This is just a typical day in the life of the Butler Family.
"Once upon a dream"
And that dream became a reality when Shay started out making videos on Youtube and then started Maker Studios with a few friends he met up with in LA. When they realized how big the company was becoming they had the thought that maybe they could one day sell it. Time Warner was a big investor in Maker Studios early on and then Disney just purchased them for a whopping 550 Million dollars, but Shay says not to get too excited, because there are other investors and shareholders that will get a chunk of that pot of gold.
"My mom sent me the front page of the article in the Idaho State Journal, it was like ex Pocatelloan has Five Hundred Million reasons to celebrate, I'm like NO! I don't have Five hundred million dollars. I get like a fraction of that, like Four hundred and Ninety Eight Million,” jokingly says Co-founder of Maker Studios, Shay Butler.
Shay may be richer now then he was five years ago when he couldn't even afford toilet paper and had to borrow some from Taco Bell.
"So yes there was a time in our life where we were struggling to try to figure out what we were going to do, that we took a few rolls of toilet paper from the Taco Bell bathroom, and I am not proud of that, but they caused a lot of other things with their Bean Burritos, so I think they owed me a few rolls of toilet paper, if you know what I am saying. They are delicious though, I love Taco Bell, am I going to get sued for that,” asks Butler.
Speaking of getting sued and getting a piece of that burrito, Shay's friend, Maker Studios co-founder and ex-CEO Danny Zappin filed a lawsuit seeking to block a shareholder vote on Disney Acquisition.
"But I can say that it sometimes a sad story, it's a tale as old as time when money and success get involved and friends get in business together, you know misunderstanding can happen,” says Butler.
Despite the lawsuit, Shay says the deal with Disney will still go through and will be a win, win situation for everyone, and even with all of his success, he says that him and his family will not live the fairytale life.
"We are not going to get crazy and have Crystal. My wife though, she spends a little bit more money at Ross than she should have the other day. Collette, I don't care if those are two for one bags, you need to watch it,” jokingly warns Butler.
Shay says the lawsuit brought on my Zappin, was not approved by the judge and the deal with Disney will go through.
Shay says he has many more adventures to come, one of which is a documentary they are making on how vlogging became his job.
TheWalt DisneyCo has agreed to buy Maker Studios, one of YouTube's largest networks, for $500 million, a deal that makes Disney a major online video distributor and should help draw more teens into the Disney entertainment empire.
The price tag could rise to $950 million if Maker hits certain performance milestones, Disney said, confirming what a source told Reuters earlier on Monday.
Maker, founded in 2009, is one of the largest video production networks onGoogle Inc's YouTube. Its producers target the younger millennial generation, known for its high appetite for online video.
"This gives a presence online to reach the millennial group that is increasingly getting its video online," said Kevin Mayer, Disney executive vice president for corporate strategy. "And it gives us a lot of data to help promote our other businesses to them."
The deal will be "mildly dilutive" to earnings per share through fiscal 2017, Mayer said. Disney's fiscal year closes at the end of September.
Maker helps produce and distribute videos to more than 380 million subscribers worldwide across more than 55,000 channels. Its videos now collectively garner some 5.5 billion views every month, according to the source.
The company, whose backers include Time Warner Investments, Upfront Ventures and Greycroft Partners, is partners with PewDiePie, the online persona of 24 year-old video gamer Felix Kjellberg. Kjellberg has more than 25 million subscribers and is YouTube's single most-subscribed star.
"Short-form online video is growing at an astonishing pace and with Maker Studios, Disney will now be at the center of this dynamic industry," Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement.
The deal is expected to close in Disney's third fiscal quarter.
Sometime this year, online video comedian Shay Butler and his family’s YouTube channels will likely pass a half-billion upload views. At the heart of that success is a quintessential man-child. Butler, best known as ShayCarl, has created a series of reality shows that could draw comparisons to a cleaned-up Osbournes, adds a dash of “Tool Time” sensibility and finishes with a question that sparks many classic American family sitcoms: How did HE get HER to marry HIM?
ShayCarl may play the fool to wife Katilette’s exasperated straightwoman on YouTube, but he’s not clowning around when it comes to making those videos a business. His collaborative production company,recently featured in The New York Times, is just one of many examples of how he’s parlayed comedic snippets into a budding online mini-empire. But that manic part? Yeah, that’s real. After sending seven questions via email to Butler, I received a 2,000+ word block of text in response.
