A Yacht, a Vine Star, and his 10 Million followers.

The yacht was set to leave at 5 pm sharp, so I arrived at 4:30 pm and waited for Chris at the lobby.

*Ding* I heard the elevator open from behind and Chris passed me on my right. “Come up with me to the office, I need to grab my drone,” he said.

As the elevator climbed 21 floors to his penthouse, Chris turned and asked, “Do you know Jake Paul?”. “Nope never heard of him”, I replied. However, I knew exactly who he was but I didn’t want to admit it. Chris was perplexed. He immediately pulled out his phone to show me a video. “Look, over 200 Million people saw this! Crazy right?!, he’s going to be on my boat tonight,” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. Chris’ startup had just raised a whopping $15 million and to celebrate, he rented a double-decker yacht and invited none other than Jake Paul — the star of the night.

It was now 4:50, and we only had 10 minutes to get onboard (realistically, it wasn’t going anywhere until Chris set foot). He called for an UBER escalade and within minutes it arrived and we jumped in. The whole ride there Chris served the role as Jake’s hype-man, touting his accomplishments one after the other. “He told me his biggest payout was over $200,000,” he said with a smug grin.

By 5:20 we arrived and walked onboard. I was taken back by the sheer size of the boat. There was red carpet starting at the entrance that stretched all the way to the bar. There I saw a small crowd of people encircling someone. I walked toward them to see what the commotion was all about. From the back, I peered in and saw who it was. To use Jake’s words, he was a “white, good looking, funny guy.” Appearance wise, he was the epitome of the young, rich and famous that Hollywood purports itself to be. He sported a baseball-t on top of a gray shirt where the tail end was exposed, wore blue ripped jeans that exposed his knees and black air force ones — high tops.

It was an interesting dynamic unfolding in front of me — those who were envious and egotistical stayed away but chose to make unpleasant remarks behind his back. Those who were starstruck treated him like a landmark and only wanted a picture so they could show off to their friends. I even witnessed one girl sneak down to the lower deck while Jake was eating by himself just so she could have a private photoshoot.

When the opportunity arose to meet Jake, I casually walked over and introduced myself as if I never knew who he was. My strategy was simple: Treat him like an adult, not an object. Rather than feed into the hype and ask immature questions such as, “What’s it like to get any girl??”, I took the opposite approach and asked him thoughtful questions to get a better understanding of who he was.

Do you employ the same strategies across social channels or do you post different content based on the audience?

“Oh of course. Each social channel has a different audience — Snapchat is the behind the scenes look of your life, Instagram is for the highlights, and Twitter is for instant consumption.”

How much planning is involved before a video is put in front of a viewer?

“A ton — I have viewers who are as young as 12 and old as 60. So the challenge is creating funny content that is appropriate for all ages. Saying swear words like, shit and fuck are funny, but it’s not going to reach my entire audience so I am constantly finding new ways to captivate my viewers.”

Where do you get your ideas to find content?

“I draw inspiration from all over whether that be from my life that I think is funny or other videos. Like If I see something that gets a ton of engagement, I know that’s what people want and I can create something similar that is going to be way more funny.”

What advice would you give to someone if they were suddenly launched into stardom?

“When you’re in this game, you have to stay focused. I’ve seen people who make a couple of hits and then cruise by because they think they’ve made it. I remember when I got my first 100k followers, all my family and friends congratulating me and told me I’ve made it. But I knew this was just the start.”

To add, I said, “They say when you look back, that’s when you stop growing”. He replied, “You’re absolutely right.”

Who do you prefer to work with brands or agencies?

“Personally, I like working with brands because they care about what I have to say. If I tell them that this would be a better way, they agree and include it into their promotion. Agencies are the complete opposite. They already know what they want and where you’re going to fit in the plan. There’s hardly any room for feedback. Like for example, brands usually show an ad to five different audiences, but I don’t think that approach works. But imagine if five people that you care about within the same demographic posted about Coca-Cola”, as he swiped up on his phone. “If you saw the first ad, you wouldn’t think much of it, but after the second, third, and fourth time, it begins to leave an impact on you”

He added, “I don’t always want to be just a viner; I want to start a business. Right now I own a label and have signed a few viners to my name.”

What’s the other side of fame, that people don’t see?

“I have to be honest with you — even though on social media I have millions of followers and thousands of people who comment on my videos, I can count all my best friends on one hand. I work really hard to produce great content which comes with a lot of sacrifice like relaxing or partying. He continued, “people are snakes, man. Everyone promises you the world. Like, oh we can get you on this TV show or oh, go to this event and meet so and so person. Now before every meeting, I always walk into it with a specific goal in mind rather than just waiting to see what happens.”

How did you get your start?

“It all started out with my brother and I. We began experimenting with different types of content on Vine, saw what stuck and kept escalating it from there.”

For someone who is starting out, how do they get their videos seen?

“It’s important to find your niche and corner it. Look you’re not going to follow two funny black guys, just one. I am the funny, good-looking, white guy. You can have variations like a funny, weird looking white guy but It’s too late for people to try and replicate what I’ve created, I mean they’ve tried, but it never works.”

How do you protect yourself from the media when they try to exploit you?

“You’ve got to keep pushing forward. I’ve had friends who were caught on camera swearing at fans or doing inappropriate things and become petrified on how it was going to affect their reputation. The only way you’re going to get pass that is to keep creating content, engage with fans and pretend it never happ —

We were abruptly cut short when someone came up and asked “Jake, you have to come see the view. It’s gorgeous!”.

Feeling guilty for turning away multiple requests throughout our conversation, he conceded and we all went upstairs to the deck. We chatted here and there, but our conversation never went past the shallow end for the rest of the night. Though this experience may have been trivial for him, it was profound for me. I learned that on the surface, fame brings prestige and an aura of mystery, but turns you into a commodity. I watched how people who I’ve known change their behavior and become disingenuous. No wonder why Jake never stuck around to chat with them for very long; all he wanted was to let his guard down and be himself without the constant bombardment of pictures and flattery.