Derry teenager Adam goes viral with 100,000 YouTube followers

The 17-years-old, who is Head Boy at St Columb’s College, has now racked up over 100,000 followers - up from around 10,000 in March- after some of his self-hosted entertainment videos went viral.

As of this week, the videos he has posted on his YouTube channel , ‘TheNewAdamb99’, have been watched over five million times.

Adam said he is delighted with the success of his channel, and is now set to receive a Silver Play Button plaque reserved for popular YouTubers as a result.

Two years on from setting up his YouTube account Adam, who comes from the Fernabbey area of Derry, said he is delighted with the response he has been received from people across the world.

“I have a lot of subscribers from America in particular, around 40% and something I didn’t realise is that some of them have remarked that they love the Derry accent. I thought it would be hard to understand, but Americans love it.”

Adam’s YouTube channel took after he posted a few videos on tricks that will result in a humorous response from the virtual intelligent iPhone assistant ‘Siri’ .
Another involved a Wubble Bubble putting things inside a Wubble Bubble and a Fidget Widget Spinner.

These two videos alone have been watched by over 3.3m people across the world.

And the jump on the number of people subscribing has opened up more business advertising and promotion opportunities for the young Derry ‘A’ Level student.

Adam said: “I have been getting far more e-mails and offers and stuff and obviously I want to choose the right ones as I want to keep the channel personalised to me.

“The main reason why I started the channel was to entertain people, not to make money but it does help a lot and if this kept increasing and building up and building up, it could be a viable opportunity for a career, which I would love. It’s exciting and the good thing about YouTube is it always keeps increasing.”

As a result of his success, Adam has a lot more comments on his videos to get through but said he enjoys the banter and discourse, which he says has become a “lot more colourful” of late.

Adam has previously said YouTube has become his part-time job and one that pays pretty well.

His ‘How To’ series and lyric prank videos have also gone viral in the past.

His passion for YouTube has not affected his school work, and last year he managed to rack up 11 A*s at GCSE level - one of the best set of results in the north - and is currently studying Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology at A-Level.

Adam said he has learned to balance his time between his hobby and his schoolwork.

This August will see Adam on the bill as a speaker at the UK’s largest YouTube and online Video Festival, Summer In The City in London.

It will be the first YouTube convention and he has attended and Adam said he is delighted to be speaking at different events during the festival.

“I’m really excited about it. I am really looking forward to just experiencing it, and I’ve been contacted by a few people already who have said they are going.

Adam has encouraged other people in the north west to try and develop their own YouTube channels.

He said: “In Derry there’s not many YouTubers and I would urge as many as possible learn videography and techniques.

“I basically taught myself editing and I didn’t do any courses or teaching.

“I would urge anyone to try it. It has great benefits. It improves your confidence, even though you are speaking to a camera, it really does help you.

“YouTube is a wonderful place as you can learn anything. It opens up so many opportunities.”