being a youtube star, Davidfarm

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[silence]

Davidsfarm: Well becoming a YouTube star. Something I never imagined. Me, a red-neck celebrity? A Canadian? Who hears about Canadians? I'm not American. Those are the people who are on Hollywood TV and, you know, that's where you get rich and famous. Well anyways, I started out as a garbage picker when I was a kid just because my father was cheap and I wanted to have things that he wouldn't buy for me. And of course I learned if I could fix things, I could have anything I wanted. It might be a little bit old, but so what?

So anyways, I had a natural talent to fix things, and so I learned quickly. So I excelled in the shop classes in high school and I took auto mechanics up to grade eleven. That's my only education in auto mechanics, I never worked in a garage either. Well, throughout my teenage life, I was a garbage picker and started fixing cars when I got older. So I always had some spare cash, learned to drive when I was seventeen, but when I was eleven I put this big basket on my bicycle that could hold a hundred pounds and that's how I was able to collect my stuff. And every garbage day, I would go out collecting.

Well, I got a scholarship when I was eighteen to become a machinist. And that's what I figured I'd be. I really enjoy machine shop more than any other thing in school because there I can make anything. I made a couple of extreme go carts, motorized bicycles and stuff like that. Even made a home-made hand gun in high school and my teacher took it away. [laughs] I never even got a chance to fire it.

So, right from high school to college. I was still living with my parents but college was free because it was a scholarship and I was on my way to be a machinist. No problem, that all worked out fine. Got a job in the auto industry as a full time machinist and was making top wages. Well then my dad kicked me out when I was twenty three so I bought this house that I'm living in now and decided that my full time hobby now was actually more hours a day than my machinist job and I figured it was more profitable.

So I took the big step, quit my machinist job which had benefits, security, great pay and see if I could make it as a full time garbage picker and repair man. Never looked back. That was the best decision in my whole life. Instead of seeing and doing the same things everyday where I learned nothing. Now I was learning new things everyday, I challenged myself to be able to fix anything. I wouldn't say no. I would take on any job. I did body work, electronics, mechanical. I even cut cars in half, welded them together, rebuilt motors you know. Boat engines, motorcycles just anything. Lawn mowers, anything that was brought in the door. Electronics, TV's, microwaves. I would figure how to fix it and I did.

Well, when I was seventeen I had it all figured out. I figured out the meaning of life and to me success was just attitude. I said to myself... I looked at rich people and poor people and some of the poor people were smarter than the rich people. The difference was the rich people had an attitude that that's where in life they wanted to be, they had to work hard to get it, most of the time, like me. And so, I said to myself. Well, I am kind of blessed, I'm more intelligent than the average person so I can do anything I want.

So, put on a twenty year quest to work my butt off. Very often twelve hours a day, seven days a week. And it paid off, good investing also at the same time. Well, then I became semi-retired in my early forties. You know, didn't need that much money anymore since my mortgage was payed off and I owed no other money. And well I guess about, what was it, just over two years ago, I was reading in the business newspaper that I get everyday about how Google had bought YouTube, an unprofitable internet company, for a record price of one point six five billion for a company that has never made a profit and maybe hasn't yet.

So I went on the internet to check them out. I always had a hobby of photography and filming and had a quite a few farm videos that I had made on the farm for the last twenty years. So I thought this was my vehicle to become famous. Although everybody says that, but of course the true motivation was so that I would become at least noticed enough in Canada that my two stolen sons would be able to find me and know who, what their father was and someday we could reunite.

Well, I certainly didn't have any computer skills or editing skills because I had never edited a movie or a video on a computer until I tried to do it for YouTube and I still haven't evolved much since then. I'm still using crappy Windows movie maker but it's so simple and fast. That's all that matters to me and kinda adds to the red neck flavor of my videos I guess. So my two kids, my oldest ones, Adam and Michelle, they were the ones who were helping me out and teaching me how to use a computer and it was actually less than a year ago I actually learned how to do just copy and paste. Simple things like that. So it was a couple of years ago I was showed how to do email.

So even though I'm very technically inclined and I can fix computers I can load Windows XP, I can do all the basic things, some of the basic things I can't do. Even to get on to the paid partner program on YouTube I had to get a YouTube user, CMlovejoy from Virginia, to help me. I couldn't get very much past half of the steps. I know a lot of other people have internet problem too, but don't ask me, ask someone else. So, in my quest to get noticed on YouTube, I realized one, you have to be original. Two, having funny videos helps. Three, having lots of action helps. Four, having somewhat of a story to each video instead of it just ending and leaving you wondering, helps a lot too.

