The Evolution of a Creator: From Skepticism to Passionate Production

At the time I was creating content on YouTube, I was a total dill hole. I looked down on challenges and thought they required no heart or soul. I didn't fully understand what YouTube was at that moment in its evolution. To me, it seemed like just a platform for showcasing talents, which is true to an extent, but YouTube is so much more than that. When I shot my first challenge with Alex Goyette, we did the movie quote Challenge, and I had a blast editing it. It was scary at first, but making it live and seeing everyone's positive response made me realize why I should be creating content.

That experience showed me that YouTube is a community of amazing people rather than just viewers. This realization sparked my desire to create more series-based content and inspired me to set up a Patreon account. The support from my patrons helped me pay the bills, literally, as we were struggling to make ends meet. Their contributions made a huge difference in our lives, allowing us to eat and not worry about rent or basic necessities.

As I continued creating content, I started to receive emails from people who had been impacted by my videos. One such email stood out, where someone shared with me that my content saved their life. Hearing stories like this changed everything for me. It made me realize the true purpose of YouTube and what I wanted to achieve as a creator. I no longer just created for myself; I did it for everyone.

My new slogan, "Laugh Your Way to Happiness," reflects this shift in perspective. I focused on making people laugh, regardless of the type of content I created – whether simple or complex. My goal was to bring joy and happiness to others through my videos. This newfound passion drove me to work harder and produce more content.

I never really cared about growing bigger; hitting a million subscribers wasn't a priority for me. What mattered most was creating content that made people smile and brought some positivity into their lives. Looking back, I realize that my biggest fear was not making a difference. The comments from strangers who said I was being selfish were harsh, but they taught me to reevaluate my purpose.

If there's one thing I want to impart to you, it's that with hard work and dedication, you can make your dreams a reality. There will be people throughout your life who tell you that you're not worth it or that what you want to do won't work out. Don't listen to them. Keep pushing forward, and you'll find success. To my amazing community of patrons, I'm forever grateful for their support. You guys have made a difference in my life, and I hope to continue making content that brings joy to yours.

