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 creator has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments here.
During the pandemic, Shelby got really into following Instagram influencers. And the more she saw their content, the more she wanted to try her own hand at it–especially when she saw people making family videos. She knew her husband Dylan, with his dramatic reactions to surprises and top-tier facial expressions to go along with them, would do great on camera.
She mentioned this to Dylan. Just once. Okay, just twice.
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Maybe more than twice.
Eventually, Dylan got tired of hearing it. But not in the “stop talking about it” way. In the “you’re going to make a video and give this whole thing a shot right now” kind of way.
It was the push Shelby needed. Together with Dylan, she filmed and uploaded a video to TikTok that day–Jan. 31 of this year. Then Dylan gave her another push. They would make videos for 30 days, he said. One upload per day. At the end of the month, they’d circle up and see whether it was something she wanted to keep doing.
The thing was, by the end of those 30 days, they had hundreds of thousands of followers.
It was not an outcome either of them expected, but since then, they’ve embraced their newfound social media success. They’re both still working other jobs, Shelby’s getting her master’s degree in education, and they have a three-and-a-half-month-old keeping them on their toes, but their TikTok just hit 4 million followers (we know, we’re a little behind to mark them becoming Millionaires) and they’re starting to plan for a future where it could be their full-time career.
We’ll let them tell you the rest below.
@shelbanddyl This should keep him occupied for a while 🤣 #shelbanddyl #husbandreacts #soup #couples #relationships ♬ original sound – Shelby & Dylan
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Pretend somebody is reading this and they haven’t seen your stuff. Give me a little bit of background about the two of you, where you’re from, and how you met.
Shelby: Okay.
Dylan: You’ll go first?
Shelby: Yeah, I’ll start. Dylan and I met at The University of West Alabama. We were both getting athletic training together. We both did that and then we ended up going back home. Dylan graduated from Athens State University. You want to go ahead and talk about that?
Dylan: Oh yes. We transferred to Athens. I graduated with a bachelor’s in business management. Then I started working at a bank.
Shelby: Then I went to Athens State as well and I graduated with a degree in elementary education. That’s where I felt like I was being called and led to go. So, that’s what I did. But yeah, we met originally in college.
Tubefilter: Very cool. Then how did you end up here? How did you end up making videos together?
Dylan: Shelby has always been in trend with Instagram influencers and just really, any content creators. I’ve been watching people on YouTube and stuff. One day, Shelby was just like– she would always joke around and say, “It’d be cool to do that. That would be fine, ” and everything. One day, she said it again for like the fifth or sixth time. I said, “Okay,” I said, “We’re going to post a video today.”
Tubefilter: Oh, the old “Okay, then, we’re going to do it.”
Dylan: Yeah. She was like, “What?” [laughs] So, ever since that day, we have posted one video a day except for maybe three, possibly four days. That started January the 31st.
Tubefilter: Of this year.
Dylan: Of this year. Yeah, we just started.
Tubefilter: Every day since. That’s a big commitment.
Dylan: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. We are still very new to this, but we’re learning every single day. This has been an exciting journey. So, we’ve posted one video a day ever since then.
Tubefilter: That’s so much commitment. I love that you were just like, “All right, we’re going to do it.”
Shelby: I know. It was like I was kind of half-joking about it.
Dylan: I know she was joking about it. I guess I’m tired of hearing it. [laughs] I said, “All right, we’re going to see. We’re going to do this every day.” I said every day for a month, and then we’ll see where we’re at after a month. If we had no traction, no worries. We’ll just continue on whatever we’re doing. But I forget where we were at after that month. It’s like probably around a hundred–
Shelby: We hit 100K, 100,000 followers.
Dylan: On TikTok.
Tubefilter: Oh, wow. Yeah. Do you remember if there was a specific video that took off?
Dylan: It was like a step system. We had one that did like– We thought it was viral.
Shelby: We were so excited. It had like 250,000 views.
Dylan: Right.
Tubefilter: That’s pretty big for beginners.
