Back in the early days of the internet, user created animation struggled to find footing.
If you wanted someone to see an animation
online that you had made, you generally had to upload it to your own website which proved difficult for most people.
But in 1999, newgrounds.com
took off, and people finally had a place to share their animations, which inspired thousands of young artists to take a crack at animating for themselves.
I was one of these people that thought they were gonna grow up to become a famous animator, but
I was very, very wrong.
I'll get to that later. (translation: i f*cking sucked at it)
But it wasn't until fairly recently that animation was actually given an opportunity to shine to its brightest potential.
Thanks to YouTube's accessibility, and its thousands of
extremely talented animators, animation has basically defied YouTube's algorithm and has taken off
at an unprecedented speed, giving life to a thriving community
of some of the hardest working and most positive people on the platform.
My name's Ian Hecox and today I'm gonna
sit down with some of these people to learn exactly what it takes to be a famous YouTube animator.
Hi, Jaiden!
Nice to meet you!
What happened?
I'm dead.
James!
How's it going? Hey!
Ily! Hi!
Hi!
Alright, who's here for the chaos?
I'm here for the chaos!
Adam!
Hey, nice to meet you!
I need to poop!
Thank you so much for coming out
and teaching me a little bit about the wondrous world of YouTube animation!
Thanks for having me in your bedroom.
Yeah!
So how would you describe what it is that you do on YouTube?
Oh, I just...
draw cartoons and people kinda just watch it.
Right.
YouTube animator!
I make cartoons.
I, uh, draw on a computer
Yeah? I guess.
There's a big debate if it- what I do or what we do is "animation"
because it's not "frame by frame" or anything,
but I always don't care about what the definition is.
You seem ashamed to call yourself that.
No, I'm not ashamed!
But, it's like, I know that some people that would be like,
"It's not animation, it's animatic". And it's like, semantics!
You know what I mean?
Before I did YouTube, I would just animate, like, on pencil and paper.
Yeah.
That's how I see myself as an animator, but I think "YouTube animator", itself, is its own special thing.
How did you come up with your YouTube username?
When I was younger, I was growing up around, sort of like, uh- kind of poopy people.
Yeah, uh- poopy people.
I started working for this Minecraft channel back in, like, 2014 called iHasCupquake
When I was 16, I was creating a Tumblr account.
It was back when they had porn on Tumblr.
Yeah.
The people around me were just basically telling me that, basically, I'm nothing.
You know, I eventually came up with the name something- SomethingElseYT because not only am I something,
but I'm something else.
And the YT stands for?
Dude, whatever you want, man!
It means...
you thicc
I mean... yeah.
I was, like, too embarrassed to have anything with, like, a "nickname'",
because if I told people outside of YouTube my "nickname",
I think it'd be, like, really cheesy and weird.
Like FoxyTigerBabe83.
Yeah.
So, uh, Ilymation-
No "s"! No "s"!
"Ilymayshun"
"Ilymayshin"
Yeah, it was my first name... and "animation".
Yeah, also it's "illlll".
It's the illest.
So, I was making a comic with characters that had names, and clothes, and personalities.
Oh, clothes.
Yeah, clothes.
And... I wanted them to be "the wacky ones", "the crazy ones",
so I wanted them to be the odd ones out.
That's why the "1s" is plural, it's cause there's multiple people.
How long have you been animating?
So I started comics in 2012,
Then I watched YouTube, and I started that in 2014.
Four and a half years?
Yeah.
And you're already a famous YouTube animator celebrity.
Since 2014.
Maybe three years.
Since 2012, I think.
Can you describe your style of animation?
It's pretty simple.
People don't call it animation because it's not colored.
Wait, it has to be colored to be animation?
Hmm, like... animatics?
My style isn't really frame by frame.
I don't lipsynch because on YouTube, you need to upload every so often.
That's, like, something that you have to do on YouTube.
I love Animal Crossing,
and so, I thought about Animal Crossing a lot when I was designing my character,
like a little nose being a little, pink shape.
My character, itself, is sort of like, uh,
like, he's a devil dude, he's just-
Yeah.
And, like, I sort of took inspiration from, uh- the show Adventure Time.
Why did you decide on your art style?
Back when I was first starting, and I had characters with hair, and clothes, and personality,
I would spend, like, hours drawing the hair, drawing the clothes.
Right.
And then I was like, no one cares; so what I ended up doing was
taking multiple steps back and then going with just- a super simplistic design.
Bald, and naked, and no skin,
you know, um...
What is your favorite part about being a YouTube animator?
I'm doing something that I enjoy doing
and people enjoy it and are like, "oh, this is great!"
And it's like, "oh my god, thanks!"
Aha, finishing a video!
Like the climax-
Yeah kind of-
-moment when you get to the end and you're like
"Eaoghhh, it's out there!"
Exactly, and then I can just sit back and not have to worry about it ever again.
Honestly, the community is so nice.
*Awwwww*
And what is the most difficult part about being a youtuber animator? It's really time consuming
Just how much time things take it takes a lot of work way more than people think there are there definitely are times
Where just drawing everyday for multiple hours can get very tedious and lonely and you just think to yourself
Why am I doing this? Why am I still here?
