Welcome to Millionaires, where we profile creators who have recently crossed the one million follower mark on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch. There are creators crossing this threshold every week, and each of them has a story to tell about their success. Read previous installments here.
Jay Williams remembers when he had 3,000 followers.
Growing up, he was “a big movies person,” he says, “always writing different scripts, into theater.” He ended up in college for film (after trying out mechanical engineering, and though that didn’t end up being his final career, he still loves math) and it was during college that he started posting videos on Instagram. He wasn’t taking it super seriously–it was just funny videos he made with his roommates.
But those videos were his first taste of feeling famous.
“I would start going to class, walk around campus, and people were like, ‘Yo, I’ve seen your video! I saw your video on Instagram!'” he says. “That was back when I had 3,000 followers. At that moment, I was like, oh, yes! I felt famous.”
But it wasn’t until he started uploading on TikTok that he really understood what it was like for his content to draw attention. He posted some of his old Instagram videos, but also made new content, including his first viral video, which was set to Roddy Ricch’s song “The Box.” It got 14 million view–and more than that, it started a trend. “[Y]ou would see thousands and thousands of videos under my video with people just wiping mirrors to the sound of his song,” Williams says. “I was just like, Wow, this is impact.”
Other videos brought him follows from rappers, backstage invites, and more. His follower count began to tick up. With more and more people watching him, though, Williams had a realization: “[I]t doesn’t really matter about how many followers you have, it’s just really about you connecting with that one person,” he says. “Even when I had 3,000 followers, I felt like all 3,000 of those people were my world.”
Now, Williams’ world has a population of 1.4 million followers on TikTok and 127,000 on Instagram. He’s in the midst of using that growing platform to get into music and launch his own lifestyle brand, Meantime.
We’ll let him tell you all about it below.
@jaywill4realPulling up to the Barbie movie alone is crazy 😭♬ original sound – Jay Will
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jay Williams: My name is Jay Williams, but a lot of people know me as JayWill. Before content creation, I was in high school, changed my major about four times, didn’t really know what I was going to do. Went to Arizona State University. I ended up changing my major to film just because I’ve always been a big movies person. I’ve always been a movies person, always writing different scripts, into theater. Never been in any plays, but in my theater classes, I was always super active. My theater teacher loved me. I’ve always been a creative, outgoing person. That was really just the groundwork and what led to me being more active on social media when the opportunity came about.
Jay Williams: I saw a lot of people on TikTok and I just started posting videos, like me in class and just showing people, I guess, my personality and funny moments. A lot of the videos started to take off. I started creating videos on Instagram at first when, during college, my freshman year, sophomore year. I was making them with my college roommates. We made a lot of funny videos.
A lot of people just started to get to know me. I would start going to class, walk around campus, and people were like, “Yo, I’ve seen your video! I saw your video on Instagram!” That was back when I had 3,000 followers. At that moment, I was like, oh, yes! I felt famous. But then it wasn’t until TikTok, when I started posting like my old videos from Instagram and then posting videos of me on campus, that’s when the numbers started rolling in.
Jay Williams: When I first hit my first video with a million views, I felt like that was the biggest moment. I was like, whoa. That was the most people I’ve ever reached before on one video. Usually, it’s one of those videos that you don’t even think that’s going to really blow up. I feel like where I knew that I needed to keep going with it was when I had my first viral video.
My first viral video hit around 14 million views. With that, it was one of the songs, it was Roddy Ricch’s “The Box.” It was a big trend. A lot of people were doing it. I was wiping the mirror and people were just– you would see thousands and thousands of videos under my video with people just wiping mirrors to the sound of his song. I was just like, Wow, this is impact.
It was such an impact that even the rapper reached out to me, and other rappers started following me. I got invited, I went backstage to the concert. At that moment, I was like, yes, this is, very impactful, making one single video. That’s when I knew. I was like, okay, I need to keep going.
Jay Williams: After switching it a couple of times…I was a very smart kid. I had a good GPA. I went from civil engineering, then I went to film.
Jay Williams: Yes, that’s because, I guess, my dad’s in construction. I love math. I still do. It just wasn’t my fit when I was in the classrooms.
Jay Williams: Kind of full-time. I work a part-time job here and there. I work for a marketing company.
Jay Williams: Every week, I’m just really trying to plan new content, really. I watch a lot of videos. I watch videos daily. Whenever I’m eating, whenever I’m about to go to sleep, I’m just studying. That’s how I look at it, because I’m trying to see what’s going to trend and what is trending, what the movement is, because I feel like every social platform is always changing daily.
