Welcome to Creators on the Rise, where we find and profile breakout creators who are in the midst of extraordinary growth. You can check out previous installments here.
When Sam met Jess, they knew right away they were going to get along.
It was instant, they both say. They were high school freshmen, and Jess, after moving, had joined the class a month late. Sam noticed her instantly, found out her name, and struck up a conversation.
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“We were pretty much dating like a week later,” Sam says. “It was crazy.”
As soon as they graduated high school, they got married. They were doing the typical college-and-jobs thing when Jess, who’d always liked watching couple channels on YouTube, thought it’d be fun to make a video of the two of them for their one-year anniversary. She did, and they posted it with a handful of other videos, but they “weren’t really consistent with it,” she explains. They’d both already been posting separately on TikTok, engaged in a friendly race to see who could get the most subscribers–but again, it wasn’t super serious.
Then COVID hit.
“TikTok was on the rise and we just decided to hone in on all of it,” Jess says. “Our TikTok started growing like crazy and so did our YouTube. Ever since that pivotal point, we’ve just stuck with it and started growing out all of our platforms.”
Now, their shared TikTok account has more than 4 million followers, and their YouTube channel (2 million subscribers) is pulling in over 80 million views a month.
Check out our chat with them below.
@samandjessofficial “I know you got 8 hours last night” 😂 #couples #reaction #fyp ♬ original sound – Sam & Jess
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Nice to meet you both! I’d like to just start with some background about you, so pretend somebody’s reading this or watching this and has never seen your stuff. Give me a little bit of background about the two of you and how you met.
Jess: Well, we met our freshman year in high school in our English class. I joined the high school a month late, so I was new. I don’t know. I guess I caught his attention in some way, so he added me– Was it on Instagram?
Sam: Well, I found out her name, and then on her Instagram she had her Snapchat in her bio, so I went and added her on Snapchat, started talking.
Jess: I don’t know, we instantly just–
Sam: We were pretty much dating like a week later after just meeting. It was crazy. Then we’ve–
Jess: Been together ever since.
Sam: Yes. We got married fresh out of high school, right when we graduated in 2020. Now we’ve been married for three years.
Jess: In November it’ll be three years.
Sam: Yes.
Jess: We started social media about a year in. On our one-year anniversary, I decided to film surprising him. I always liked watching couple channels and whatnot and so I thought it’d be fun if we started one. I filmed that and posted it, and then we started making a couple of videos together, but I feel like we weren’t really consistent with it. We didn’t really know how much that space had to offer, so we were just casually posting. Then we eventually just started– I think COVID hit and TikTok was on the rise and we just decided to hone in on all of it. Our TikTok started growing like crazy and so did our YouTube. Ever since that pivotal point, we’ve just stuck with it and started growing out all of our platforms.
Tubefilter: Do you remember if there was a specific video that took off, or was it just viewership growing across everything at once?
Sam: I would say our TikToks were– We had a good following on TikTok before COVID happened. During high school, we had separate accounts. We had a race to who could hit a million followers first through high school.
Jess: Yes, we were competing. Each one of us would or one of us would get a viral video and the other person be like, “Crap, look, I need to get one going too.”
Sam: There was a lot of different things on TikTok, but I think for our YouTube channel, we had this prank.
Jess: Pranks were big then.
Sam: There was this prank, it was a period prank. I think we had 10,000 subscribers when we posted that. Then once we posted it, the next month we had 150,000 subscribers. That went viral. Then from there we were able to keep the momentum going with just the new people seeing our channel.
Tubefilter: Do you remember if there was a specific point where the both of you were like, “Okay, this is going to be a real thing that we keep doing”? Because it seems like this is your full-time thing now, right?
Sam: Yes. Before we started making any money on social media, I think we both had one or two jobs and we were doing high school and college and stuff. Then I think it was just once that period prank video went viral and we started getting a bunch of subscribers. It was just once we were making a lot more money on social media than we were from our jobs for a few consistent months. Then we were like, “Okay, this is consistent and we can quit our jobs and then have more time to make more videos and take it more seriously.” I think it did take us probably three or four months of letting it actually be consistent and not just that one time.
Jess: I think it was probably a while. It’s definitely scary to commit to it, but our original goal with it was just, we were like, “If we can just make $1,200 a month doing social media, that could cover our rent, and then we could move out and get a place.”
Sam: We could keep our jobs and that’ll pay everything else.
Jess: And go to college.
Sam: If we could just make videos to pay our rent, then that would be super cool.
Jess: Then we ended up doing full-time, so that’s awesome.
Sam: Obviously, it’s crazy.
Tubefilter: It worked out!
Sam: Yes.
Jess: Yes.
Tubefilter: What does your current weekly schedule look like? Do you guys put out a certain number of videos per week? How does your production side of things work?
Jess: I feel like it varies. I feel like you have to go with whatever social media is doing. In the beginning, we were posting three to four videos on YouTube a week consistently while also posting a TikTok every other day or so, but now it’s like we post a TikTok every single day and then a YouTube video probably like–
Sam: Once or twice a week.
Jess: –-once or twice a week right now. Then we just repurpose our TikTok videos to our Instagram and Snapchats and stuff to grow those as well.
Tubefilter: Is there a particular platform that you feel like you’re focusing on most?
Sam: I think currently it’s TikTok right now. It used to be YouTube just because that’s where we were getting the most viewership and making the most income, but now I feel like things are switched. People are more on TikTok now. Honestly, we’re just getting so many brand deals and stuff going to TikTok that we’re focusing more on just putting out consistent content and growing our following over there because that’s where brands are at present.