Why why do I keep doing what I do when I don't enjoy it
But then I finished the video and then it becomes it's really good. And I really enjoy it
Yeah, how long does it take you to animate a video from start to finish?
Three weeks to one a month with a team of like nine or ten animators a month with a team of nine or ten
Mm-hmm. I
Was like plowing
Myself into depression with how much I was working and the videos would still look like and then I finally was like, okay
I'm not happy with anything. I should like hire some people to help and then the video started looking better
You hired a team of people to make your life easier to make animation go faster
But all you end up doing was just making it get more complicated basically making the quality go up
But not the speed that they're uploaded. Can you run me through an average day? I have a cat my room
It has a cat they're screaming at me to feed them so somebody starts
I'm really good at procrastinating. Um, I tell myself as long as I work from 11:00 to 7:00
That's good. And it doesn't sound like I'm doing a lot of work. I swear. I'm doing so much record-low
It's a lot of work. Do you do any exercises or stretches to keep your hand from cramping? Yeah
So like this is just what I got online like you like do the little spider thing
Yeah, you do this that reminds me of like
I think we're ready to draw
Do you do those stretches? No, but I assume this is something right. It's probably good. I guess my hand just never cramps
It's never cramped when I was signing books. So I had to sign in 6,000 books. That's when it cramped
Yeah, it's hard to be famous. Yeah, it sucks. What was your reaction?
When your first video blew up my heart like sunk. I was just like holy crap. This is happening. Oh my god, my dream terrified
Oh, no, who are all these people?
I know why me kind of thing my video that blew up was my harassed at chick-fil-a workplace harassment
yeah work video and I was like, uh
And there were so many like mean things in the comments and of when you're new to YouTube
You're like I'm gonna read every comment what's changed in your life since blowing up to become a full-on
celebrity
My mom is so proud of me I
Moved to LA but did you need to be in LA?
Honestly, no because like an animator you can work from home you can do it wherever but like I have some friends and my buddy
Anthony's out here, so
My voice cracked so you would started going through puberty
Yeah
I'm a lot more confident with myself. I don't know. I think my social skills have gotten better. Great. Thanks.
I have a few questions from fans. Okay. YouTube user curly feek asks me to give you a very normal handshake
This is incredibly uncomfortable, how long do we have to do this for it for it to be normal?
Mallory LuAnn wants to know how you feel about being in the most
Disliked video in the history of YouTube guys. Let's do the in my feelings challenge
Well Mallory, I want to ask you how it feels to not be a part of history
It feels pretty great. People have been like overhyping my what I did in it
So it feels cool to be in the most
Disliked video but being considered the best part because people who claim that you got PewDiePie
Yeah, they're like, okay, we're gonna do the in my feelings challenge. It was like, oh great
I gotta bring some memes because I don't think YouTube is gonna do it
But the thing that stuck to me was Felix's chair like say can you do this meme?
What was YouTube's reaction when you submitted that I was really nervous because I was like if they don't let me do this then
I'm just in a cringy video
I'm
honestly
Just so glad to be there and to be the most disliked video is like we gotta be number one in something y'all we did
It we did it for tonight. This is some like behind the scenes. I was gonna have idubbbz is like sheep
Shirt, but they didn't let me have that but they were fine with the chair
I think they didn't know that was pretty as chair. I don't like oh, it's like red like you
Draw me like one of your french girls
Oh
Wow, thank you
Yeah, Wow, that's that's like accurate
Anatomically look at that
I think it's great. It's lifelike. Yes. Those are your nipples?
Thanks for not shading them in like people usually do in the job just by looking at me
Do you think I'm good at drawing? Well judging by your shirt. No
Well, you will be very happy to see that. I have one of my animations that I made when I was 15 years old
Oh right here today
You brought it. I did life's lesson number one
Foley! That's called Foley, nice job.
I'm speechless I don't even know what to say. This is a masterpiece. You like it
Yeah, it's like brilliant if you had to rate that animation
What would your review be like?
It was made on a mouse. So, alrighty that's gonna be a couple points exhumed off. Oh, you don't you don't like them?
Well, it's just that like I could tell they're like, oh you use the circle tool of the square tool
Um just be that you know party. Okay. Can you freestyle rap or sing about your own channel?
Hey, my name is James and I'm here to say I like to draw in a major way
No, I cannot is what I'm trying to say. Oh my god Adam's programming something right now
Yo, my name is Adam. And yo and G. What's up swiggity? Swoogity swag? Subscribe to my channel. Ah
Can you my channels really good look at it every day that's right gonna go all the way
Sub to him, please
Sub to me, please. Yes. Alright. Well, thank you so much. Ily. I think I completely understand the world of YouTube animation. Yeah
Thank you after sitting down with these incredibly talented and kind hearted animators
I have zero doubt what one of my favorite communities is on YouTube
He reminds me of the early days on YouTube before everything was so dramatic and intense
When people were more supportive of one another seriously
Do yourself a favor and subscribe to all these talented animators in this episode and find some new ones
Struggling to find an audience as well
See you later. Bye guys, press away and wear your seat belt
I'm drawing some words. So subscribe to my channel, please I'm desperate
So that's a little desperate is it not desperate