As part of our regular look at cool things on YouTube, we’re speaking to Josh and Ollie, aka Korean Englishman, on what it’s like to make videos for Korean audiences from London. Last week they were in Seoul for the second YouTube FanFest Korea. We spoke to them about how they can engage with their fanbase in Korea, even while they’re based far away in London.
You’re based in the U.K., but your viewers are primarily in Korea. Is it hard to make videos when you’re so far away from your fans?
Ollie: We’re in a bit of a unique position because although we live in London, 90% of our viewers and fans live in Korea. So while we see big viewerships on our videos, it means very little to our day to day lives as people don’t recognize us in London, but they certainly do in Seoul.
Josh: In actual fact, a big part of the appeal is precisely that we’re based in the UK—our content is about introducing Korean culture to English people and English culture to Koreans, so that would be harder to do if we were based in Korea. We’re quite fortunate in that we get to come to Korea relatively often, so we can stay plugged into what’s happening in both countries and cultures.
So how much time do you spend in Korea and what’s it like when you’re here?
Josh: We end up coming to Korea about once a month. It’s always fun because it’s much more of an occasion, and we get to travel around—such as our recent trip around Jeju island, which we made a series of videos about.
Josh: When we’re in Seoul it’s quite a change to meet all these fans—we can’t take the subway unless we’re ready to meet people all the time! We love meeting fans in person though, as it puts a human touch on all the comments we get on YouTube.
Why did you decide to start uploading videos on YouTube?
Josh: Ollie and I used to make a lot of videos in university together. A few years down the line we wanted to do something a bit different, and thought of a fun project for the summer. I speak Korean, he makes cool videos, and we put two and two together. We started our channel in 2013, and currently have 906,000 subscribers. We’ve started doing YouTube full time for about a year now.
What are some of the coolest experiences that YouTube have opened up to you?
Ollie: We took a road trip from LA to New York in 9 days—we introduced all the Americans we met along the way to Korean food and Korean culture.
Josh: We’ve shot a Guinness TV advert, were flown out by GoPro to Hawaii, did a promo video for the Kingsman, the spy movie starring Colin Firth. There is a crazy amount of opportunities that we get.
You guys were great sports at FanFest—from writing words with your butts in the air, to doing pushups with someone sitting on your back. What did you think about your stage performance at FanFest?
Ollie: I wasn’t nervous about going on stage at all, but I was very nervous about the prospect of them making us eat Hongeohoe, aka fermented stingray that’s incredibly pungent. We’d done a video on eating Hongeohoe before with YouTubers Eat Your Kimchi where I actually got sick on camera...I was just terrified that was going to happen on stage. Sure enough, they made us eat it, but luckily I didn’t get sick!
What does the future hold for your channel and the Korean Englishman brand?
Josh: We want to keep innovating—we hope to be able to upload a lot more videos. We do about one a week now, but by Korean standards it’s not enough: all big Korean YouTubers upload almost every day, sometimes even twice a day.
Ollie: We definitely want to keep innovating. You can’t tread water on YouTube! Our channel is different than it was six months ago and than it will be in six months’ time. Hopefully people will keep enjoying our videos!
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| Ollie, left, and Josh on stage at YouTube FanFest Korea |
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| Josh and Ollie spell out words with their bodies (See below...) |
Ollie: We’re in a bit of a unique position because although we live in London, 90% of our viewers and fans live in Korea. So while we see big viewerships on our videos, it means very little to our day to day lives as people don’t recognize us in London, but they certainly do in Seoul.
Josh: In actual fact, a big part of the appeal is precisely that we’re based in the UK—our content is about introducing Korean culture to English people and English culture to Koreans, so that would be harder to do if we were based in Korea. We’re quite fortunate in that we get to come to Korea relatively often, so we can stay plugged into what’s happening in both countries and cultures.
So how much time do you spend in Korea and what’s it like when you’re here?
Josh: We end up coming to Korea about once a month. It’s always fun because it’s much more of an occasion, and we get to travel around—such as our recent trip around Jeju island, which we made a series of videos about.
Josh: When we’re in Seoul it’s quite a change to meet all these fans—we can’t take the subway unless we’re ready to meet people all the time! We love meeting fans in person though, as it puts a human touch on all the comments we get on YouTube.
Why did you decide to start uploading videos on YouTube?
Josh: Ollie and I used to make a lot of videos in university together. A few years down the line we wanted to do something a bit different, and thought of a fun project for the summer. I speak Korean, he makes cool videos, and we put two and two together. We started our channel in 2013, and currently have 906,000 subscribers. We’ve started doing YouTube full time for about a year now.
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| Festing with a fan at YouTube FanFest Korea |
Ollie: We took a road trip from LA to New York in 9 days—we introduced all the Americans we met along the way to Korean food and Korean culture.
Josh: We’ve shot a Guinness TV advert, were flown out by GoPro to Hawaii, did a promo video for the Kingsman, the spy movie starring Colin Firth. There is a crazy amount of opportunities that we get.
You guys were great sports at FanFest—from writing words with your butts in the air, to doing pushups with someone sitting on your back. What did you think about your stage performance at FanFest?
Ollie: I wasn’t nervous about going on stage at all, but I was very nervous about the prospect of them making us eat Hongeohoe, aka fermented stingray that’s incredibly pungent. We’d done a video on eating Hongeohoe before with YouTubers Eat Your Kimchi where I actually got sick on camera...I was just terrified that was going to happen on stage. Sure enough, they made us eat it, but luckily I didn’t get sick!
What does the future hold for your channel and the Korean Englishman brand?
Josh: We want to keep innovating—we hope to be able to upload a lot more videos. We do about one a week now, but by Korean standards it’s not enough: all big Korean YouTubers upload almost every day, sometimes even twice a day.
Ollie: We definitely want to keep innovating. You can’t tread water on YouTube! Our channel is different than it was six months ago and than it will be in six months’ time. Hopefully people will keep enjoying our videos!
