December 23, 2024 • 25 mins
This week, hosts Meghan (Smallwood) and Patrick (Cadigan) finish their discussion about the challenges and realities of becoming a YouTube content creator with Cody Leach. Cody shares his experiences around copyright issues (even when using royalty-free music!) and the complexities of YouTube admin and copyright laws. Cody shares insight on his monthly content planning process, advice for aspiring YouTubers including understanding risk, maintaining a thick skin against negative feedback and balancing creativity with business savvy. Join the conversation!
Episode Keywords:
YouTube, challenges, copyright issues, content creation, audience engagement, video editing, channel growth, analytics, monetization, content planning, sponsorships, Patreon, community interaction, mental health, career risks, parental guidance
Links:
Cody Leach -
YouTube (link)
Facebook (link)
Xander Raymond Charles (YouTube) - (link)
Patreon (site)
To download a copy of a transcript for this episode or any of our previous conversations, click here.
Also visit our Podcast webpage to find links to all of our other discussions; go to www.p2transition.com.
Additional information about post-secondary transition can be found at our website.
The Post-Secondary Transition Podcast Facebook page.
Visit our YouTube Channel to find additional video resources.
Intro/Outro music by AudioCoffee from Pixabay.
Transition music by Joseph McDade from Transistor.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Patrick Cadigan (00:00):
Patrick, welcome. This is the Post
(00:02):
Secondary Transition podcastwhere we have conversations
around the ins and outs andeverything in between of the
transition process for familiesof students with disabilities.
I'm one of the hosts. My name isPatrick Cadigan, and I am a
public school transitioncoordinator. As always, I have a
co host, and who would that be?
Meghan Smallwood (00:19):
I am Meghan Smallwood, and I am also a
public school transitioncoordinator.
Patrick Cadigan (00:23):
Setup
and I have the chance to chatwith students and ask them about
their dreams. Guess what? A lotof them want to be. YouTubers.
Make videos about theirpassions. Could be video games,
video game, walk throughs, tips,tricks. They just want to be on
(00:44):
YouTube, post those and becomean online sensation. Meghan and
I thought we need to talk tosomebody who's actually doing
this, and that's how we met,Cody Leach. Cody is a YouTuber
who reviews and comments onhorror movies. He's doing really
well for himself right now. He'sbeen on the platform for a few
(01:06):
years, and he has continued togrow. When we posted part one of
our discussion two weeks ago, hewas hovering around 175,000
subscribers. Today, he iscomfortably at 176,000
subscribers. So again, he knowswhat he's talking about. Now
let's finish our conversationwith Cody paralleling what we're
(01:30):
talking about, but still alittle bit different. And
because again, I'm thinkingabout the students when I talk
with them and they talk aboutcreating content, I remember
that at one point when you havethe introductions to your
videos, you have always hadmusic, but at one point, you
found yourself in a situationwhere someone came in and said,
(01:51):
the music that you were usingwas not yours or whatever, and
you had to change. Why was thata big deal?
Cody Leach (02:00):
So what happened with that was I had used a
royalty free song. And for thosethat don't know, royalty free
means there's no copyright. It'sfree for everybody to use.
There's no legal bindinganything. It's just out there.
And so I was using this song foryears in my intro. And then what
had happened was somebody hadtaken that royalty free song,
(02:23):
and they had recorded vocalsover it and then claimed it as
their own. Actually got acopyright for it. And so
suddenly I had, like, a dozen ofmy videos get copyright claimed
by this random account. And Iwas like, What is going on? I
dug into it and then found theoriginal song, and it's exactly
that. It's the song that's justmusic, and they recorded
(02:43):
something and got some companyto legitimize it. I immediately
panicked, because it's like,well, if this guy actually
pursues this, basically all ofmy content for the last four
years can now be demonetized,and he gets all the revenue for
this fraudulent copyright claim.
So I had to try to message theperson directly, which was
almost impossible. I tried tomessage the actual creator of
(03:06):
the royalty free song, which wasalmost impossible because they
had not been on YouTube for likesix years. And then had to try
to contact the company that wasactually holding this copyright
fraudulently, to try to get themto understand that they're going
to be in some legal troubleeventually, if this continues.
And so upon doing all that, Ihad a friend of mine that also
(03:27):
has a YouTube channel, XanderRaymond Charles, and I talk with
him a lot. He's a guitarist. Hewrites his own music and does a
lot of stuff. And I was like,dude, is there any way that you
can write record like a newintro outro for me. Like, take
your time, and it's not apriority. And this guy is so
awesome, I think it took like,30 minutes, which blows my mind,
because I, you know, I'm alittle bit musically inclined,
(03:51):
but nowhere near that where he'sjust like, how do you like this?
And it was just this fullyproduced track for an intro and
an outro, and I'm like, did youjust, like, have that waiting?
Like, I need to understand more.
But anyway, so he was awesome,and so I switched over to using
that just to kind of protectmyself for the future. And then
luckily, after about a month,this company dropped it,
(04:12):
because, I think they figuredout that it was fraudulent. But
yeah, that was the issue withthat. Whenever you YouTube is
extremely tricky when it comesto copyright, you'll get into a
lot of trouble with trailerfootage if you use too many
clips, if you use clips that aretoo long, like I used to use
like 1516 second clips, I'vesince gone down to trying to
make like seven to nine secondsmy maximum, and sometimes even
(04:35):
those get flagged. There arecertain movie studios that are
more strict on others, likeuniversal is notoriously brutal.
They will claim your entirevideo because you use six
seconds of footage, and it'ssupposed to be very cut and dry.
How you fight that with YouTube?
But it is anything but, andunfortunately, if you if you get
a copyright claim and youdispute it, they have 30 days
(04:57):
to. Look at it and decidewhether your dispute is legit or
not. The people that made theclaim so universal in this case,
not YouTube. If they decide thatthey're gonna withhold their
copyright claim and reject yourdispute, which is what they do
99% of the time, the only optionleft is for you to do an appeal.
And the consequence of an appealis that if you lose that you can
(05:19):
get a copyright strike on yourchannel, and if you get three of
those, your channel is deleted.
