Seán McLoughlin: Making the Golden Age of Youtube Work for You

    Born on February 7th, 1990, in a small town in the countryside of Ireland, the last thing Seán McLoughlin, also known as Jacksepticeye, was planning on was being an extremely popular YouTuber in what is often described as "the golden age of YouTube" when creators were making highly original content and were all independent, and continuing on to be even more popular since. Recognized now under the channel name of "Jacksepticeye", McLoughlin skyrocketed from an unknown to thousands of subscribers almost overnight back in the early 2010s and now boasts over 25 million subscribers and over 13 billion total views on his videos. So, how did a boy from small town Ireland become one of the most popular YouTube gamers in the world? 

    In his early life, McLoughlin wasn't born into some special circumstance and wasn't born famous. He was born the youngest of five children and was best friends with his siblings. He played out in the yard and ran around the countryside of Ireland just like every other kid he grew up with. Between the ages of five and seven is when he got into video games for the first time by playing Pokémon on the original Gameboy, then moved to the his first console of a PlayStation1. He loved video games and hated going to school, and he even says that he "wasn't that great of a student" and "would spend all day just thinking about games". Later in life, his family moved from their small town in Ireland to the middle of the Irish countryside, which McLoughlin described as "a wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere just surrounded by trees". It was there that he finished secondary school and went to college to study musical technology because, at the time, he thought that music was what he wanted to do with the rest of his life because he was in a heavy metal band as a drummer. But he still wasn't enjoying school, even though he was doing what he thought he wanted to do, and still spent all of his time thinking about video games. So after his second year, he dropped out of music school, not because he wasn't successful with it because he was, but he just wasn't enjoying it. After moving back home to the cabin in the middle of nowhere, McLoughlin began to become more attached to the Internet, using it to find friends and connect with people who had similar interest. It was then that he started his YouTube channel in 2012 under the name of Jacksepticeye.

    He started off small, just like every other person who got their start on YouTube, and didn't even originally start with gaming until he saw other people doing it. Hr bought a gaming PC and set to work. His channel grew slowly, but McLoughlin didn't mind, because this was not something he was planning on doing full time yet. However, just by chance, he entered a contest to receive a shout out (when a larger channel will recommend a smaller one to their subscribers) from Pewdiepie, a much larger channel a the time, and Jacksepticeye ended up winning the contest. His subscriber count jumped from 2,000 to 15,000 in a matter of hours, and from there he was determined to work as hard as possible to make his channel successful, and to make it unique and creative for his subscribers. Since May of 2014, YouTube has been his full-time job, and since August of the same year, he hit one million subscribers and the number has only climbed since that moment, reaching a whopping 25 million subscribers in October of 2020.  At first, he was posting two videos a day to his channel, along with collaborations with other YouTubers, which is a kind of grind that was not seen on many other gaming channels at the time. Even though he has gone down to only one video a day for the most part, this is still far more often than other YouTubers of the same caliber, and he continues to grow in popularity. 

    McLoughlin attributes all of his success to his fanbase, who he constantly thanks for allowing him to do the things that he wants to do and not continue to demand the same content. This has allowed him to explore things like acting and comedy, and he has been able to travel around the world for tours and fan meet and greets. He gained a lot of popularity for his hilarious LetsPlay videos where fans got to watch his reactions as he played games for the first time, but also for his vlogs and for videos that allowed him to explore acting. Steadfast fans supported him no matter what, constantly praising every type of video, and standing by him when he needed to take breaks. Fans watch everything from daily vlogs to video reactions to his tried and true LetsPlays (which are great for people like me who are too scared to play horror games myself), along with livestreams and massive fundraisers where all of the money is donated by fans and goes directly to a worthy cause. His popularity is not just his content, but his personality, because this variety shows that the fans watch videos for him, not for his content, and that's what makes him unique. His content is creative and unique and original, which is a quality that he brought over from the Golden Age where all content was original. By continuing to make creative and original content, he remains at the top of trending videos constantly no matter what kind of video it is.

    From everything in his life up to the present, we can see examples of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Intrinsically, we can see that honestly, McLoughlin is motivating himself. He started the channel because he wanted to have fun, and he continued it because he loved what he was doing. He wouldn't play games if he didn't enjoy them, and many times he has stopped playing a game because he just didn't enjoy it. He knew what he wanted from a young age, as we see with him always talking about how games were the only thing on his mind during school and he spent hours playing them, wanting to get better for no other reason than the fact that it interested him. While he didn't choose to be a gamer full time until he knew he had a real chance of making career out of it, he still worked hard even when it wasn't full time because of of him knew it was what he always wanted to do. He was able to turn his passion into his career through his own intrinsic motivation and work drive, and he never would have been successful if he hadn't continued to push himself and work every single day without anyone directly asking him. Then comes in the extrinsic motivation from his fans. They continue to support every video and decision that McLoughlin makes, allowing him to use YouTube as his creative outlet rather than being demanding of content that they may want to see. They support him and stand behind him and allow him to do what he needs to do, and McLoughlin is able to take this support to heart and it motivates him to continue to work and create things for them, almost as a thank you for all of their support and for standing by him every step of the way. The fans created their own community on every single social media site there is to voice their support, and this outpouring of love is what motivates McLoughlin extrinsically to continue. This combination of heavy intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is what made McLoughlin so successful and so popular, and what continues to make him one of the most popular gaming YouTubers in the world.

    So, how did a boy from small town Ireland become one of the most popular YouTube gamers in the world? Easy: Work ethic, personality, and motivation. He works hard without anyone ever telling him to, his personality is like a magnet to interest people, and he motivated himself to start the work while the rest of the world motivated him to continue. Seán McLoughlin made the Golden Age of Youtube work for him, and Jackspeticeye will continue to be a well known channel for a long time to come. 

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Check out his channel to see his videos! => https://www.youtube.com/user/jacksepticeye

Sources: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH1oVW2lX8w&t=713s

https://www.thepassivevoice.com/the-golden-age-of-youtube-is-over/

https://www.insider.com/jacksepticeye-one-of-the-biggest-gaming-youtubers-in-the-world-2020-2

https://teneightymagazine.com/2017/12/18/jacksepticeye-charity-stream-raises-over-260000/