Today I’m gonna Take You Back and Tell you all about how I Got my First 1 Million views on YouTube...
I used to make my own comic books, publish them on a self-serve copier at Staples…
…and then sell them on the street to strangers.
That’s How I Paid the Rent for Three Years.
The first videos that I put on YouTube were made to put on the screen at the release events for new issues of my comic books.
I’d have the party at a downtown nightclub and then put the videos online for the people who were at the party to watch later.
My release parties got me
noticed by some TV people.
I was the MC on a Late Night TV show, I got a development deal for my own show…
And then the Late Night show got cancelled, my development deal fell through…
I started thinking about what else I could do… I assigned myself a daily vlog project that I would keep up for a minimum of one year. I registered my second channel, The Sean Ward Show, as a place to put my scripted & produced comedy sketches alongside my daily vlogs.
Way back in ancient history, 2012, I got invited to attend a preview of an upcoming movie called The Dark Knight Rises…
I come out of the theatre and I see this guy in a dope Batman costume, a cool replica of the movie version…
He’s taking pictures with people and saying funny stuff in the voice, making everyone laugh…
We went out on a Saturday night in February that turned out to be the coldest night of the year. We got a lot of great footage, edited it together and at the dead last minute, I decided that the “Shit _____ Says” trend had crested and I changed the title to Batman’s Night Out.
As it’s uploading, I’m going “Come on! Hurry up! I’ve gotta get in a cab to get down to the arena where the Toronto Raptors are playing basketball because I've talked my way into going with my childhood idols, hip hop legends Naughty By Nature, to make a behind the scenes video of their halftime performance!”
Before I uploaded Batman’s Night Out, my most-watched video was about 3000 views. My dream was that Batman’s Night Out could get to 5000 views. While I’m backstage with Naughty By Nature, I’m finding out that the video is blowing up. It went past 5000 in a couple of hours. Then it was tweeted out by Paul Dini, co-creator of Batman the Animated Series in the 90s. After that the comics and pop culture blogs started spreading it and before I knew it, I was getting emails from major news outlets in Europe and Japan who were covering the video.
The Following Saturday Night...
... I was going out with friends and it turned into our impromptu countdown party, constantly refreshing the viewcount on our phones waiting for it to hit 1 million views.
I’m running around the club going “1 Million Views! 1 Million Views!”
I’m running into the street, stopping traffic to show drivers my phone - “1 Million Views!”
I go up to a girl at the bar, I say “1 Million Views!” and she asks “Batman???”
People were just on it like that!
After many upsets and disappointments over the years, I’ve learned to not count my chickens before they hatch. Everyone thought I was suddenly rich, but the game doesn’t work like that. I knew that as momentous as it was, this wasn’t the life changing success I needed yet. It was a sign pointing in the right direction.
Everything that happens, I run it through my philosophy of three:
If Something Happens Once, it Could have Been a Fluke. Twice... Maybe You’re Onto Something but don’t quit your Day Job yet. But 3 Times? That’s how it is. Go all in.
Batman’s Night Out was published in February of 2012. Two more videos would go over 1 million views before the end of the year.
Spider-Man VS Batman in Toronto would become “Video of the Week” on a list of TV shows’ websites.
By the time I was getting random people emailing to tell me that they saw my Spider-Man For Christmas video on CNN or their local 6:00 news, I knew that I could have success on YouTube.
At that time, success was 100,000 subscribers. After years of struggle & sacrifice with no payday in sight, how different I thought my life would be if I could reach 100,000 subscribers.
We obviously reached that goal, but that’s a story for a future episode!
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You made it to the end!
As a reward, I’d like to send you a sticker of the cartoon me from this episode of The Sean Ward Electric Comics Freak-Out!