So most people don't go thatway, because they don't gonna.
They're not willing to risktheir channel, even if they're
in the right for something likethat. So copyright with that
stuff is very serious, and it'seven worse with music. You can
nine seconds with trailerfootage. You have, like, maybe
(05:40):
three seconds with music beforeit gets flagged.
Patrick Cadigan (05:43):
Wow, is do you think that's the same for video
games? And the reason that I askis that a lot of the kids that
we talk with, when they starttalking about YouTube channels
like it is because they theylove these games so much, and
they play them so often, andthey record and then they want
to post and do you think it'sthe same with video games?
Cody Leach (06:04):
It's really just with music. For my knowledge,
they can't copyright claim videogame footage because it's always
different. Nobody moves thecharacter the same exact way.
You know, I've never had a videoclaimed for anything like that.
So maybe the bigger YouTuberswould tell me that I'm I'm
misinformed, but I don't thinkyou can copyright claim video
game footage. It's just music.
So if they have a copyrightedsong that's in there, they're
(06:27):
starting to get it now, where,since streaming has become so
popular, there's oftentimes anoption inside of the video game
where you can turn offcopyrighted music and it'll
switch it for royalty freestuff. So like, Dead Rising just
came out with a remaster, andit's getting all these old
tracks that were put on thisgame back in 2008 that are
copyrighted. And so there's athey actually advertised that
(06:51):
they were like, if you're goingto stream this, make sure you
check this little box and ittakes all the music that we all
know and love from this game,from 2008 and switches it with
this generic stuff. But that'show you are able to stream it or
do anything like that, withoutyour video getting demonetized.
Patrick Cadigan (07:07):
Walking it back a little bit, but still along
the same lines, because again,you had commented earlier about,
you know, the type of channelthat you have created, and then
you have a little side project.
So as a content creator, how doyou figure out the content that
you are going to create? And doyou map it out? How do you
figure out what you want tomake?
Cody Leach (07:32):
So at the beginning of every single month, I map out
the next 30 days. I have a starlight calendar over here, which
I used to have just a dry eraseboard, but this is one that
actually syncs with my phone.
With my phone or skylight,excuse me not starlight. And so
at the beginning of the month, Ibasically pull up Wikipedia's
American movie release schedule,and I look at all the new
(07:53):
releases that I'm planning onwatching and covering, and I go
ahead and fill those in the dayafter I see them, you know,
movie title review. And then Ilook at which ones I'm going to
do other content. So if it'ssomething like a new Halloween
movie, okay, well, I'm going toreview that movie, then I'm
going to rank all the movies,then I'm going to rank all the
masks, or, you know, whateverI'm going to do, fill all of
(08:14):
those in. And then I look atsome of the things that maybe
like, just like for October thismonth. Obviously, I'm more
focused on on horror stuff. So Idid a video last week where I
ranked all of the iconic horrorweapons, like Freddy's glove
and, you know, the the chainsand hooks from hell raiser and
(08:34):
things like that, the chain sawfrom Texas Chainsaw. I'll try to
think of some idea for, like, afun, more ambitious video, and
stick it where I kind of have alittle bit more empty space, a
little bit more time to edit.
And although I've done aterrible job the last couple of
months because it's just been sobusy, something that I've done
over the last year and a half isI try to have at least one or
(08:55):
two reviews dedicated to, like,more hidden gems, smaller movies
or more under known movies andmore, under known movies that
people haven't heard of, becausethat's my favorite thing, is to
let somebody know that a movieexists that they've never heard
of before. Like a lot of thebigger ones we've already
everybody knows Halloween. So Idon't get a whole lot of
gratification telling somebodythat Halloween is awesome, but I
get all that filled out. Andthen if my month is already
(09:17):
pretty packed, then I stop. Ifthere's a lot of empty space,
then I just try to get creativeand think of some some cool
things that maybe I haven't donebefore. I also have a Patreon,
which is like a crowd fundingsource, where people that like
my channel can actually donatemoney, and I give them certain
perks. One of them is that everymonth we do like a a poll, where
everybody puts out ideas for avideo idea, I choose a few
(09:40):
favorites, and then I let themvote on which one is best. So I
usually do at least one do atleast one of those. And then I
also have sponsorships. So I'lllook at how many sponsorships I
already have lined up for thatmonth, and I'll figure out which
videos I want to put them on,because some sponsorships have
view guarantees, like they mightsay 30,000 minimum, otherwise
you have to do a second video.
Well, I. Want to put those on avideo I know is going to be more
(10:00):
successful, probably. So that'susually the last part of it is
trying to fit those in. And if Ihave a few left over that I need
to come up with an idea for.
Then I'll come up with a fewmore. But it just it starts with
the new releases and tricklesdown from there.
Patrick Cadigan (10:16):
Can you talk a little bit about analytics,
specifically, like YouTube'sanalytics, like how you track
your audience, is understandingYouTube, YouTube's algorithms,
their analytics, is thatimportant for someone who wants
to get into this?
Cody Leach (10:33):
I think it's important to an extent. I've
never really dove that deep intoit. Honestly, after looking at
so many numbers, my brain juststarts to just bleed it all
together, and it just doesn'tmake any sense to me, and I
don't know how much of it iseven controllable. So really,
the the main analytics that areimportant is, of course, your
views. And then the other one iswatch time, which is how much of
(10:54):
your video people watched beforethey clicked off. And if you
dive into watch time, you canactually see a little graph that
like where in the video peopleare most often dropping off.
You'll see this a lot when youhave a sponsorship, because
you'll see a lot of that. It'slike, before I get into the
review, let's talk about this,and you'll see this gigantic
drop and then they come backthree minutes later. So you'll
(11:16):
you can use that to figure outif there's a spot in the video
where you're rambling, or you'regetting into a subject that's
just not working for people, orwhatever. Sometimes it's
nonsense, but sometimes you canpinpoint and be like, Oh, as
soon as I brought this up, halfthe people left. So that's
valuable. And then, you know,you can get into your audience,
as far as, like, genderdemographics, where in different
(11:40):
countries. Like, your maindemographic is us, of course,
but then you can look and belike, Whoa, like, I'm I'm
killing it in Switzerland, youknow, you can see all these
crazy things that areinteresting, but I don't know, I
don't know how to utilize a lotof that information to really
guide the content. A whole lotviews, watch time. It tends to
be the biggest one for me. Andthen you can dive into a few
(12:00):
others that are more based oneach individual video revenue.
