wanted to contribute to the episodes. When I took trips to other states and countries, business was open, and viewers submitted whatever positive requests they thought of. As trust was built, a request came to visit a grandmother one friend hadn’t seen in a few years. Something unique was happening and the concept was making waves, albeit small ones, but I’d now found my what. Making videos for others, paying it forward, was not only rewarding, but it was also the most fun I’d had in years.

By March 2013, my unpaid leave at YouTube was ending. The fork in the road meant either returning to the institution that helped build my passion or taking a chance on incubating this new concept I called Audience Defined Content. I concluded the opportunity to use my entire being to make people feel something unique, through video, was my moment in time to help improve the world. I officially resigned.

Over 15 months, I’d made more than 60 personalized videos by myself. Sure, production quality was average but I knew I’d get better with time and despite the occasional flaw, people kept watching and contributing. Viewership hovered around 90 seconds per episode, which was great given my average video was 2 minutes and research showed that online attention spans for online video only lasted 60 seconds. The most popular episode had only 500 views, but virality wasn’t the point. My videos were making a difference, people loved them, and more than $5,000 had been shelled over to the DeMarillac Academy.

Lesson Learned: When trying to solve digital video (in 2017), ask the audience.

Since making the jump and going full bore, it’s taken many iterations. After relocating to New York and starting a production company, I’ve pitched, advised, and consulted with entities like higher education, brands, networks, and studios all around the same authentic foundation of RyCareyously. I tested a video delivery service where customers sent me to visit their friends in person, deliver a product, and film their reaction. Finding new purposes for video is my thrill and thanks to a brave young woman in Colorado, RyCareyously has gained even more purpose.

In April, a Crowdrise campaign crossed my feed. Her name was Katie Wood and we’d never met. She had terminal cancer and seeing the ocean for the first time was the last thing on her bucket list. Her good friend, Lilly, started a fundraiser that appeared stalled at only 20% of its $5,000 goal. With my birthday around the corner, a light bulb went on. What if I take the inevitable online social attention we tend to get for our birthdays and redirect it to Katie? What if I created a video to summon some positive vibes toward her and what if those vibes became the cash to get her to the ocean?

The video took 30 minutes to film and 60 minutes to edit. I posted it the night before my birthday, letting it marinate in a few hundred feeds. The following afternoon, Crowdrise and Distractify had posted it to their audiences. By evening, Crowdrise founder and actor, Edward Norton, shared it with his following. Katie’s donations grew from $1,200 to $3,400 in 24 hours while the video jumped from 10,000 views to 30,000. The following Saturday, 7 days after posting, Katie finally met her goal. Unbeknownst to me, NowThis! had created and released their own video around the story, including an interview with her where views topped 500,000. It was a short sweet reminder of why I set off down this path. A few weeks later, Julia Bucciero, Head of PR for Crowdrise, reached out. She wanted to fly me to LA to meet Katie in person. The popular morning show ‘Home & Family’ on the Hallmark Channel was interested in running the story, but wanted me as the big surprise.

Three days later, hiding on the set of Universal Studios, I nervously watched a monitor as Katie was asked how her trip was going and who this Ryan character was. A producer silently motioned for me to follow him out onto the set. All blood was gone from my head and I wasn’t sure if I still had legs. Was this actually about to happen? The moment of truth came and I emerged from behind the camera.  This was an online effort that brought me back to the land where magic really happens. Real life.

Lesson Learned: The potential of video is as endless as our imaginations.

We live in an open sourced, on-demand world where Audience Defined Content is the next evolution. Once upon a 1989 time, we were beholden to schedules, time zones, and pay-per-view guarded walls in order to see a slice of the world and get that vicarious experience. Thanks to platforms like YouTube and Facebook, the world is one massive digital arena, and RyCareyously is ready to rock. If you want to join this revolution and build the future of video together, reach out. Or just go for it yourself and in the coming months, take the time to ask someone what they’d like to watch, then go create it for them. But report back what it feels like?—?I promise you’ll love it.