The speaker, who started their YouTube channel 15 years ago, recounts a dramatic journey in their animation career. In 2005, they began home schooling through an online program, gaining their first laptop and starting to experiment with animation. They discovered Macromedia Flash and submitted their animations to Newgrounds, a website that reviews and showcases user-made content. Their first notable animation was "Pink Army," which performed well on the site.
The speaker's second animation, "Animator vs. Animation," was inspired by various sources and took three months to complete. It became popular and garnered offers for hosting and monetization, but the speaker chose not to sign away their rights. The animation was later posted on eBaum's World, leading to a legal dispute and a tense relationship with Steve Lerner from AlbinoBlackSheep.
Without monetization options, the speaker turned to atomfilms.com for funding to create a sequel, "Animator vs. Animation II." However, the animation was already widely available on YouTube, making it difficult to compete. The speaker eventually learned to report copyright infringements and managed to rank high in search results.
After completing "Animator vs. Animation III," the speaker decided to step away from the series. They attended college, initially aiming to work at Pixar, but instead started a career in animation for small businesses. After graduating, they were encouraged by their teacher Tom to continue their unique series.
The speaker launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund "Animator vs. Animation IV," which grew their subscriber base to 100,000 after its release. They followed up with "Animation vs. Minecraft," which quickly gained a million subscribers. Today, their channel has nearly 2 million subscribers. The speaker credits Steve Lerner and Tom Richner for their significant contributions to their career.
1. The speaker started their journey with a YouTube Channel 15 years ago, which is 10 years ago in real time. [Source: Document(page_content='00:00:00.00: 10 years teal orange bananas ago, I made a Youtube Chanel fifteen years ago, which is about 15 years in real time.\n00:00:06.76: To commemorate this occasion I have decided to share this story\n00:00:10.12: It\'s actually quite dramatic.\n00:00:12.00: In 2005, I entered my junior year of high school and for the first time I was home schooled through an online distance education program.\n00:00:18.96: Until that point, the five people in my family shared one computer, giving me limited access.\n00:00:23.90: But since I was enrolled in this online school, the school provided me with a laptop; my first laptop ever.\n00:00:29.54: This gave me the freedom to experiment with animation as much as I wanted.\n00:00:33.18: Back when I was 11, I had a phase where I experimented with pixel animations,\n00:00:37.36: but when I found out about a versatile animation program called Macromedia Flash, I had to get back into it.\n00:00:43.34: I discovered a website where I could\nsubmit my animations to, called Newgrounds. (Still Exists Today).\n00:00:47.78: The amazing thing about this website is that all animations go directly to the front page\n00:00:52.12: and get reviewed by anyone who visits, to determine if it deserves to stay on the front page.\n00:00:56.72: The first full-length Flash animation that I made was called "Pink Army",\n00:01:00.66: and involved an orange stick figure fighting an army of pink stick figures.\n00:01:04.50: I posted it on Newgrounds and it did alright.\n00:01:07.06: It didn\'t get a bad score, which I was happy about, so I claimed my victory and moved on.\n00:01:11.92: One day, I got inspiration to make a short animation about a stick figure that fights with its creator in the animation program itself.\n00:01:18.62: How did I get this idea?\n00:01:20.22: I can actually attribute many sources of\ninspiration to this idea.\n00:01:23.38: Being a long time fan of Looney Tunes, the animated short "Duck Amuck" really appealed to me,\n00:01:28.16: as well as the story of\n"Harold and the Purple Crayon".\n00:01:31.40: I had also seen some Flash animations and games online that gave me the final spark to come up with the idea.\n00:01:37.46: It took me about three months to finish, and on Saturday June 3rd, 2006,\n00:01:41.66: I uploaded it to Newgrounds.com, excited to see how it would do.\n00:01:46.06: The next morning, I discovered that I had\ngotten second place for the whole day!\n00:01:49.85: I was so excited. I thought that was the\nend of it, but it was only the beginning.\n00:01:53.36: I started getting all kinds of messages\non AOL Instant Messenger, from website owners that wanted to host my animation\non their website.\n00:02:00.32: I also got e-mails. Lots of e-mails.\n00:02:02.90: One guy offered to pay me $75 to host my animation on their site as, long as I sign