As I move forward with creating new content, I want to assure you that it's been an incredible journey so far. I've learned so much about myself, YouTube, and what truly matters as a creator. More videos are coming your way soon, as I've finally set up my production space and am ready to take on the next challenge.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhow's it going guys I am Maas and a week or so ago I hit 1 million subscribers on YouTube that is insane insane but honestly that is not why I'm on YouTube it's not why I started doing this and it's not why I'm still doing this number goals aren't really my thing what 1 million does tell me is that I'm making things that people actually want to watch and that makes me super excited and that's really why I want to do this hitting a million subscribers to me is no different than seeing that number go up one by one by one cuz each single person that subscribes is their own individual person that I'm excited for them to be a part of this amazing community that we've all built together and I am eternally grateful for all of you that have subscribed to me I'm going to be honest together in the future we're going to do some crazy cool things and I'm super excited for it I also want to thank my family and friends deeply because without their help without their support and love and friendship I would not be sitting right here where I am today without them but I wanted to give you just a little bit of a background on why I started YouTube and why I still do YouTube so this is kind of like the story of how I hit a million subscribers and I hope that's a story that you want to listen to and if it's not just go watch another video of mine no one else just me please so it all started back when I was just a baby no I'm just kidding I'm not going to go that far back if you want to if you want to go that far back go check out my all my life it's somewhere on this channel so before I started YouTube I was going to film school because I wanted to direct films and TV shows and commercials at the time I had like no money and the job that I had being an assistant manager at a drugstore not selling drugs I was just an assistant manager at a pharmacy the money I made from that job went to gas to put in my car to get to school so I I actually remember there was this one time where I was searching through my couch to find coins and I actually found some and was able to pay for gas to get to work which is kind of iron ironic it's like a catch22 you know you need a car to get a job and that job pays for that car so it's like chicken and egg thing am I right at film school I met a very good friend of mine Alex Goyette and when he learned that I was a manager at a drugstore he was like do you think at all I could possibly use that drugstore to film in naturally that was his first thought and I was like I don't see why not the managers are there pretty cool I I can ask them you know put two and two together we we'll make some magic and we did we made a sketch and that was the first time I had ever really worked with him moving on from there we started making a lot more videos together and then I wrote a video all on my own and gave it to him and he was like you know what that's not quite that's not quite my channel I don't think I want to do that and I was like well if you don't do it I might just do it then I'm going to take it and make my own channel and he was like do it dude definitely do it I would love to see that and I was like oh okay I guess I'll do that that's kind of when my channel was born he continued to make videos on his channel I continued to make videos on mine and then he was working on this bigger project it was called Waldo the movie and this video um was like his baby and he was like Maas can you please score this so I wrote the music to that video my whole life I've been hiding out all these years people have been trying to find me the truth is I don't think I've ever found myself and at the time everything was good everything was going well I was making videos he was making videos I was saving up money it was at that point where I asked Amanda to marry me because at the time I was saving up a little bit of money at the drugstore and all looked well Amanda was going to nursing school I was 100% down to be like the stay-at-home dad and just like work from home and do everything home while she was outworking and the minute I asked Amanda to marry me I got laid off it was kind of scary the minute I got laid off I just went and searched everywhere for a job I literally that day I must have gone to like a 100 stores and filled out applications a company called awesomeness TV called Alex because they saw that video that we made together the video that I wrote the music for and he was like listen man like they're calling me um because they're about to start this awesomeness TV channel and they want to hire us to make sketches for it before the channel goes live and at that point Awesomeness TV was just like not even a channel yet so they started hiring us to make sketch content so at that point I was making videos for Awesomeness TV I was making videos for my own channel which was not generating any revenue and I was kind of saving up for marriage and then Amanda and I got married I was able to support Amanda and I on the money that we are making from the Awesomeness TV sketches and I was doing so much I was doing so much at the time um putting my heart and soul into my channel and making music videos and sketches and parodies and anything that I possibly could think that might be able to go viral to like blow up my channel because I wanted to make a living working for myself I wanted to work for myself I didn't want to answer to anyone else even though Awesomeness TV was pretty awesome at the time no pun intended but I wanted to work for myself and that was the time around internet icon if you guys are familiar with internet icon it was a reality show that you make on and I won that and that was awesome because I won $10,000 which was again put that in the bank saved it for later good thing I did because Awesomeness TV stopped calling me back Awesomeness TV I don't know maybe they were going different way maybe they didn't like my style or something like that but they essentially didn't call me back to make any more sketches and that terrified me yet again because I had nothing other than awesomess TV there was no way I was generating money I think at the time my channel was generating $500 a month which is not nothing but you definitely can't live in an apartment in Burbank on $500 a month when I realized okay they're not going to call me back I was scared for my life I was scared for Amanda I I didn't know what to do I honestly didn't know what to do I was just determined to not get to the point where I had to move back in with my parents not that that's bad I love my parents and tons of people have to do that but I was like no I promise everyone that I would make this work I decided okay I'm going to go into YouTube I'm going to play the game I'm going to like go full bore and make this thing work because if I can make $500 a month maybe I can like push it to the point and make enough videos to the point where I can actually support Amanda and I with rent and food that was all I was worried about paying rent and paying food our rent at the time I think was like $1,200 a month and food we didn't eat that much food it was like I don't know 300 bucks a month if that so I needed to Triple that income somehow so I was like I can't do three sketches a week I just can't do that so I was like I'm going to have to try and do some challenges and at the time I was a total dill hole I totally looked down on challenges and I was like oh that's easy content to make it doesn't require any like heart or soul I I didn't get what YouTube was at the time I thought it was just like a platform to just like show your talents which to a certain extent it is but YouTube is so much more than that and when I shot my first challenge I