My Journey on Youtube

[Music]

my dear friends

thank you for giving me the opportunity

to speak on tedx

in this video i’m going to be talking

about my journey

on youtube my name is vikas rajamala

and i am from hyderabad

i started my youtube journey about seven

years ago and well that was a time

when youtube in india was at a grassroot

level everything was so different

i mean today internet is something

which you have available on your phone

even at very high speeds

but seven years ago even broadband

at home was expensive and not so fast

and was not

unlimited and internet on phone

and watching videos on phone was almost

unimaginable because

2 gb per month of 3g data on your cell

phone

would cost about 600 rupees and if you

would have watched about five or

six videos on youtube on cell phone

back in 2013 your data would be done

so that was the error when i started

making youtube videos so

why did i start making youtube videos

back then

well i was riding

my yamaha r1 motorcycle on the highway

those days and when we do early morning

rides wow it feels beautiful

you are one with the nature you’re

riding

an amazing motorcycle and

when you live this kind of a life you

would like to share this

with your friends who don’t stay near

you

uh who live in other cities towns

so what i thought is that i should

record my experience of riding this

motorcycle on the highway

and share it with my friends who live in

other parts of this country

or overseas so i was thinking how to do

this

now i cannot hold a big camera and ride

a motorcycle

correct or even a cell phone so

those days an action camera

was literally unheard of in our country

and fortunately i met you know

uh a person i mean i knew him for a long

time

so he had an action camera when i was

discussing about this topic with him

he told me hey take this this is a gopro

and

put it onto your helmet and you can

record your video and say wow

this looks interesting so that was the

first time i got introduced

to an action camera known as gopro and i

put it onto

my helmet and went on a ride on the

yamaha one

at seven am i got back home

i put that video onto my laptop

and wow it was like a

hollywood action full i couldn’t believe

it

that me riding a motorcycle could look

so good especially on an action camera

so i thought i should share this with my

friends who live in bangalore bombay

america

and other places so how

should i do it and there

is a video sharing platform known as

youtube

correct i uploaded that footage onto

youtube

raw footage no edits nothing okay my 10

minute

ride i uploaded that on to youtube and

shared the youtube link with my friends

about four or five friends that is it

and i got back to that video basically

watch the same video after a week and i

realized

it has more than a thousand views how

did this happen i don’t have a thousand

friends and trust me i was not a regular

youtube viewer that time and i hardly

knew

anything about youtube so

this was an amazing experience and

i spoke about this with other friends

who were regular youtube viewers

i mean those days on youtube you could

only find some funny videos or some you

know

very very ordinary things and my friends

at that point

mentioned that hey because you know what

there is something known as

motor cycle video logging moto vlogging

which

uh riders in other countries do

like america like europe uh you know uh

uk australia and these places and i

started watching those videos like the

legendary

royal jordanian from uk

wow i said i can do this i have a super

bike i mean

you just don’t need a super bike just a

motorcycle but

at that point i had a super bike an

action camera

and this amazing platform known as

youtube

so i started making youtube videos and

trust me today i can talk to the camera

anywhere in front of

even a thousand people but those days

i was extremely camera shy like any one

of us would be

when we start making uh videos or

any of this kind of artistic work so

it took me about 50 videos five zero

videos before i could actually show my

face to camera

and talk you know generally i used to be

behind the camera

and display or demonstrate

a motorcycle or a product

but then it started and way back then in

2013 2014 can you believe this

there were not even 10 known

uh youtubers across the country the only

names that i can take from

that time is digi ranjit from hyderabad

and

a few other people that is it and

i did not even know that youtube

actually pays you

for the ad revenue and

my videos were online people were

watching it

and i went into youtube analytics and i

saw

150 dollars wow where did this come from

lovely then i went and used that 150

dollars in buying a

new helmet and well

there’s a saying that when you follow

your passion and

don’t care about the immediate outcome

lovely things happen to your life and

it happened in 2016 youtube contacted me

and gave me the opportunity and

honorable opportunity

to be the ambassador for youtube

in hyderabad where

you know every person who was interested

in making youtube videos

would contact me uh and

we would host youtube sessions in the

youtube

google office in hyderabad so wow

lovely and then

more amazing things happen that is in

2019

i was invited to perform on the

youtube fan fest which is like the

oscars of uh online

