Earlier this year, James “Jameskii” Prime reached an astronomical career milestone: he hit 1 million subscribers on YouTube. Such a feat is what many content creators can only dream of, and Jameskii calls the moment the highlight of his esteemed career. With the growing number of streamers and YouTubers out there, it is becoming increasingly difficult to become noticed and gain a loyal and sizeable fanbase, but with Jameskii’s original approach to creating comedic videos highlighting the most popular video games, he has found just the recipe for success.
“It’s an incredible achievement that becomes harder to achieve with each passing year and I’m extremely proud of it. Unfortunately, my house has been set on fire twice in the last three years by a neighborhood junkie. The second time it happened, I lost my computer. I was still a relatively small YouTuber, getting around ten-thousand views a video, yet my fans and viewers gathered together to raise money for me to get a new computer so that I could continue working and sharing my content,” he said.
Jameskii has used his fame to create engaging content for his fans on his YouTube channel, which now has over 1.4 million subscribers. His videos now average over a million views, some with over 11 million. He has made substantial brand deals, including his most recent partnership with Tencent Games, the largest video game company in the world, and hosted worldwide streaming events, including Jingle Jam 2018, which raised over $3 million for charity.
“I never gave up. I have thought about giving up multiple times because I had a really rough period of my life, but I didn’t. I’m very glad I didn’t. It was surreal for me to realize how far I’ve come. I’m forever grateful to my supporters and I try my best to give back to these amazing people for everything they’ve ever done for me,” he said.
In October, Jameskii flew halfway across the globe to attend Twitchcon 2018 in San Jose, the world’s largest convention dedicated to video game streaming, hosted by the platform Twitch.tv. For any streamer, Twitch is a large part of their life and popularity, and Jameskii is no different. The content creator has over 150,000 followers on the platform, which is massively above the average on the platform. When he had the opportunity to go to the event as a Twitch partner and meet some of his fans it was something he couldn’t pass up.
“I got to go to LA and San Jose for the first time and I absolutely loved it. I grew up in Europe and I can certainly say people there were generally much friendlier and talkative than here. Obviously, it all depends on personal experience, but it was a pleasure to hang out with those people. I got to try out a lot of things that are just unavailable here and you probably already know I like trying out new stuff, so that was a pretty notable part of my experience. The convention itself was fun. It was worth waiting in line for four hours during a hot autumn day. We filmed everything both inside and outside the convention and now we have preserved amazing memories for ourselves to check out in the future when the time is right,” he said.
As a Twitch partner, Jameskii had access to partner lounges, special booths and private after party event. Each day, he would attend the convention and meet friends, fans, and other creators. As a streaming celebrity, Jameskii was recognizable to many attendees, often being stopped and asked for photos by fans. Jameskii never organized a specific meet and greet for his fans, so just being stopped walking through the convention, making conversations with those that loyally watch each of his new videos was a humbling experience for the content creator.
“I remember just standing in a line and being approached by people asking to take a picture together, they shared their stories on how they discovered me and my content and how much I helped them. It made me so happy. I knew some people would recognize me, but it was so unexpected for me to meet so many amazing people who could tell who I was from miles away,” he said.
A day before he was meant to go home, Jameskii was invited to the Twitch Headquarters located in San Francisco. He describes the experience as surreal, visiting the massive office space comprised of four entire floors of a giant building, two of which are connected with each other.
“Walking inside the building was like walking inside Hogwarts castle, it was huge, and I’ve never seen ceilings so high. I met a lot of cool guys from Twitch and we had plenty of fun together playing tabletop games and going out to eat in a local restaurant,” he said.
Attending Twitchcon was a monumental moment of Jameskii’s impressive career thus far. The streaming platform has played a significant part in his life, and meeting his fans is what drives him to keep doing what he does best: creating original and entertaining content.