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My Story Working Full-time At My Day Job While Creating Content On The Side.
My name is Daniel and I’m a 22 year old Australian and I make comedy gameplay and funny moments on YouTube and stream on Twitch. I’ve been doing it for the past 5 years or so as a pet project of sorts because making content for people to enjoy and laugh at was always something that I always wanted to do but if I could do it full time then that would be a dream come true. Usually whenever I’m recording or streaming I tend to play with some of my friends and we usually just talk smack at each other or yell at the game. I’m the only one that’s a content creator out of us all but I definitely couldn’t make some of the quality content that I have without them.
Originally when I began making YouTube lets plays I was around 14 at the time so you can imagine I would have come up with the dumbest cool name that younger me could think of and settled on DynamiteDan. I then decided a few years later that I needed something a bit more unique and a little less 14 year old sounding so I decided to swap it up a bit and change it to something with a little bit more razzle dazzle. So I decided to make it sound exactly like my name but with different spelling and so I settled upon ImDanyool. I thought it was pretty clever and honestly I still find it not that bad of a name.
Back when I was younger I used to watch YouTubers all the time from Markiplier to Sp4zie to UberDanger and I couldn’t help but think to myself that I would love to do what they do. To make content so funny that people can’t help but laugh and make their day just that little bit better. It was then that I decided that I would try my hand at making YouTube videos. NOw this was back in the day when all I had was my crappy school laptop, a free version of fraps and windows movie maker and that was it. It was the most barebones setup I had but I was adamant to make it work.
Now let me tell you they were by no means a Triple A Youtube video but I was so proud of myself for making something. And so over the past years I’ve been doing new things, tried my hand at vlogging when I went on vacation and made new funny moments and monatages. All my editing skills have been self taught and I feel like I've slowly been improving the quality of my videos throughout the years.
When I originally started creating content I wanted to do what other YouTubers had done for me. Made me laugh, smile, cry or just be entranced. I wanted to make others feel the same way about my content. Over the years though I feel that it has grown to not just creating content but to recording memories for me to look back on as well. When I first started I had no idea what I was doing, I’d upload the video and then just put up a post about it on FaceBook and that was about it. Now I’m putting up posts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I’m definitely happy to look back and see how much I’ve grown as a whole. One thing that I’ve drilled into myself since the very beginning that I heard a YouTuber say is that no one gets instant success overnight. It’s all about perseverance and sticking at it.
No one is a master of comedy and editing overnight. It’s all about learning and improving your skills over time. One content creator who has really inspired me is a Swedish YouTuber named Sp4zie. While his content style is a bit different from mine I always loved how upbeat and positive he always is and he is one of the reasons why I started making content in the first place. Sometimes I have periods of time where I don’t upload or where I feel like I lose my creative flow and I sort of hit a wall. I can take times where I might not upload for a few months or not stream for a while because I lose my inspiration. But as time goes past I get ideas and everything then kicks back into full swing. I find myself getting very passionate about it and then I have massive bursts of creativity to continue going.
Usually whenever I sit down to play some games, I evaluate how the mood of the group is. If we’re lively and energetic then I’ll hit record and see where the games take us but all of it is unscripted and completely off the top of our head. Sometimes there will be days or weeks where we just won’t have that creative spark or energy to make lively content and so sometimes it can be a bit slow. But any and all creative and entertaining content that I make is completely off the top of our heads or spontaneous comedy. One thing I have found is that it never helps to try and force out content. If you do then things will always feel scripted or you just won’t be satisfied with it. But I always find that if you give it time and don’t force it, that both the comedy and the content will come naturally.
I record all of my videos with OBS and edit them myself with Adobe Premiere Pro. It can be a bit tedious to go through hours of footage to find the ideal clips and footage. All of my editing footage has been self taught from the videos on the internet and tutorials on YouTube. As well as that I also make photos and posts for my social medias on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
As for the rest of my creative process, I guess I do take inspiration from other content creators that I look up to like Fitz and Swaggersouls and try to make my content as entertaining as theirs. If I can make even just a few people laugh like they have made me laugh then that would be more than enough for me.
When I first started making videos I was always worried about the quality of them. I was worried if they wouldn’t be good enough quality for my audience or to my own standards. Even now I still am worried about the quality of my videos but I always know I will never be perfectly happy with my videos and the same can go for my audience. You can never make everyone happy with what you put out, but what you can do is put your absolute all into every video and always be proud of what you put out. The same can go for streaming as well, you can try your best and make it a production level stream with all sorts of fancy gimmicks to go with it but all you can do is to try your best and be yourself, make it your own thing and own it. Sometimes however viewers can take things a bit far and leave negative comments or reactions to your streams. All you can really do is take it in your stride.
