Viva La Dirt League (VLDL) Analysis

VLDL is a comedy channel in YouTube that shows among others, gaming comedy skits. They are well known in the gaming community. How popular are they? There have been video gaming companies that have paid them to promote their games.

As previously mentioned, they have developed a following especially in the gaming community that video gaming companies have asked them promote their games. They have also reached approximately 3.24 million subscribers as of May 2021.

Some of their videos have millions of views and they have been featured many times in television in New Zealand, their home country. This is a sign that they are getting popular beyond the confines of YouTube.

Here is the New Zealand television show which features them:

YouTube Video: Viva La Dirt League - TV News Segment - 5th May 2021

As can be seen from their interview, they are so popular now that they are also able to successfully crowdfund a short feature film which includes paid cast members and crews. I won’t be surprised if they do more of these in the future.

YouTube Video: Interview: PUBG Logic comedians Viva La Dirt League (VLDL) | Newshub

The above video shows the three founders of VLDL being interviewed before they fly off overseas to Germany where the first PUBG (Player Unknown Battleground) Game would be held. They are sponsored and paid by the PUBG gaming company to be there.

This again shows how popular they are in the gaming community. As the interviewer has said, VLDL is now included in the Pop Culture behind PUBG. I won’t be surprised if the other video games they make fun of in their videos offers them the same opportunity.

YouTube Video: Viva Rewind - Looking back over the decade

This video is worth watching if you are an aspiring YouTuber or a newbie YouTuber. This documents their almost decade long story starting from 2011 to 2018. By 2018, they have already found a significant measure of success.

They reached over a million subscribers and are financially stable with creating YouTube videos that all of them have left their day jobs to do what they really like which was creating YouTube videos.

When the channel was founded, Rowan Bettjeman was the most active member. He was in his own words: “a struggling actor.” The other cast members have day jobs like working as marketing employees.

At first, they were hardly earning a profit from their work. For them, the VLDL channel was an investment which they hope that somewhere along the line would pay off. According to them, during the first few years, they were just breaking even with their costs.

They were essentially not profiting from what they were doing for several years. At best, they were able to pay for Rowan’s rent so that he could continue devoting himself to the channel without thinking of being homeless.

This all changed when the finally opened a Patreon account. The Patreon supporters they have allowed them in a big way to quit their day jobs and provide better quality videos in terms of cinematography, cast and props.

If you are a digital content creator, you should consider having a Patreon account. With a Patreon account, you would know in a big way if the viewers or readers of your digital content really value the digital content you are producing.

Previously, they relied on the generosity of their friends to work with them for free as cast members and crews. This is perhaps is one of the main strengths of the founders, they have good friends and contacts who are willing to help them while they were still struggling.

As previously stated, according to their story, only Rowan is a professional actor, though he is a struggling one. His two mates worked day jobs while making him do videos. But as you can see in the video, there are more than three people involved in making the videos.

You could see for example that all three of them are onscreen most of the time. So there has to be another person who is holding the camera. There may be another person holding the boom microphone as well.

So follow their example and form good bonds with your friends. I am not advising it with the intention of making my friends do free work for me. Rather, I advise this because you don’t know when you are going to need the help of your friends along the way.

We can also say that in a way, the Patreon supporters of VLDL are also their friends. The VLDL founders grew their fanbase and supporters by connecting with them through social media like Twitch, Twitter, Facebook and so on.

I don’t know if this same approach applies to you, but the VLDL founders have found success doing so. They actually spend a good deal of their time in social media which serves as their marketing platform.

They uploaded their first YouTube video on November 23, 2011. By November 2016, they have 100,000 followers in Facebook. This might sound like a success story, but if you study the details, you would notice that 6 years have elapsed before they were able to get this much followers in Facebook.

So on average, they were only getting 16,000 new followers per year in Facebook during these years. This is a low count in terms of follower numbers. According to them, they were not even making any money from Facebook despite having this much number of followers.

But during this time, their YouTube subscriber numbers growth has become more noticeable to them that they finally decided to open a Patreon account. This was when things started to turn around for them.

For the first time, because of Patreon, they were actually now considering of leaving their day jobs to work on their VLDL channel full-time. According to their own words, it was only Rowan at first that was being supported by their Patreon earnings.

