Staples students who regularly go onto YouTube probably know of channels similar to those of TayZonday (famous for the “Chocolate Rain” videos) and Fred (famous for the “Fred” videos). Both have a high number of views and subscriptions and boast large followings.
But Tom Karrel ’12, Jake Shore ’13, and Elliot Enriquez ’12 all have videos and channels with many views and subscriptions as well.
Karrel, known as “gameboy659,” has a 13 second video called “Who’s that pokemon?” that as of Nov. 18 had 4,205,457 views. He said that the video wasn’t popular from the start, but that when his brother showed it to some of his friends, it began to grow.
“My brother and I decided to make a YouTube video just because some of our friends were doing it… I just wanted to see if it could build a little reaction or something,” Karrel said. “A couple years later it just started picking up in views and…it’s to me kind of funny that such a small little thing could get so big.”
Karrel emphasized that he was surprised that the video grew to what it is now, since he had not intended to have an active channel.
“Maybe I’ll make [another] one in the future but as of now I have no intentions of making new videos,” he said.
Shore’s channel, “theracoonofjake,” has been visited over 15,000 times and currently has 270 subscribers. His channel includes videos of longboarding he makes for the skateboard company “Original Skateboards” and “anything that [his] friends think is funny that isn’t too disgusting or over the top,” according to Shore.
One of his more well-known videos may be “Ryan Shea: Security Officer,” which has over 3,000 views.
“When I made the Ryan Shea video, I [would] always hear people talking about it and then they’d ask me “Oh yeah, didn’t you hold the camera for that or something?” he said.
Enriquez, known as “Vlogingdom,” has had over 2,000 visitors to his channel and currently has 53 subscribers. He likes to post his own “vlogs,” or video blogs, onto his channel which he describes as him “being [himself] and doing silly things.”
His favorite videos are part of a new series he created called “Tardy Tuesdays,” where he puts up his vlog posts close to midnight on Tuesday nights. He has made six of these videos so far.
All three YouTubers enjoy the followings they currently have.
“I like the fact that people like watching my videos, I think its interesting,” Shore said. “It’s really cool…having a following.”
Enriquez agreed. “It’s good to know that people are enjoying them and that 53 people…want to see my videos every single week,” he said.
In addition, all three have been getting a large number of reviews about their channels and videos, most of them positive.
“Sometimes I’ll go to my video and read some of the comments and its funny because I mean I’ll get a comment every 15 minutes,” Karrel said. “It’s gotten a lot of good feedback.”
Enriquez had a similar response. “I get a lot of feedback in school from kids…[they] walk up to me and they’ll…quote my video,” he said. “It’s cool because some people who I don’t even know that well at school come up to me and quote my videos and I think its really funny and its really flattering.”
Each of them point to the many benefits to being on YouTube and having their own channels and followings.
Shore enjoys having a website just for videos, citing that people can watch his videos so easily and that he can watch videos that he wants to watch.
Enriquez agreed, reemphasizing the benefit of getting feedback on his videos.
“It’s good to know that people have an opinion…and I’m not just throwing it out there for nobody to see,” he said.