There will always be negative people or people who just want to try and bring you down just because you’re trying to do your own thing. But one thing I’ve found is to not get angry at them, but to instead treat them like any other person. Maybe they’re having a bad day or maybe they came to troll. But if you can make them laugh or entertain them, then you could potentially turn a troll into a viewer. I am still usually nervous whenever I record or stream but over time it gets easier and everything feels a lot more natural. All you have to remember is to be yourself and that no one is going to judge you for making small mistakes so just have fun and do your best while doing what you love to do.
One thing I’ve always been bad with is consistency. Sometimes I’ll have a video or two out a week or other times I’ll have a video every one or two months. Sometimes I can get really bad creative block and none of my editing will be good enough and I’ll just be unsatisfied with the whole thing and either start again or just scrap the entire video. Sometimes you either have to take a small break because you’re putting too much stress on yourself to always pump out videos that you’ll feel unhappy with and rushed. Instead it is always important to take time to look after yourself and take breaks between editing and creating content.
I had periods of time where I just wouldn’t have any creative spark and everything would die down for a period of time. I remember there would be periods of months or even years where I just didn’t have the motivation to create anything. I would always get disheartened when I’d spend 10+ hours editing together a video for it to get almost no response and always be saddened by the outcome. However I’ve learnt that it’s always important to continue through everything no matter how hard it can get, but to always take it at your own place to not burn yourself out.
Back when I first started it was just me in my room at my parents place with my school laptop and windows movie maker and that was it. I would sit there recording gameplay at 30fps with a horrible webcam and I felt like I was a YouTube star already. Now 5 years down the track and I’ve improved myself overall entirely; buying myself new computer equipment, moving into my own house and growing as a person as a whole. I remember back when I first started, the feeling when I got my first 100 subscribers. I knew that it was mostly friends and family that had probably subscribed to me out of pity or support but regardless I was ecstatic about it.
From there I continued to try and improve and have my own ups and downs but finally I’m almost at the stage where I can return to doing everything professionally and on a regular basis and I couldn’t be more happy. I feel like if this was an anime or a superhero movie, the past 5 years have been my origin story and now is the time to go even further beyond.
I remember I would make my usual 10 minute gameplay videos and do my editing and that would be it usually, but I remember making one video that I was honestly in it for the meme and that was my Sekiro Shadows Die Twice anime opening which has about 1.1k views. Now I just made this on a whim because I thought it would be humorous but that’s exactly what you should always do, make things that bring you joy and make you laugh because as long as you enjoy what you’re making then that’s really all that matters.
When I first started I had no idea what I was doing. I would always record a barebones gameplay video, cut out bits I didn’t want and then upload it with no posts and never interacted with other content creators. One thing I have learnt is to
Always interact with other content creators, no matter who they are or what they do, it’s always good to connect with other content creators, not just for your own channel and brand but to actually make friends with.
Another thing is to try and be as expansive with your brand as possible, whether that’s on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, it always helps to get yourself out there and get as much exposure as possible. How I’ve improved my content over time is to be more casual and not be worried about forcing the impression of being professional or having everything run exactly as you want it to or it’ll feel like you’re trying to force things to be controlled instead of running with what goes on making the best out of what you can.
Currently I am working a full time job while trying to make time to stream and record content every week while also editing. It can be a bit chaotic while trying to keep a social life, a relationship and being a father all at the same time. It can be absolutely nuts trying to work out time for everything but when it all works out and everything turns out okay then there’s always a feeling of satisfaction of putting out a video or doing a good stream and pulling it off. Currently I’m still grinding it out and working full time but if the option arises to make a career out of it then I would do it in a heartbeat to live out one of my biggest dreams.
So far my biggest milestone with my channel would be the charity livestream I did recently for the Australian Bushfires and I raised around $670. It wasn’t that big of a stream and I didn’t raise a huge amount of money but I was just so proud of the fact that I could make a bit of difference and help those in need. If I could do that sort of thing more often, to do large streams for charity and to build up a friendly audience and a group of friends to have a fun time with and to give experiences to.
When I first started my channel I would just post stuff onto my personal facebook about it but now I manage pages and social media accounts to promote it as much as possible. I try to engage with my audience to catch their interest and interest new viewers as well. Whenever I try to do something I want to make it as genuine as possible and don’t want to make anything clickbait or misleading, I want my viewers to go onto a video or a post and watch exactly what I advertised it as.
I have just recently hired an editor so that I can make more content more frequently. As this is something that I would love to do full time I am trying to pursue that dream as much as possible and so I believe that getting my own editor was the best more for this so I can still work full time and record weekly videos. Currently I’ve really only ever made content by myself but I would love to work with some other content creators in the future to make videos together and potentially friendship as well.
So far I have not signed with any sort of brands but I would love to have the chance to be sponsored to play and promote upcoming games or gaming hardware. Currently I feel like I’m not that big enough of a personality to warrant reaching out to brands but I would love to in the future. An absolute dream of mine is to be contacted by an event such as PAX or SupaNova and be invited as a guest, that would honestly be a dream come true for me. Other than that I’m keeping my spirits up and continuing to do what I do best, be loud and crack jokes with my friends.
