- (FBE) So today... - Yeah?
- (FBE) ...we're doing something we've only done with YouTubers
once before. - Ooh!
We're number two! - Special!
- (FBE) We used a website called the Wayback Machine,
and we are going to have you react
to your YouTube profile page... - (gasps)
- (FBE) ...but from quite a while ago.
- (laughs) I'm gonna leave the room. This is gonna be some scary shit.
- Put your phone down, 'cause it's gonna get too hot
from the FIRE you're about to see. I know exactly what it looks like.
- (FBE) We're gonna start with the oldest date
that loaded on the website, and then we'll show you some more
from later as well. - Let me put on my helmet,
'cause this is one-time traveling trip I might not survive.
- (FBE) Ready for this trip down memory lane?
- No! - (laughs) No, not at all.
Let's do it, though.
- (FBE) So here's your oldest page.
- (gasps) No!
Oh my gosh! I forgot about this!
- Um... so it's funny,
this is actually me six months into doing YouTube,
because I had a channel that existed before this.
- Oh my god!
I remember doing this on Photoshop. And you see on the right,
how Superwoman's getting cut off? Hours! Hours I spent
trying to make that not happen, and I could not figure it out.
- New look. - Vince and Steve!
- Oh my god! I forgot that I co-owned the channel.
"Co-owned" as kids.
- Okay! I thought it was gonna be way worse.
I remember making this.
"Become a Twaimzer." (laughs)
This was before I made my first song.
And then after I made the Llama Song,
that's when things were just... wild.
- Yeah, yeah. That actually -- that's weird, 'cause that body shot
was taken yesterday.
- Yes, there it is! - Oh yeah.
This just says 2007 gaming website.
- When I went to VidCon 2013, I met Shane Dawson.
When I met him, I lost my mind. And when I came back home,
I was like, you know what? I wanna be like him,
just make people laugh.
So I was just like, "[Bleep] it. Let me try."
- I almost miss this kind of design.
This might be one of my favorite designs.
- Oh yeah. It was the best one.
- Look at these thumbnails! Oh my gosh.
- For this one, I'm like, "Okay, I know that they choose
the thumbnail from the opening seconds,
let's try out a boob thumbnail! See how it does."
Boob, "Game Theory: Boobs."
I'm so embarrassed about it. Oh no.
- Look at the description. "Why are you reading this?
It's about boobs." - (Matt laughs) No! Oh no!
- "It's about boobs. What more do you need?
We're checking out the best breasts in gaming
to see who's hoo-has are 100% homegrown."
This is so gross!
- The ends justify the means, Stephanie!
- Some of these characters I'm still doing now.
If I can go back in time to when I first started doing those sketches,
I would be very happy to know how far they've come.
That's really cool, because back then
I was just some guy in college doing videos for fun.
- 4,698 subscribers. That's so cute.
I remember when I hit 100 subscribers, it was a big deal.
- Oh, number one most subscribed this week.
Wow. I wish they still did those accolades,
'cause those were-- I remember the first time I saw one of those
on my channel, I was so stoked.
- Where's the subscribe-- oh. (gasps) 232?!
I'm so grateful. What a journey!
That first subscribe is my friend.
Right there, that's my friend, who I still talk to.
There are all those new people that are like, "Oh my god,
I only get a few views, I'm never gonna go anywhere."
This is where I started from.
I just was making it up, and I didn't know how to shoot
or edit or do anything, and this time in my life,
it was me just being, like, I'm gonna figure it out.
And it was a lot of self-teaching and working really hard.
- Oh my gosh, there are comments! "Love your background
and your user, lol."
- Your new name is perfect troll fodder,
and it'll frustrate people.
"New account, I really hope this gets on machinima."
Seems like pretty nice, supportive, "good luck Jordan."
That's very kind.
- I wish YouTube allowed you to decorate the whole channel
like that again, instead of just that little bullshit at the top.
- "I am not a makeup artist or in any way a professional.
If you like my videos, subscribe.
By the way, this it not a place for hater comments."
- I basically have a whole bio down here explaining
why I changed my username.
I was talking with a friend of mine who's also a YouTuber.
He's been around for a while. His name is SeaNanners.
And he's like. "Oh, I dare you to change your name CaptainSparklez."
I was like, "Eh, whatever. It's probably not gonna
amount to much anyway." And lo and behold,
here we are almost eight years later.