TikTok right now is not the same TikTok back in 2018. Instagram now is not the same one a year and a half ago, when it was so off the rails. Everything is always changing. There’s new content forms and videos that are going to impact people differently, because people don’t impact the same way as they would have made it back in 2020, since now we’ve already seen it duplicated 20 times.
I study a lot and I try to figure out the best way to get people’s attention. There’s a lot of people with short attention spans now, just because of TikTok and Reels and the way that social media platforms are pushing out content. I do a lot of studying and I try to figure out what’s the best content for me, and I try to tailor it to be my own and make it organic for myself.
I’m like a trend hunter. I see different trends and I try to see how I can make a spin on it, or maybe if I watch a video, I’m like, “Maybe I can talk about this.” I’m just like, whatever flows with my own content, my own schedule. I don’t try to force it, I don’t try to make content every single day, but I try to make content.
Jay Williams: Oh, for sure. I keep up with analytics, and I try to see what videos are doing the most numbers. I was looking at my analytics last week. I saw videos that I made a while ago that weren’t performing as good as I thought they would, but then they started picking up. I’m trying to see the best moments to make that content. Yes, looking at the analytics is just part of paying attention to what the audience is liking.
I pay attention to the point where I’m just like, “Oh, okay, people like that video, maybe I should talk about something along those lines again. Maybe I should stick to more of a comedy or comedic effect with my videos.” I don’t let the numbers really motivate me or not motivate me. If I’m focused on a video, I don’t look at it as a bad thing. I just look at it as a learning lesson.
Jay Williams: It definitely was a big thing. I remember popping a bottle with my friends. It’s crazy, because remember, I told you, I remember when I had 3,000 followers, I was like, What? Okay, that’s crazy. 3,000 followers. That’s why I tell everybody who does make content, it doesn’t really matter about how many followers you have, it’s just really about you connecting with that one person. Even when I had 3,000 followers, I felt like all 3,000 of those people were my world.
I was like, “I’m going to give you guys the best content.” Now that I have a million, I’m still going to do the same thing.
I did save some of the pictures, because when I hit, on TikTok, I hit 10,000 followers. I was like, “Whoa, I’m growing pretty fast.” I started screenshots of it just to keep a timestamp of where I was each month. I still have all the pictures.
Jay Williams: I started around COVID. I feel like that’s when everybody was starting because everybody was still in lockdown, so around then. And then a year later, I hit one million.
Jay Williams: Yes. It took off super quick.
Jay Williams: Anyone who’s tuning into my content will first notice probably my personality. I just feel like I am a very chill guy, I’m very relaxed, but when moments happen, or when I’m out or doing any activity, I feel like that’s my most fun side. I do joke a lot, I’m super competitive, I make a lot of comedy content, whether it’s relative to content because I make a lot of relatable content. I feel like if you don’t know me, you will get to know me very quickly, just because I’m not shy to show what I like, show you who I am.
Jay Williams: Oh, yes. My approach to that is, it was really just natural, because we didn’t force it. I knew that they lived in Arizona, the guys that I create content with. We did think about making a group, but it just happened so naturally, our first few videos, where we’re just like, “Hey, you want to hang out?” We ended up hanging out. One of us has an idea, and I feel like that’s where the best ideas come from, just on the go.
We improv them, and I feel like that’s why our videos go so viral, because we’re all in the moment and we’re our true selves. The more true you are to yourself, the more people are going to relate to it, because you’re not putting on a front, or you’re not acting. We are acting, but it’s just in the moment. We’re not even being characters, we’re acting how we would as ourselves in the moment of our videos.
Those videos of us working with each other, it just happens naturally, because they’ve been my friends…We’ve been following each other for a while, and then we all hung out one time and we made a video. It did great numbers, so we were like, maybe we should hang out more often. [laughs]
Jay Williams: Yes. I’ve been making music here and there. Last year, I just started making, I made one during the summer. I didn’t make music before that for a few years.
Jay Williams: Yes, I’ve always been into music. I feel like music is just a feeling type of thing. I remember even growing up just writing my own songs. Never really took it serious, but I was always creative, whether I was writing different scripts or writing stories for my English teacher or writing raps with my friends and us reading to each other or us in the locker room, rapping and freestyling.
