Q & A: Emerging content creator uses social media to turn his hobby into a career path

Over the past couple of years, online content creation has totally reshaped the social media landscape. This has allowed content creators to turn their hobbies into careers. One such aspiring creator is Adam Winnichuk. Winnichuk has been creating content for the majority of his life and is currently making video essays for his YouTube channel “Adam Plays”. Winnichuk has recently experienced a huge explosion in popularity, with his most recent video garnering over 300,000 views.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How long have you been making videos for?

In my life? Well, I’ve had five different YouTube channels, and I’ve probably been making videos since grade six or so. My first video on Adam Plays was uploaded in 2019, about seven years ago. My old videos were not very well edited; it was just me talking over gameplay or whatever. It wasn’t anything I was super proud of.

Did you see it then as a step towards a career path, or was it just a hobby?

Definitely more of a hobby. I like to talk about my thoughts on what I was playing and what I was watching. I just like to have the videos there so I can look back on them, and it was just fun to make videos. I’ve always enjoyed it. 

What kind of video content do you make?

That’s a pretty hard one to pin down, honestly, ’cause anybody who would look at my channel, it’s unlike a lot of YouTube channels. I don’t really have a niche. I just kinda make videos on whatever I want to. It usually has to do with gaming, and I’m usually in them. Those are the two common things throughout all of them.

What’s the biggest challenge you faced while making content? 

Biggest challenge?  I would say probably just staying consistent and staying with it. Nobody really understands how the YouTube algorithm works, but the one thing lots of people do understand is that it wants you to be consistent. My schedule’s usually every week or every couple of weeks. I think if I broke that and went away for, like, months or something, that would probably mess everything up, 

Once you get that ball rolling, if you take a break, YouTube thinks, “Oh, I guess people stopped caring about this guy.”

Exactly, yeah. Sometimes it can be hard to stay consistent when videos don’t perform as well as you’d like. But you just have to move on to the next one.

What’s your favourite part/best benefit of making your videos? 

That’s a pretty hard one to answer, because there are a lot of things I like about it. I just like making things. It feels good to make something that I’m really happy with, having people say, “Oh, that was really good,” or having people laugh at it when they watch it. It’s just fun to see people enjoying something that I’ve made, and I like going back and watching my older videos and just reminiscing on how I made them and how far I’ve come.

When did you “get serious” about making online content rather than just as a hobby?

I don’t know why, but I decided to randomly upload a video about the Horizon Forbidden West game. That was my first video. When that one got, like, 3,000 views, I was like, “Oh, okay. That’s not bad.” Then I just kept on going, and my next few videos got around 15,000 and 10,000 views, which was really good. That led to my Stardew Valley video, which was my biggest video yet. It also led to my monetization. Finally, my newest video about Disney Infinity totally blew up, and I actually made some money off of it. That was when I started to really consider putting more time into content creation.

Is your content creation mostly fueled by your recent monetization or still by wanting to express yourself creatively and make videos for yourself?

At the end of the day, it’s a little bit of both. The monetization encourages me to make better content for my audience. I like to make videos on things I enjoy, that’s not going to change. I hope my videos perform well, but they’re all videos I would be making regardless of any money I might make from them.

With Winnichuk continuing to focus on the quality of his YouTube Videos, it’s not crazy to think that his content will continue to grow in popularity over the coming years. 

---

Comments