- "We separate the fact from the fiction
in some of your favorite video games.
From arrows and knees"-- - Yeah!
- That was a relevant meme.
- Right? - I was one of the few YouTubers
who actually cared about the description too, of the channel.
I'm like, "This is gonna be thing that determines
whether or not people watch this channel."
- "My name is Brandon Rogers. Welcome to my channel.
I hope you have a ball. You can find me at
www.myspace.com/hotbrandon." Are we going to m Myspace page?
It's really great.
This was a very fun layout. This is right when
"I Heart Huckabees" came out, and I liked their poster,
and so I wanted to copy it.
- (FBE) So here's another page from the Wayback Machine
from later in your YouTube career.
- Aww. An upgrade. (chuckles)
I had Llama Song and Llama Song: Part 2.
Wow!
- Wow. - Yeah, things really started
to kick off. - And the YouTube layout
looks infinitely uglier. - I thought this was my first one.
I forgot about the real first one.
I was 17 and I was excited to move out of my parents' house
and go to LA. I wish more than anything
I could go back and tell this person--
I wish I could tell this girl to just slow down and enjoy,
because this was literally
one of the best times of your life.
- (gasps) Ah, the million! - Aww, yay!
- Yes! I'm actually really happy that Wayback Machine was able
to capture that close to a million. - I'm grateful for the past,
but also never wanted to see it again.
So there are two aspects to that.
I had a bunch of playlists, a Minecraft playlist, of course.
God, you guys really want me to be traumatized from this.
- December 21, 2011. Okay, so this is basically, like,
right when I dropped out of school.
- "Please send me an email to..." Blah, blah, blah.
"For personal requests, questions, or fanmail," and I added my Twitter.
I'm moving on up in this world.
- 500,000 subscribers. I worked so hard on these layouts,
because it was like rocket science back in the day.
There was no, like, templates and stuff.
I mean, even still, I don't know how to do it.
- This was after the rolled out the new channel banners on YouTube,
which are just terrible to work with.
It is so hard to design.
- I miss this, by the way, when you could set up
your own HTML script for the top and you could
set up links however you wanted.
I wish that they still had that.
- I never thought I'd hit 500,000 subs.
I didn't think I would even probably hit 1,000.
When I first started these videos, you know, I didn't tell anyone
in my life. A lot of people are like, "Oh, did you
just have a lot of friends, and then people started
watching it and spreading the word?" I only told my mom,
dad, and sisters. This is making me emotional.
- A lot of Minecraft gameplays on here.
- You were getting good views, dude. - 8,000!
- 44 on Monday Morning. - Very good.
Monday Morning... oh yeah. That was the first real-life video
I ever did.
- Was that the one with the coffee?
- Yeah. - Dude, I was friends
with you back in the day. - We go way back, dude.
- Way back.
- "Quick story about how girls get ready."
I hated that video.
I was editing it on vacation with my family, and I was like,
this is so unlike anything I've done.
This is not gonna do well, but I need to put a video up.
So I put it up. It became my most-viewed video.
I remember that was my biggest lesson, to be like,
hey, take risks and just try new things.
- It was 10 years ago, so, you know, bear with me.
"No work or school for us.
We can take the day off together," heart symbol,
because the heart emoji didn't exist, and I thought
I was being cute. This was me as a teenager thinking that I'm cute.
- Now, making videos, I always refer back
to the good old days of, you know, this time,
because it was just such a positive environment.
I have, you know, my little community.
It's very heartwarming.
- "Without fear, without hate, one love." Oh--
you know what's so weird? Since then, I have all
of those things as tattoos on my body. (chuckles)
Yeah, without fear, without hate, and one love. That's crazy!
- (FBE) And here's the last one we grabbed for the episode.
- Aww.
This is old shopglitzyglam.com site.
- (FBE) So finally, we have your page
at just over 600,000 subscribers back in 2015.
- Oh, I got stuck at that number for...
probably a solid year. - I remember that, dude.
- (FBE) So this is the page the day after you posted
your last video of 2016 before taking a hiatus on YouTube.
- Oh, okay. I just needed my personal space.
You know, recollect myself, because at the time,
I just was not happy. I think I was kind of
putting on this facade.
- (FBE) So this is your page back in December of 2015,
just a few months after the "Try me, bitch" Vine
started to go viral. - Ohh, yes.
This was my first taste of fame, and it was a lot of it at one time.