What he sent was an epic tale about a young man seeking his place in the world, happening upon YouTube and finding his way to internet stardom. Here’s that story:
Shay begins…
“It was a dark and stormy night.” I was born on March 5 1980 in Logan, Utah to my parents Carl and Laurie Butler. I am now 31 years old. I am the oldest of 4 kids. We lived in Logan, Utah till I was 4 years old and my parents decided to move to Phoenix, Arizona so that my dad could go to college as an electrical engineer. Four years later after, he graduated, he got a job in Pocatello, Idaho working for a semi conductor plant. Growing up in Pocatello I played multiple sports including basketball, football, track, baseball and really got into skiing. There was a mountain called Pebble Creek Ski resort that was less than 30 minutes away and we went there every chance we got. A couple summers I worked clearing trees, brush and rocks from the mountain in exchange for a season pass. My Junior and Senior year became dedicated to skiing as often as possible. I stopped playing almost all sports except for soccer and would ski 60 to 80 days a winter. Often skipping class or running up to the hill to get a few runs in after school.
Goes on mission…
Being raised as an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, “The Mormons,” I became an Eagle scout, and after graduating high school, I went on a full-time church mission to the West Indies for 2 years. I served in Barbados, Trinidad and Guyana, which is the ONLY English speaking country in South America.
Returns home, meets a girl …
Once I returned home from my mission I started to make plans to go to college at Idaho State University in Pocatello. I had a friend whose brother was in a local community theatre group performing the musical “Anything Goes.” He invited me to go with him to watch it. At this play, a 19-year-old brunette by the name of Colette Crofts was playing the role of Reno Sweeney, a classy night club singer on a cruise ship. She was beautiful and could SING. I feel like it was love at first sight. I even went so far as leaning over to my friend Derek and saying “I WILL marry that girl.” After stalking her around campus for the next 3 weeks I finally got a date with her. Nothing serious — just wakeboarding at the reservoir with a bunch of friends. Just as I thought. I was totally in love with this girl. I would have proposed at the end of the first date, but I felt that might have come across as a little forward.
They marry…
A REALLY long story, short: After about a year and a half of dating I finally convinced her to marry me. We were engaged for barely 2 months and were married in the Idaho Falls, Idaho LDS temple on January 3rd 2003. We began to have children rather quickly and our first son was born 11 months later on December 3rd 2003.
He goes to work…
I have had almost every job under the sun, it feels like. One of the first jobs I took was as a door to door pest control salesman in Raleigh, North Carolina. We moved out there with 4 or 5 friends of mine and knock on doors selling $400 annual pest control contracts and my wife worked in the office scheduling the treatments and customer service.
He goes back to school…
After the summer was over we moved back to Idaho and I continued my education. I finished most of my generals and was considered a Junior but on the arrival of our second kid and first daughter, I was getting tired of sitting in college classrooms having just paid $300 dollars for some stupid book that would become obsolete the next semester — as the author would have made a second edition — and I would only be able to sell my book back for like 3 bucks. I felt like I was just part of a big scam JUST to get this little piece of paper that said I was qualified to get a job somewhere. I was more interested in gaining knowledge. I would take classes that were interesting to me but they would be on the required classes that I needed to tack for my program or whatever. So one frustrating morning where I was late, because my daughter had been up all night, I couldn’t find a parking spot on campus I just said screw this I am done with college. I like to tell people the reason I dropped out of college is because I couldn’t find a parking spot. Which later was part of the inspiration to co-produce a song with talented YouTube musician NicePeter called Best Spot in the Lot, which has been downloaded/viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
He goes back to work …
I have always been very entrepreneurial minded. Often times while I was sitting in class listening to my professor ramble on I would think to myself: I could be out there making money right now. I felt like going to college was holding me back and keeping me from creating something now. Among the many things that I have done while looking for “What I was going to do when I grew up:” I was a school bus driver, a car salesman, an after-school program teacher. I worked with mentally handicap kids, I was a prep cook, and even spent some time trying out different multi-level marketing schemes. I eventually got a job as a granite countertop laborer and worked cutting polishing and installing granite counter tops. After doing this for three or four years I decided I never wanted to work for anyone ever again.