It’s always just been fun. That’s why, I’ve always been that type of person, whatever makes me happy, whatever I find fun, I’m always going to do it. The music thing really came about because my roommate, he was making music. He just told me, we were always freestyling, and he was like, “Yo, Jay Williams, you should hop on the mic.” I was like, no, I’m good. I don’t think I want to make music.
Then once he actually did get me on that mic, I just found it so fun. It opened a new lane for me to be even more creative. That’s why I was like, okay, let me take advantage of this. Seeing the people respond to my music, people were liking it, people were saving it. I am making videos with my music. I was like, Is this real? Something fun turns into something that people like. It was awesome to me.
Whether it’s one listener, whether it’s a few thousand listeners, it’s awesome that one person even listens to my music, because that wasn’t my main goal. It was just something I was doing for fun. Now I just want to see how far I can go.
Jay Williams: Start to finish, usually, I’m just scrolling on TikTok just seeing what I can make for the day or for the week or whatever because I don’t try to rush it. I don’t want to rush. If I rush the content, I feel like people can tell, or it just won’t come out as good as I think it will. I’m just watching content, seeing what makes me feel a way, what makes me tear up a little bit, what makes me laugh, what makes me…Any emotion that I’m feeling is probably what a lot of other people are feeling.
I’m scrolling and I’m seeing what’s trending. If I see a video come up on my For You page about three times, it’s probably trending. I’m searching videos and I’m just seeing what’s going on. I’m just scoping the scenery out and I see a video that I’m like, okay, you know what? This is what I want to do today. I sit there, maybe I’m writing it out. If it’s me actually using my voice, I’m writing like a little script.
I don’t really go word for word from it, but I write an outline of it, and I’m trying to see where I could really catch the audience, where I can make them feel a way. Sometimes I put the camera right up and I just start talking and then I’m like, okay, and then I watch the video playback and I’m like, okay, actually, no, let me say this, let me say this. Reshoot the video, and then I’m just trying to find keywords.
That’s where I feel like the outlining comes in, because I can just write down two different punchlines that I want and then I’m like, okay, I got to make sure I say these two punchlines but everything else is just going to be authentic. Then I’m going from there. Once I have the video all laid out, I’m editing. Editing is probably the most fun part for me and a lot of people who reach out to me and like, “Oh, I want to start creating.” I just tell them like, editing is going to be a lot. Because a lot of people say that they hate editing.
At first, I did, but I started to fall in love with it because you can craft a video into what you want it to be. If I sat three different people in a room and we all had all the same footage, we would not make the same video. That’s why I feel like editing is just the most fun part, because that’s where I can get really creative. I can throw different effects. I can throw different angles, angles that you’ve never seen.
That’s what you want. You want to catch people because people’s attention spans are short so you got to try to catch people in those first three, five seconds. Editing is going to really bring your video out.
Jay Williams: For the next year, I see myself creating my own brand. I have a brand, I’m trying to call it Meantime. Meaning every goal that you have, everybody has goals. We only get there by controlling what we do in the meantime. I want to make that really attached to my brand. Because I’m super creative and I know how to really capture things on the camera…Since I have a degree in film, I want to take that to show people why I have that degree. I really want to start making short films.
Jay Williams: Meantime is anyone who has a goal. We all have goals, but we only get there by controlling what we do in the meantime. That’s what I really focus on, because everything that you’re working for, that’s all during the meantime. I’m a hard worker, my dad was a hard worker, my mom was a hard worker. That was just my whole life. And all the people that I help, I help a lot of people behind the scenes where people would just reach out to me. I’ve never charged anybody a dime. People are like, “Yo, how do you do this? What video should I make?” All the people that reach out to me that I’ve helped. I want to have a brand that they can look up to and see that everything that I was doing in the meantime led me to where I am today.
Jay Williams: No, I wouldn’t be offering courses. It could lead to courses. I haven’t really opened up to that yet because I’ve already always been doing it just by myself, just doing this for people who reach out to me, because I always felt like, if you had the time to reach out to me and support me, I can help you and support you as well. I look at it as more of like a clothing brand.
Jay Williams: My favorite part about being on social media is the connections that I built with other people. I’ve followed and made friends with a lot of other people that go viral all the time with a lot of other people that have millions of followers. A lot of athletes that I used to watch or play on 2K, they end up following me or saying, “Oh, I like this video.” It’s really the networking that I really take out of it is the best part.
Then the second part would probably be people saying that they enjoy my content. I want to just keep pushing out as much good content as I can for the people that enjoy it
Jay Williams is repped by Viral Nation.
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