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