From Minecraft to Millions: We're Talking Streaming

0:28This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. This episode is dedicated to the weird and wonderful world of video game streaming. You may know I like to play Minecraft with my sons. It's a great way of bonding together while being creative and getting involved in a positive online community. All three of my guests in today's episode are experts in growing these communities. Tommy Innit, DanTDM, and Talia Marr. So if you're at all interested in building a streaming following, then this is the episode for you. But before we get into it, if you like this episode or any of our content, please subscribe to our channel and hit the bell icon.

1:05It massively helps us keep bringing you nuanced conversation with big guests. Today, we're talking streaming.

1:25Where did Tommy In It come from? we're in geography class we had to like make a quizlet name and it came to me i was like my name's tom but hang on what if it was tom ain't that super cool and then what oh my god i say in it a lot tommy that is a cool name now i remember it came up on the board and i thought everyone would have had cool usernames and it was just like sean 104 annie 106 tommy and i was like i'm tommy in it i remember my geography teacher was like tommy in it really and it was the first time I remember going, yeah, really? That is a cool name. Clearly, I mean, you've become one of the most followed, like literally one of the most followed people in the world.

2:04Wow. Right. When you put it like that. Fucking hell, yeah. But can I run numbers? I mean, you know these numbers better than you. I try and forget about it. YouTube, 15.1 million. Yeah. As of recording. Yeah. 15.1 million. That's on one channel. 5.32 million on another YouTube channel. TikTok, 11.9 million. X, 4.2 million. And Instagram, 3.1 million. One of the most followed people in the world. Yeah. So I want to learn how you got to that. Yeah. And it seems like it started with this, to your point, this unfiltered, colorful, I'm just doing this because this is coming from my heart. Yeah. well I think thank you very much by the way and I did that and then I'm starting to see people around me who have about 2-3 thousand subs like blow up I start copying them and getting you know making talking about like hacked clients which will get you banned on the Minecraft server so start sort of breaking the rules to try and get you know I sort of diverge away from myself for a bit and then on my favourite server my community I get banned for a month and I can't believe it and right as I get banned me and freddie and my parents go to wales and i have this sit down i'm just i'm really like annoyed really sort of heartbroken but i remember sitting down at this like lake and it's just me and him in wales and i go i really think this is serious fred i really think i can do this i think i've got what it takes and freddie's like i believe in you and i come home and then i go right it's gonna make a video for me then i've i can't do literally anything i'm gonna make a video i just want to make i make this one called like the fastest clicking method where i'm just so weird and stupid and then i guess like more views than anything i've done and that's when i learned a valuable lesson okay cool be myself because that works better than anything what was your vision at that point i just wanted like youtube rank i just wanted that that little symbol that i've like made it that's all i wanted interesting and it was just the rank like that yeah just a little name on hypixel instead of like it just says youtube tommy in it instead of tommy in it i was like that is the most important thing in the world to me because it felt like the first thing that was like a dream but i could achieve it it was almost impossible but it wasn't and it's the fact that i could do it i have to do that i have to do it you know so this is not unlike in my conversation with dan tdm uh or i had a conversation with talia mar right around performance on youtube and there definitely seemed to be and i think the appropriate word is obsession on the numbers yeah and so would you feel like you were obsessed i absolutely was obsessed and it was the most amazing thing for like four years and then it really backfired on me these last four years so so in that four so take us through the the four-year rise so yeah okay so i um i get unbound and i start making these videos and i start performing better and better it was at my mum's friend's wedding and we were sat in this field and i hit 10 000 subscribers and it was the i couldn't believe it that was genuinely the last moment in my life that things felt like real really yeah then i hit 20 000 like a month later then i hit 30 000 and i remember i woke up and I had it I had YouTube rank it was like wow oh my god it makes me like it makes my heart drop it's so silly but it properly makes my heart drop like even remembering it I couldn't believe it and I just was like oh it's happened this is it this is all I've ever wanted but but then a couple days later I hit 31 ,000 subscribers and I'm like hang on I didn't plan hang on no I've done my plan it's happened I'm done what what else what's happening now and then i like it keep keeps going up because obviously i'm really enjoying it i'm loving making my videos i'm loving youtube you know and then like a couple months later i hit um 100 000 and i'm like and then i start getting some new goals like getting a video that has a million views okay and and becoming friends with like techno blade and i'm like whoa these are like that extra but this is like i've got i wanted but i'll keep going yes so as your social ranking also yeah is increasing online what's happening at school at school it's funny i just i tell a couple of my mates but we keep it a big secret no one at school knows and i just start like my confidence just goes up massively because i'm like i've got youtube rank right i don't care i'm not on the football i've literally got i don't care you're not liking my selfies i've got youtube rank And so I get a lot more, like, people are mean to me.

