The last thing CoolTrainerRyan needs is money. He’s 35, an accountant by day, but by night, he sits in his designated Pokémon workshop on his seven-acre estate — and on a card collection worth millions of dollars.
But the first time Ryan livestreams on Youtube after a few years of growing his channel to around 90,000 subscribers, something fascinating happens: Immediately, people start showering him in donations. $10 here, $20 there. A 50 from a kind stranger, even a 100 every now and then. Within minutes, he’s racked up hundreds of dollars, even after explicitly and repeatedly telling people to stop sending money. But why?
Is it the content of the stream, perhaps? The quality of what’s happening? I assure you, it is not. Ryan is streaming from an old iPhone, in vertical orientation, sitting on his couch with his friend and fellow Youtuber Sean aka PokéVault, mostly drinking whiskey. They’re chatting, laughing, cracking jokes. Only when he sees the money rolling in does Ryan actually start grabbing card packs to open — he feels guilty and doesn’t want to profit off the stream. What’s going on?
The next day, it is Ryan’s birthday — which happens to also be the day Pokémon was invented. Despite its poetic origin, the event to commemorate it is anything but: On his first “proper” livestream — the camera is set up in the right format this time — Ryan, Sean, and Nick, another Poketuber, spend the first 20 minutes just sitting at a makeshift table, eating burgers and fries.
Eventually, packs will be opened, viewers will be greeted, and other streamers visited, but all in all, the 3.5-hour stream is a hot mess. The friends talk over each other. Ryan keeps throwing around cards. There’s no structure or plan at all. Comments get skipped. Openings interrupted. The guys duck in and out of the stream. And yet again, the donations keep rolling. How can this be?
To explain all of this madness, it only takes one word: authenticity. When you watch CoolTrainerRyan, you get 100%, unfiltered authenticity. He curses. He gets mad at his bad luck. He throws hissy fits, calls out scammy Youtubers, and complains about his six cats. In other words, you’re watching a real human being. Not a manufactured character opening cards for kids like a cartoon figure on TV.
When Ryan is with his friends, that authenticity only gets amplified. That, too, is a phenomenon we can relate to. It’s much more fun to watch three grown men behave like children, dissing each other, cracking jokes, falling to the floor laughing, than it is to observe three show hosts, trying hard to be professional, waiting for something interesting to happen.
At one point in the stream, Ryan throws a card up so hard, he damages his new ceiling. At another, Sean finds a baby frog under a shelf, holds it into the camera, and spends the next 15 minutes hunting for animals. This is not a livestream. It is real life. That’s why it’s interesting, and that’s why people keep sending Ryan money even though he doesn’t need it.
Whatever art you’re making, ensure it’s always you who’s still making it. Don’t get lost in trying too hard to manufacture something people will like. Live your life one honest day at a time, because if you do, whether the cameras are rolling or not doesn’t matter. You’ll have the same, genuine experiences with friends, family, and the community you serve — and any donations you receive for your cause will only be the icing on top of the cake.