Interview with the Maltese YouTuber Grandayy - 1 Million Subscribers!

For those who've been paying close attention to our Facebook page, we recently shared the phenomenal achievement which Dr. Grandayy arrived at; a Maltese YouTuber that hit 1,000,000 subscribers this week! Following this milestone, we decided to reach out to him for an interview, so that we may gain insight into his personal life, career and anything we can learn about the anonymous Dr. Grandayy. Keeping his name private, which is incredibly respectful, we interviewed the most successful Maltese YouTuber below. 

1.) We’re sure that you’re aware of the fact that you’ve reached 1,000,000 subscribers on YouTube; congratulations! Let’s start off with this two-part question – 3 years ago, when you published your first comedic video, did you ever imagine reaching this milestone? How does it feel to be the most successful Maltese YouTuber?

No, I never assumed my channel would get this big. I would just make memes for the fun of it at first but people kept watching and subscribing. It’s awesome being the most successful Maltese YouTuber, and also pretty funny that the biggest Maltese online content creator is a meme maker. (Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NxM-AL18lU)

2.) From you’re special video, dedicated to the milestone, it’s clear that you’re beloved by the global YouTube community. With this in mind, have you ever thought of being a YouTuber full time?

It was amazing getting some of the biggest Youtubers in the world, including Vsauce, iDubbbz, Jacksepticeye, and Jacksfilms, to participate in my 1 million subs special. I honestly didn’t expect most of them to agree to do so, but they happily accepted, and I really appreciate it. The Youtube community is truly amazing. Regarding your question I’m already a full-time Youtuber and have been for almost a year now.

3.) Dr. Grandayy; you’ve made it clear that you’d like to keep your name confidential. What can you tell us about your personal life as a Maltese person? Also, are you an actual practicing doctor? If so, what field do you specialize in?

As I already mentioned I work on memes full time as funny as it may sound. My personal life is mostly memes(lol). I finished my medical studies and got my medical degree last year, but never actually started work as a doctor, as I chose to focus fully on Youtube instead, at least for the time being. Although most people may find that a pretty stupid decision, I honestly love working on memes and if I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to make it my full-time job I’m not gonna throw it away. I’ve always loved messing around on the computer so my main hobbies are also computer-related: video games and a bit of digital music production.

4.)  There’s no way around it; your success is based on the fact that you’ve got a fantastic sense of humour. What or who would you say inspires you to create such hilarious videos?

I’m not so sure myself, it’s mainly the memes that I see all over the internet. If there’s a meme that’s currently very popular I’ll be thinking of what memes of my own I can make with it. I get ideas and inspiration from other meme creators like Dolan Dark, Cyranek and Flying Kitty too. I’ve always loved memes and the stupid humour that they consist of though. I remember browsing memes for my personal enjoyment over 10 years ago, when they were much less popular among the general population.

5.) The memes which you produce aren’t the lengthiest videos, but they have an astounding amount of work behind them. If you could, please describe the process of how you create your videos.

Mostly I first get an idea based on what memes are currently relevant, and then I start the editing process on my editing software (I mainly use Vegas Pro for video and FL Studio for music editing). Some meme ideas are very simple and require minimal editing time, while others, especially the musical memes, are very complex and require hours upon hours of editing. But in the end, the more complex memes are usually the most loved so it’s still worth it.

6.) Us being Gamers.com.mt, it’s only natural that we turn to gaming in one of the questions. Would you consider yourself a gamer? Give us a few examples of titles which you love playing, specifying the platform. Are you interested in any esports?

Gaming is one of my biggest hobbies so I’m definitely a gamer. For those that didn’t know, my Youtube journey primarily started with me making note block songs in Minecraft, on my older channel grande1899. So Minecraft still holds a special place in my heart. Also, one of the first games I spent countless hours on, and the first game I ever made a Youtube video with back in 2007, was Runescape, so that’s another game I easily get nostalgic about. But apart from that, The Witcher 3 is my all time favourite game (and in fact, it’s quite a popular inside joke for my channel too – even my avatar is Geralt of Rivia with a note block as his head). Story-driven games are my favorite types of games. I’m mainly a PC gamer as I’ve always been a PC enthusiast and I like how with a PC you can customize hardware and game settings however you like, but I have to admit that some of the best story games are Sony exclusives, so I love my PS4 too. Some other games that I really love are The Last Of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, and Detroit Become Human and all other David Cage games. And then some other franchises I love are Assassins Creed, Tomb Raider, GTA, and pretty much all Valve games (at least when they still made games). Multiplayer-wise Rocket League is probably my favorite, and I love me some Fifa too.

7.) Has the Adpocalypse on YouTube affected your three channels in any way?

Yes, the adpocalypse was a pretty hard blow for almost all Youtubers. Not only did revenue go down by around half suddenly, but videos were getting randomly deemed as non-advertiser friendly, and therefore demonetized, by an AI system which was, and still is, pretty terrible at its job. And for the first five months or so there wasn’t even any way to appeal the AI’s decision so that an actual human being could review it. Now there is an appeal system in place so it’s gotten better, although it takes around 24 hours to for a human to review an appeal so it’s still not perfectly ideal, especially when most of the views a video usually gets is in the first 24 hours.

8.) We’re only halfway through 2018; what are your goals for the rest of the year in terms of content creation?

Honestly I never really make any goals, except to keep making memes on a regular basis. I don’t have any subscriber number goal that I want to reach before the end of the year or anything like that for example, I’ll just keep trying to grow as much as I can.

9.) YouTube is a tough place to thrive as a content creator. What advice do you have, as the most regarded Maltese personality on the platform, for any other Maltese creators trying to find their path on the site?

My main advice for Youtube has always been to only make content that you enjoy making. Especially when you’re small, your primary reason for making a video should be that you’re having fun making it, and not to make money or become Youtube famous. Unfortunately making it big on Youtube is not easy, but if you enjoy making videos, even if you barely get any views, the outcome is still a positive one. Obviously, making videos about current trends or popular topics, or finding a niche that not many people are making videos about, will definitely increase your chances of getting views, but I think in the end it’s regular content that you love making that is most likely to get people to subscribe to your channel.

10.) We’ll conclude with a serious question. What happens if Dolan Dark is appointed the Meme Force Lord General instead of you? What hope is left? Would that be the end of Dr. Grandayy?

Dolan Dark being appointed as Meme Force Lord General would be disastrous for the entire meme community. A person, or duck, with a history of numerous meme theft scandals cannot be trusted to lead the Meme Force. No one can accurately speculate the full extent of damage the meme world will suffer if he wins the election. So we need to make totally sure that that does not happen.

Personally, this has been my favourite interview yet, perhaps it's because I'm a heavy admirer of memes. Some incredibly interesting replies out of Dr. Grandayy, especially the fact that he's graduated as a doctor but chooses to make memes for a living - that is some serious passion and dedication which shines through every video. We, Gamers.com.mt, would like to thank the full-time memelord for the interview; wishing him the best for the future of his channel, personal life and his position as the Meme Force Lord General.That last questions was, of course, different in tonality - if you, the reader isn't understanding the reference, I strongly recommend you check out Grandayy's YouTube and Twitter as linked below. 

Primary YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa6TeYZ2DlueFRne5DyAnyg/videos

Secondary YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9sY9S-ddN-1E0jD2fFWLig

Third YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV0tLZY1OgunMDZ8whXZZVw

Twitter: https://twitter.com/grande1899 (over 200,000 followers)

Merch Store: https://t.co/djnuLCBQhA