He starts his own business…
I started taking classes to get my real estate license and ended up starting my own granite countertop business called Rock Tops! I remember the day that I went to buy my truck and trailer was one of my most proud moments. I was building my own business. I loved deciding the name and designing the logo and stickers for my trailer. Even though I didn’t love doing granite, I loved that it was mine.
He gets a computer…
After about eight months or so of running my granite business and selling a few homes as a real estate agent, we bought our first computer. We had just had our third child, a second daughter. I went to my wife and said that I think we should buy a computer. I will never forget what she said, she said “What will we use it for?” I didn’t know the answer? I had barely used a computer at ALL in my life. I was 27 years old and only had a hotmail. I never even took a computer or typing class in any of my schooling, except playing Oregon Trail in elementary school, but I wasn’t very good at it. I always got Dysentery and those stupid oxen kept dying.
He finds YouTube…
I remember the night that I first got this $499 dollar Dell laptop up and running, I went to YouTube and just blindly started watching videos. I thought it was amazing! I could type in just about anything that I thought was cool and watch a video of it. I found DaxFlame and sxephil and made the connection that these dudes had a following and people were engaging, commenting and reacting to what they were saying. It was fascinating to me. I remember looking up and seeing that the sun had come up and that I had been on YouTube all night long. After that it’s all history.
He starts making videos …
I remember thinking “I could totally do that.” I started posting videos and even entered a contest that sxephil was having. He liked me and made me one of the top 5 finalists. I received a few hundred subscribers and was hooked. I remember the first e-mail I got from somebody asking me to hurry up and make a new video. It was amazing to me that some dude across the country was taking the time to send me an e-mail asking for more videos. I remember waking up and feeling like I got to make a video I don’t want to let this guy down. I loved the feedback and the gratification was instant. I would film some random thought I had about hand sanitizer or gas prices or me dancing in my wife’s old uni-tard and I would upload it and people were instantly there to tell me if they thought it was funny or not. I loved the communication and the community of it all.
He quits his businesses…
The second I learned that I could make money and support my family doing this I wanted to quit being a granite and real estate guy and start doing this FULL TIME. I got a job as a weekend radio DJ at Z103 and my life took a 180 degree turn. I started making more and more videos and stated doing live shows on Blog TV from the radio studio. I was performing for 2 different audiences at the same time. It was crazy when the online audience started to become bigger than the radio listeners.
He starts his YouTube enterprises…
I became a YouTube Partner February 2008 and got my very first AdSense check April 24, 2008 in the amount of $367.40, for a month’s worth of videos. I COULD NOT believe that I was actually getting money for being “entertaining” I knew that my family couldn’t live on less than 400 bucks a month, but the wheels in my head were turning. I immersed myself into YouTube. Whether it was going to any gathering I could go to, collaborating with everyone I could, reading comments for hours, watching other YouTubers, reading anything I could get my hands on about this new flourishing medium that was exciting and WAY ahead of the curve. It was CONSTANTLY on my mind. It was simultaneously the most fun and hardest job I had ever had. I was CONSTANTLY thinking about ideas and how I could make things better. What were some tricks of the trade I could use that others were implementing? Or trying to think of ones on my own. This went on for months.
Then he has THE idea …
I was about to turn 29 and I thought this is going to be the last year of my 20′s I want to do something monumental. I started hatching this idea of doing a video vlog every day of my 29th year. By this time I had worked up enough viewers that I was making almost 2K a month. What once helped pay for groceries and utility bills had now turned into our main source of income. There were a few very tight months in the transition of making more money on the Internet and slowing down on my granite business and real estate deals, that we had to suck it up and go without things. My wife believed in me and never complained about buying second-hand furniture and clipping coupons just so that we could get by. Once we started the daily vlogs our viewers and pay immediately tripled. It was amazing!!! I was now making more money than I had ever made doing something that I actually LOVED doing. I had never committed myself to anything as much as I was to creating this online persona and developing a business plan for what we did. Now. here we are almost three-and-a-half years later, and I have been making daily vlogs for over two years.
[Whew! Let's catch our breath for a second.]
How did the Name-tard idea come about? And I wonder if you’ve received any negative reaction to that?