Is another one that's kind ofstrange too, because there's no
rule for revenue. There's somevideos where you'll make like $1
every 1000 views. There's somevideos where you'll make $9
every 1000 views. And I've neverreally been able to figure out
why, you know what, why thisvideo got more. This video got
(12:21):
less when they're the same week.
You know, different times of theyear makes sense. You know, you
have a lot of advertisingtowards the days and then
January through April. There'snot as much, but there's a lot
of randomization with that kindof stuff that I'm sure it's
valuable to know, but I, like Isaid, I don't know how to apply
it to anything useful for me.
Patrick Cadigan (12:42):
All of this discussion is around this
question that we are constantlyfielding when we're talking to
our students; is this a job, isthis something that you can do
full time?
Cody Leach (13:00):
It is, but there's a lot that goes into it. There's
first of all, a lot of work andtime that goes into it where
you're not making any money. Imean, I didn't even make my
first $100 check until ninemonths in, and that's after
putting 20 to 30 hours a weekinto it. So it's like working
(13:20):
for free for a long time, andnine months is actually pretty
good to finally start makingmoney. There's a lot of people
that do that for years and don'tsee a dime. So there's, there's
a lot that goes into it.
There's, of course, talent, youknow, that's one thing, and you
either have that or you don't.
There's the editing and thestyle of your video and how what
you do to stand out, which justgoes into trial and error, and
(13:43):
you having a lot ofunderstanding of what the
community that you're trying todive into looks like, not
copying too much off of otherpeople, but also not being so
different that you're kind of,you're not really tracking with
what people are watching. Andthen there is a bit of luck,
unfortunately, with the way thatYouTube works, like I know some
channels that make fantasticcontent. They make really good
(14:05):
thumbnails, they talk well, theyedit well, and for some reason,
they just never get traction.
And they come to me, and I'mjust like, I don't have an
answer for you. I don't know whyyou're doing everything that I
would tell you to do. Andthere's just some weirdness
there. Sometimes YouTube favorscertain channels or certain
videos, or for reasons that areunspecified. You know, there's a
(14:27):
lot of random in there. You'rejust like, with the analytics
and so, yes, it is an option fora career. I mean, I'm kind of
the living proof of that, but Iwould have told you a month
before I went full time that Iwas never going to go full time
because it was too much of arisk. It was only after things
just getting so bad and toxic atthis job where I was between a
(14:50):
rock and a hard place, and Ijust really did not want to go
out and start another job. Ididn't want to go start from
scratch with another company,and so I just kind of rolled the
dice, and that was at. After sixyears, five and a half, six
years of grinding with thatnever being in mind. And so it's
something that I would telleverybody, never put all your
(15:11):
eggs in that basket. You know,it's I would say, to try it out.
Start as a hobby. Don't start itfor the money. Don't start it
for fame. Don't start it for acareer. Those are all things way
down the line if you're ifyou're lucky enough to get there
and talented enough to getthere, but at first, you just
started as something fun to do.
Started as something to kind ofexperiment with and learn and
(15:34):
interact with people. And if youput the time and the work and
the energy into it that itrequires, and eventually it
builds to something where youhave that potential, then
awesome, but that's a raritythat that's that's not, it's not
guaranteed you could, you couldput three times as much time and
effort as I did into my channeland never get anywhere.
Patrick Cadigan (15:55):
One other thought that I had, because
there are a couple of differentchannels that I have paid
attention to and that I havebeen interested in. And this may
sound like kind of an oddquestion, but there is kind of a
dark side to YouTube, isn'tthere?
Cody Leach (16:07):
Oh yeah; oh yeah.
Patrick Cadigan (16:10):
They're like, especially when, again, when it
comes to content, contentcreation opinions, it just, it's
weird there. There's oneparticular channel that I'm
thinking of that recently, likeI ended up dropping it because I
just felt like the host, itdidn't seem like he enjoyed what
he was doing anymore. Like hewould post these videos and he
(16:31):
was just everything wasnegative, and it was, oh, yeah,
what that kind of went to thathe his videos were always really
good, kind of like what you weresaying, very polished, very on
point, and things like that. ButI know that just within that
content channel, that contentworld, there was a lot of
(16:52):
divisiveness about the thingsthat they were talking about.
And I do, I do feel like thatthat had an effect. And so it's
just something that I thinkabout when, in general, when I
think about the internet orYouTube or even social media,
because Meghan and I talkconstantly with families about
social media, we tout thebenefits of social media while
also recognizing the dark sideof it.
Cody Leach (17:14):
Absolutely; and there's a dark side in many
different forms. I mean, youhave the dark side of just the
content creators themselves,where there's plenty of channels
out there that thrive on hateand negativity, and I think a
lot of that comes from them justgoing off on one subject one day
and seeing that video take offand doing more of a business
(17:37):
decision, rather than a healthymental health decision, and
saying, I'm just going to dothat now. And so there's plenty
of channels I talk about all thetime where people like, how do
they succeed? How do they stilldoing that? Because the audience
wants to hear that. For somereason, you know, you'll have
channels that will talk aboutthe same movie that they hate,
or the same actress that theyhate, or whatever. For 25, 35,
(17:59):
45 videos, and all of them arejust taken off and taken off and
taken off. And I, like you said,they don't seem like they enjoy
it. I don't even think theybelieve it really. I don't think
they hate anything that much. Ithink it's just a matter of
like, well, this is what sells,so this is what I'm gonna stick
with. And that's soundsmiserable to me, like I have to
love what I'm doing, otherwise.
