Derry Teen YouTuber Conor proves a big hit

Tech-savvy 14-year-old Conor Rabbett has also been asked by a number of local businesses to develop advertising videos for them, and has even set up his own website, after teaching himself coding, selling merchandise he helped design.

The St Columb’s College student, who comes from Culmore, started uploading to his site in September 2014 and is now just shy of 1,000 subscribers. “I was doing photography and that’s what got me interested in it,” he said.

After upgrading his camera, he decided to try out the video function and has been making short movies ever since. Over the past week he has been cramming in some in-depth, Hollywood grade video production programming. “I started off with gaming and live stream gaming and then moved into making films and vlogging, and now people have approached me to do advertising.”

Rewinding a bit, Conor’s photographic interests led to him obtaining media accreditation to capture the action at triathlons in Derry and elsewhere. “That got me a lot of exposure very quickly,” he said. “My films have been shown on the big TV at Waterloo Place.

“I love doing the videos but it eats up free time - I’m also in St John’s Ambulance and studying. With vlogging, its just whatever I’m doing. I’m just back from Ibiza and I blogged the whole time, every day.”

Conor loves the positive feedback he gets, and in terms of advice for others starting out, he said: “Be yourself. If you copy someone else, they won’t come back to you.”

Returning to school in September, Conor will be able to put his skills to good use when he takes up GCSEs in Moving Image Arts and Art Graphic Design, which he hopes will also help him achieve his long term goal of moving into movie production as a career.

Check out Conor’s YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yP8uqWqYRPEm_b2lM5TsA or on Twitter via @Conor7283.