Her new film, Self Runaway, was released on April 8th. Are you satisfied with the return?
Bilal Hanci: It’s going really well… Being a film where we mirror our own characters in real life, our own audience never leaves us alone, but we’re happy to meet a completely different audience.
Can you tell us a little bit about the film for those who haven’t seen it yet?
Fatih Jasin: It tells the misadventures of three young video game addicts. We go to jail for a crime we didn’t commit and run away, but then we regret we escaped.
Their names are the same in the film. Is that something specially made up?
AO: We prefer. It was the same with our first film. If it’s the third, we want it to be the same. We want our existing audience on YouTube to experience the same sense of reality in our films.
Three YouTubers are shooting a film, but the film also contains criticism of digital life. Three young people are constantly playing games and none of them cares about their family or lover.
FY: We’ll buy a newspaper from now on, Oya, I promise. (laughs) Jokes aside, there’s a message in there, but criticism doesn’t just relate to digital life. It might not have been a computer game, but given that most of the time we’re obsessed with something and forget about everything else, there’s of course a criticism of the lack of reality.
IF AN EVENT LIKE THE MOVIE HAPPENED TO US IN REAL LIFE WE WOULD BE CRAZY
For some reason I expected a future film of yours to be scripted by you…
AO: We’ve written a script and we want to bring it to life, but it’s a fantasy comedy and it’s a very expensive production. If there’s a brave producer shooting it, please find us. (laughs)
How would you actually proceed if, like in the film, you were accused of a crime you didn’t commit?
BRA: I’m going crazy! I couldn’t control my anger.
FY: My first week in prison was tough, then I thought about how I could somehow get out.
AO: Well, it’s not my place to run away, plan an escape like in the movies. I don’t have an uncle in Ankara, I couldn’t call him either. hahaha! It would be pretty difficult for me.
BUT WE ARE NOT MULTI-MILLIONAIRES THANK YOU, WE EARN WELL
They are one of the biggest channels on YouTube. They have 7.5 million members. Her videos are viewed around 15 million times. How did it all start?
AO: In the beginning it was all just fun. We talked, but then we realized what people were seeing. Now we can say, “That’s 10 million views, that’ll stay at 1 million” without putting a video on it.
FY: If you spend four or five hours a day on YouTube, you already understand how and why a lot of content is viewed. If you produce content regularly, you know what’s better than the comments.
Did you expect to be so successful when you started?
FY: We had goals, but none of us expected that much. But when we saw it we wanted to add something and he was the one who developed us.
There are many people who believe that social media influencers make a lot of money. Is this an urban legend or is there some truth to it?
BRA: Yes, there are phenomena that win a lot, but there are many ways. The way you make money is also important. Our income comes from YouTube. We earn well, but there are, for example, five or six who earn as well as we do.
AO: We also invest our earnings on YouTube. We have an office, we have employees there. We didn’t become multi-millionaires, but luckily we’re in good shape.
WHEN YOU START YOUTUBE “I MAKE A LOT OF MONEY” YOU KNOW THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN
What would you recommend to someone who wants to start a YouTube channel today? Are there things you say you must or must not do?
FY: There is no such mathematics. It is also possible to do what is said and be very successful. It’s all about the content you create and the emotions you convey to the audience.
BRA: If you start this business because you want to make a lot of money, if that is your motivation, know that this will never happen. But if you produce good content and keep going consistently, you might be in the first, maybe 100th video, but you will definitely explode. That’s my prediction.
How does the story of the three of you come together?
BRA: We met on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2015. We are together today. hahaha! I was in college working on visas. It was the time when Atakan and Fatih had just begun. They were watched a lot. The day we met it was such a fun conversation that they called me in the evening and said “we want to come to you”. They stayed with me that day. stay it stay
AO: Whatever we did, wherever we went, whatever we ate and drank, we’ve all been together since that day. I hope it will be like this in the future.