Dylan: I didn’t know that at the time. We had that one that did well. So, we’re like, “Oh, this might actually…” If we go back and look at it now, it’s really low-quality comedy skit.
Tubefilter: Yes, but you were learning.
Shelby: Yes. We really took off when we posted the video. We have a three-and-a-half-month-old, we just had a baby. When we started, we were obviously pregnant. We posted a video of us shopping at BuyBuy Baby. Dylan–
Dylan: I was getting there.
Shelby: Dylan is a cheapskate.
Dylan: I don’t like to spend my money!
Shelby: Yeah, doesn’t like to spend money. So, it’s just funny.
Tubefilter: That’s a good thing!
Dylan: Yeah. So good.
Shelby: The video is about that.
Dylan: But I was working my way to there. There was one on between that, it was a cell phone video. We had the 200,000 followers, then after our cellphone video, it was about an iPhone 8 Plus. What you could get at the phone company. It was our first video over a million. Then BuyBuy Baby was over 10 million.
Shelby: It had 10 million views.
Dylan: For three weeks in a row, every Saturday for three weeks, we posted another shopping video. It was BuyBuy Baby, then it was Walmart, and Ulta. All three went viral.
Shelby: That’s when we really started gaining–
Dylan: A lot of followers.
Shelby: True.
Tubefilter: Very cool. Do you both work full-time jobs outside of this or what’s your balance?
Dylan: She is a full-time teacher.
Shelby: I teach second grade.
Dylan: She teaches elementary. I just went to part-time at the bank, transitioning into getting into full-time content creation, because I do like the editing and stuff on our videos.
Tubefilter: Wow. You guys have a very full plate.
Shelby: Yes.
Dylan: Oh, absolutely.
Tubefilter: You have a three-and-a-half month old, you’re doing this, and you both have jobs. That’s wild.
Dylan: Then the baby, making sure we give him the love and the care that we want to give him and what he deserves. Yes, it’s a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to juggle it, but we make it work.
Shelby: I’m in school full-time too– not full-time, but I am in school getting my master’s degree. There’s a lot going on in our lives, but we love it. We love being busy.
Tubefilter: I don’t think I’ve ever talked to two people who are such underachievers. [laughs] Geez. People who do absolutely nothing. Wow.
Shelby: [laughs] We try. We try.
Dylan: We have a lot on our plate, but we’re very blessed with what we do have and what we have.
Tubefilter: Yes. Dylan, it seems like you’re pretty passionate about editing. It’s clear that over the trajectory of your videos, you’ve put a lot of effort into it.
Dylan: Thank you very much. Actually, back in college, we would do group projects and stuff, I would always be in that editor position if we had a group video that we had to post or like a big project. We’d all get information together and I would edit the video. I started out…Is it Windows Movie Maker? Is that it?
Shelby: Yes.
Tubefilter: Yes, Movie Maker.
Dylan: That’s when I started out editing videos. I haven’t done it since, but I always enjoyed it. That was real fun, that day, to me. So, it was a pretty easy transition into the editing for TikTok and stuff. That’s basically all the same tools except on your iPhone.
Tubefilter: You guys do all of this yourselves, right? You don’t have anybody else? Aside from your managers.
Dylan: Yes. Cam and Nils, we’re very blessed to have them. They’re amazing. We love having them on our corner. But everything else, like for the most part all the posting and all the content stuff, is all us.
Tubefilter: How did you end up with management? You guys got management pretty quickly.
Shelby: Yes, we did.
Dylan: It’s crazy. During that month of our first month of posting at TikTok a day, I don’t know, I could tell it was going somewhere. I could just say something’s going to happen here. I didn’t know how long it was going to take, but I just knew something was going to happen. So I started trying to reach out to other creators. We reached out to Casey & Kaci, and they gave us great advice. Then we reached out to Hunter & Devin Cordle. Both those couples, we thank a lot. They’re amazing people. They both gave us amazing advice on taking those next steps.
Shelby: They got into contact with Cam and Nils. That was helpful to have their support. They helped get our names out there to Cam and Nils. We’re very thankful for that.