6:59Like, I'll, like, be harsh back. Like, I don't mind. And everyone gets a bit, at least I remember, everyone being a bit taken aback by me and being like, what's going on with him? Why is he so proud of himself? But, like, he's just, like... Why is he so happy? Isn't it? Yeah, everyone was, like, quite confused. And then everyone found out. I remember, like, I was in sixth period science where I had none of my mates. And a mate I'd known for years went, is this you? And I was like, yeah. and their face looked like shocked. I remember like this girl that I've known for years I sometimes had a crush on, she was looking at me like I was a stranger.

7:36Remember that was the first time I was like, well, I don't like that. I don't like that you're looking like you don't think you know me anymore and I've known you and I've not changed. Didn't like that. How did you set these records? Because I didn't even realise, is it two Guinness Book World Records that you have? Yeah. I do. Okay. So, Tom, tell me. Tell me what those records are. It's like most viewers ever on a stream, which is like 600 ,000. That got broke. And then most followed Minecraft channel ever with like five or six million on Twitch. So, yeah. Okay. All right. I mean, these are impressive things.

8:16Thanks. Yeah, I don't even feel like they've happened. I don't even know. So, how do you get to that? School finds out. People are actually quite cool about it. and I started being like, oh, actually, I'm cool. And it starts getting to my head, but it doesn't because lockdown happens. COVID happens. We all go inside. And I guess so I could have some structure and thought I need something to do, went, right. COVID's happened. Everyone's inside. Viewers are going up. I'm going to try and grind to get a million subs. That'd be really cool. I get crazy obsessed with YouTube. And I'm just on all the time.

8:49All the time. This is when it gets its least healthy. I do that for a couple of months and I'm daily uploading and when you say all the time how many hours per day all day finally I went this daily uploading is killing me I've been doing it for a few months it's stressing me out staying up till 4am every night doing thumbnails just because it was something to do really I literally had no responsibilities I got all my exam results for free and they rounded them up oh well I was like not even doing that good and they made them all better than they were because COVID happened and I thought this is like I mean if there is a god that's telling me to get on with this so and then finally i went i'm gonna slow down a bit and sort of again like i did with that fastest clicking method upload a video that's more from my heart i did that and it did way better look at that look at that yeah so i keep going and um like i started doing really good i hit 200 000 and then 300 000 and four and now i'm meeting all these youtubers who are like my like heroes and then i meet uh dream who is another up-and-coming youtuber who knows so much more about the sort of science of youtube than i do and he really starts helping me and giving me these advice calls and he really sees something in me and he really helps me and we have these calls where he's like helping me with youtube and teaching me about it and why do you think he he helped you because one is uh i mean from my you know minecraft experience dream is a big freaking deal yeah right uh and what i find interesting is is with a lot of the youtubers and particularly the Minecraft YouTubers, it appeared as if there was this brotherhood.

10:23No, really why? Of assistance, like a fraternity, opposed to I'm not going to share with you. Everyone loved each other, man. Why do you think that happened? Well, because we're all misfits. And, you know, we don't fit in, and then we're all together fitting in, and there's no competition there. We're all like, this is amazing. We're all helping each other. And I joined this Minecraft server with him. And I'm doing that on Twitch, and the viewers start going up. I'm like, oh. And then more people start joining. And this is the dream SMP. And this is when things really start taking off.

