My YouTube History

Hey guys, Ryan (TheRyanLamont) here and I recently removed my YouTube history from the NZYTcommunity blog, to make way for more succinct bios from multiple authors. So I thought I’d post my YouTube history here for you all to read. Here’s a brief summary of my YouTube life.

I started on YouTube back in 2008 with my channel TheNewZealandishBrit. I was welcomed straight into the community and got 100 subscribers within my first week! It was an awesome way to start my YouTube career. Then over the following months I attended gatherings, meet-ups and stayed at various Youtubers houses, as we all became friends. The community was awesome back then, full of support and such. Then I made a few other channels as my subscribers on TheNewZealandishBrit became less interested in my videos. Then the NZYT Community took a dive and I lost those friends I had made.

Then on my birthday in 2009 I made my main channel TheRyanLamont. I wanted to start building an audience for my future filming endeavors, getting my name out there. So, I started afresh on TheRyanLamont. I uploaded my short film, which sat at 3,385 views before I removed it, and then made my first vlog on that channel on December 14th 2009. But NZYT was still reasonably dead at this point (in fact it was for most of 2010) After a few videos in January I then took a 5 month break from youtube, leaving my channel abandoned. I blame school, but really I was just lazy.

I then returned in June with ‘JUSTIN BIEBER SHOES’ which currently sits at 10,136 views [as of 22 July 2011]. I made a second video, ‘The lands of DISNEYLAND’ about my trip to Los Angeles and then left my channel until October again. I had a bad habit of abandoning my channel throughout 2010. I managed to keep weekly videos for a month or so in October, and my video views and subscribers grew steadily. But soon enough I failed at keeping my videos consistent and didn’t make my 2010 goal of getting 1,000 subscribers, instead remaining on 744 subscribers, 256 away from my 2010 goal. But I really didn’t deserve to after all that channel abandoning.

Then after I had finished my exams in November I was free from then till February when school started again, so I decided to start something I had been thinking about, planning and wanting to do for months! The NZYT Community blog! I was scared that no one would read it, that NZYT would remain dead, and that my time would be wasted. But look at us now! The blog has led to the discovery and promoting of various new kiwi vloggers, and a real growth and unity in the community. I spent a few hours a day writing blog posts for the site, in the early months, and even more time planning future posts and promoting the site and watching NZYT videos. I had put a lot of work into running this site, but it was all worth it! I’ve found so many awesome kiwi vloggers that I watch regularly now. And I feel as I’ve managed to revive the community a bit through this blog. I just hope it’ll continue and grow!

I’d struggled to stay consistent with my video posting throughout 2011 due to my busy final year of school. But of course, there’s always simple laziness to blame too. I generally got a month of weekly posting, before I became too busy to post. Then I was back again in a few months with promises of consistent posting, which always fail. Basically, I posted consistently a week or so before the holidays, then throughout the holidays, then I stopped till the next holidays. I’ve embellished this post with videos that represent key moments in my ‘YouTube life’, so above I posted video of me talking about my experience at a 4-day course at South Seas Film School, the school I intend to attend next year. It’s scary thinking about next year, especially from a YouTube point of view; Limited access to internet, huge workload, busy schedule. I doubt I’ll be posting on YouTube, or here, too regularly next year. But we’ll have to see what happens. As for now, I’ve got videos planned and I’m trying to make the most of the free time I have now.

Now as I add this final paragraph to this post I realise how far I’ve come on YouTube. I’m back to posting regularly, having managed to do so for the last few weeks, and I’ve got a new vlogging style and set up. I’ve even started using my second channel RyanLamontVideos, allowing me to pump out even more content. I’m really motivated to keep going with YouTube, even though I’ll soon be faced with my final school exams in November and then the move onto further education in 2012. It’s a time full of change and it’s exciting!

So that’s all my YouTube related history. If you want to know more about me as a person then feel free to read my ‘About me’ section.

Thanks for reading guys!