Tubefilter: Have they been able to hook you up with any cool brand deals or any projects?
Dylan: Oh, yes, we’ve worked with a few great companies. We get to work with Kelley Blue Book.
Tubefilter: Wait, really?
Dylan: Yeah. House of Mouth.
Shelby: The toothpaste. That was so fun. We loved that one.
Dylan: Yes, we loved working with them.
Shelby: We have some fun ones that are coming out. We’re super excited about that.
Dylan: Yes, we’re very excited for what’s to come.
Tubefilter: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Kelley Blue Book sponsorship.
Shelby: Yes. We were super stoked about it.
Dylan: I mean, we were very surprised when they sought us out. That was one of our first. So like, wow, I’ve seen Kelley Blue Book my whole life.
Shelby: I worked in a car dealership for six whole months, so I was super excited no matter what.
Tubefilter: Oh, rad. I did want to ask a little bit about, I know it can be tough to be creators and tackle the question of putting your kid out there on the internet. I was curious about how you handle that in terms of protecting your family and protecting your baby. Did you have any thoughts about it?
Shelby: I can talk about this. When we were going through everything, we were super pumped and people were following us, then we’re in to having him, we had a couple of conversations about putting him out there and we were like, “I don’t know. Should we? Should we not?” When we had him, we brought him home, we did post a video of him as a newborn. We showed the space and everything and he’s been in some of the videos since. We do have, unfortunately, a lot of fake accounts that would take screenshots of him and post on their pages. They weren’t saying anything malicious, but we just didn’t want–
Dylan: We didn’t want it to get to that.
Shelby: Yeah. The same things– pretending it was us–
Dylan: We’re not against…We’re not saying we don’t plan on never showing him ever again. Hopefully, one day, it gets to where like these accounts can be taken down or something where–
Shelby: We can kind of moderate it.
Dylan: We can kind of moderate it. Yeah. We’re not against showing him, but as of right now, we’re just staying away from it.
Shelby: As a newborn we were a little bit more like, “Hold it.” because we’re like, ” He’s going to change so much.” Now, that he’s starting to get his whole facial features…We’re just iffy about it.
Tubefilter: Understandable. Like you said, even if people aren’t saying something malicious, there’s just something violating about having his screenshots posted on someone else’s account.
Shelby: Iffy, yeah.
Tubefilter: Just very odd.
Shelby: Yes, it is.
Tubefilter: Obviously you have an incredibly busy schedule. How do you manage working and uploading a video every single day? Are you filming ahead of time? How much time does it take per day? Take me through your schedules.
Dylan: We would like to get to where we could set up certain days for filming. A lot of times, we’re just on the fly, film, and or just want to get my reaction. But mostly, it’s like, we probably average one video a day that we film right now. That’s how we do it.
Shelby: Right. We film after school, after getting off work and after Dylan gets off work.
Dylan: A lot of times while our baby is taking a nap.
Shelby: Or he’s taking his last nap of the day. We’ll film.
Dylan: Or maybe my brother’s keeping him or something. We’re going to film.
Shelby: We would love to do it more, but a lot of what we film are things that happen organically in our lives, so sometimes we’ll film like two or three times a day. Then sometimes it’ll happen where we can only get one in. Or like I’ll have a fun idea for us to do and we’ll film that day. So, it just depends on the content and how it happens and how we’re filming. But mostly, I would say one time a day, and then Dylan edits it usually. Either right that night or–
Dylan: When I’ve got off time.
Shelby: On his off time, yeah.
Tubefilter: “Off time,” quote unquote.
Shelby: Yeah, quote unquote. [laughs]
Tubefilter: Do you ever both plan to both go full-time? It really seems like you love your job, Shelby, and I know you’re in for your master’s.
Shelby: I do love my job. I think it’s definitely my calling. I feel like the Lord has really made it clear that that’s what I’m supposed to be doing right now, because Dylan gave me the option to stay home. It was my decision. We talked about it and discussed it and I just really felt like I’ll just continue in teaching. So, for the foreseeable future, that’s where I’ll be. I’ll continue teaching.