I was getting recognized in grocery stores.
- (FBE) This is when you had just recently hit two million.
- Oh, this looks kind of normal-ish compared to-- yeah.
We still got some heavy branding, the Superwoman branding (laughs).
How-- what-- how many subscribers do I have to hit for me to be lost?
- (FBE) So this is your page from about a year later
where you were just a bit over two million subscribers.
- Okay. Woo. Well, a little bit beyond that.
Let's see... so this would have been...
when we are we? We're at-- oh!
One year later exactly.
- Worth noting: a million subscribers,
I still wasn't monetizing most of these videos.
I didn't really start monetizing the channel
and really us making money off of it until shortly after this.
- One of the main reasons I came back was for my subscribers.
Without the community, you know, my channel's nothing.
Uploading my comeback video, it felt like I was uploading
my first YouTube video. It was so full circle
and just so weird. It was so worth it.
I'm very happy. - Related channels on YouTube.
- (FBE) Yeah, who you got there?
- Smosh, Jenna Marbles, Ryan, obviously, F--
ayy! The FineBros!
Some of these videos doing better than some of my videos now, (laughs)
back when the platform wasn't as saturated as now.
- Basically, 400-something million more views,
which is not too shabby. We've gained 1.6 million subscribers
or so, which is pretty wild.
Yeah, it's like these are my heydays on YouTube.
- It says, "Welcome to shopglitzyglam.com
where you can personalize anything. Happy shopping!
xoxo, Elle and Blair."
We would put monograms, decals.
Everything would either have your initial, your name.
We made everything very personal. This is my daily life now
is working at the shop. So for me, this is...
It's fun to see where we came from.
- My characters were more famous than me for a long time.
People didn't realize that it was an actor
playing those characters all the-- people thought that it was
just some crazy person.
YouTubers React just really killed a lot of the rumors
about who this Brandon Rogers entity was.
And it kind of showed, okay, this is who Brandon Rogers is,
and he reacts to our video-- so it's like being here
definitely helped sort out the definition of who I am.
- Making content now from an office
as opposed to just sitting in your room,
it's much better. - You learn a little bit
about business, because that's when you start to learn about whoa,
we need to get brand deals, and we need to go to a convention
as a group and sell merch.
I think that was the beginning of learning about the actual
business behind YouTube. - Yeah, you know what? Yeah.
You learn exactly what you can do.
- 2015 was just-- I was in a really, really good place
in terms of my content. And I also had
the YouTube marketing campaign, which really helped.
It was, I think, right before there was a massive peak
of creators on YouTube, and so, it wasn't as challenging
and competitive in terms of getting people's attention.
- I use the Wayback machine, but not to look at our own stuff.
And so, it's neat to look at something that, like,
"Oh, I can remember that!" - It's awesome to see
how far everything's come. Starting this, you're just kind of
shooting in the dark, and you don't know
what you're doing. And over time, you learn,
you find your own personal voice.
- This is a very fun tool.
I've always known it existed, but I've never explored it.
And so, I think when I go home, I'm just gonna see
what else I've done, and so I know what to erase.
- I just wish that I would've enjoyed that time a little bit more.
I wish I wouldn't have tried to rush through and get
to the next biggest and better thing.
I wish I would've just enjoyed what I was doing.
- This was my favorite thing I've ever done on this channel.
This was really meaningful to me.
And I didn't realize you could go back
and see these things. And it was a very humble beginning.
So important to go back to that time when you were still trying
to figure it out and remember that we're all just trying
to figure it out still.
- Times change and I think you need to grow with your audience.
And that's exactly what we did.
What I learned through YouTube
was how to deal with social anxiety better.
Absolutely. That's... Doing these videos every day
and talking to a camera has just helped me tremendously.
So if someone's watching this, and they're like...
they don't wanna go outside or something, honestly,
just talking to the camera helps. - Mm-hmm.
- Or a mirror, or just talking to your dog.
- Thank you so much for watching this episode of YouTubers React.
- Subscribe to all these awesome creators,
because they deserve it! All their links
are in the description, and it's free!
- Bye, guys. - Hi, guys. Vartuhi here,
producer at FBE. Thanks for watching this episode of YouTubers React.
If you want a shoutout like Derp Films,
Justine Kyle Villanueva, and DenverDrotsMen,
then be here in the first 30 minutes of a video going live,
'cause we're in the comments!