My parents - eternal optimists that they are - have always told me that no matter who you are, what your talent, or where your passions lie, you can always make a career out of what you love doing.
Of course, I've never found a way to make a job out of drinking beer, sleeping until noon and watching cartoons until my eyes bled, but nonetheless it's that kind of thinking that propels many of today's profitable Internet sensations.
Truly, it seems in today's digital world you don't even need a talent to earn big bucks. Just ask Howard Davies-Carr, who uploaded a video of his one-year-old chewing on his other kid's finger and 400 million views later, it's earned him more than $100,000, according to the U.K.'s Guardian. The guy didn't even originally do it for money. He only posted the video so the rug rat's godfather could see it, but it seems an oddly high number of people think infant cannibalism is just adorable, and suddenly the guy has a following. He was smart enough to monetize his videos, and now has advertisers, such as a leading baby milk supplier.
Right now, every parent reading this is thinking, "Holy $#%%, I have to upload that video of little Timmy doing that really cute thing ASAP."
But don't flip your boss the bird just yet. It's not as easy as it seems to become the next YouTube or blog star. In fact, it's getting harder every day. The sheer amount of content being uploaded on YouTube - about 72 hours of it a minute - means you need to be really lucky or have a pretty good hook to go viral and achieve the number of views required to make some cash.
Uploaders make money on the site by signing up for YouTube's partner program, an automated process that's opened up the floodgates to anyone who posts original videos. That's why YouTube is an oasis (or hell, depending on how you look at it) of clips featuring drooling, sleeping and sneezing babies, cats, video game reviews, makeup tutorials, rants, raves, plus the Internet-required T and A.
But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try, right?
If you've got an idea, particular talent or sickeningly cuter-than-cute video of a baby, create a free account and post away. To be a partner, all you need to do is own and have permission to use the original content you're posting, post video regularly, and have thousands of regular viewers.
More of a writer than a videographer? No worries, as most free blog sites work the same way. Just create a blog that gets thousands of return hits and clicks, hit their version of YouTube's "monetize" button, and you could turn a profit from your love of origami, travel or old family recipes exclusively using that weird purple cabbage.
I'm going to start uploading videos of me watching cartoons while drinking beer you never know, mom and dad could've been right all along.