11:06So at what point do you realize that there is the potential of a career behind what you're doing on YouTube? so the way you could get monetized back in the day is you had to be signed to something called an mcn like a multi-channel network because you're playing a copyrighted game so all the legal stuff behind that gets a bit hazy so i signed to one and then like a month later i got my first like paycheck and i was like oh this is the same as tesco like it's exactly the same and I was like how can this be how how can I how can I make this same and then at that point I was like oh this can't be real you just have to keep going as you're going don't like make any drastic decisions to then give up and go all in that would be a terrible decision I'm very risk averse in general so I was like oh I'll just keep going on see what happens and then I specifically remember But in that month, it grew massively.

12:10And I think the next pay was like over$1 ,000. Wow. And then I looked at the email. And I remember I was in the kitchen with my wife. And I was like, look at this. And I was like, I can't even remember what he said. I was just looking at the number. Like, it's a number of money I'd never seen before in my life. We were very strapped for cash at that time. And then at that point, I remember I was like, oh, I'll just still keep going as normal. like keep the keep the tesco job keep everything as normal and then just see what happens i remember she was like no you can you might be able to stop tesco at least i was like no i don't i don't think it's a good idea but she was the one that made me give it a go she was like this is the time like you're coming up to the end of uni you're gonna have to find a like a full-time job anyway right um give this a go like this is the time to give it a go okay so it was your wife that encouraged you to go full-time?

13:08Or to attempt it, yeah, at that time. Because I was more than happy to do everything at once still because if it was all to go away the next few months or so or the next year, I'd still have, like nothing would have changed, it's fine. Okay. I'm curious, did you talk to, consult with anyone else other than your wife around whether you should make a go at this at YouTube? No. No. Because as well, I didn't tell anyone I was doing the videos, really. Because I was embarrassed, I guess. Like, it was a new thing. Like, why are you talking to a screenplay in a video game and uploading it? That's weird.

13:48Interesting. So what was embarrassing? What did you feel was embarrassing about it? Probably because I was in, like, my performative mode. And still, I was, like, dead shy. Do you recall roughly what the viewership was? it must have been maybe like 10 000 views a video maybe not every video even like the ones that would do well were probably like at 10 000 but i was i think i was uploading every day we're trying to at least youtube wasn't huge like it is now but in a year like less than a year i went to a million subscribers and that's that's quick very yeah very what do you believe it was about you about and i know you're a very humble guy so once you step outside of that don't give me a dan answer give me a dan tdm answer on this is what do you believe it was about you and don't put it on it was that it was growing and all that what was it about you that made that channel grow so fast i mean initially i was like if you were first to um cover a mod in minecraft you get the views because it's the newest video or get put on certain websites as the um like the video to go and watch to see what happens in the mod basically like if you were lucky enough it would go on like mod pages or the creator of the mod would use your videos like this is what the mod looks like um so that is i'd say that's what i did initially was i was just quickest to get the mod videos i was always on on the forums to see what new mods were out i'd take risks and put up mod videos on mods that had like no views basically hoping that then they would become a popular mod and then the views would roll in from there so at first it was quickest but then i started introducing the story elements so i did the characters and stuff and that's when And it exploded to crazy numbers.

15:48To the next level. What inspired you to do the characters? And I'm smiling because this is what my boys were telling me. The characters. So what inspired you to do that? I think it's just from my love of animation. One of my dreams as a kid, I had the music. but my earlier dream, before I was like all into music, was having an animation. But then Minecraft is a little bit of a shortcut to that because all of it's there ready to go. You just kind of have to act it out. You don't have to learn to animate. You just have to learn how to use a mod that pretends to be a camera and then you're just like directing a movie, but in the game, so it's kind of like an animation.

