The Influencer Theory: How YouTuber MatPat Changed The Game
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Influencers have become increasingly more popular throughout the years. They can be seen anywhere online, from Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and even YouTube. However, one YouTuber that has been able to develop their platform as a place for them to be creative, unique, and different is no one other than the game theorist himself: MatPat.
“Hello Internet and welcome back to Game Theory!” says MatPat. He has been on YouTube for over ten years now, creating videos in which he develops his own theories based on video games with the knowledge of science, math, and history. With over 13 million subscribers on his first channel, The Game Theorist, he has built himself success on his video creations and theories that take him over 100 hours to produce each video. He now has three other channels, The Film Theorist, The Food Theorist, and GTLive, with each channel having millions of subscribers. But how does he do it?
Marcia Layton Turner, an author for The Content Marketing Institute, wrote an article about MatPat and his success on his channel. In her article, he states that “The most successful channels are those that foster a sincere and honest passion with their audience. Any channel with a personality in front of the camera will grow faster than those without. Audiences want someone they can attach to and get to know and trust.”
Besides creating his engaging theories through videos, he also uses the comments to chat with his subscribers. By being active within the comments to communicate with his fans, he shows his personality both on and off the camera. MatPat also uses the community tab on YouTube to provide additional non-video content to keep his subscribers up-to-date on projects that he is working on outside of his YouTube Channels, such as television shows, merchandise alerts, meet-and-greets, polls, and so much more.
With his videos having millions of views, another channel called REACT, an FBE channel, posted a video called ADULTS REACT TO GAME THEORY (MatPat). During the video, a group of adults were watching some of his videos and at the end were discussing MatPat and his success. One of the girls Madison, stated “Everyone thrives off of theories and conspiracies about everything. So making these series off games that people love, I think it’s genius.” By developing his content on something that anyone who plays video games can relate to allows for his audience to continue to grow and expand.
But beyond the success of his own channel, he has also been diving into the world of helping other YouTube creators on their journey towards building their channels. MatPat mentions in his Draw My Life video how a fellow Ohioan gave him an opportunity to work as a YouTube Audience Development Consultant, where he got to work along with some of the biggest channels. He now has his own company called Theorist Media, where it seeks to help “brands, media companies, and other creative agencies who love what we love (being nerds) and want to reach thoughtful and smart pop-culture fans.” All of the adult reactors from the FBE video did talk about MatPat’s consulting company and how it was a smart way of building a community to help other YouTubers since the world of YouTube isn’t easy. They all agree that there is a sense of guidance that he is providing for these other YouTubers to help them succeed. Scott, one of the adult reactors, stated “It shows how much they care about not only what they’re doing, but continuing to push people into a place where they can succeed and continue to have YouTube thrive.” Another adult reactor, Brandon, stated “MatPat, thank you for paying attention to the little guy and for always giving back to the community not only in information but in really entertaining content.”
MatPat did watch the REACT video produced about his channel and his successes on his GTLive channel. With him livestreaming his reaction to the video REACT produced, it shows his support towards other creators and channels on YouTube, allowing a community of people to come together from the REACT channel and his other channels. Towards the end of the livestream, he was able to learn more about how other people react to his channels in real life. When hearing Scott’s comment that was previously mentioned, both MatPat and his wife, Stephanie Patrick, said this is why they do what they do. Stephanie stated “And that’s what we go for…we care about the community and we care about YouTube and YouTube doing better and creators doing better.” She goes into further detail about why they do the consulting as well as producing videos since it is one of their most asked questions. “It doesn’t make sense right away, but when we explain it to people, they start to understand how it’s all woven together and it’s all like you’re part of the community and you’re helping improve the community and so everyone gets better.”
Overall, MatPat and his success on his YouTube and beyond has shown the ways in which he has been a successful influencer through multiple communities. He has created multiple successful communities by communicating with his audience about his passions, understanding the analytics of YouTube, and by creating a consulting company for the development of future communities being created online. MatPat has been able to utilize his knowledge of science, math, and history for developing theories that not many people have thought of. His success in building his channels through the use of analytics and understanding his audience has been a huge success for his career in YouTube and consulting. Therefore, this is how he developed multiple successful communities.