I don't know what the point islike. The benefit of being able
(18:22):
to do what I do is that I get towake up and do what I love every
single day, not that I just getto sit at home and turn on a
camera instead of going to clockin somewhere. So I don't get the
appeal of that. But then youalso have the dark side of the
audience, side, which is kind ofunavoidable. You know, the more
successful you get, the moreyou're going to be exposed to
it. And I don't care howcareful, how positive, how
across the board appeal you are,you're going to run into it at
(18:44):
some point. So that's anotherthing I always tell people
whenever they're asking if theyshould start YouTube. It's Can
you handle that? Because somepeople can't. It's just it's not
in their blood. If they read anegative comment about their
appearance, and it's going tohaunt them for a month. YouTube
is not for you, because at somepoint it's going to happen and
you'll be you'll be mortifiedsometimes about how bad it gets.
(19:07):
Luckily, it's not constant, andafter your while, you kind of
get a thick skin. You just, youknow, block or you ignore or
move on or whatever. But like,I've had spots where people say
some horrific stuff just becauseI liked a movie they didn't, or
vice versa, and it's just like,my god, like, I don't know what
I did earn that, but whatever.
(19:28):
And so it's, it's unfortunate,but it's out there. It's a piece
of it. Either have to be okaywith it, or just don't do it.
Because I don't, I don't knowhow to avoid it. I can tell you
that.
Patrick Cadigan (19:42):
Taking it more on like a positive note, you
really have thrown out quite abit, and there is a lot there to
think about tips, tricks thatyou haven't already talked
about, that you would pass on toboth students and or parents who
have kids who are interested inthis, like, what anything else?
Cody Leach (20:02):
Well, on the parent side of it, I would say, just to
encourage it, but keep them,keep them grounded with what I
said about not putting all ofthe eggs into that basket,
because I actually had my mywife's cousin messaged me. I
think this was like four yearsago or so, so it was before I
was doing full time, but hetexted me one day. He's like,
Hey, man, I need you to talk totalk to my kid and tell him that
YouTube isn't going to be acareer. And I was like, well,
(20:27):
kind of can be, but anyway, soit's about having that balance.
And I think my my journey fromwhere I went to college, tried
to work, and then did YouTubereally impacts how I talked to
my kids? Because my parents werevery much like military college
or life is over choose, and Idon't even know if that was the
case when I was growing up. It'scertainly not the case anymore,
(20:49):
where there's tons of differentavenues to make money and to
have a career, not even justYouTube, starting businesses in
general, either. There's noceilings. You can do whatever
you want, as long as you havethe ambition to do it. But
specifically with YouTube, it'slike I said, there's a lot of
luck involved. There's a lot oflearning. There's a lot of
mistakes that you'll make.
There's YouTube Trends. Youknow, YouTube changes all the
(21:09):
time. When I started, you couldget monetized immediately. And
after the first couple of yearsI was on YouTube, they changed
it where you have to have 1000subscribers and 4000 watch hours
before you even start to make acent. And that's a lot for some
people, 1000 subs and 4000 watchhours. Even more so is a lot of
time. And so there's a long,strenuous path to get to where
(21:34):
it's anywhere near resembling acareer path. So always just kind
of keep your kids as much asthey'll listen to you, which
usually isn't very much, keepthem grounded on that reality
while encouraging it. You know,as long as they're being healthy
with it and they're not online,you know, being the troll that I
was just talking about, thenit's all good. As far as tips
(21:54):
and tricks and stuff for thepeople who are interested in it,
really, it's, at first, I thinkit's totally fine to mimic a
channel that you love to anextent, kind of be like a cover
band YouTube channel for a bit,just at least until you learn
how YouTube works and you getthe flow of recording and
editing and posting andinteracting. But don't stick in
that phase for very long. I hada couple of channels that I very
(22:19):
much was taking inspiration fromwhen I first started. And I
think it was maybe three monthsin the first time I got one
comment that said, this guy is asuch and such rip off. I changed
everything. Changed thethumbnail style, I changed the
background, because I was thelast thing I wanted to succeed,
as with somebody else. And sothat's important. And then I
think it's just maintainingthat, doing it for the fun. You
(22:40):
know, I think that so manypeople start it because they're
like, I want to be a famousYouTuber that can have this as a
career, and that's their shortterm goal. And it's like, no,
that's the long term goal,really long term for most
people. So just do it to havefun and do it to figure things
out and play around with editingand decide what you want your
channel to be and figure outwhat you're actually good at,
(23:01):
because nobody really knowsuntil they do it for a while.
You know, I didn't know if whatwas going to be the secret sauce
in my channel, and so I thinkthat's the big thing, is just
have fun with it.
Patrick Cadigan (23:15):
And I will say that that will be a perfect
place to end the conversation,but Cody, I can't thank you
enough for...
Cody Leach (23:24):
Yeah, no problem.
Patrick Cadigan (23:25):
...taking the time out and for talking with
us. And I love it. I love it.
It's so interesting to listen toit, and especially, again, from
the from the creator standpoint,hearing all the different
avenues and the aspects of it.
And just because I remember whenwe first reached out the email
that was one of the things thatwe communicated was, you know,
(23:45):
very oftentimes when we'retalking to our students, it's
like, oh, I'm going to be aYouTuber. Oh, really, I'm going
to do that. Well, I'm going topost a video online. I'm going
to get a million subscribers,and everybody's going to love
me. And its like, well...
Meghan Smallwood (23:57):
There's a little, a little more to it than
that.
Cody Leach (23:59):
Yep, yeah. It's hard too, because they they all
follow a lot of people that, forsome reason, had that virality
to them where they just said theone thing on the street corner,
and now all of a sudden they'remillionaires. And that can
happen, but it's like winningthe lottery. Yeah. I mean, it's
like saying, what are you gonnado to grow up? I'm gonna be a
lottery winner.
Patrick Cadigan (24:17):
Perfect. Well, again, thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Meghan Smallwood (24:21):
Yes, definitely.
Patrick Cadigan (24:30):
You'll find all the links to the information
from our conversations in ourshow notes. We would love for
the information from this andall our other discussions to
reach as many families aspossible. And we need your help
to do that. You can find ourconversations at WWW dot p2
transition.com like, follow andshare out the podcast. Our
(24:51):
conversations are posted to allthe major platforms, including
Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTubemusic, and that's just naming a
few. So please share. Share andshare often.
Meghan Smallwood (25:02):
Please also check out our YouTube channel.
Now that we've done some of theleg work for you by curating
videos of topics that revolvearound transition, we have
playlists for guardianship,alternatives to guardianship
ABLE accounts, and there's moreto come. So please be sure to
subscribe there as well. Andthen finally, check out our
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resources around the transitionprocess. So open your web
(25:25):
browser of choice and surf towww.postsecondarytransition.com
and we thank you so much for thetime you spent with us, and look
forward to talking again soon.
Patrick, welcome. This is the Post
(00:02):
Secondary Transition podcastwhere we have conversations
around the ins and outs andeverything in between of the
transition process for familiesof students with disabilities.
I'm one of the hosts. My name isPatrick Cadigan, and I am a
public school transitioncoordinator. As always, I have a
co host, and who would that be?
Meghan Smallwood (00:19):
I am Meghan Smallwood, and I am also a
public school transitioncoordinator.
Patrick Cadigan (00:23):
Setup
and I have the chance to chatwith students and ask them about
their dreams. Guess what? A lotof them want to be. YouTubers.
Make videos about theirpassions. Could be video games,
video game, walk throughs, tips,tricks. They just want to be on
(00:44):
YouTube, post those and becomean online sensation. Meghan and
I thought we need to talk tosomebody who's actually doing
this, and that's how we met,Cody Leach. Cody is a YouTuber
who reviews and comments onhorror movies. He's doing really
well for himself right now. He'sbeen on the platform for a few
(01:06):
years, and he has continued togrow. When we posted part one of
our discussion two weeks ago, hewas hovering around 175,000
subscribers. Today, he iscomfortably at 176,000
subscribers. So again, he knowswhat he's talking about. Now
let's finish our conversationwith Cody paralleling what we're
(01:30):
talking about, but still alittle bit different. And
because again, I'm thinkingabout the students when I talk
with them and they talk aboutcreating content, I remember
that at one point when you havethe introductions to your
videos, you have always hadmusic, but at one point, you
found yourself in a situationwhere someone came in and said,
(01:51):
the music that you were usingwas not yours or whatever, and
you had to change. Why was thata big deal?
Cody Leach (02:00):
So what happened with that was I had used a
royalty free song. And for thosethat don't know, royalty free
means there's no copyright. It'sfree for everybody to use.
There's no legal bindinganything. It's just out there.
And so I was using this song foryears in my intro. And then what
had happened was somebody hadtaken that royalty free song,
(02:23):
and they had recorded vocalsover it and then claimed it as
their own. Actually got acopyright for it. And so
suddenly I had, like, a dozen ofmy videos get copyright claimed
by this random account. And Iwas like, What is going on? I
dug into it and then found theoriginal song, and it's exactly
that. It's the song that's justmusic, and they recorded
(02:43):
something and got some companyto legitimize it. I immediately
panicked, because it's like,well, if this guy actually
pursues this, basically all ofmy content for the last four
years can now be demonetized,and he gets all the revenue for
this fraudulent copyright claim.
So I had to try to message theperson directly, which was
almost impossible. I tried tomessage the actual creator of
(03:06):
the royalty free song, which wasalmost impossible because they
had not been on YouTube for likesix years. And then had to try
to contact the company that wasactually holding this copyright
fraudulently, to try to get themto understand that they're going
to be in some legal troubleeventually, if this continues.
And so upon doing all that, Ihad a friend of mine that also
(03:27):
has a YouTube channel, XanderRaymond Charles, and I talk with
him a lot. He's a guitarist. Hewrites his own music and does a
lot of stuff. And I was like,dude, is there any way that you
can write record like a newintro outro for me. Like, take
your time, and it's not apriority. And this guy is so
awesome, I think it took like,30 minutes, which blows my mind,
because I, you know, I'm alittle bit musically inclined,
(03:51):
but nowhere near that where he'sjust like, how do you like this?
And it was just this fullyproduced track for an intro and
an outro, and I'm like, did youjust, like, have that waiting?
Like, I need to understand more.
But anyway, so he was awesome,and so I switched over to using
that just to kind of protectmyself for the future. And then
luckily, after about a month,this company dropped it,
(04:12):
because, I think they figuredout that it was fraudulent. But
yeah, that was the issue withthat. Whenever you YouTube is
extremely tricky when it comesto copyright, you'll get into a
lot of trouble with trailerfootage if you use too many
clips, if you use clips that aretoo long, like I used to use
like 1516 second clips, I'vesince gone down to trying to
make like seven to nine secondsmy maximum, and sometimes even
(04:35):
those get flagged. There arecertain movie studios that are
more strict on others, likeuniversal is notoriously brutal.
They will claim your entirevideo because you use six
seconds of footage, and it'ssupposed to be very cut and dry.
How you fight that with YouTube?
But it is anything but, andunfortunately, if you if you get
a copyright claim and youdispute it, they have 30 days
(04:57):
to. Look at it and decidewhether your dispute is legit or
not. The people that made theclaim so universal in this case,
not YouTube. If they decide thatthey're gonna withhold their
copyright claim and reject yourdispute, which is what they do
99% of the time, the only optionleft is for you to do an appeal.
And the consequence of an appealis that if you lose that you can
(05:19):
get a copyright strike on yourchannel, and if you get three of
those, your channel is deleted.
So most people don't go thatway, because they don't gonna.
They're not willing to risktheir channel, even if they're
in the right for something likethat. So copyright with that
stuff is very serious, and it'seven worse with music. You can
nine seconds with trailerfootage. You have, like, maybe
(05:40):
three seconds with music beforeit gets flagged.
Patrick Cadigan (05:43):
Wow, is do you think that's the same for video
games? And the reason that I askis that a lot of the kids that
we talk with, when they starttalking about YouTube channels
like it is because they theylove these games so much, and
they play them so often, andthey record and then they want
to post and do you think it'sthe same with video games?
Cody Leach (06:04):
It's really just with music. For my knowledge,
they can't copyright claim videogame footage because it's always
different. Nobody moves thecharacter the same exact way.
You know, I've never had a videoclaimed for anything like that.
So maybe the bigger YouTuberswould tell me that I'm I'm
misinformed, but I don't thinkyou can copyright claim video
game footage. It's just music.
So if they have a copyrightedsong that's in there, they're
(06:27):
starting to get it now, where,since streaming has become so
popular, there's oftentimes anoption inside of the video game
where you can turn offcopyrighted music and it'll
switch it for royalty freestuff. So like, Dead Rising just
came out with a remaster, andit's getting all these old
tracks that were put on thisgame back in 2008 that are
copyrighted. And so there's athey actually advertised that
(06:51):
they were like, if you're goingto stream this, make sure you
check this little box and ittakes all the music that we all
know and love from this game,from 2008 and switches it with
this generic stuff. But that'show you are able to stream it or
do anything like that, withoutyour video getting demonetized.
Patrick Cadigan (07:07):
Walking it back a little bit, but still along
the same lines, because again,you had commented earlier about,
you know, the type of channelthat you have created, and then
you have a little side project.
So as a content creator, how doyou figure out the content that
you are going to create? And doyou map it out? How do you
figure out what you want tomake?
Cody Leach (07:32):
So at the beginning of every single month, I map out
the next 30 days. I have a starlight calendar over here, which
I used to have just a dry eraseboard, but this is one that
actually syncs with my phone.
With my phone or skylight,excuse me not starlight. And so
at the beginning of the month, Ibasically pull up Wikipedia's
American movie release schedule,and I look at all the new
(07:53):
releases that I'm planning onwatching and covering, and I go
ahead and fill those in the dayafter I see them, you know,
movie title review. And then Ilook at which ones I'm going to
do other content. So if it'ssomething like a new Halloween
movie, okay, well, I'm going toreview that movie, then I'm
going to rank all the movies,then I'm going to rank all the
masks, or, you know, whateverI'm going to do, fill all of
(08:14):
those in. And then I look atsome of the things that maybe
like, just like for October thismonth. Obviously, I'm more
focused on on horror stuff. So Idid a video last week where I
ranked all of the iconic horrorweapons, like Freddy's glove
and, you know, the the chainsand hooks from hell raiser and
(08:34):
things like that, the chain sawfrom Texas Chainsaw. I'll try to
think of some idea for, like, afun, more ambitious video, and
stick it where I kind of have alittle bit more empty space, a
little bit more time to edit.
And although I've done aterrible job the last couple of
months because it's just been sobusy, something that I've done
over the last year and a half isI try to have at least one or
(08:55):
two reviews dedicated to, like,more hidden gems, smaller movies
or more under known movies andmore, under known movies that
people haven't heard of, becausethat's my favorite thing, is to
let somebody know that a movieexists that they've never heard
of before. Like a lot of thebigger ones we've already
everybody knows Halloween. So Idon't get a whole lot of
gratification telling somebodythat Halloween is awesome, but I
get all that filled out. Andthen if my month is already
(09:17):
pretty packed, then I stop. Ifthere's a lot of empty space,
then I just try to get creativeand think of some some cool
things that maybe I haven't donebefore. I also have a Patreon,
which is like a crowd fundingsource, where people that like
my channel can actually donatemoney, and I give them certain
perks. One of them is that everymonth we do like a a poll, where
everybody puts out ideas for avideo idea, I choose a few
(09:40):
favorites, and then I let themvote on which one is best. So I
usually do at least one do atleast one of those. And then I
also have sponsorships. So I'lllook at how many sponsorships I
already have lined up for thatmonth, and I'll figure out which
videos I want to put them on,because some sponsorships have
view guarantees, like they mightsay 30,000 minimum, otherwise
you have to do a second video.
Well, I. Want to put those on avideo I know is going to be more
(10:00):
successful, probably. So that'susually the last part of it is
trying to fit those in. And if Ihave a few left over that I need
to come up with an idea for.
Then I'll come up with a fewmore. But it just it starts with
the new releases and tricklesdown from there.
Patrick Cadigan (10:16):
Can you talk a little bit about analytics,
specifically, like YouTube'sanalytics, like how you track
your audience, is understandingYouTube, YouTube's algorithms,
their analytics, is thatimportant for someone who wants
to get into this?
Cody Leach (10:33):
I think it's important to an extent. I've
never really dove that deep intoit. Honestly, after looking at
so many numbers, my brain juststarts to just bleed it all
together, and it just doesn'tmake any sense to me, and I
don't know how much of it iseven controllable. So really,
the the main analytics that areimportant is, of course, your
views. And then the other one iswatch time, which is how much of
(10:54):
your video people watched beforethey clicked off. And if you
dive into watch time, you canactually see a little graph that
like where in the video peopleare most often dropping off.
You'll see this a lot when youhave a sponsorship, because
you'll see a lot of that. It'slike, before I get into the
review, let's talk about this,and you'll see this gigantic
drop and then they come backthree minutes later. So you'll
(11:16):
you can use that to figure outif there's a spot in the video
where you're rambling, or you'regetting into a subject that's
just not working for people, orwhatever. Sometimes it's
nonsense, but sometimes you canpinpoint and be like, Oh, as
soon as I brought this up, halfthe people left. So that's
valuable. And then, you know,you can get into your audience,
as far as, like, genderdemographics, where in different
(11:40):
countries. Like, your maindemographic is us, of course,
but then you can look and belike, Whoa, like, I'm I'm
killing it in Switzerland, youknow, you can see all these
crazy things that areinteresting, but I don't know, I
don't know how to utilize a lotof that information to really
guide the content. A whole lotviews, watch time. It tends to
be the biggest one for me. Andthen you can dive into a few
(12:00):
others that are more based oneach individual video revenue.
Is another one that's kind ofstrange too, because there's no
rule for revenue. There's somevideos where you'll make like $1
every 1000 views. There's somevideos where you'll make $9
every 1000 views. And I've neverreally been able to figure out
why, you know what, why thisvideo got more. This video got
(12:21):
less when they're the same week.
You know, different times of theyear makes sense. You know, you
have a lot of advertisingtowards the days and then
January through April. There'snot as much, but there's a lot
of randomization with that kindof stuff that I'm sure it's
valuable to know, but I, like Isaid, I don't know how to apply
it to anything useful for me.
Patrick Cadigan (12:42):
All of this discussion is around this
question that we are constantlyfielding when we're talking to
our students; is this a job, isthis something that you can do
full time?
Cody Leach (13:00):
It is, but there's a lot that goes into it. There's
first of all, a lot of work andtime that goes into it where
you're not making any money. Imean, I didn't even make my
first $100 check until ninemonths in, and that's after
putting 20 to 30 hours a weekinto it. So it's like working
(13:20):
for free for a long time, andnine months is actually pretty
good to finally start makingmoney. There's a lot of people
that do that for years and don'tsee a dime. So there's, there's
a lot that goes into it.
There's, of course, talent, youknow, that's one thing, and you
either have that or you don't.
There's the editing and thestyle of your video and how what
you do to stand out, which justgoes into trial and error, and
(13:43):
you having a lot ofunderstanding of what the
community that you're trying todive into looks like, not
copying too much off of otherpeople, but also not being so
different that you're kind of,you're not really tracking with
what people are watching. Andthen there is a bit of luck,
unfortunately, with the way thatYouTube works, like I know some
channels that make fantasticcontent. They make really good
(14:05):
thumbnails, they talk well, theyedit well, and for some reason,
they just never get traction.
And they come to me, and I'mjust like, I don't have an
answer for you. I don't know whyyou're doing everything that I
would tell you to do. Andthere's just some weirdness
there. Sometimes YouTube favorscertain channels or certain
videos, or for reasons that areunspecified. You know, there's a
(14:27):
lot of random in there. You'rejust like, with the analytics
and so, yes, it is an option fora career. I mean, I'm kind of
the living proof of that, but Iwould have told you a month
before I went full time that Iwas never going to go full time
because it was too much of arisk. It was only after things
just getting so bad and toxic atthis job where I was between a
(14:50):
rock and a hard place, and Ijust really did not want to go
out and start another job. Ididn't want to go start from
scratch with another company,and so I just kind of rolled the
dice, and that was at. After sixyears, five and a half, six
years of grinding with thatnever being in mind. And so it's
something that I would telleverybody, never put all your
(15:11):
eggs in that basket. You know,it's I would say, to try it out.
Start as a hobby. Don't start itfor the money. Don't start it
for fame. Don't start it for acareer. Those are all things way
down the line if you're ifyou're lucky enough to get there
and talented enough to getthere, but at first, you just
started as something fun to do.
Started as something to kind ofexperiment with and learn and
(15:34):
interact with people. And if youput the time and the work and
the energy into it that itrequires, and eventually it
builds to something where youhave that potential, then
awesome, but that's a raritythat that's that's not, it's not
guaranteed you could, you couldput three times as much time and
effort as I did into my channeland never get anywhere.
Patrick Cadigan (15:55):
One other thought that I had, because
there are a couple of differentchannels that I have paid
attention to and that I havebeen interested in. And this may
sound like kind of an oddquestion, but there is kind of a
dark side to YouTube, isn'tthere?
Cody Leach (16:07):
Oh yeah; oh yeah.
Patrick Cadigan (16:10):
They're like, especially when, again, when it
comes to content, contentcreation opinions, it just, it's
weird there. There's oneparticular channel that I'm
thinking of that recently, likeI ended up dropping it because I
just felt like the host, itdidn't seem like he enjoyed what
he was doing anymore. Like hewould post these videos and he
(16:31):
was just everything wasnegative, and it was, oh, yeah,
what that kind of went to thathe his videos were always really
good, kind of like what you weresaying, very polished, very on
point, and things like that. ButI know that just within that
content channel, that contentworld, there was a lot of
(16:52):
divisiveness about the thingsthat they were talking about.
And I do, I do feel like thatthat had an effect. And so it's
just something that I thinkabout when, in general, when I
think about the internet orYouTube or even social media,
because Meghan and I talkconstantly with families about
social media, we tout thebenefits of social media while
also recognizing the dark sideof it.
Cody Leach (17:14):
Absolutely; and there's a dark side in many
different forms. I mean, youhave the dark side of just the
content creators themselves,where there's plenty of channels
out there that thrive on hateand negativity, and I think a
lot of that comes from them justgoing off on one subject one day
and seeing that video take offand doing more of a business
(17:37):
decision, rather than a healthymental health decision, and
saying, I'm just going to dothat now. And so there's plenty
of channels I talk about all thetime where people like, how do
they succeed? How do they stilldoing that? Because the audience
wants to hear that. For somereason, you know, you'll have
channels that will talk aboutthe same movie that they hate,
or the same actress that theyhate, or whatever. For 25, 35,
(17:59):
45 videos, and all of them arejust taken off and taken off and
taken off. And I, like you said,they don't seem like they enjoy
it. I don't even think theybelieve it really. I don't think
they hate anything that much. Ithink it's just a matter of
like, well, this is what sells,so this is what I'm gonna stick
with. And that's soundsmiserable to me, like I have to
love what I'm doing, otherwise.
I don't know what the point islike. The benefit of being able
(18:22):
to do what I do is that I get towake up and do what I love every
single day, not that I just getto sit at home and turn on a
camera instead of going to clockin somewhere. So I don't get the
appeal of that. But then youalso have the dark side of the
audience, side, which is kind ofunavoidable. You know, the more
successful you get, the moreyou're going to be exposed to
it. And I don't care howcareful, how positive, how
across the board appeal you are,you're going to run into it at
(18:44):
some point. So that's anotherthing I always tell people
whenever they're asking if theyshould start YouTube. It's Can
you handle that? Because somepeople can't. It's just it's not
in their blood. If they read anegative comment about their
appearance, and it's going tohaunt them for a month. YouTube
is not for you, because at somepoint it's going to happen and
you'll be you'll be mortifiedsometimes about how bad it gets.
(19:07):
Luckily, it's not constant, andafter your while, you kind of
get a thick skin. You just, youknow, block or you ignore or
move on or whatever. But like,I've had spots where people say
some horrific stuff just becauseI liked a movie they didn't, or
vice versa, and it's just like,my god, like, I don't know what
I did earn that, but whatever.
(19:28):
And so it's, it's unfortunate,but it's out there. It's a piece
of it. Either have to be okaywith it, or just don't do it.
Because I don't, I don't knowhow to avoid it. I can tell you
that.
Patrick Cadigan (19:42):
Taking it more on like a positive note, you
really have thrown out quite abit, and there is a lot there to
think about tips, tricks thatyou haven't already talked
about, that you would pass on toboth students and or parents who
have kids who are interested inthis, like, what anything else?
Cody Leach (20:02):
Well, on the parent side of it, I would say, just to
encourage it, but keep them,keep them grounded with what I
said about not putting all ofthe eggs into that basket,
because I actually had my mywife's cousin messaged me. I
think this was like four yearsago or so, so it was before I
was doing full time, but hetexted me one day. He's like,
Hey, man, I need you to talk totalk to my kid and tell him that
YouTube isn't going to be acareer. And I was like, well,
(20:27):
kind of can be, but anyway, soit's about having that balance.
And I think my my journey fromwhere I went to college, tried
to work, and then did YouTubereally impacts how I talked to
my kids? Because my parents werevery much like military college
or life is over choose, and Idon't even know if that was the
case when I was growing up. It'scertainly not the case anymore,
(20:49):
where there's tons of differentavenues to make money and to
have a career, not even justYouTube, starting businesses in
general, either. There's noceilings. You can do whatever
you want, as long as you havethe ambition to do it. But
specifically with YouTube, it'slike I said, there's a lot of
luck involved. There's a lot oflearning. There's a lot of
mistakes that you'll make.
There's YouTube Trends. Youknow, YouTube changes all the
(21:09):
time. When I started, you couldget monetized immediately. And
after the first couple of yearsI was on YouTube, they changed
it where you have to have 1000subscribers and 4000 watch hours
before you even start to make acent. And that's a lot for some
people, 1000 subs and 4000 watchhours. Even more so is a lot of
time. And so there's a long,strenuous path to get to where
(21:34):
it's anywhere near resembling acareer path. So always just kind
of keep your kids as much asthey'll listen to you, which
usually isn't very much, keepthem grounded on that reality
while encouraging it. You know,as long as they're being healthy
with it and they're not online,you know, being the troll that I
was just talking about, thenit's all good. As far as tips
(21:54):
and tricks and stuff for thepeople who are interested in it,
really, it's, at first, I thinkit's totally fine to mimic a
channel that you love to anextent, kind of be like a cover
band YouTube channel for a bit,just at least until you learn
how YouTube works and you getthe flow of recording and
editing and posting andinteracting. But don't stick in
that phase for very long. I hada couple of channels that I very
(22:19):
much was taking inspiration fromwhen I first started. And I
think it was maybe three monthsin the first time I got one
comment that said, this guy is asuch and such rip off. I changed
everything. Changed thethumbnail style, I changed the
background, because I was thelast thing I wanted to succeed,
as with somebody else. And sothat's important. And then I
think it's just maintainingthat, doing it for the fun. You
(22:40):
know, I think that so manypeople start it because they're
like, I want to be a famousYouTuber that can have this as a
career, and that's their shortterm goal. And it's like, no,
that's the long term goal,really long term for most
people. So just do it to havefun and do it to figure things
out and play around with editingand decide what you want your
channel to be and figure outwhat you're actually good at,
(23:01):
because nobody really knowsuntil they do it for a while.
You know, I didn't know if whatwas going to be the secret sauce
in my channel, and so I thinkthat's the big thing, is just
have fun with it.
Patrick Cadigan (23:15):
And I will say that that will be a perfect
place to end the conversation,but Cody, I can't thank you
enough for...
Cody Leach (23:24):
Yeah, no problem.
Patrick Cadigan (23:25):
...taking the time out and for talking with
us. And I love it. I love it.
It's so interesting to listen toit, and especially, again, from
the from the creator standpoint,hearing all the different
avenues and the aspects of it.
And just because I remember whenwe first reached out the email
that was one of the things thatwe communicated was, you know,
(23:45):
very oftentimes when we'retalking to our students, it's
like, oh, I'm going to be aYouTuber. Oh, really, I'm going
to do that. Well, I'm going topost a video online. I'm going
to get a million subscribers,and everybody's going to love
me. And its like, well...
Meghan Smallwood (23:57):
There's a little, a little more to it than
that.
Cody Leach (23:59):
Yep, yeah. It's hard too, because they they all
follow a lot of people that, forsome reason, had that virality
to them where they just said theone thing on the street corner,
and now all of a sudden they'remillionaires. And that can
happen, but it's like winningthe lottery. Yeah. I mean, it's
like saying, what are you gonnado to grow up? I'm gonna be a
lottery winner.
Patrick Cadigan (24:17):
Perfect. Well, again, thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Meghan Smallwood (24:21):
Yes, definitely.
Patrick Cadigan (24:30):
You'll find all the links to the information
from our conversations in ourshow notes. We would love for
the information from this andall our other discussions to
reach as many families aspossible. And we need your help
to do that. You can find ourconversations at WWW dot p2
transition.com like, follow andshare out the podcast. Our
(24:51):
conversations are posted to allthe major platforms, including
Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTubemusic, and that's just naming a
few. So please share. Share andshare often.
Meghan Smallwood (25:02):
Please also check out our YouTube channel.
Now that we've done some of theleg work for you by curating
videos of topics that revolvearound transition, we have
playlists for guardianship,alternatives to guardianship
ABLE accounts, and there's moreto come. So please be sure to
subscribe there as well. Andthen finally, check out our
website, which is full ofinformation and links to
resources around the transitionprocess. So open your web
(25:25):
browser of choice and surf towww.postsecondarytransition.com
and we thank you so much for thetime you spent with us, and look
forward to talking again soon.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.