16:33And it started to evolve into like a Saturday morning cartoon kind of vibe like that. those are the cartoons that i loved like that's the animations i really wanted to make but now i can make them in a video game and use and just learn how to do it on the fly basically and and what's beautiful about that is is you're you're getting this immediate feedback yeah because you upload the video and then immediately people are commenting yeah that is one of the best things that at the time about youtube is you can try something if it didn't work try so don't do it again or tweak it and try it again or if it did work keep doing it we had that advantage over mainstream media like we didn't have to apply for funding we didn't have to have an idea work through the ranks try and get that idea published and if it didn't work then well you lost out like we we could do what we wanted and get instant feedback try again tomorrow and then yeah we're uploading like obscene amounts of videos like two a day every day non-stop so i'd wake up um make videos sometimes i wouldn't eat lunch just because i need to make these videos i needed to make i didn't need to be in my brain i needed to make two a day seven days a week yeah 365 days a year non-stop yeah in that year did you take a holiday did you know you didn't stop i did five five years straight of it of that and if i had something coming up i'd make double so like i used to do like when i was getting popular i'd do events at the weekends um so if i was taking friday saturday sunday off i would do i'd have to find time i'd make six extra videos to upload while i was away so that sometimes meant having them recorded but then while i was at the event so do the event um edit after just to make sure that it just kept going so by the sum so five years 2017 how many subscribers are you at then because that i think that's when forbes is that when forbes around that time i think yeah after i can't remember when like it was my memories were full but 2017 it was 26 years forbes says that you were the highest paid youtuber that year yeah forbes said yeah forbes said yeah forbes said And Forbes said, and, you know, these numbers are off, but Forbes said you made$16 million that year.

19:03That's what they said. Yeah. Right. So we know, give or take. Sure, yeah. Yeah, theirs is a guess. Like, they do reach out, but we didn't give them any info. They just worked off of what they thought or knew about the space, basically. Okay. But, give or take, I mean, that's quite a difference from a few hundred powers from Tesco just five years earlier. Let me ask you something. When was the last time you really thought about how you love? Not who, but how? Most of us don't. We're moving fast, doing life, hoping love just shows up and sticks. But that's not how real connection works. So I've created something different.

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20:28I can't wait to see you there. How did you believe you were going to take this passion for music and create a career out of it? So my first thought was the internet and YouTube. and I didn't know how necessarily at that point because I'd started a channel when I was at my previous school and got shock horror picked on for it deleted all my videos because it was just too mortifying and at that point I just I couldn't hack it I couldn't hack the the voices um but then when I went to Brit I was like actually maybe I can start I can start this up again and you know maybe I've got the confidence here because everyone here there no one here is going to laugh at me you want to do the same thing right um so the internet was my first thought i was like that's that's going to be the way that i want to do it because i know i want control i know what kind of music i like i know what kind of music i want to do and if i pursue anything label or that route i know that i don't have enough of a presence to control anything right now okay so i started uploading to youtube this is interesting so your thought was i'm going to upload to youtube and create a presence yeah so in other words do i read presence by saying you wanted to create a brand yeah to give you power yeah and i okay posted non-music content and then i had a tweet a viral when i was 18 i think 19 okay that was a makeup tweet and i thought this is my in i'm going to post makeup tutorials on youtube i've got a little bit of traction i'm just going to run with it run with makeup yeah so your thought was i'm going to build an audience i don't know how i'm going to do it but i'm going to build an audience and was the idea i'm going to build an audience so that i can then do music at a certain point or was it i'm just going to build an audience it was with music so i was technically releasing music the whole time okay So my channel was called Tali Mar Music, uploading my makeup tutorials.

22:41Okay. And I released my first single at the same time as this tweet kind of going off and like everything's starting to have a bit of traction. I think this was 2016. And yeah, I thought, okay, this is the path. I was like, I don't know how, but this is the way I'm going to do it and we'll just figure it out. All right. So how methodical were you when you realized that makeup tutorials were getting traction? Very, very thought out. Like whatever was trending, I was doing Kylie Jenner looks. I was doing whatever. Whoever at the time was big on makeup, that was the look I'd do. And because I was a makeup artist by trade, that was my job as well.

