MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1384448
MD: Where did your initial interest in art come from and how did you change from your previous career as an architect to being a YouTube artist? EJ: I have always been drawing. Even in preschool, I would trace cartoons in coloring books, which I would give to my friends. I got into architecture early on—I remember I liked to make cardboard houses out of old shoe boxes. However, I never took art seriously as a job. When I was thinking about my future career, architecture was always the first thing on my mind. I liked the idea of architecture, so I went to school for it. At that time, I stopped drawing as much because I was using all that creative energy for my degree. However, when I started working, it wasn’t anything like what we learned in school and wasn’t as creative as I imagined it to be. The type of projects that I had been willing to stay up for until 4 a.m. in school turned out to be 10 percent or less of working at an architecture firm. That started to weigh heavier and heavier on me, and a few months into working I picked up drawing again. I would draw at lunch, eventually I got an iPad and as YouTube picked up, I started entertaining the idea of doing that for a living. MD: When did you decide to make YouTube your career? EJ: In the beginning it was just a hobby, but it very quickly became something that I thought to make into a living. There was a point when I thought: “If I can’t do anything right, I can at least draw.” I knew I couldn’t make a living from my art at that point, but I could share my journey with people and gain support that way. I started looking at different ways to earn a living online with YouTube and other entrepreneurship opportunities, like freelancing on Instagram. I thought I could be the underdog that can share information and share his journey, in order to stand out and create my niche. That ended up working out really, really well. MD: Many people probably have certain ideas of what it is like to be a YouTuber. What misconceptions did you have about the business? EJ: When I was looking at really big YouTubers like PewDiePie. I would wonder why they didn’t interact with their audience. These people seemed to carry themselves so highly and dignified. I wanted to be like everybody else in the audience and interact. I tried that, but eventually I realized that the people who are the most successful are focused on creating things, and that is a very challenging balance to keep. The people who I admired interacted more in the beginning, but as they grow, they pull back and focus more on the content. I realized it would be a battle to stay relevant on YouTube, and also to continue to improve my artwork. MD: While trying to keep that balance, how much has the YouTube algorithm influenced your content? EJ: It has very much influenced my content. It’s the deciding factor of what I make because I find that the algorithm is very sensitive to how people interact with content on YouTube. I have to make sure that the idea is easily consumable. If a 10-year old can’t understand it, there’s a chance it won’t be as successful. It needs to be interesting and give value to someone, and it needs to be clear what I’m giving to them. It has been a reasonable challenge, everything has to be condensed in a clear and concise way. MD: It seems to be quite difficult to build a channel based on tutorials in some areas. Do you feel the same for the art community? EJ: I think it’s easy to get started with that, but it’s hard to sustain it. Everyone wants to learn. I learned you have to give people some sort of pleasurable emotion for whatever they want. In the art community, that comes from feeling better about one’s own artwork. So the easy way to do that is to either entertain them, or give them some sort of