We were lucky to catch up with Ry & Skyla recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ry & Skyla, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

We started Sometimes Castles to have a creative outlet more than anything, and are glad we started when we did. We both had a decade of professional experience in creative industries that helped make sure we had a good foundation to start our channels with best practices in mind. With both of us being in our 30s when we started, we are much more conscious of what we post on social media 😅 While the “when” might not have been a well thought out plan, doing it at this period in our lives where we have a good mix of career experience has certainly helped us more now, than if we had tried to start this earlier in our lives.

Most of our content is aimed at a millennial audience – date nights, theme parks, food and drink reviews – and we feel that we started our journey at just the right time.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi! We’re Ry and Skyla, and we are Sometimes Castles. We’ve been together for nearly 10 years. We primarily make short form video content about Southern California theme parks (mostly Disneyland, but Knott’s and Universal during seasonal events), things to do, food and drink reviews, and date nights. We’re best known on TikTok, but we also post regularly to Instagram and YouTube.

Professionally, we work in digital marketing, and both have strong backgrounds in communications and influencer relations. When our respective companies asked us to “figure out this TikTok thing,” we decided to make content at Disneyland for fun, since we were already going to the park regularly. One thing led to another, and through our adventures on Sometimes Castles over the last two years, we’ve grown something truly special, and connected with thousands of passionate fans. We’re a part of a community that shares the same love we have for fandoms like theme parks, Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and so much more.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The community. It’s incredibly rewarding when people come to our livestreams and say that they were having a hard day, but that looking forward to a livestream from us is something that made things better for them or was the highlight of their week.

When we’re walking around Disneyland, more and more often people stop us to thank us for what we do. Our videos share information that help them plan better trips to theme parks and have a better time. Our livestreams give people a chance to get the “theme park experience” that they’re not able to enjoy for themselves as often as we can. Families come to our channel to either get information or get excited for trips they have coming up. It’s been so rewarding to have people tell us that we’re the reason that they had a great vacation.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

If you love what a creative person is doing, find ways to share and support what they’re doing.

The “content creator” space is relatively new, and so many people here are trying to find a way to make a living doing this. While making money from a platform based on views – or from companies through brand deals – is great, most often for most creators that’s not enough to make a living. It’s support from the audience that makes things work for content creators.

Supporting a content creator can be so many things!

Share what they create, to help them build their audience. As they build their audience, they (hopefully) have more opportunities with brands.

Interact with their posts. Ask questions, hit that “like” button that the algorithms love so much, or leave a positive comment.

Even tipping a creator directly through gifts, subscriptions, or whatever platforms allow you to give, is a way to help make sure that the creatives you enjoy watching are able to keep doing it. Having an audience tip a creator, much like how we tip servers at a restaurant, is how so many content creators are able to do more and share more of what they love with their community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/sometimescastles
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sometimescastles/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SometimesCastles
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SometimesCastle
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SometimesCastles
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sometimescastles Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SometimesCastles