Three years ago, Austin Pamajewon was spending all of his time playing video games and his parents just didn’t understand. After graduating high school, instead of considering college or university, Austin decided to invest all of his time into his YouTube channel and Call of Duty.
All of his hard work has finally paid off. Pamajewon has just hit 2 million subscribers and has generated over 250 million total views with no end in sight.
To give some perspective on what an amazing feat this is for a young indigenous man to accomplish consider these facts: Beyonce’s YouTube channel has 8,182,305 subscribers and CNN has a total of 959,489. At time of printing Austin Pamajewon had 2,008,212 subscribers just ahead of Mr. Bean who had a total of 2,007,070 followers on YouTube.
According to social media analytic socialblade.com Austin’s YouTube channel could be worth a maximum of $744,500 per year in revenues.
Austin Pamajewon is a 19 year old from the Shawanaga First Nation and is of the Bear Clan. He currently resides in Parry Sound and his millions of fans online know him as Pamaj. His phenomenal ability to shoot enemies with a Call of Duty sniper rifle is the focus of his channel, but it took a lot of hard work to share his skills with the world.
“YouTube doesn’t happen overnight. It took me 8 months to even get 100 subscribers,” Austin told the Two Row Times. “It also took me 3 years before I started to see money coming from this. People don’t realize the amount of time that needs to be put into things you love.”
Now that he is driving a brand new BMW and is making thousands of dollars per video, his family and friends can finally be proud of his gaming lifestyle. Society is finally catching up to the value of digital entertainment but old stereotypes die hard.
A generation ago the idea of professional video gamers was unheard of and the term ‘e-Sports’ was laughable. Today the worldwide revenue of video games is 80 billion per year and a 2014 report shows that 59% of North Americans play video games and the average age of these gamers is 31 years old.
So how did Pamaj become a YouTube superstar? It definitely took hard work and dedication to learn the technical aspects of recording himself and editing the videos for YouTube, but this young man is also a sensation when it comes to the online battlefield.
Not many people can do what he does with a PlayStation controller. He is like a virtuoso. I tried explaining to my father how skilled Pamaj is and why he can earn a living playing video games, but my dad just couldn’t understand. Austin is like the Michael Jordan of Call of Duty and has an unparalleled ability to hit enemies on the battle field. He is a digital sharpshooter.
Not only that but he has a great voice and presence in front of the web cam, which he has been working on since the 8th grade. “I started talking about making videos and learning all of it during the summer before I went to high school,” said Pamajewon. “I saved up all my summer money and random Christmas money and bought all the equipment I needed. It worked out perfectly.”
“Then in grade 9 we all wrote letters to ourselves that we promised to read when we graduated. Mine said I wanted to graduate with 100k subscribers and by the time I graduated I had over 1.1 million subscribers. Blowing that away,” Pamaj said.
Perfect indeed, Pamaj is well on his way to becoming a household name in mainstream North American society and he even has his own clothing line. His family and community is behind him 100% and he is an ambassador for indigenous people everywhere.
“Most people are scared to do what they love because of what a few friends will think of them and then later on it will make them regret not doing it,” Austin shared with us. “You gotta just go for it because at the end of the day. You really wanna be happy.”Pamaj hits 2 million Subscribers
