We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Edwin Serrano a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Edwin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I’ve always had a passion for performing arts! Ever since I was a kid, I loved expressing myself through dance, singing, and acting. I dreamt of being a big Hollywood actor one day. As I got older and attended more auditions, I realized how hard it was going to be for me to reach my dreams. During this time YouTube was up and coming! I would get home from school and instead of watching TV I would log onto YouTube to watch all of my favorite Youtubers such as Jenna marbles, Shane Dawson, Fred, Liza, Koshy, and more! One random night in 2014, I was laying in bed binge watching Liza Koshy, when I got the sudden urge to start my own, YouTube channel! Watching Liza Koshy have so much fun while filming her videos and editing her own videos brought so much inspiration into my life! I was tired of attending so many auditions, and getting so many “no’s” that I thought why not just start my own YouTube channel and figure out a way of turning this hobby into a full-time job! That’s when I decided to invest into my YouTube channel. I first started by filming and editing on my iPod touch, that had just came out at the time! After a couple of months of doing it, I realized that I was falling, deep, deep deep in love with video creating. I decided to invest more money into my business by going to Best Buy and upgrading to a canon, EOS M3 my first baby! A year later, I decided to buy a MacBook Pro to step up my editing skills on Final Cut Pro. I was having so much fun thinking of video ideas and falling in love with the process of video creation! I focused a lot on lifestyle, comedy, skits, and Vlogging my every day life!
Edwin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is an Edwin Serrano I am a lifestyle content creator based in LA! I I was raised in a small town 30 minutes away from downtown LA, San Pedro. Growing up my family wasn’t able to afford any dance or acting classes, so I got most of my training from the Boys and Girls Club! At the age of 18 I got my license and my first car! My best friend Malaysia and I would take road trips to Malibu, Hollywood, and all over LA! On these road trips, we would always discuss our goals and our dreams. She wanted to become a model, and I wanted to become an actor. I slowly started documenting our adventures on YouTube! Since there was not much to do in our small town, we would always drive up to LA to get our content! She would help me get my content, and I would help her get hers. Our friendship grew stronger and stronger by the minute. Years later, we decided to move out to LA! We got a cute apartment in the best neighborhood we could possibly dream of. It felt good to have a space where we could both create content freely! Now I focus a lot of my content on “How to move to LA”, tips and tricks, interior design, and just documenting my day-to-day life living in LA! I’ve come to the realization that not everyone gets to live in such an amazing place like we do so documenting my adventures helps other people see the beauty in LA.
Being a Content creator is no joke! It’s all about consistency and when you’re filming YouTube videos, you quickly run out of ideas and that leads to feeling unmotivated and uninspired. You’re constantly thinking of new ideas of how you’re going to go viral and how many videos should you be posting a week? At the same time you have to maintain a full-time job because you also have bills to pay. I’ve had my moments where I question if I chose the right career path. I love making content, but at the moment I’m not able to fully pay my bills through this creative outlet. Like everyone else I dream of a day where I can make content creating my full-time job so I can fully focus on filming videos! But at this moment I have to juggle having a full-time job as an interior designer for West Elm and finding the Time to create videos! Don’t get me wrong. I love my full-time job, but getting home after an eight hour shift and having to film and edit a YouTube video is really hard on your mental health. I try to find my balance and give my body and mind a break when I need it.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I built my audience on social media, by just being myself! I wasn’t focused on views or subscribers. I was just focus on showing my day-to-day life, and having fun creating content. I did however, started reacting to new music that was coming out, and I quickly started realizing that those videos would perform the best! I couldn’t understand how my reaction videos would do better than my other videos that I would put more hours and editing. I had to find a balance of still giving the audience what they wanted, but at the same time posting the concept that I wanted to create! My advice to anyone starting social media is just be yourself! Don’t be scared to show your struggles, because there are other people out there, struggling with the same things that you’re struggling with!
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My main goal is to finally get somewhere in life where I can live comfortably and be able to pay my bills by doing what I love! I don’t want to settle for a 9-to-5 or work for someone else! I want to be able to inspire other creators out there!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @whoisedwin
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@Whoisedwin?si=jVBsXNvEIFd_azMw