Interview: It took couple of years to monetize my channel: Carryminati, YouTuber

This Carryminati Interview takes us through his experience of meeting Hollywood Star Tom Cruise and thoughts on the changing content ecosystem.

It was a dream come true for Carryminati when he became the only Indian YouTuber to collaborate with Tom Cruise for his recent release Mission impossible 6. He flew to Paris where Cruise was promoting the film and engaged with Carryminati a.k.a Ajey Nagar in a fun conversation on the red carpet.

Gone are the days when YouTube stars were only known in the virtual world. With the solid boom of social media and influencers, one wouldn’t be surprised to see actors extending themselves to these influencers with the scope of promoting their movies.

Carryminati is known for his funny and sometimes quirky videos on YouTube. He has over 3.7 Million subscribers with over 390 Million total views on his channel.

Carry started making video when he was just 8. 

Gradually, he started improvising on the quality of his content and that was his salvo in the direction of achieving one milestone after the other. His other channel Carry is live is at 667k + subscribers with 20k peak concurrent views on a single stream.

In conversation with Social Samosa, Carryminati shares his experience of engaging with Tom Cruise for Mi6 in Paris, creating the exclusive video, insights behind monetizing a YouTube channel and the content landscape.

Excerpts:

First things first, how was it meeting Tom Cruise? How did it all begin in terms of your association with MI6?

As charming and polite as he is, Tom Cruise is genuinely a very humble man too, that's what I made of him in the 2 minutes I got to talk to him. The association began with my network One Digital Entertainment and my management team spending days and night to get me one opportunity like this.

Looking back, where did it all begin? How did Carryminati happen - please take our readers through your journey.

I have been making videos since I was 8. I had many different channels but a couple of years ago, I got focused on one channel, where I thought I would grow my audience. It began with a school kid playing video games trying to make his friends laugh by mimicking/roasting someone, it still is pretty much the same only difference is I do this full time now.

What's in the name?

It was initially carrydeol, when I used to mimick sunny deol.

While playing cs with my friends and I was making videos for the channel as well; one day someone suggested me changing it to Carryminati, it stayed with me, and after a few days I changed it to Carryminati.

From then to now, how has the landscape for content creators changed?

I think the perception of everybody has massively shifted towards content creators. People didn't know anything about YouTube back then, forget about watching videos. Now it's totally different people are getting recognition and even awards on a bigger stage (Thanks to organization like yours!) It is a whole another world now.

Please take us through your ideation process - from the first thought to publishing and marketing the video

First and the most time consuming step is to find the content I have to make video on, this could take upwards of 3-4 days sometimes, then comes the scripting part, it is the most fun part.  I lock myself up in my room for 2 days and focus on the script. After that is the regular shooting and editing which takes another 3-4 days.

Do you take content ideas from your viewers?

Definitely! You should see my inbox its filled with people sending me links of cringy video and saying "carry iska roast kar"

Which is the one video you enjoyed making the most? And, why?

It has to be "Indian kid meets Tom Cruise" and do i really need to tell you why? :)

Also Read: Interview: AI can create extremely engaging conversations: Vaishali Sharma, Sony Max

In the clutter content creators' space, what gives you the competitive edge? What would you say is your USP?

I would say each creator has a unique style and its in the hands of the audience who are they preferring over whom. you might say the roasting and  original skit? Storyline element side by side is a USP for me.

How often do you work with brands? What are the other monetization avenues for your YouTube channel?

I do work with brands every 2-3 months. Other than YouTube revenues/sponsorships and brand integrations there are no other monetization avenues yet, EXCEPT if you consider love as a currency, then I'm the richest man on Earth.

What is the weirdest brand brief you have ever received?

There was a brand that wanted us to integrate a  direct advertisement for 4 minutes into my video which is on average of 5-6 minutes. They basically wanted me to publish a whole video ad on my channel!

How long was it before Carryminati became monetizable? How do you suggest upcoming You Tubers stay monetarily afloat in the initial stages?

It took couple of years to actually monetize my channel. I would suggest upcoming youtubers to not spend heavily on equipment’s and tools in the initial stages but to hone their crafts first, get to know the ins and outs by experimenting and knowing where they are making progress, only after that invest a little amount of money from in the focused area and gradually increasing the content quality. Important thing is to start, don't try to achieve perfection in your first video.

What next for  Carryminati ?

Next for me is Gaming! I'm going all in on Indian gaming scene, I want to shake the world of E-sports and change the perception of gaming for better in our country.