Well, I definitely considered myself an original character. I imitated no one. I guess you could say my videos are a cross between Trailer Park Boys, Monster Garage and the Red Green Show. That's what I would say but I'm not imitating them whatsoever. Before I ever heard of YouTube I was planning on setting up my own website to post my videos and trying to, you know, find a way so I could have my website recognized and people would find it. Well so, long before YouTube came along, I produced two videos which I figured would be show stoppers and viral videos and they both were shows stoppers and viral videos.

There was the cutting the pigs head off with the chainsaw, of course you saw the video where we made it but I did some acting to make that a shocking video so it would become popular and it did. And then next was my red neck roller coaster video. Well that was twenty three seconds long but within about a year that was on two hundred and forty thousand different websites. Nobody knew who I was in either video, but at least I had two viral videos out there that I could eventually be recognized, if I found a way to create a website that's profitable enough to maintain its bandwidth so that I could be recognized in Canada and eventually have contact with my children.

Well it took me the first six months of being on YouTube to get my first million views and I think about six hundred... six hundred and fifty subscribers and sixty five thousand channel views. I didn't have any way of making myself get noticed, I just randomly threw stuff on and saw what happened. I didn't have a MySpace account at that time, I still don't. I didn't know enough of what the internet had to do anything else or link videos or promote videos or do stuff like that. People just found me. Now, I'm well past twenty one million views in the two years I've been on YouTube. Never expected the situation, how it turned into now. For example, just in the last week alone I've make three different TV deals, one in London, England, one in Marina DelRay, California and another one in Hollywood, California. Well this is common. I've been on TV now like thirty times, mostly not even in my own country. [laughs] The United States and everywhere else in the world.

Who would've expected an ugly old greasy handed guy like me turning himself into something or a kind of celebrity on the internet and on TV too? I don't have a pretty face like those hot women, I don't sing music, I don't have any of those kind of entertainment talents. I found a niche that I didn't know existed. Now if you check out my statistics on YouTube, I'm most often the number one most viewed person in Canada who creates his own videos, like a partner.

And I've been number one in the world on the automotive category for a long time. That's a big ticket. I'm even quite a few steps ahead of top gear and some of those other high value production shows. [silence]

Anyways, YouTube kinda mirrors my real life. I have a huge following in real life that respect my repair skills and my great free advice I always give them when they drop by or they call me. So I'm always getting free dinners, bottles of wine, thank you notes, pies. It's just commendations, recommendations all that stuff and YouTube kinda turned out to be the same thing. YouTube is a full time job now. At least it's paying good finally. You know, I was almost thinking of quitting it for the fact that it's just so many hours. We've all been responding to everyone, creating videos, editing and reading comments and doing stuff like that, that if it wasn't paying well, fame isn't everything you know.

So now with YouTube I have the same situation as real life. People commending me for what I'm doing and enjoying my videos and asking me all kinds of technical questions and getting great free advice. So, nothing's changed, it's just that now it's on a global skill and, who knows, the way things are looking I could have a TV show or whatever someday but I certainly am getting some exposure now. And I hope on some of my next appearances I can mention YouTube and that will certainly bring a lot more subscribers and a lot more future income.

Now I don't really need all this income right now, now that my life is set and I only need twenty four thousand dollars a year to pay all my bills. So I'm hoping someday to just give this money to help out my children. Well not in a way that's going to make them lazy, but in some situations it could really help them with education or getting a start in life or stuff like that.

So to tell you the truth, being a YouTube star isn't what it's cracked up to be. It's not that exciting anymore being so well recognized and having all these fans because it's so much work. If it wasn't for the fact that I was pretty much fully retired I wouldn't have the time to do this. Not too many other people would have the time to do this. That's what gives me an advantage, I retired early. And now I can pursue my third hobby... Who would ever imagine that I went from a garbage picker to a machinist to a garbage piker, retired and then became an old man celebrity?

Gee whiz, life is strange. Well, so far nothing too bad is happening. I hope the GL thing works out good, I've got a good case going for me. And I hope to be around for a long time unless nothing happens to me. Who knows? I do have some people who don't appreciate me. But anyways, they keep watching my videos so that's cool. And I have a personal message from a fan. His name is Caleb. He lives in Vermillion Ohio. He's twelve, he watches me everyday. Well, I've got some good advice for you. It doesn't care how smart you are, cares how devoted you are. It cares what your attitude is and you can be anything you want to be when you grow up. Just don't give up and do your best. Hardship strengthens you. Never look down, never change your mind. If this is what you want, go for it. [silence]
AAATT
Davidsfarm's YouTube Channel