My Life and You Tube

By David Chilcott

From humble beginnings to international social media star, David Chilcott has spent the best part of a decade in the public eye. When you're an online personality with hundreds of thousands of followers and an award winning, critically acclaimed internet cooking show, it's hard to keep a secret. But this is the real story behind the "One Pot Chef." A story of success, failure, victory and loss. From how it all began and early success, to cyber stalkers, international trips and a life threatening health scare that changed everything. It's insightful, funny, painful, sometimes shocking and very personal. The truth is presented, naked and unvarnished. The real story behind success and popularity on YouTube, written by the man who experienced it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312652064

Book preview

My Life and You Tube

My Life and You Tube

By David Chilcott

Copyright Page

My Life and You Tube

ISBN: 978-1-312-65206-4

Written by David Chilcott

Copyright © 2014 David Chilcott

Cover Images by Tyson William Braddock

Trade Mark Media and Photography

All text in this book is the original work of the author. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any manner without prior written permission from the author.

Dedication

For Brian.

Truly, we are a match made in heaven.

I cook. You eat. A perfect partnership.

Introduction

In the past, I have written several cook books based on my recipe videos on YouTube. While I am proud of each and every one of them, this book I consider to be my first proper book.

Unlike my recipe books, this is not simply a written collection of my YouTube recipes. This is an exploration of my life over the last decade. It's been quite an adventure for myself. Delving into the origins of my YouTube experience and taking the opportunity to stroll down memory lane has been interesting to say the least.

I have seen so many things change over the last few years. YouTube has gone from a virtually unknown website, used by a small but dedicated audience of online video enthusiasts, to a mainstream portal, known to and used by almost everyone on the planet.

In my time, I have seen the introduction of the Partnership program, widescreen videos, HD and more. But no matter how much the site changes, or what new features are added, YouTube is and always will be the home of the most unique information and entertainment the world has ever know.

I have had the privilege to meet and interact with amazing people from all over the world, and many of them have become my closest friends. I've also had contact with people who were, to say the least, less than kind. But on YouTube, as in life, you take the bad with the good.

While writing this book, I found myself writing less about the technical side of my time on YouTube (which was my original intention) and more about my personal journey from amateur video maker to professional YouTuber, with a particular focus on how it has affected me personally.

I'll be the first to admit, my memory is not perfect. Everything I have written here is true to the best of my recollection. However, there is every possibility that the passage of time has clouded my memory, and I may have made some minor errors in my recollection. I assure you this is purely unintentional.

Other than that, I hope this book helps to give you an insight into my life since YouTube took over my existence and changed me forever. This is my story. Warts and all. I had a tremendous time writing this book, and I hope you find it enjoyable.

All my love,

David

Chapter One

I can honestly say I have one of the most amazing jobs in the world. Well, compared to some of the jobs I've had in the past, this one is pretty good. Not that scrubbing toilets in a 24 hour convenience store didn't have it's moments. But making videos on YouTube has certainly changed my life in ways I never thought possible.

Even more amazing, this wonderful career is something that has come about almost entirely by accident. I never intended to make this into a living. I never sat down one morning, and over a bowl of corn flakes thought Hey, today I'm going to become a new media thingy, make internet stuff and be all cool and 21st century and junk.

Yes, I really do sound like that in my head. Sigh.

In fact, when I first started on YouTube, making videos for fun and profit wasn't even an option. My YouTube channel predates the YouTube Partnership Program by about a year. Wow, I've been doing this a long time! When I got started, it was just a hobby to pass the time, and I had no idea you could make money from doing YouTube. It was the last thing on my mind at that point in my life. I was just desperate for a distraction.

It was 2007, and I had been forced out of work after a workplace accident. I was the unfortunate recipient of a minor but quite debilitating spinal injury. I was able to walk, with the assistance of a walking cane, for short distances, but I was no longer able to work as a sales assistant / trainee manager at a supermarket. It was a job I had loved for 5 years, and not being able to do it anymore was soul destroying.