was so scared to edit and upload that I finally gave in though I was like okay I'm just going to shoot a challenge and see what happens and first challenge I shot was with Alex Goyette and we Shot the movie quote Challenge and you can watch that video right there and I had a blast it was so much fun to shoot it started editing it and it was so much fun to edit and I was so terrified but I made it live and everyone loved it and I was like why was I looking down on this content for so long doing that content showed me so much more about YouTube it showed me that it could be a community of amazing people rather than just viewers so I decided to come up with some other series I got inspired by a good friend Jack Douglas he inspired a lot of stuff on my channel so shout out to him he's an awesome dude go check him out I started making series-based content I also put up a patreon in which you amazing people helped me without your help without that patreon and you guys just supporting me with money that you thought I was worth made such a huge difference Amanda and I were able to eat honestly we were able to eat because I was so terrified that I the next month we weren't going to have enough money to pay rent let alone get food for that I am forever grateful kept pushing it and kept working and working and working and making videos the channel started to grow and I met amazing friends and creat creators who pushed eyes on my content and it was at that point where when I started making videos that were much more simple that I really started to get a connection with you guys before when I was just making sketches like people watched it but like no one really commented no one really liked the videos people liked them but they didn't like engage with my content and it was also at that point where I started to receive like emails from people saying like you've changed my life and like I didn't commit suicide because of you and that just like blew my mind mind that like my content had such a profound effect on an individual to the point where they didn't end their life and it was at that moment when I first got one of those emails that the reason I do YouTube changed and the change was shown in like my my my new slogan that I went by which was laugh your way to happiness because I felt so much fulfillment making other people laugh regardless of the type of content regardless if it was sketches or parodies or like this really hard to make stuff or really simple to make stuff as long as I could make someone laugh That's What mattered to me the minute I was able to pay rent and pay for food and work for myself I didn't care that much about growing bigger I I never really cared about like hitting a million subscribers you know it was at that point where I started making videos for an entirely different reason I wasn't I was no longer making videos for me I was making videos for everyone I just want to thank you for inspiring me to do that I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to make people smile because I don't know if you guys remember a while back when I said one of my biggest fears was not making a difference and some of the comments were like oh so it's the selfish thing it's like it's all about you but I was like no no I want to make a difference in other people's lives like my biggest fear is not affecting some kind of change in if it's just one individual or a thousand people if I can make them laugh and make their day better that's why I do this and honestly if you want to do do this too you can all you got to do is just work hard there's going to be a lot of people throughout your life who are going to tell you you're not worth it who they're going to tell you that you can't do what you want it's unrealistic don't go do that you can't do this that won't make money and the truth is if you work hard enough and you don't give up you can make it work so to you I want to say thank you so much for helping me build this amazing community of amazing people that's what I'm grateful for and that's how I hit aill subscribers hope you enjoyed this video more videos coming at your faces soon because I finished my setup I hope you guys enjoy it all right guys high fivehow's it going guys I am Maas and a week or so ago I hit 1 million subscribers on YouTube that is insane insane but honestly that is not why I'm on YouTube it's not why I started doing this and it's not why I'm still doing this number goals aren't really my thing what 1 million does tell me is that I'm making things that people actually want to watch and that makes me super excited and that's really why I want to do this hitting a million subscribers to me is no different than seeing that number go up one by one by one cuz each single person that subscribes is their own individual person that I'm excited for them to be a part of this amazing community that we've all built together and I am eternally grateful for all of you that have subscribed to me I'm going to be honest together in the future we're going to do some crazy cool things and I'm super excited for it I also want to thank my family and friends deeply because without their help without their support and love and friendship I would not be sitting right here where I am today without them but I wanted to give you just a little bit of a background on why I started YouTube and why I still do YouTube so this is kind of like the story of how I hit a million subscribers and I hope that's a story that you want to listen to and if it's not just go watch another video of mine no one else just me please so it all started back when I was just a baby no I'm just kidding I'm not going to go that far back if you want to if you want to go that far back go check out my all my life it's somewhere on this channel so before I started YouTube I was going to film school because I wanted to direct films and TV shows and commercials at the time I had like no money and the job that I had being an assistant manager at a drugstore not selling drugs I was just an assistant manager at a pharmacy the money I made from that job went to gas to put in my car to get to school so I I actually remember there was this one time where I was searching through my couch to find coins and I actually found some and was able to pay for gas to get to work which is kind of iron ironic it's like a catch22 you know you need a car to get a job and that job pays for that car so it's like chicken and egg thing am I right at film school I met a very good friend of mine Alex Goyette and when he learned that I was a manager at a drugstore he was like do you think at all I could possibly use that drugstore to film in naturally that was his first thought and I was like I don't see why not the managers are there pretty cool I I can ask them you know put two and two together we we'll make some magic and we did we made a sketch and that was the first time I had ever really worked with him moving on from there we started making a lot more videos together and then I wrote a video all on my own and gave it to him and he was like you know what that's not quite that's not quite my channel I don't think I want to do that and I was like well if you don't do it I might just do it then I'm going to take it and make my own channel and he was like do it dude definitely do it I would love to see that and I was like oh okay I guess I'll do that that's kind of when my channel was born he continued to make videos on his channel I continued to make videos on mine and then he was working on this bigger project it was called Waldo the movie and this video um was like his baby and he was like Maas can you please score this so I wrote the music to that video my whole life I've been hiding out all these years people have been trying to find me the truth is I don't think I've ever found myself and at the time everything was good everything was going well I was making videos he was making videos I was saving up money it was at that point where I asked Amanda to marry me because at the time I was saving up a little bit of money