Jess: Well, I think it’s also easier to grow and have a bigger reach. I think it’s harder nowadays to start up on YouTube and try to find new people. I think you have your fan base, or if you grow on TikTok from viral videos and they’ll translate or transfer over to YouTube, but I think it’s harder nowadays to grow organically there off long-form videos. With TikTok, it’s easier to gain, I think, new followers. I think we focus there because that seems to be where, like he said, brands are wanting to promote stuff as well.
Tubefilter: I noticed you guys do do long-form videos on YouTube, though, as well. Do the two of you also enjoy doing long-form?
Sam: I do. They’re fun to make.
Jess: That’s what we started doing.
Sam: That’s where we started. Like I said, the whole thing with our YouTube channel growing and stuff, that’s what we were– For years, we were just focusing, we didn’t really care about TikTok. We didn’t really care about many other platforms because YouTube was the only one actually paying creators, until just recently when Instagram started paying and then TikTok started paying their creators. YouTube was a main focus for us. We still enjoy making those videos, but it’s just, like she says, the viewership has changed. People’s attention spans are much shorter, so they like short-form content, and so we have to cater to what people watch.
Jess: We still do both because we know people like both, and we enjoy creating. It’s fun to not just create one thing every day. It’s fun to brainstorm and create different types of content.
Tubefilter: How do the two of you split channel responsibilities? Is there one of you who comes up with more video ideas? Is there one of you who does more editing?
Sam: When we first started YouTube, I edited the videos just because I had fun with it and it was something I enjoyed. Now for our YouTube videos, we have an editor that we just send footage to and he takes care of that. As far as our YouTube videos, we just brainstorm video ideas together and film it and send it to our editor. For TikToks, the same, I edit the TikToks, but they take maybe 20 minutes to edit. It’s not anything crazy.
Jess: We both brainstorm those. Then also, I do music. I take over my personal TikTok and edit all those, or film those while he’s doing editing for ours.
Tubefilter: What originally sparked your passion for music?
Jess: That’s something I’ve just had since as long as I can remember. I know that there’s a lot of influencers that’ll pivot from content into the music scene, but that’s something I’ve always wanted to do since before being any type of influencer was on our radar. I’ve just always wanted to do music as a career. Us doing this as our job has allowed the flexibility for me to do that and have a schedule where I can create music.
I started taking voice lessons when I was 10 and then I started putting out music not long after that. Now I’m working on creating more original music. I’m working on my next EP right now, and then we’re going to be putting together a live show to, hopefully, start touring. That’s really cool. Music is just something that I have always loved for– I don’t now. Since I was a little girl, I’ve always just dreamed of doing music. It’s a passion of mine.
Tubefilter: Very cool. What’s been your favorite part of this whole being on the internet thing? What’s been your favorite part of being out there together?
Sam: I don’t know, there’s a lot of– I feel like everything is just so fun. I think it’s so fun– We go to Walmart and we have people come up to us and say that they watch our videos, they love us. That’s making an impact to people everywhere. Everywhere we go there’s someone who’s going to come up and say something, and I think it’s cool to see that aspect of things and just being able to– Like she said, our flexibility with our schedule, we can work wherever we want, when we want.
Jess: Yes. It’s been the biggest blessing. I’m just really grateful that we get to work together. Like he said, we just have a lot of flexibility in our lives that we probably wouldn’t have had if we had done the traditional go to college and get a nine-to-five. We’ve just been so grateful. I feel like every day I’m always just thanking God that we had this opportunity come into our lives.
Tubefilter: I know you mentioned that you want to put together a live show for your music, but do you have any plans or goals you guys are looking at for the next year or so? Anything fun?
Jess: This is just a little thing, but we’re planning to go to Greece for our anniversary. Well, we’re going to a couple of places in Europe. We’re going to Greece, then we’ll go to Italy, and then Switzerland, so we’re excited to travel, hopefully, in the future. I want to focus on music, like I said, and do a tour, but then after that, we’d love to start our family, so that’s something that we’ll be doing in the future.
Sam: The next couple of years.
Jess: Yes, I don’t know if there’s anything specific planned. We’re just going along for the ride right now.
Tubefilter: Are you planning to make videos while you’re in Greece or is it purely a personal trip?
Jess: Yes, that the thing. There’s always perks and downsides, I feel like, whenever– How do I want to phrase this? I feel like it’s a blessing that we can work anywhere, but it’s also everything you do, holidays, that you’re never really off work. That’s something that often doesn’t get accounted.
Sam: We’re going for two weeks and we can’t just not post for two weeks.
Jess: There’s not really a vacation week. We get to choose when we work, but then we can’t really take that off. It’s fun because we can vlog what we’re doing and we can make it fun, but yes, we don’t really off days.
Sam: All of our followers will really love us traveling and seeing what we’re doing in these different countries, so I think it will be cool.
Jess: We’ll definitely be filming.
Sam: Yes, definitely.
Tubefilter: Yeah, the work-life balance thing is something I see a lot of creators struggle to navigate.
Jess: Yes, it’s hard because the holidays and stuff, that’s awesome time to film.
Sam: We have to film Christmas morning and we have to–
Jess: We get to. I wouldn’t say we have to. We get to film those things, but it’s like you don’t really– Sometimes it’s like, “Oh, I wish I could just take a week,” but no, you got to always be thinking of what you’re doing next. I feel like it’s definitely– It comes with a lot of perks, but then there’s also things I think people don’t really realize when they think of being an influencer.
Tubefilter: Totally. Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about you, or anything else the two of you wanted to talk about?
Jess: We’re just grateful for anyone who’s watched us since the beginning or has come along for this journey. We’re just grateful to anyone who’s supported us. It’s been fun.
