Aug 25 (edited) • General discussion 💬
i finally did it...
WARNING: this post is straight yap and has literally NOTHING to do with the SAT.
only read if you want to hear a fun story about my own life lol.
lemme start with a question:
how does it feel to reach a goal you’ve been working toward your ENTIRE life?
some of you may have already done that.
for others, maybe you haven’t (yet).
i was born in the 2000s.
so, like for many of you, i saw the big YouTube craze of the early 2010s.
i was amazed at these HUGE YouTubers who could literally make VIDEOS as a career.
DanTDM, Stampy, and Rhett & Link were some of my favorites.
and like so many other people, my dream job was becoming a YouTuber, too.
now, don’t get me wrong – this was delusion.
YouTubers do NOT have perfect lives.
most aren’t even happy.
but from the outside looking in, it seemed incredible.
and i always thought that SOME DAY i would become a YouTuber myself.
fast forward to 2020.
i began SERIOUSLY uploading videos on YouTube.
why?
well, i just felt like it (lol).
and let’s be clear – this was NOT the current SAT channel.
i actually went though SEVERAL different YouTube channels, in COMPLETELY different niches, before i got to The SAT Gamified.
lo-fi beats, gaming, ASMR (yeah not my best moment), podcasts…
i literally tried ALL of those from 2020 to the present.
plus several more not even listed.
(i had rapidly changing interests as a teenager lol)
why did i do this, though?
obviously, i loved making videos.
the idea of creating something that hundreds of people could enjoy always inspired me.
but, more importantly, i WANTED to be a YouTuber.
remember, i had spent YEARS thinking that this was the best job in the world.
now, i wanted to make it a reality.
but, in order to be a YouTuber, there was one thing i HAD to reach:
monetization
in case you don’t know, people can’t start YouTube and IMMEDIATELY make money.
they need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time to do so.
if you don’t have those requirements, you can’t even TRY to make money on YouTube.
so, honestly – monetization was the goal.
i had seen so many YouTubers enjoying their lives, getting paid to make videos, and this is what i wanted, too.
none of this dream was possible without monetization.
trust me – i was DELUSIONAL.
i thought you could just get monetized and suddenly get rich.
doesn’t work like that.
most YouTubers really do NOT make much money at all.
certainly not enough to survive.
but i didn’t care.
the idea of monetization just seemed too tantalizing (good SAT vocab word lol).
but at the same time, it was my white whale.
and anyone who has read Moby Dick knows (spoiler alert), the white whale is unobtainable.
remember those monetization requirements?
the most i ever got to was 600 subscribers and 200 watch hours (nowhere even CLOSE).
and so, i genuinely believed, consciously or not, that i would never actually reach this goal.
i uploaded literally HUNDREDS of videos (yes, hundreds) in this time.
less than 5 of them even got over 1,000 views.
most got less than 50.
that is not an exaggeration.
it was demoralizing.
i thought i would either 1) never get monetized or 2) only get monetized in, like, 20 years minimum.
i genuinely believed that.
now we reach 2025.
after talking to a random guy on Skool, i got the idea to start an SAT Skool community.
and after consulting with a YouTube guru, i decided to make an SAT YouTube channel, too.
i uploaded inconsistently on it.
i had given up on the monetization dream at this point.
my goal was instead just to make content that people enjoyed and help them improve their SAT scores.
whether i got monetized or not was irrelevant – i had accepted that.
as for views, the channel was SLIGHTLY more successful than my previous ones, but still a failure.
maximum of 500 views per video (which i know is INCREDIBLE, but obviously for my greedy mind i wanted more lol).
i remember on May 31 (yes i know the actual date), i thought to myself, “maybe i should just quit this.”
the next day i uploaded a video that got 15k views in a week.
the Skool community blew up, and now we are where we are.
and today, August 25, i officially became monetized on YouTube.
dang, writing that feels WEIRD.
i feel like that didn’t actually happen.
again, in my mind, i thought this would either never happen or take 20 years lol.
but it finally did.
and honestly, i am not delusional anymore.
i have no expectation to become “rich” from YouTube.
who knows, maybe i’ll even stop uploading some day.
understand this:
the reason i’m happy is because i hit my goal.
because, like anyone who has a high SAT score knows, it is amazing to reach a long-term goal, whether you get rewarded for it or not.
THAT is why i’m happy.
a lot of you guys are gonna graduate high school soon.
that is an INCREDIBLE achievement, for sure.
but here’s the thing: i graduated high school too, and this feels more amazing than that.
because for high school, i KNEW i would graduate.
i knew that as long as i didn’t drop out, i would make it.
but for this, i had no idea if it was even possible.
i didn’t even think it was.
anyway, i wrote this post just to talk about this and explain my thoughts.
and to share with you guys my story.
maybe this will inspire you.
maybe you don’t care (which is honestly fair lol).
but one more thing:
i think it’s honestly kinda messed up to say “I got monetized.”
no YouTuber gets monetized (or hits any YouTube milestone) because they worked hard.
they do it because random people decided that their videos seemed interesting enough to click and watch.
to every person who watched even a second of any of my videos, truly thank you.
y’all are the reason why i can say i accomplished my dream.
(i’ll try not to sell out lol)
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i finally did it...
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