The name shaytards was a name that really stemmed from me wearing my wife’s uni-tard on more than one occasion. I once had a contest with a couple of my friends to see who could stay awake and constantly be streaming a live show on Blog TV for the longest. I ended up staying awake and broadcasting live for 42 hours and winning the competition. At one point during the whole ordeal someone in the chat said. “This is so exciting! I’m getting SHAYTARDED” Then all the people who were on my team who wanted me to win started calling themselves the SHAYTARDS! It just seemed to fit and wasn’t meant to be offensive at all. It was a name we were proud of. Some people claim their eternal allegiance to the SHAYTARD REBELLIONITES ARMY! After the competition was over, I decided to start a new weight-loss channel in October of 2008 and named it SHAYTARDS. Well this is the channel that the daily vlogs eventually started, on March 5, 2009, my 29th birthday — and the rest was history. As of right now, there are 823 videos on my SHAYTARDS channel that equal 325 million views.
How do you decide when to turn the camera on?
I would say one of the most important things to learn as a vlogger, if you want to be successful, is to know WHEN to turn the camera on. I don’t shoot hours of footage all day and then wade through editing the entertaining moments into the video. I use about 90% of the things I shoot. I like to get 1- to 3-minute segments and then turn the camera off. When something is already naturally happening, I have taught myself to remember to get the camera out. Funny life moments that I suspect to be entertaining. Like the kids going through airport security for the first time, or a moment when I catch the girls putting on a concert for their dolls & singing the new Katy Perry song. It’s difficult to just turn the camera on and try to make something spontaneously funny. It will feel much more natural to the audience if something is really happening that is fun or funny and I just happen to be rolling on it. This doesn’t always happen, however. Sometimes I have to leave the camera on longer if I know I’m trying to catch a moment like RockTards first steps or the time we were on hold for 20 minutes with popular radio personality Dave Ramsey waiting to scream WE’RE DEBT FREE! for his debt free Friday show. For the most part I get anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes of footage a day and edit them to be quick and fun.
The announcements have been made and the pundits have commented. Now it's time for America to witness the first public meeting between Stephen Colbert and David Letterman since the announcement was made that Colbert would be taking over CBS' late-night slot sometime next year.
Colbert has appeared on Letterman's show 12 times since the premiere of his Comedy Central show, "The Colbert Report," in 2005. But when he sits down on "Late Show" next Tuesday, he'll be there kicking the tires and seeing how the audience treats him.
Face-to-face with the man who will one day take over his job, will Letterman suddenly have second thoughts and renounce his retirement plans? Doubtful. By all accounts, the late-night veteran has been pleased with CBS' choice of host to replace him and even referred to Colbert as a "friend" in a statement.
What's still unclear is if Colbert will be appearing on "Late Show" as himself or as the ultra-conservative version of himself he plays on "The Colbert Report." During recent appearances on Letterman, Colbert played up that character, but after the announcement last week, he released a statement explaining he would be hosting the CBS late-night show as himself.
"So we’ll all get to find out how much of him was me," Colbert said.
If you're as much of a fan of Stephen Colbert as I am, you will probably be overwhelmed with excitement as you hear this announcement. Source
From the man himself:
Stephen Colbert will succeed David Letterman as host of "The Late Show," CBS announced Thursday, one week after Letterman told his audience that he would retire sometime in 2015.
CBS said Colbert had signed a five-year contract to helm the iconic late-night broadcast.
Colbert, 49, has been the host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" since 2005.
Will Colbert remain in his Comedy Central character? No. Colbert said in a statement, "I won't be doing the new show in character, so we'll all get to find out how much of him was me. I'm looking forward to it." CBS said "specific creative elements" would be determined and announced at a later date.
Colbert has been mentioned as a possible successor to Letterman for years, and his name quickly became a consensus pick after Letterman's retirement announcement April 3. But the swiftness of the announcement was surprising.
CBS said, "Colbert's premiere date as host of 'The Late Show' will be announced after Mr. Letterman determines a timetable for his final broadcasts in 2015."
In a statement, Letterman signaled his support for CBS' choice by saying that Colbert had "always been a real friend to me."
"I'm very excited for him, and I'm flattered that CBS chose him," Letterman said. "I also happen to know they wanted another guy with glasses."
Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corp., called Colbert "one of the most inventive and respected forces on television." He added, "David Letterman's legacy and accomplishments are an incredible source of pride for all of us here, and today's announcement speaks to our commitment of upholding what he established for CBS in late night."