I missed the daily interaction I had with my customers. I genuinely loved that part of my job, and suddenly finding myself disabled, in a lot of pain, and spending an extraordinary amount of time at home alone was a very difficult adjustment to make. My loving partner, Brian, was working two jobs at the time to help make ends meet, while I tried to put my life back together on a meagre government disability pension.

I remember this was a fairly dark time for Brian and I. Money was always tight, and I found myself trying to stretch our food budget in ways I'd never dreamed of before.

I remember the nights of plain boiled rice and frozen mixed vegetables, or those god-awful instant noodles. Some nights, I would eat cheap generic breakfast cereal for dinner, just so I could make sure Brian got a proper dinner. My logic was simple – he was working two jobs to keep us from the street, he needs it more than I did. Thankfully, those tough times didn't last too long, but it's always stuck with me – and I can't imagine I will ever forget it.

Despite being in astonishing discomfort, I was keen on trying to get back into the workforce as soon as possible, if not for the sake of my sanity, then to help keep food on the table. This proved to be a lot more difficult than I initially expected. I submitted job applications everywhere. I replied to job ads, joined employment agencies, scanned newspapers for work, but I seemed to be getting nowhere.

I was offered a few dodgy telemarketing jobs now and again. Most of those I only worked at for a few days before I just couldn't do it anymore. Either it was too painful for my back, sitting in poorly designed, supposedly ergonomic office chairs,  or it was the whole being abused by strangers on the phone for eight hours a day thing, which is not exactly an uplifting experience. Especially when it's happening in a drafty temporary office. In a converted factory shed. In the middle of an industrial estate. In the middle of nowhere.

So I was stuck at home a lot. I was able to drive, and had a car, but I found driving quite uncomfortable in my current physical condition. A quick trip to the shops was about as much as I could handle initially. With time this improved slightly, but for the most part I found myself house-bound. When I was feeling up to it, I would get as much of the housework done as I could comfortably manage, organize that days crime against nature (aka dinner) and resign myself to one of the most horrifying concepts ever designed by humanity – daytime television. God, it was depressing. The fake smiles, the painfully twee chat shows and those puke-inducing soap operas were sapping what little life I had left. But I was starved for entertainment. Who knew the solution to my boredom was just a few footsteps away.

Brian and I had given up a lot of luxuries in order to keep the bills paid. We no longer went out to nice restaurants, or enjoyed expensive nights out on the town. But one thing Brian wasn't willing to give up was his recently installed high-speed internet modem. He just loved it too much. I had been using the internet for a few years, mainly for online chatrooms, but wasn't really worried about having it. But Brian really enjoyed it, so it stayed.

This super fast internet was a revelation. For the first time, I was using the internet for more than just text-on-screen stuff. I felt like I had just discovered the internet. Not in a I was the first person to find it and it's all mine sort of way, but being at home a lot had given me the free time to really explore it. The wonders of the recent rise of Web 2.0 was making my little online sessions something much more interactive and compelling than it had ever been before.

That's when I found YouTube. That's when my life suddenly went in an entirely different direction, and it changed me forever.

YouTube was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. The idea was simple, but brilliant. Broadcast Yourself was their motto, and it was such an ingenious concept. People all over the world creating entertainment for each other at home, using just their home video camcorders or webcams and their imagination.

I found myself glued to my computer screen, day after day, watching home made comedy skits by people on the other side of the planet. Video blogs about the entertainment industry, politics, science or just some guy's life. Tutorial videos on a million and one different subjects. YouTube seemed to have everything I could ever want. I was immediately hooked. Daytime TV had nothing on this!

By this time, our money troubles had eased a bit, and we were no longer eating mystery meals each night – so cooking had once again become a pleasant experience

Reviews for My Life and You Tube

[Melissa Strudwick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great read and extremely entertaining. I am a fan from Davids's YouTube channel and I was wondering what he has been up to as he hasn't been posting for a while. Wishing you a speedy recovery and look forward to more delicious one pot creations when you are ready x