Dylan: I’d love to have her at the house but…Things might change, she might feel that want, to come home. We’re not against it, we just feel like right now, this is what we’re supposed to be doing.
Tubefilter: It’s very clear that you love your job.
Shelby: Yes. I really do. I cannot imagine leaving my students. One day, maybe I’ll want to homeschool or something. I think that will be good.
Dylan: Yeah, that’s definitely in the cards.
Shelby: A goal.
Dylan: If that’s just where–
Shelby: The Lords wants us.
Dylan: –the Lord leads us.
Tubefilter: It’s funny, Dylan, I know you that Shelby was into Instagram influencers before this, but did either of you ever think that this was really going to become a thing?
Shelby: No. [laughs]
Dylan: No. [laughs] Not until, I think, doing that math when we were seeing those little bit of numbers that we thought were big numbers. To us, they were, and to a lot of people, they are.
Tubefilter: They were impressive.
Dylan: They really are, but not before then, no.
Shelby: I thought that the influencer lifestyle was so interesting and so cool. I’ve been following some influencers– I think I followed my first one in like 2020 when the pandemic was happening. I really would not even allow myself to get on TikTok until Christmas break because I had school for hours. Over Christmas, I had a little bit of time. That’s whenever I was able to start scrolling and I found some creators that make family-style content like they did. So, I was like, well, Dylan, his reactions and his personality…
Tubefilter: You do have such an interesting camera presence, Dylan.
Shelby: [laughs] Yeah. If I get to witness Dylan, everybody else gets to witness Dylan.
Tubefilter: Well clearly, it’s doing well.
Shelby: Yes. It worked out, so. It was crazy. I don’t think it really hit us until we went to Walmart, and somebody recognized us and we’re like, “Oh.”
Tubefilter: Oh. yes. The first recognition tends to be a turning point for people.
Dylan: Yes, that was really odd. I was like, “Wow. People actually watch us.” Those people have been such a blessing to us, like the people that we get to talk to every day. Some people might think it’s overbearing, but really, to us, we just like the opportunity to meet new people a lot of the time. When people tell us what our content means to them, or…We got a note today in the mail from a lady just thanking us for getting her through the hard time in her life. Those notes that we get or those messages that we get, it just helps fuel the fire. We know we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing to make a good impact on people with our family content.
Tubefilter: Any cool plans or goals for the next year or so? Do you guys have anything in the cards, or do you just write it as it goes?
Dylan: We’re flying by the seat of our pants most of the time.
Shelby: Honestly. [laughs]
Dylan: We’re doing good to just…With everything we got going on, to just keep our head above water. You know what I mean? We’re kind of a week-to-week family a lot of the times.
Tubefilter: Yes, understandably.
Shelby: And last-minute.
Dylan: I don’t guess we have anything other than a few brands we’ll be working with right now.
Shelby: Yeah. Nothing really.
Tubefilter: All right. Yeah, it seems very much like we’re just hanging on.
Shelby: Yeah.
Dylan: Yeah.
[both laugh]
Shelby: Maybe when I don’t have school. We’ve gotten into a routine.
Tubefilter: You just started the school year?
Shelby: Yeah. We started school two weeks ago.
Dylan: Her master’s– I think you’re going to be doing this semester?
Shelby: I’ll be doing this semester, yeah.
Dylan: Once that’s over with and she can take that off of her plate, it’ll make a lot easier to make more plans. A lot going on.
Tubefilter: To wrap up, is there anything else you want readers to know about you?
Shelby: Just that we love the Lord.
Dylan: We always want to make his light shine in everything that we do. We thank you all for watching us and for following us and for all the positive comments. It is just amazing just to be able to sit there and read all the positive things people had to say. They really do overshadow all the negativity. Thank you, please continue watching us, because we really do enjoy doing this. This is really fun to be able to do this. We’re learning every day because we still feel like it was yesterday when everything blew up. We’ve been blessed with great people who’s given us advice along the way. We’re still learning, trying to figure this whole thing out.
