BB Ajlouny (12): As a kid, there was some app on the App Store called Video Star, and it basically allows you to choose a song and then record clips and put it over it. So, as a nine year old, I made music videos — “music videos.” That’s what got me started to the idea of liking to make videos.

So, cringe middle school YouTube channel, in order to post videos, you need to learn how to edit videos, so that pointed me in the direction of video editing. And so I kind of kept up with that in sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grade.

I see so many people and they ask me questions about how I learned what I do. And everyone is so shocked when I tell them I just looked it up on YouTube. Everything on what camera should I get how do I do certain effects? It’s all on YouTube.

I kind of just learned everything myself. There was no one to hold my hand, and I’m actually very proud of that. So in that, I feel very confident in my ability to teach myself how to do certain things that I want to do, whether it be me just experimenting and trial and error and then I figure out how to do some certain editing effect, or just looking it up online.

So I came up with “vidsbybb” … I actually copied it. So when I was choosing “vidsbybb,” I was like, oh, let me look at what names other people have. And so I learned that there are four or five template names that people have. “Shot by,” shot by is a very popular one. “Edits by” is another popular one. “Flicks by” for people who do photos, and then “vids by.” But I only found one “vids by” account, so I was like, “Okay, then ‘vidsbybb’ must be somewhat unique now.” So that’s how the name came.

Yeah, so I created my website. I spent lots of hours on that thing. Actually, many, many different redesigns but, website is cool. I think it’s cool that if I tell people, “Go look up this by “vidsbybb” online,” even if they misspell it a little bit, “vidsbybb” is still the first link that shows up, so I think it’s cool.

I’ve always wanted my own hat. I love hats a lot. Hats and hoodies are my two favorite articles of clothing. The idea of having my own hat with my own logo on it, that’s sick. Why would I not want that? So I went on Zazzle and stuck my logo on some trucker hat. And then I got 15 of them and just gave them to my friends.

What I hated were double weeks, when I had two shoots in a week. There’s just a lot going on. And yes, you feel very burnt out. And I think between the months of September to December, I was getting … a good night’s sleep was five and a half hours. That was pretty solid. That was a good day where I would feel like tomorrow, I’ll be awake in class. Maybe, maybe not. So I was very burnt out. I was not getting a lot of sleep. But I thought it was worth it, because I made lots of money.

What really makes it worth it is the feeling you get when “vidsbybb” shows up in the school meetings and then everybody starts freaking out. Oh, my God. That’s like the best feeling in the world because of the fact that I make something and I spend a lot of time into something I’m actually passionate about, but then I see that other people can be passionate about it, too and share that with me. That’s the best feeling ever because it really feels like all the work and hours that I put into it actually pay off.

But at the end of the day, I just like working with the camera and I like editing videos. So, even if I wasn’t getting paid, even if people didn’t hype it up and if I didn’t have like as many Instagram followers, I’d probably still be doing it.

My hope is, it’d be super cool if someone will try and recreate what I do and I hope they are successful. It’d be sick if someone ended up carrying on what I do, and sports videos at school meetings is something that keeps going on five, ten years in the future.