Marley (On YouTube as Marley Swarbz) is a 17 year old YouTuber based here in Cumbria. Marley creates a range of content surrounding gaming, challenges, collaborations and more and he has so far amassed a 1.11k following. He has also impressively edited and shot the majority of his videos on an IPhone 6s, proving that you don't have to have all the latest tech and equipment and that drive and ambition are the key ingredients in developing and maintaining a successful YouTube channel. We caught up with Marley and spoke to him about how he first got into YouTube, confidence and his future plans and goals for his channel and YouTube career...
Tell us about how you first got into YouTube
How I first got into doing YouTube is quite interesting. I was basically raised by YouTube, in the sense that it was my childhood source of entertainment. Ever since I was 8 years old, my passion has always stemmed from YouTube and having an even older channel than my current one (which no longer has any uploads on) but here I was making 20 minute Minecraft gameplay videos recording on a tablet. It’s always been a dream of mine to fully do YouTube and make a career out of it.
My main inspirations for me doing YouTube were at the beginning KSI, SkyDoesMinecraft, Etika & then later on watching Quackity, Wilbur & Jschlatt. In 2019, I met some people through my channel and made friends with some great people who motivated me to properly do YouTube related things, but I was very inconsistent and wasn’t fully stuck in. The problem for me was I was really unable to do YouTube fully for so long until 2020 where I was given this opportunity, with no school for obvious (Covid-19) reasons & a time where I could finally do it somewhat for the first time ever time wise. 2020 was the year I finally got fully stuck into doing YouTube and it was amazing.
What do you enjoy most about being a YouTuber?
I think the buzz you get when you have an idea and then when you do the idea and it pays off or becomes better than even you expected, it’s the best thing ever. Another thing would also be the community & when I mean community, I mean the other youtubers around you & the friends you make along the way, especially when you’re a smaller youtuber and you network with some great people, the support is amazing.
What is currently your favourite video you have made and why?
It’s very difficult to say as there’s a few but if I’m going to narrow it down I'd say ‘We Got EVERY FAMOUS YOUTUBER POSSIBLE In One Zoom Call’ which was completely out of nowhere from me and I decided to do that on a whim. But regarding follower count we ended up getting an overall follower count of like 20 million followers/subscribers when at that moment in time I was on 600 subscribers? Still one of my favourite moments of 2020.
If I were talking best video regarding editing and my favourite to make, it’d probably be ‘Minecraft But Lava Rises Every Minute’ as the first channel I made was Minecraft based and this was my first ever Minecraft related video, so it was very nostalgic and the most fun I’ve had editing a video. If you wanna be a YouTuber and are reading this off your phone, trust me, It’s possible. Also, don’t worry if your first video isn’t amazing, all you’re gonna do is get better and better. Trust the process. Good luck to anyone trying to become a YouTuber. As much as it’s an oversaturated climate, anything is possible.
We understand confidence is a really important part of being a YouTuber, what advice would you give to people who feel too shy to start making their own videos?
My confidence really built up from constantly doing videos which I personally wouldn’t advise, what I believe you should do if you wanna get into YouTube is to research what YouTubers do best and be patient. Look at how certain people edit, what certain people say to get people engaged. Yes, talking in front of a camera instead of a person may seem quite odd but it becomes natural with time. Anyone can do YouTube! If you don’t believe me, I edited all of my videos on an iPhone 6s with 16GB of storage (now upgraded to a better phone but I still use my phone) and had to use OBS on my computer and transfer the files from my computer to my phone to edit because I had barely any resources. Anything is possible.
What are your future plans and goals for your YouTube career?
There’s a lot of future plans that I wanna keep as a secret until release but I’ll say a couple things that not many others know about until this interview. I’ve already done merchandise which done 3x nearly 4x better than expected so I plan to do something again in 2021 but something completely new which I’m slowly getting into, I’m taking my time to get into is music related media. I wanna shock my peers, my audience and make something which no one expects, it might be a one off but we’ll see. Collaborations wise, I haven’t got many planned but would love to work with so many big & small creators in the future. Obviously there’s more things which I can’t say but hey, you’ll have to find out what I do next by subscribing and following me haha, we’ve got an interesting year ahead of us to say the least.
You can subscribe to Marley's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/MarleySwarbz
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