at the drugstore and all looked well Amanda was going to nursing school I was 100% down to be like the stay-at-home dad and just like work from home and do everything home while she was outworking and the minute I asked Amanda to marry me I got laid off it was kind of scary the minute I got laid off I just went and searched everywhere for a job I literally that day I must have gone to like a 100 stores and filled out applications a company called awesomeness TV called Alex because they saw that video that we made together the video that I wrote the music for and he was like listen man like they're calling me um because they're about to start this awesomeness TV channel and they want to hire us to make sketches for it before the channel goes live and at that point Awesomeness TV was just like not even a channel yet so they started hiring us to make sketch content so at that point I was making videos for Awesomeness TV I was making videos for my own channel which was not generating any revenue and I was kind of saving up for marriage and then Amanda and I got married I was able to support Amanda and I on the money that we are making from the Awesomeness TV sketches and I was doing so much I was doing so much at the time um putting my heart and soul into my channel and making music videos and sketches and parodies and anything that I possibly could think that might be able to go viral to like blow up my channel because I wanted to make a living working for myself I wanted to work for myself I didn't want to answer to anyone else even though Awesomeness TV was pretty awesome at the time no pun intended but I wanted to work for myself and that was the time around internet icon if you guys are familiar with internet icon it was a reality show that you make on and I won that and that was awesome because I won $10,000 which was again put that in the bank saved it for later good thing I did because Awesomeness TV stopped calling me back Awesomeness TV I don't know maybe they were going different way maybe they didn't like my style or something like that but they essentially didn't call me back to make any more sketches and that terrified me yet again because I had nothing other than awesomess TV there was no way I was generating money I think at the time my channel was generating $500 a month which is not nothing but you definitely can't live in an apartment in Burbank on $500 a month when I realized okay they're not going to call me back I was scared for my life I was scared for Amanda I I didn't know what to do I honestly didn't know what to do I was just determined to not get to the point where I had to move back in with my parents not that that's bad I love my parents and tons of people have to do that but I was like no I promise everyone that I would make this work I decided okay I'm going to go into YouTube I'm going to play the game I'm going to like go full bore and make this thing work because if I can make $500 a month maybe I can like push it to the point and make enough videos to the point where I can actually support Amanda and I with rent and food that was all I was worried about paying rent and paying food our rent at the time I think was like $1,200 a month and food we didn't eat that much food it was like I don't know 300 bucks a month if that so I needed to Triple that income somehow so I was like I can't do three sketches a week I just can't do that so I was like I'm going to have to try and do some challenges and at the time I was a total dill hole I totally looked down on challenges and I was like oh that's easy content to make it doesn't require any like heart or soul I I didn't get what YouTube was at the time I thought it was just like a platform to just like show your talents which to a certain extent it is but YouTube is so much more than that and when I shot my first challenge I was so scared to edit and upload that I finally gave in though I was like okay I'm just going to shoot a challenge and see what happens and first challenge I shot was with Alex Goyette and we Shot the movie quote Challenge and you can watch that video right there and I had a blast it was so much fun to shoot it started editing it and it was so much fun to edit and I was so terrified but I made it live and everyone loved it and I was like why was I looking down on this content for so long doing that content showed me so much more about YouTube it showed me that it could be a community of amazing people rather than just viewers so I decided to come up with some other series I got inspired by a good friend Jack Douglas he inspired a lot of stuff on my channel so shout out to him he's an awesome dude go check him out I started making series-based content I also put up a patreon in which you amazing people helped me without your help without that patreon and you guys just supporting me with money that you thought I was worth made such a huge difference Amanda and I were able to eat honestly we were able to eat because I was so terrified that I the next month we weren't going to have enough money to pay rent let alone get food for that I am forever grateful kept pushing it and kept working and working and working and making videos the channel started to grow and I met amazing friends and creat creators who pushed eyes on my content and it was at that point where when I started making videos that were much more simple that I really started to get a connection with you guys before when I was just making sketches like people watched it but like no one really commented no one really liked the videos people liked them but they didn't like engage with my content and it was also at that point where I started to receive like emails from people saying like you've changed my life and like I didn't commit suicide because of you and that just like blew my mind mind that like my content had such a profound effect on an individual to the point where they didn't end their life and it was at that moment when I first got one of those emails that the reason I do YouTube changed and the change was shown in like my my my new slogan that I went by which was laugh your way to happiness because I felt so much fulfillment making other people laugh regardless of the type of content regardless if it was sketches or parodies or like this really hard to make stuff or really simple to make stuff as long as I could make someone laugh That's What mattered to me the minute I was able to pay rent and pay for food and work for myself I didn't care that much about growing bigger I I never really cared about like hitting a million subscribers you know it was at that point where I started making videos for an entirely different reason I wasn't I was no longer making videos for me I was making videos for everyone I just want to thank you for inspiring me to do that I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to make people smile because I don't know if you guys remember a while back when I said one of my biggest fears was not making a difference and some of the comments were like oh so it's the selfish thing it's like it's all about you but I was like no no I want to make a difference in other people's lives like my biggest fear is not affecting some kind of change in if it's just one individual or a thousand people if I can make them laugh and make their day better that's why I do this and honestly if you want to do do this too you can all you got to do is just work hard there's going to be a lot of people throughout your life who are going to tell you you're not worth it who they're going to tell you that you can't do what you want it's unrealistic don't go do that you can't do this that won't make money and the truth is if you work hard enough and you don't give up you can make it work so to you I want to say thank you so much for helping me build this amazing community of amazing people that's what I'm grateful for and that's how I hit aill subscribers hope you enjoyed this video more videos coming at your faces soon because I finished my setup I hope you guys enjoy it all right guys high five\n"