video you know making so

yeah amazing moment when about 3 000

people were in front of me

in hyderabad and i was on the youtube

fanfest

platform so

now enough set off said about this i

mean

more amazing things happen that is

i did some great adventure things

i got the opportunity to write to ladakh

okay not from hyderabad but i because of

uh as you know i’m also an i.t

professional

i am with a major i.t company in

hyderabad and that’s my

actual full-time job apart from inline 4

engineering

and youtube so in 2017

i went to ladakh and i rode in

on the beautiful mountains i went on to

one of the highest

motorable roads on this planet cardongla

pass

on a motorcycle i got videos on youtube

you know you can thank vikas

rajabala ladakh and this is a one time

experience

and i got this only because of youtube

and

next i was invited by xbhp

xbhp is a motorcycle community to

go to bhutan and right from bhutan

all the way to kolkata kolkata

wow so i flew down to bhutan we rode a

motorcycle in bhutan

for about five days we met amazing

people in bhutan

all the motorcycling clubs groups they

invited us to meet

them in bhutan we even had the honor of

meeting the king’s

cousin in bhutan and well

now i’m also getting the opportunity to

go to manali

very soon in the next couple of weeks

and

well watch out

uh i’m not going to reveal what is going

to happen but something

very very interesting is going to happen

so next thing is that when we are doing

all this we also get the opportunity

to collaborate with amazing brands and

companies

so i also had

the opportunity and the honor of being

gillette’s ambassador you know july had

a few ambassadors in india

and i was one of them 2017 2018

and 2019.

so well and then i

also collaborated with many many brands

they invited me to launch their

motorcycles

like bajaj like yamaha and all of them

and uh well

the next important thing is whenever you

get an opportunity

to connect with a large number of people

you should also use it in a manner which

can help the society which can help the

planet

so in 2015

i was contacted by an organization known

as

sink the planet right it’s an amazing

concept where it is done

for uh social purpose for charity

where uh writers around the world

youtubers motor vloggers they’re right

in their country

okay so for example someone is writing

in america someone is writing in

australia someone’s writing in india

like almost the whole continent and uh

we right at the same time like in

america it could be some time in the

night in india

it is in the afternoon so we’re riding

at the same time and

uh any kind of revenue generated by this

would go to a social cost

so i did this for almost

four years plus

uh the youtube revenue that i get i also

uh contribute towards save the children

foundation every single month where

two children are completely taken care

of their

food medication their well-being is

being taken care of by

a part of youtube money that i make

so now idea of speed

when it comes to motorcycles

speed speed this is the first thing with

which youth which

young people think about but

remember with power comes responsibility

these motorcycles are very very very

fast the one on

the you know the left side is a yamaha

one this one can do 300 kilometers an

hour

150 kilometers on the first gear zero to

103

seconds okay now when you

get to write these machines remember

you’ve got to be responsible

yes i will seven years ago

did very high speeds but i’m evolving

and today i would not want to ride very

fast

i would enjoy the motorcycle but adhere

to the speed limits and most important

thing

i’ve always said that by good quality

riding gear like a good helmet

buy the cheapest mobile phone possible

but buy the

best quality expensive helmet from a

good brand i generally recommend snell

certified helmets and full gear

helmet gloves jacket

boots pants everything back protector

very important way that

and next thing is personal growth you

know

youtube can skyrocket you

you know it can make you a star it can

make you a person which

uh who is recognized around the world

but remember don’t get carried away

because if you’re only depending on

youtube

as your career as you know with

something that you

are making your living with remember

just one thing i made a dedicated video

about this

uh on my youtube channel that should you

oh depend on youtube as a career

well remember this that

youtube is not yours all right you’re

getting paid because of youtube’s ad

revenue sharing that is happening

and what if youtube all of a sudden

changes its policies

and decides that it is not monetizing

the videos

anymore so in

that way you would not have an

opportunity

not to make a living so use your youtube

platform

to do something for the society

and the community and build

a business which can serve the community

in return so that way you have

uh a foundation on

you know in your life so well friends

thank you for this opportunity and uh

well

if you have any questions if you want to

write to me my email address

is r v k because gmail.com and they’re

on instagram

rbk because my youtube id is vikas

rajmala

and remember that

i’m saying this again with power comes

responsibility

plus any opportunity that you get

to grow use it in a way where others can

also grow

thank you bye