-Ryan Lamont

Twitter – YouTube – Tumblr – WordPress – Dailybooth - Formspring

Why I Want To Be Australian

Today I stumbled upon a dubstep remix of the ‘Rugrats’ theme song, which led me to spend hours on YouTube rediscovering all the TV shows I used to watch as a kid, and one video that gave me a particularly strong hit of nostalgia was the theme song of ‘The Sleepover Club’. After discovering this video I then found a clip from the first episode of The Sleepover Club, which pumped even more nostalgia into my body, like a double hit of heroine! Now, before you start questioning my masculinity (of which I have tons) there’s a little story behind my liking for this show and its importance to me.

Back in 2004, when I was still living in grimy ol’ London, my family and I took an exotic holiday on the other side of the world – Australia. It doesn’t sound as exotic now, considering Australia is a close neighbour to us here in New Zealand. But for an English person Australia was like a whole new world. We spent a night in Japan before we hit the tarmac of Brisbane, from which we travelled to the Gold Coast. I am a well-travelled individual, even when I was 10, so a sandy beach wasn’t a huge deal to me, I’d seen plenty before. But the whole Australian way of life just blew me away. Everyone was so chilled out! People wore shorts to school, didn’t wear shoes in the streets, surfed daily and looked super sexy. It was quite a difference from the grey rainy days that dominated the pasty white people of London. So after this great first impression Australia made on me, we went to our hotel and turned on the TV, and there I found The Sleepover Club. Australian kids were still in school when we were there, due to our different vacation times and seasons, so all the Aussie kids TV shows were on. So I sat there, with my fruit salad, looking out to the ocean through the glass door of the balcony and watched this show.

Now most guys would turn this soppy girl-orientated show off. But for some reason I enjoy that stuff, so I continued to watch. Then this particular scene struck me. The girls are walking to school along the beach, when Rosie, the English immigrant, steps out of her beachfront home and walks to school. I was like ‘I want to be Rosie’; not in a ‘Let’s get the sex change operation booked’ kind of way, but a ‘living on the beachfront in Australia would be awesome’ kind of way. I immediately connected with the character of Rosie, since I’m English and was a wannabe immigrant, and I continued to watch the show for the rest of the time I was in Australia.

This vacation had the same impact on my family, who also became obsessed with Australia and its laid-back way of life. My mum began watching all these shows about English people moving to Australia and places in Europe, and I began watching The Sleepover Club (since it soon came to British TV) and also started watching Neigbours (True Aussie drama, haha). We were both devouring Australian media quickly, and booked another holiday to Australia in 2005. This time we ventured to Cairns, Sydney and the Gold Coast. My mother and I shared the dream of living this Australian life, and we soon started the process that got us here in 2006… kind off…

We didn’t quite make it to Australia, instead moving to New Zealand; a country we had never been to, nor heard much about. There was a film with elves filmed here apparently, and some native people who had a scary dance? That’s what was communicated back to us by other English people who had moved to New Zealand recently. When we moved over here to New Zealand we soon found out that a lot of other English people had too. It seems everyone wanted this laid-back life, which New Zealand also possessed.

I’d say I wish I was born in Australia/New Zealand, since growing up in either country would have been amazing. But the truth is, I’m glad I was born in London. It allowed me to appreciate this awesome lifestyle, and motivated my family to travel lots, since no one wants to stay in dreary London too long. New Zealand is a great little country. But I still have this obsession with Australia. It still has this exotic, fun, beach-life appeal that New Zealand doesn’t have for me. Maybe it’s because I live in New Zealand and I still see Australia as a holiday location? Perhaps if I ever move to Australia it’d lose that magic is has? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I’m still obsessed with Australian culture and want to holiday there more often!

So thats why I had such a nostalgia boost from The Sleepover Club. Not only was it a show I enjoyed as a kid, but it was also linked to one of my big ambitions in life and a contributing factor in my love for Australia. This pro-Australia post will probably get me kicked out of New Zealand. But hopefully people will see this big dream of a Londoner as cute or something, haha!

Thanks for reading guys!

-Ryan Lamont