Kids and YouTube channels. It’s a match made for millionaires. Just look at EvanTube. Young kid reviews toys and games and millions watch making him millions of dollars.
I’ve showed some of Evan’s videos to the boys and they were riveted. Loved them.
I’ll admit I’ve had the notion to turn my kids into tv stars long before EvanTube even existed. Way back to the days of Daniel Cook and Emily Yeung. I wanted to have Zacharie be a tv star for kids – in French.
Look at the early videos I would make of him and I even had the tag line ready to go. Bonjour Zacharie, Qu’est-ce que tu fais aujourd’hui? each video would ask as it opened. The idea was for Zacharie to make a show like Emily and Daniel did, but in both French and English, switching back and forth between the languages like you see on Kids’ CBC with characters like Saumon de Champlain.
That was the idea anyway. Nothing has come of it.
Now, as YouTube has made everyone a publisher and video creator, I’m back to seeing if making videos with the boys is something that could happen. Zacharie loves animals more than anything in the world. Tickets to the Wild Kratts for his birthday next month have been bought, and we ponied up for the Meet and Greet after the show. He’s thrilled like a Belieber or Swifty. He’s stoked.
Lately Zacharie has been messing around with the video function on an older iPod. He just randomly talks to it, taking tours, messing with the selfie stick, there are HOURS of video on it. So I asked him if he wanted to do a show about animals. We were getting ready for a day at the zoo and I thought he could share all the fun animal facts he’s memorized in short clips about the creatures – just like the Wild Kratts, he was intrigued and even wanted to call the show Zacharie Zoo. By the time we got to the zoo to shoot, he didn’t bite. Which is fine.
Charlie, however, overhearing our conversation, asked to be the star of his own show called Yoga for Ninjas. He’s been taking yoga in gym at school and is not shy about explaining that he will be a ninja when he grows up. So he wanted to combine the two.
Often when we go around the table talking about our day at dinner, he’ll jump down on the floor and do “boat firing cannons” or “jumping dolphin” or something like that, ending each post with a very cute “namaste.”
So, after dinner, Charlie and I went into the basement and shot the first episode of Yoga For Ninjas.
Will it become a million seller like EvanTube? Likely not. Is it an awesome geeky / healthy activity for father and son to work on together? Hell ya.