Aaron tells a story that gets millions on YouTube & is proven wrong about something in the process.
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Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Birce
Art: Pete Whitehead
Music: thomas j. duke
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S3 Episode 6: The story that got 1 MILLION views.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
It's Joe from the Grind Hours podcast. One reason I love 7 Minute Stories, other than being on an episode of 7 Minute Stories is just your ability to transport me to a portion of my life that is similar to the story that you're telling on any given week, and to think about things that I didn't think about or haven't thought about for years or months, or connect with people that I didn't think I would ever talk to again. Keep going, and keep inspiring, and keep telling great stories. Alright.
You're listening to 7 Minute Stories with Aaron Calafato. This is season three. If you want to connect with us or grab some merch, visit us at 7minutestories.com. That's the number 7minutestories.com. This episode, the story that got a million views.
In the last 28 days, I've gotten over 2 million views and counting on YouTube shorts with my storytelling. Mind you, it was 20 one-minute stories that I told in 28 days and it's at 2 million views and counting. Super bizarre, super exciting, super weird. But I wanted to share with you the intersection between that experience and this podcast, and I also was proved wrong about something that I want to tell you about.
First, let me just set the table really quick. This is the ultimate goal, meaning my goal as a storyteller is to get people to listen to these seven-minute stories every week and to grow the audience. That's the only goal. The only goal is how far can I take this? How wide of an audience can I grow this to? Because right now we have thousands and thousands of listeners, which is amazing, but I don't know what the ceiling is. I want to see how far I can take it. And by the way, when I hit that ceiling, then I'll just keep doing it every single week from that moment on. And I'll just know, that's my people. That's my audience.
The other thing is—and you all know this—I don't do traditional advertising or try to make money directly off of this podcast, and the reason why is because I want to keep the storytelling space sacred. And I've said it from the very beginning, and that's why I've designed my career and my work the way that I did, literally around this freaking podcast. Because I knew that if I tried to make money directly on this podcast, I'd have to lace it with advertising.
And when people start paying you money for stuff, they sometimes are like, "Well, can you say this and not say this?" I don't want any of that. I want an independent experience where you and I can talk and I can tell a story to you on an intimate basis with no middle person defining what I say or your experience.
So to do that, I had to build a consulting firm and I use the skills that I have. So I do storytelling consulting with corporations, CEOs and individuals, and I do podcast consulting in the same way. And because of the growth of that business, I can sustain this podcast. It's just a different way of sustaining it. You just have to look at it differently. Most people are like, "Oh, I got to make money on my art." Or you can make money on the skills that you have as an artist, and then fund a project or an ongoing platform that you want to keep sacred. So I say all that to say I have to be creative because of that. I have to be creative for how I try to get new audience members.
I was talking with some friends. I'll give them credit, Kyle, Rob and Rich. They were all like, "You should do some more video content. Specifically, why don't you do short versions of your seven-minute stories that you've already told or ones you're going to tell and put them on YouTube or something, or TikTok or something like that?"
So I was like, "All right, well, let's test it out." I don't know what's going to happen. I don't use TikTok. I don't use YouTube Shorts. I'm on YouTube, but I don't use Shorts. I don't look at any of that stuff. I have an idea what's there, it's just not my thing. But I'm also not naive to the fact that there's attention there.
So my only concern was, is the way that I tell stories that you all enjoy, is that really the space for this? Like YouTube Shorts? I decided YouTube Shorts because I just couldn't get over the dancing on TikTok. And I was like, "All right, let's just do YouTube Shorts."
So I picked my platform and I said, "I'm going to do 70-second versions, like a 70-second story... By the way, a little plug there for a future podcast, a sister podcast, but we'll get to that later. But if it's not 70 seconds, how about 60 seconds? Because that's the time limit on YouTube Shorts. What if I do 60 second versions of these stories and I just start posting them every other day? So I just started doing it.
And like I said, my only fear was, would they be received well? Not because I care about the negativity or anything. I just didn't know because my stories and the way that I did them, there's no camera tricks. I'm not doing any weird dances. It doesn't fit in line with all the other stuff out there. So I just wanted to throw my hat out there into the void, and what I got was extremely humbling and surprising. Two million views and counting in 28 days. And so now because of that, I now have a channel, a new channel for my storytelling. But the ultimate goal is to get those folks over here because this is my foundation, what we're doing here. So mission accomplished, right?
But there's one more thing that I learned. See, I've always been skeptical of social media and I think rightfully so. