The hidden beating heart of internet entertainment, YouTube’s young editors

Ron Lach via pexels

In the UK, more children dream of being a YouTuber then any other job. However, what these young dreamers don’t know is that in order to achieve the success scene by their idols it takes much more than just a computer and a camera. The backbone of many YouTube careers hinges on the people whose face doesn’t make it to camera. The timing, the graphics and the videos polished outcome all depend on editors. What’s more, these unseen heroes often turn out to be just as young as the on screen personality that they work for. So where has this legion of upstart editors arrived from? What pushes them to keep at this line of work? And how does all of this affect their life as young teens?

To start with, we should establish what gets these teens to pursue the art of editing. 18 year old Danial Boules, the editor for the YouTube channel Imalexx which has garnered over 340 million views, told us “I got into editing because I thought it’d be cool to make a video essay about the roaring 20s for an English project in secondary” going on further to tell us how his experience creating this gave him “passion and love for the artform”.

18 year old Dilan Sharif, who has edited for YouTube juggernaut Niko Omilana who has amassed over 600 million views, said that his passion was ignited after he was just having fun saying “I made my first ever edit of a fight that happened in my school” telling us that “I really enjoyed making it so I stuck with it”. What both of them made clear was that editing was never a dream they had planned on pursuing, but something they found a passion for and pursued out of their own enjoyment.

But does this job limit their opportunities for the future? It would be a large concern amongst any parent that taking on a career at such a young age could stunt the educational growth of a teen.

Despite this, both editors said they were able to continue with their education making it to a university level. Dilan Sharif did tell us however that “due to Y13 and aspirations to attend LSE or UCL I decided to cut down on the editing” showing that it is important for them to know what to prioritise as the work can get in the way of their education if not managed properly.

Though this isn’t the only problem that faces young people in the industry, while there is of course the chance for educational growth to be stunted it should also be taken into account that the social aspects of a teens life may also suffer.

Once again both our editors agreed, though this time in saying that the job did have an effect on their lives outside with Mr Boules saying “The job absolutely gets in the way of my social life as a young adult, my entire first year of university I didn’t go on one night out, I didn’t partake in fresher’s week, I was completely hellbent on reaching a point where I could be financially stable doing what I love as soon as possible. Even now that I am at that point, Alex tries to upload daily and so I’m working every day”. 

this is of course a massive worry for any parent whose child might be getting into the scene as in a time where teenagers are already the loneliest they’ve ever been it is important to try and fester a connection between young adults instead of finding ways in which they can stunt their social life. Mr sharif also said “if you want to make it, you really need to be willing to sacrifice a lot of relationships and shut yourself in for a while” which would definitely be a worrying thought to any parent whose child has taken an interest in the career.

However, one thing that is clear is that the job is a fairly underground part of the YouTubing sphere and definitely not one that has a great amount of light shone on it. Despite this, when asked if the lack of recognition bothered him Imalexx editor Daniel Boules said “I honestly don’t think recognition matters, I’ve honestly never thought about it before”  emphasising that he took the job not out of needing to be appreciated but more so because of his enjoyment of it.

Mr sharif though did tell us how the lack of support from his parents made it challenging for him and that their discouragement of him greatly harmed his will to continue with his passion saying “I always had my parents and older people who are more familiar with the old job market judge me for doing something like video editing as they never really understood the point” and then adding “I would go full time but my parents are against it”

The former Niko Omilana editor also told us just how hard editing is, saying “When I started editing for clients I was really inefficient. For example this guy wanted a minecraft edit done for his channel and he was going to pay me $7. I spent 2 days in a row slaving away to get it done and it really took a toll on me” going on to also talk about how the pay was also very low when he began but he had to push through it as he wanted to build his portfolio.

A solution to the problem of this difficulty may already be on its way to being available, however that same solution could put an end to the job entirely. Daniel informed us of his belief that AI will soon replace most editors. With artificial intelligence predicted to take 85 million jobs worldwide by the year 2025, Mr Boules believes editing may be one of them saying “there’s far less need for lower-level editors, because simple stuff will soon be done with AI in my opinion” also believing that this will lead to a lack of popularity in what is already a fairly niche job.

However despite all the trials and tribulations that come with being a young editor, both gave a resounding yes when asked about whether they want to pursue the career in the future. Daniel told us “I absolutely want to pursue this career for as long as I can” adding “I don’t see myself doing anything unrelated to this business for the far foreseeable future”

Dilan Sharif said “I want to go into video editing and see if I can make it full time” although did stay somewhat sceptical saying “I have a lot of options from editing to taking over my mum's accounting firm to doing a paid internship before uni, so I’ll see how things go”.

What’s clear however is that both young editors have found a passion that pays, and its popularity only seems to grow as the internet industry continues to open new opportunities for young people to make their way in the world, and with the help of their guardians they will be able to explore these to the fullest extent.