Here, Grace, 12, tells the story in her own words.
Strutting Barbie around her new doll’s house I described each room in detail. My dad, Greg, 46, filmed as I played away.
‘It’s great,’ I squealed, watching myself back afterwards. My six-year-old self was so proud of the result, I convinced Dad to upload the video onto YouTube. ‘I don’t know how to,’ he grumbled. But with a bit of backwards and forwards he made it happen. Little did I know my YouTube career was about to begin.
I loved watching other kids play with their toys on YouTube but didn’t check out my video until nine months later when my cousin mentioned he’d seen it. ‘It’s had a lot of views,’ Adrian, now 23, said. By then, aged seven, I didn’t really understand that nine million views was a lot. Dad and my mum, Antonia, 48, seemed pretty excited though! ‘Maybe I’ll do another one,’ I shrugged.
Popping my Barbies in the pool, I pretended they were on a cruise ship holiday. Uploading it, that video went crazy too, so I started doing a few more. I love your videos, make more, came the comments.It was still just a fun hobby for me though. But when I was about nine, Adrian told Dad I might be able to make money from what I was doing with adverts around my videos.
Incredibly, he was right, and as I clocked up more views and subscribers, we earned enough for Dad to quit his computer programming job and work on my channel, Grace’s World, full time.
I loved writing scripts for my dolls and we bought heaps of equipment to make the videos look really professional. Then late last year, we realised we were getting close to a milestone. Grace’s World had nearly one million subscribers, which would make me one of the youngest YouTube successes in Australia.
In January we hit the magic million. ‘I’m so proud of you,’ Dad said as we all jumped up and down excitedly. With so many fans, I’ve started getting recognised
in the street. Whenever we’re at the shops at least one little girl points at me. I think Mum and Dad are still super surprised how it happened.
We’re making enough money for me and my nine-year-old brother James’ futures and we also get to do cool things. Just last year we were flown to Hawaii to meet other YouTubers.
I’m still working on Grace’s World and I’ve also created Grace’s Room which is where fans can ask me questions. I always knew I loved Barbie, but I didn’t realise she’d give me a career!
Check out Grace's World right here.
Read more in this week's issue of that's life!
