What’s Goin’ On Ace Family: How One Family Changed the Future of Vlogging Forever
In today’s society, we’re surrounded by millions of people who document every day of their lives. We have become so obsessed with “following” the lives of others, while continuously liking and commenting on new content. Not only are we sharing tweets, photos, snaps, blogs and videos, but we are now combining it all into one, with what is now being referred to as a “vlog”. Wikipedia defines a vlog as, “a video blog or video log, which often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata.” Many celebrities have began creating YouTube accounts just to post daily and weekly vlogs, including Shay Mitchell, Chantel Jeffries, Nash Grier, Karlie Kloss, Maddie Ziegler, and the list goes on.
Believe it or not, but ordinary people, like you and I, are now turning into famous celebrities with extremely large fan bases and large bank accounts, just by walking around with a camera in their face all day to vlog. One of the most popular YouTube channels currently is none other than The Ace Family.
What’s goin’ on Ace Familaaaaaaaaaay? If you’re familiar with them, then you definitely heard that in their voices. The Ace Family comprises of 25-year-old ex-basketball pro, Austin McBroom, his beautiful 27-year-old fiancé, Catherine Paiz, and their adorable 1-year-old daughter, Elle Lively. As you can see, the first letter of each of their names spells out ACE for Ace Family (smart, I know). 7 MILLION fans cannot get enough of this family as they’ve turned vlogging into their full time career. The Ace Family post family friendly daily content, including, pranks, challenges, behind-the-scenes of events, and vlogs of their daily adventures.
Not only are they extremely popular on YouTube, but they have large fan bases on Instagram as well (Austin at 3.3 million followers, Catherine at 3.9 million followers, and even little Elle at 2.2 million followers — why does a 1-year-old have more Instagram followers than me?). What differentiates them from all of the other YouTuber’s out there is their dedication, consistency, bright and positive personalities, and their creative content. Oh, and of course let’s not forget, they are one of the first YouTube sensations to actually treat their fans like family.
Austin and Catherine began vlogging in 2016 as Catherine was pregnant with Elle, and Austin was still playing in the NCAA for the St. Louis University basketball team in Missouri. Referred to as “Catherine and Austin Vlogs”, with only about 1,000 YouTube subscribers, I think it’s safe to say that neither of them expected to see so much success in such a short period of time, or that they would become part of the meme culture by becoming memes themselves.
Consistent positivity and dedication led the Ace Family to their success, and it didn’t take them long to start capitalizing on their fame by creating their own merchandise. It started off with a line of “dad hats”, which had simple designs including a cross, an emoji or a short slogan. All of these hats included a symbol of an ace located at the back in order to tie the products to their brand. As they began getting more and more popular, the simple designs turned into famous catch phrases that they constantly repeat in their vlogs including, “Looking like somebody’s auntie”, or “Awww hell nawww”.
When they reached about 3 million “Ace Family Members” (what they refer to their fan base as), thousands of comments from fans were encouraging Austin and Catherine to expand their product line. Shortly after, through their vlogs they announced that they would be introducing a line of t-shirts, socks, backpacks, phone cases and more. To this day, they constantly come up with new designs for their products to stay trendy and up to date.
With sudden fame and 7 million YouTube subscribers comes plenty of $$$$$, and the Ace Family is not worried about showing it off. Throughout the last 6 months, Austin, Catherine and even Elle have been mainly seen wearing Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Off-White, Moschino, Balenciaga, and several other high fashion designers. They also have been posting many vlogs in their multi-million dollar Hollywood Hills mansion, and in Austin’s bright orange Lamborgini Huracan Performante. Nonetheless, Austin and Catherine always make sure to mention that even though their lives seem to be very glamorous, they’ll never let money change who they are as people, ever.
