A medical graduate, who has parked his profession to focus on creating memes, is the first Maltese to have amassed over 1.2 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, making him the biggest local YouTuber and online content creator.
But do not feel out of touch if you have never heard of this local celebrity, who is listed as the most famed Maltese-born person on the Famous Birthdays website. The truth is he is not that well-known here, especially among the older generations, and his huge audience is global.
The content on his Grandayy YouTube channel consists mainly of memes (an image, video, piece of text, etc, typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, according to the idiot’s guide to YouTube), enjoying nearly 300 million views.
It may be difficult for anyone not into YouTube culture to comprehend this “massive achievement”, says the 24-year-old doctor, who goes by the name of Grandayy, preferring to keep his personal identity private.
But to put things into some sort of perspective, the biggest YouTuber in the world, PewDiePie – also a fan of Grandayy – has 66 million subscribers. Locally, the second biggest Maltese YouTuber, Stella Cini, is currently at 220,000 subscribers, while singer Ira Losco is at 15,000.
As things stand, Grandayy maintains he is currently “one of the most relevant and original meme creators worldwide”, especially on YouTube, along with another memer Dolan Dark, who has over 900,000 subscribers.
The profile picture for Grandayy.It is “pretty amazing” to have so many followers, Grandayy admits. “Sometimes, I myself find it hard to fully grasp this. Having a loyal fan base that enjoys the content I create is a great feeling.”
Other than that, however, he does not put too much thought into it, except that he is not keen on revealing his real identity due to his following.
“I would prefer not to have to deal with that level of fame in my life outside of the internet,” he says. “I know the consequences of making my name public… Anyway, my real name is irrelevant in my job. Everyone refers to me by the name of Grandayy.”
His target audience is mainly teenagers and young adults from all over the world, but primarily English-speaking countries.
“Memes have become much more mainstream than they were a few years ago, but of course, they are still not yet understood by people who didn’t grow up with the internet. They cannot really appreciate what I do, and that is totally understandable,” he says.
It all started back in 2011, covering songs using note blocks in the video game Minecraft on his grande1899 YouTube channel, currently the second largest, with over 300,000 subscribers and over 90 million views. But he never envisaged this kind of success.
A lot of my fans joke that instead of saving lives as a doctor, I’m saving lives with memes
“I only made those videos out of pleasure and because I enjoyed sharing them with the world, and it’s still the same now,” he insists.
Creating online content can be pretty volatile too. While a channel can grow very quickly, it can also stagnate as fast, he explains. “I’m conscious of that possibility, but all I can do is keep making videos.”
To get to this stage of success, there is no doubt that Grandayy has “liked technology” from a young age. “As a teenager, I was already spending a lot of time on my computer, and video games are what led me to start posting my first Minecraft videos on YouTube after all.”
Grandayy also has the largest Maltese Twitter account, with over 200,000 followers, and the second largest Instagram account, behind singer sensation Emma Muscat. On a small channel called Grandayy Malta, he has also posted a few political memes.
“I think they are definitely effective in political campaigns and have been used successfully to promote political messages,” he says. “However, mine are never meant to promote any political party over another. My only interest is to make people laugh. I rarely use memes to make statements either. The only time I do is for topics that can affect the internet and especially memes themselves.
“For example, a serious issue right now is Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive, a proposal that may be a massive threat to the sharing of memes and parodies, as well as freedom of expression on the internet, by introducing automated censorship on social media sites. I have recently made a few memes to spread information about this.”
His Trump parody videos are, indeed, some of the most time-consuming. To start off with, he has to recreate the instrumental of the song he is parodying, then think of the lyrics, spend time searching for specific quotes from Trump to synch them with the music, shifting their pitch so they match the key of the song. It takes many hours for one parody – easily over 20.
Grandayy graduated as a medical doctor last year but chose to work full time on memes instead, fulfilling a dream to be able to make a career out of YouTube.
“Even if it sounds funny to many, I honestly prefer this work, so if I’m lucky enough to be able to do it, that’s what I will do.
“I was also lucky to have support from practically everyone in my life,” he says about quitting the medical profession. “While my parents still don’t really understand memes and would have definitely wanted to see me work as a doctor, they did not object and were supportive of my decision. As for my income, it mainly comes from adverts on my YouTube videos.”
Creating memes is a far cry from saving lives, and Grandayy admits it is hard to reconcile the two worlds and find some common denominator.
“A lot of my fans joke that instead of saving lives as a doctor, I’m saving lives with memes, seeing as my content makes people laugh.
“I have often been told that I have wasted five years studying, but I disagree. Those years were an experience of their own, which helped me grow as a person. The past is the past; I prefer focusing on the present and the future instead.”