The two other founders of VLDL, Alan Morrison and Adam King still were not being paid by their Patreon earnings and still had to work on their day jobs. But if you think things are nice now for Rowan, think again.

According to him, he just survives on a basic income and does all the job like editing the videos because his other mates and co-founders of the channel still has to work on their day jobs.

But ultimately, their video income grew until all of them were finally able to leave their day jobs. I’m being a bit repetitive here because I like to emphasize a point. The point being that these guys didn’t earn money for years and only got by with the hope that ultimately all their hard work will pay off.

Despite regularly creating YouTube videos since November 2011, they only managed to gain 100,000 subscribers by April 2, 2017. This is a milestone for many. This is when YouTube sends you a plaque.

But as you can again see, reaching this much number of YouTube subscribers took a long time. A very long 6 years. According to Rowan, they wondered if they would even be able to reach a million subscribers, which is a sure sign that their channel would be profitable.

By this time they have tasted a small bit of internet fame. In their own words, they were not particularly serious with the channel by nows and are only in it to see where it takes them in the future.

Then they introduced their PUBG skits. By this time PUBG was also taking off as a game. They were really interested in the game. Lucky for them, PUBG skits were cheap to do because all they needed were surplus army gear. Also, New Zealand backdrops are similar to PUBG’s backdrop.

By July 25, 2018, they already had 500,000 subscribers. This is a five times increase in their subscribers numbers after only a year has passed. This is what is commonly referred to by those in the digital content creation business as the “Steep Rise.”

It is a pattern in digital content creation where a content creator sees no growth in their subscriber/viewership/follower count for a long time, even after years and then suddenly, their subscriber numbers suddenly shoots up to unprecedented levels.

By May 10, 2019, they already have 1 million subscribers. They managed to increase their subscriber numbers by 500,000 in less than one year. According to them, this was the milestone that they wanted to achieve.

The lesson we can get from here is that you should be prepared for the long battle. The digital content business is a long game. Success in this business does not easily come to you. It may take years before you can become established enough to make digital content creation your full-time job.

One thing these guys advise is this: Keep trying new things.

These guys (the founders of VLDL) tried a lot of concepts in their videos to see which one would work. If you study their YouTube videos, they have plenty of different videos which have different themes in them.

For example, there is the Bored video comedy skit series which takes place in a computer shop, there is their video games based comedy video skits like PUBG and Epic NPC Man.

If you are a newbie to their YouTube channel, you would think that all they do are comedy video skits. But if you look at the older videos they produced, you would know that they actually started with music videos before concentrating on comedy video skits.

If they didn’t try new things to see what would be popular with their viewers, they would probably not have become the success they are today. Up to this day, they keep on introducing new concepts in their videos. They are not scared to try out new things.

The lesson we can get from this is: Do not be afraid to try out new concepts/things. This is especially true if you are a digital content producer and your digital content is not popular. Keep trying until you see that your audience responds to you digital content.

The guys of VLDL kept producing videos even though at first their videos were not even reaching a million views. At one point they even confessed that they were starting to believe that their videos would not be watched at all.

But they just kept on producing content no matter that they were only getting dismal view counts. Ultimately, one of their videos became viral with over a million views. This taught them the lesson to just keep on going.

They now know that creating a digital content is like gambling. You don’t know when you are going to win. The big difference with gambling though is that with digital content creation, you can minimize your costs.

As of May 2021, they have well over 800 videos. This is how prolific they are. It is estimated that they produce three videos a week. According to them, it takes them more than a day to edit their videos. As you can see, they put in a lot of hard work.

The lesson here is to just keep on going. You don’t know when you will have a hit digital content. It’s also a numbers game. The more content you produce, the greater also is your chance of success.

The story of VLDL (Viva La Dirt League) needs to be studied by the anyone who wants to build a digital content creation career. The founders of this channel have been through the school of hard knocks. They have experienced the uphill battle that many digital content creators face.

But they have the support of their friends, they didn’t give up and were not afraid to try new things. They are a good example to anyone who is struggling with their chosen path in life. We can all take inspiration from their story.

Comedy On YouTube.