Comedy Central also praised Colbert on Thursday, saying, "We look forward to the next eight months of the ground-breaking 'Colbert Report' and wish Stephen the very best."
Colbert's move means he will compete with the 11:30 p.m. time slot of his current show, and he'll no longer have his friend Jon Stewart as a lead-in. Stewart, the host of "The Daily Show," told New York magazine's Vulture blog on Wednesday that CBS would be wise to hire Colbert.
"He's wonderful in 'Colbert Report,' but he's got gears he hasn't even shown people yet. He would be remarkable," Stewart said.
Colbert naturally had the last laugh in Thursday's news release.
"Simply being a guest on David Letterman's show has been a highlight of my career," he said. "I never dreamed that I would follow in his footsteps, though everyone in late night follows Dave's lead. I'm thrilled and grateful that CBS chose me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go grind a gap in my front teeth."
The following insightful article was obtained from this website:
A little over a year ago Chris Shiflett blogged that we need a blogging revival because conversation which was once on blogs has moved to Twitter and, in his opinion, there’s less quality discussion and debate on Twitter than there was on blogs.
He doesn’t think more blogging would hurt Twitter, indeed it would benefit it as Twitter is a natural way to share that content. So, the call to blog is not a backlash against Twitter, it’s a reminder of why bothare needed.
Here’s his list of reasons why he thinks blogs are great:
Posts can be as short or are long as you want.
You don’t have to use broken language to fit a complete thought.
Posts aren’t immediately lost in a sea of updates.
Posts can be easily found later.
You don’t have to know what’s trending among the riff-raff of the Internet.
Posts tend to be more meaningful.
All conversation related to a post is easy to find.
I’ve just read through all the responses I could find, and here’s a summary of some of the additional thoughts people had:
Blogging requires more thought, reasoning for opinions, refining, details, deep expression and reflection than tweeting. Tweets are valuable for quick (incomplete) thoughts and light conversation but we often need more than that. Tweets are snacks between meals, signposts to feasts. The real banquets are blog posts. Drew McLellan, Sean Coates, Jon Tangerine
Blogging helps you find like-minded people to talk to and work with and a sense of community (David Rhoden, Rian van der Merwe)
Blog conversations don’t force you into an artificial relationship like “Facebook friend” or “Twitter follower” (David Rhoden)
Blogs are in a database that you own and control – you can edit it or throw it away at any time. (David Rhoden, Anthony Killeen)
Facebook and Twitter aren’t a replacement for your own personal history of things you want to say online. (David Rhoden)
Comments and discussions are there in context. (Anthony Killeen)
Blog posts are better indexed by search engines. When was the last time you Googled a question and got a Tweet or Facebook status update which answered it? (David Rhoden, Jeremy Cook)
Blog posts are timeless: they don’t expire. (Rafael Dohms)
Blog posts showcase your thinking as a professional and get your name out there. (Rafael Dohms)
Blogging takes more courage: tweets are easier to correct. Blogging opens you up to real critique and criticism. Joe Leech)
Rather ironically, the hashtag #ideasofmarch now no longer brings up any of the tweets about the topic.
Reading through the numerous blog posts, I noticed that there was a collective sense of longing for the good old days of blogging before Twitter and Facebook came along. Those days when we weren’t so lazy and made the time to write in long form because our thinking was refined during the process and we really did form deep connections and blogging communities. There was regret for neglecting our blogs for tweets and status updates (but not wanting to do away with the latter either), and a desire to blog more once again.
There was a sense that true blogging was (and still is) about honesty, learning, growth. It was about opening yourself up to critique and trolls but also finding cheerleaders, mentors and fellow journeyers. There was a sense that we’re missing out on good insightful blog posts being written, and a proliferation of “Top 10 ways to get people to link up to your blog”.
There was a sadness that blog comments aren’t so lively any more: the comments are disparate, brief and shallow.
I know that every time I blog, I feel rewarded: I’ve thought things through, I’ve learnt things and I’ve worried a teeny bit about what other people are thinking in response.
The best text information I find online is still via blog posts.
The best way I find out about deep thoughts friends or strangers have online is still via blog posts.
The best place to find tutorials, help and ideas is still via blog posts. I may get there via Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest, but they’re signposts to the real content.
