YouTube Millionaires: Lance Stewart Succeeds By “Constantly Doing New And Unique Things”

Welcome to YouTube Millionaires, where we profile channels that have recently crossed the one million subscriber mark. There are channels crossing this threshold every week, and each has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments of YouTube Millionaires here.

Lance Stewart‘s vlogs can sometimes be a bit rough around the edges, but that’s the way he likes it, and his fans seem to enjoy his style, too. Stewart’s videos, which discuss his life and his relationships with his friends, family, and girlfriend, have propelled him — with some help from “clickbait” titles and the occasional misleading thumbnail — above one million subscribers. Stewart’s latest headline-grabbing move came in late August, when he accidentally sliced off a piece of his finger while attempting to shoot a real-life Fruit Ninja video. As he continues to document his recuperation from that injury, he talked to us about his digital presence.

Tubefilter: How does it feel to have one million subscribers? What do you have to say to your fans?

Lance Stewart: Having one million subscribers is so surreal. I never thought over one million people would be interested in seeing what I do every single day of my life. One thing that I have to say to my fans is thank you! Thank you for all of the support every single day and everything you guys do for me, you guys are amazing!

TF: What do you think are the elements of a great vlog?

LS: I personally think that they elements of a great vlog are just being yourself, constantly doing new and unique things, as well as posting content that you genuinely find interesting or entertaining. If you don’t find your own content entertaining, what makes you think others will? That’s how I always look at it.

TF: Who are the vloggers who most inspired you when you launched your channel?

LS: The vloggers what inspired me the most when I launched my YouTube channel were definitely Jesse Wellens (PrankVsPrank) and Roman Atwood.

TF: How has your rise on social media affected your relationship with your family?

LS: My rise on social media has affected my relationship with my family by actually bringing me closer with them, especially with my grandma. We have built such a strong relationship by just making videos together. She’s pretty much my best friend.

TF: How do you decide which parts of your life to keep private and which parts to share?

LS: The majority of the things that happen in my life are public for everyone to see, although sometimes you have to draw a line and not share every single detail of your life to the world. There have been times where I’m angry and say stuff to the camera, but I later look back at the footage while editing it and I say to myself “This isn’t really a good idea to leave this in here.” It’s very cool to share your life with the public, but once again I don’t think every little detail should be shared, otherwise it’ll just cause problems.

TF: Do you ever worry your fans might get agitated if they click on a misleading thumbnail?

LS: I do get worried sometimes that fans might get a little agitated by clicking a slightly misleading thumbnail, but to be 100% honest it seems to be the only way to grow on YouTube. I’ve been successful on many other social media apps where content is key and if it is good content it will perform well, but on YouTube it doesn’t always seem to be that way. I’ve posted viral videos that take off on every platform with huge amounts of views and likes, and then i’ll post them on YouTube and they don’t go anywhere.

I think this is mainly because of the fact that there isn’t a sharing system on YouTube like there is with Facebook and other social platforms. So in a way, “clickbait” seems to be one of the only ways to grow fast on YouTube unless you get extremely lucky.

TF: Do you think your recent accident will have any lasting effects on your career?

LS: My recent accident “Real Life Fruit Ninja” was definitely detrimental to myself and my family. Although it did cause a lot of damage to my pinky finger I don’t think it’ll have any lasting effects on my career. I’ve been doing therapy on that finger ever since I got the surgery for them to fix my tendon (my tendon was sliced in half and I couldn’t move the finger at all) and it has been healing relatively fast and I’m getting a lot of movement back.

TF: What are some areas where you feel you still have room to improve?

LS: I want to try to plan my days ahead of time instead of just waking up and seeing what happens that day. Sometimes I notice my content is not as exciting or entertaining when I do that, because of the fact that I’m sort of scrambling around for a last-second video idea or a place to go to make my content entertaining.

TF: What’s next for your channel? Any fun plans?

LS: The next thing for my channel is to continue sharing my life with people around the world and to consistently think of new and entertaining things that people would enjoy watching on my vlogs. I don’t currently have any plans coming up but I’m sure i’ll think of something last-minute once again and it’ll be very entertaining!

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