Children nowadays love accessing the web, especially YouTube, with it being a public platform with content that can cater to all ages and interests.
When it comes to jobs, the ideas that parents have are vastly different from those of the younger generation. Online content creation is now very profitable and many jobs have emerged from it, such as being a YouTuber.
Because children are impressionable, they want to become like the YouTubers that they watch. However, many parents grow worried when their child tells them that they want to be a YouTuber, because to them, YouTube is a foreign industry as it did not exist in their generation.
Just what does the YouTube industry entail?
YouTube was founded in 2005 and has since become a successful industry because of how much the audiences love video content.
The content available on YouTube is far and wide as anyone can be a creator and make a video about anything. You may be surprised that even pimple popping videos can garner sky-high numbers of views!
To begin earning money from YouTube, a YouTuber needs to have at least 10,000 total views on their channel, 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours total watch time on their channel, according to a financial enthusiast on Seedly. So, you can’t earn straightaway.
Why do so many children want to be YouTubers?
Most of the time, children of younger ages would probably just find that being able to make money out of their hobbies is fun. These hobbies usually include gaming or vlogging.
However, older teenagers might have a passion to film and create content in their own space. Content creation is a modern passion that is legitimate but difficult to understand by the older generations.
The reasons differ for each individual, but wanting to become a YouTuber is a common career aspiration for many children nowadays, also because of their knowledge of the money that famous YouTubers are able to make.
How much money can you make from being a YouTuber?
Although YouTube only pays less than a cent per view, there is a huge audience on YouTube and the earnings can multiply and add up to a lot when the views are high.
Famous YouTubers such as our local JianHao Tan, who gets millions of views on each of his videos, are multi-millionaires and earn hundreds of thousands a year.
However, it is of course not easy to achieve that level of success. Although there are many YouTubers in Singapore, not many of them are recognised, and hence they are not able to monetise their YouTube channel.
Is it a stable income?
Since a YouTuber is paid for the views on their videos, the income of a YouTuber is unpredictable. Sometimes, certain videos just don’t do well.
The views that they get also largely depend on their popularity. Should their audience start getting bored of them, they could lose their source of income. So it is important to always come up with new, interesting content in order to keep garnering views.
Coming up with content to make videos is not an easy feat! Loads of time, effort, and creative juices will need to be used.
Should I stop my child from pursuing their dreams of becoming a YouTuber?
This is one of the biggest questions that parents may have when their children want to pursue an unstable career.
It is important for parents to allow their children to make their own decisions and trial and error with their life.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach and if your child really wants to try out something different, you should give them the space to do so and not let your prejudice stop them from pursuing their dreams.
You never know, your child could really achieve success with their passion!
However, many students might be tempted to jump towards doing YouTube full-time and drop out on their studies.
This is a very big risk especially if they have not secured the basic education that they should be getting in order to secure a stable job in the future.
As doing YouTube is a very risky career choice, students should still ensure that they prioritise their studies and try to juggle their hobbies such as YouTube at the side so that they have something to fall back on if they realise that YouTube is not for them.
They need to practice time management if they want to fight for their dreams.
What do I need to remind my child about?
You should remind your child about what it takes to become a successful YouTuber.
1. Monetary investments
In order to gain a significant number of loyal audience, their videos need to be of a certain quality, which requires proper equipment such as cameras, tripods, lighting, etc.
All of these are not cheap and are risky investments.
2. Time
A lot of time goes into producing just a single YouTube video: ideating, shooting the video, and especially editing the video. They will need to find suitable video editing software and invest long hours editing their every video. Many successful YouTubers hire video editors after they obtain a stable income.
3. Regular video ideas
They need to have an eye for creativity and constantly come up with relevant video ideas that would appeal to their audience. They need to jump on appropriate trends as quickly as possible so that they don’t become irrelevant. Many YouTubers lose their inspiration after a while.
4. Reputation/online presence
Once they put themselves out there, especially if they’re not anonymous in their videos, they are setting themselves up for people on the internet to recognise them and unfortunately judge them for their every action. They could lose their privacy and be held accountable for whatever that they do.
Hence, your child needs to be pretty sure about this passion of theirs before they invest large amounts of time and money on this.
Conclusion
Becoming a YouTuber may sound fun and profitable for children, but many parents are worried about the sustainability of this new industry.
As much as parents should allow their children to experiment in their lives, children need to know of the risks of this industry and be careful about their decision.
For more career tips, read our articles here.
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