I know what you’re all thinking, there’s no way that they can afford all of this just by posting some vlogs and selling some merch, and you’re right. There are many other factors contributing to their success, and I’m going to go through some of them:
1. Getting $$$$ from YouTube: One of the things that you don’t realize is how much YouTube actually pays successful YouTuber’s. According to Investopedia, YouTube monetization for 1000 views ranges anywhere between $7 to $9USD based on the location of viewers and the target audiences. These numbers differ depending on the amount of subscribers, and of course there is also ad revenue to consider. On average, the Ace Family receive at least 4 million views on each of their videos, and they usually post every other day. Do the math. Crazy, I know. Comment on this blog post if you want to start a channel with me sometime soon…
2. Brand Collabs: Their collaborations and endorsements with popular brands seem to increase monthly. Throughout the Ace Family’s YouTube journey thus far, they have promoted at least 30 different companies through their vlogs, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. One of the most popular collabs is with SeatGeek. SeatGeek is a ticket platform that does all of the work for you by searching hundreds of ticket sales sites and brings them together in one place allowing you to compare deals (no, I am not being sponsored by SeatGeek to say that). Similar to SeatGeek, all of the other company collabs that they do provide fans with a coupon code, which benefits both the fans and Austin and Catherine as they receive a percentage of the sales used with their code.
3. YouTuber Collabs: They don’t just have collaborations with companies, but with other popular YouTuber’s as well. Both Austin and Catherine are friends with many celebrities as they live in Los Angeles and have been introduced to other successful vloggers through friends of friends. FaZe Rug, Wolfie, Chantel Jeffries, Domo and Chrissy, are just a few of the names of other YouTuber’s that they have collaborated with in videos. This typically involves both the Ace Family and the person they’re collaborating with, creating different creative videos so that both can post on their own channels. This leads to a large increase in subscribers as, for example, Chantel Jeffries’ fans subscribe to the Ace Family channel and vice-versa. This is a very smart “vlogger” marketing strategy as both channels get recognition for their creative content. One of the most successful collaborations for the Ace Family yet, occurred one week ago when Catherine’s friend, Kylie Jenner, threw their gender reveal surprise party at her home in Calabasas. This video has already received 8.3 million views, which is about 4 million more than their average vlog. Due to this video blowing up everywhere on social media (with the Ace Family’s name being associated to Kylie Jenner’s), they also reached 7 million subscribers (they only had hit 6 million last month).
4.Starting a Trend: Austin and Catherine’s success has encouraged many other couples and families to start vlogging, and many people refer to them as the OG’s when it comes to family vlogging. Other similar families on YouTube such as, The BANKS Family, The A Family, Jasmine and Joshua, and This Is L&S (which is actually led by Austin’s own brother) always seem to get ridiculed for “stealing the Ace Family’s ideas”. After seeing their success, why wouldn’t other people try to imitate what they’re doing?
5. Giving Back: Even with YouTube’s ad revenue and creative collaborations, none of this success would be possible without giving back to their fans and to those in need. Austin and Catherine have given away a Jeep, thousands to charity, done many large giveaways, filmed themselves giving back to the homeless on a weekly basis, and surprised fans at their homes. Coming this June, Austin has arranged a basketball charity event where he will compete against other YouTuber’s whom will each donate $50,000 to the chosen charity of the winner, and all ticket sales will be going to that charity as well. They are also always very thankful of the constant love and support that they receive from their followers. In almost every single video, they make sure to thank fans, while also giving a shout out to one lucky fan: “Today’s shout-out goes out to Timothy! Thank you so much for your support Timothy, you already know we love you!” They both have big hearts, and nothing makes them happier than giving back and showing how much they truly care.
Why does the Ace Family matter? Why should you watch their videos or even subscribe to their channel? Being a big fan myself, I can tell you that both of their positive spirits are truly uplifting. I know that sounds corny as hell, but stay with me here. Every single video that they upload has the ability to change your mood and even your day. You can go from having the worst day of your life, to laughing nonstop while watching their videos. With mental health being a significant issue in today’s social media obsessed society, Austin and Catherine have shared their personal struggles with anxiety and depression with all of their fans. After struggling to have a second child after almost a year of trying and by receiving plenty of hate across all of their social network platforms, they both have experienced mental illness. By sharing private and relatable stories with the world, their fans can develop a sense of trust and can even be relieved of certain mental health symptoms by knowing that they’re not alone. Their positivity is contagious and even by scrolling through some of their YouTube comments, you can see that many others feel the same:
In a world filled with so much negativity and hate, the Ace Family provide viewers with something to look forward to almost every single day. One 15-minute video has the ability to completely change one’s mood, and by having more Austin, Catherine, and Elle’s in the world, we might have a brighter future ahead of us.