23:23okay so as soon as my interest outside of makeup size change as well i then started introducing that into my channel which is where gaming then started coming in and like more blogs like content started coming in because i thought people need to get to know me outside of just a tutorial now i need to see personality based and like it was so thought out like it makes me sound a little bit crazy but like i was really like focused on like okay this is the way that i'm gonna get my music heard this is this is what i'm gonna do yeah you know i i I can't say it sounds crazy. It sounds strategic. Very strategic.

23:57You know, we had Dan TDM. And what I will never forget was how strategic he was about I'm going to post at this time every day. And this is the content. And he was relentless with it. Right. So it sounds like it was the same for you. Yeah. How did you know that you were headed in the right direction, though, on YouTube? To be honest, I didn't. I love analytics I'm a big fan of like statistics and all the back end of YouTube and all of that so anytime a video did well I'd look you know where was the spike in retention where did the retention drop off how long has this video been watched for okay then that's how long my video should be and you know videos with with this in the title do better or this videos with this in the title don't do as well so maybe I don't phrase it like that and so I just kind of hope for the best and thought this is working for now we'll just go with this and every now and again you try something new if it works brilliant carry on carry on okay and and that's how you rolled in games as well literally you were just i would assume that's something that you did on your own yeah at the time i had a real issue with feeling non-productive if i wasn't putting time into what i thought could be a career so when i was playing games i felt awful about it i felt every time i finished playing I'd be like oh my god I've wasted my day I've wasted my life and I don't have that opinion anymore but at that time it's why I started my gaming channel because I thought well if I start a gaming channel then I'm working towards something and like I still get to pursue a hobby but like it could potentially turn into something that is you know monetizable could become a career can help with music and then that ended up shifting and being the thing that kind of worked the most okay interesting when was your first monetization from youtube oh well i started my channel in 2016 and i was i think my first ever paycheck was like 70 pounds or something and i was so excited i was like i'm rich this is the best day ever um and it was maybe do you know what not that long after that it was a few months in and i was like okay i'm starting to there's a bit i mean it wasn't money that you could live off sure but at 19 i've got a job i live at home 70 quid brilliant yeah so so when you got that check are you thinking all right i'm now doubling down on on this this is the path yeah it also was my parents my mom said to me she was like you absolutely can do that but i you have to try your absolute hardest like you have to put everything every fiber bill being into this if you want to do that and i'll support you you don't have to pay rent you know you can live here the way that you do now you don't have to stay in your job um and so that's what i did how supportive oh it's honestly i'm very very grateful that i've got parents that think like that i mean all right we have to stop for a second i mean clearly you've done well but think about so this is 20 2016 2017 2016 2017 yeah so at this point who is the youtube model like who is doing very well that you could bring to your parents and say look at this person i could do this probably zoella okay she was kind of like that was kind of that era of who I would watch.

27:31Yeah. I mean, you know, I think everybody has like these inflection points in life where you could see it was this moment that changed your life. Yeah. That moment clearly changed your life. Yeah. Because with their support, you then quit your job. Yeah. Your full-time job. Yeah. And then what did you do? I then, I just started uploading more and I then was like, okay, I'm going to do my EP. I produced it all myself in my little room in our house and all I did was that I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I didn't speak. I just sat there and I learned how to do it and I produced the whole thing, which now listening back, you can very much tell.

28:11But it was having that extra time, like not working on the weekends and not having school and suddenly I was like, I've got all this free time to now actually put everything into this career and this thing I want to do, let's just go. Let's just do it. It's clear that something all three of my guests have in common is their passion for creating unique content and an obsession for growing their channels. If you'd like to listen to more inspiring life stories, search for We Need to Talk on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. See you next week.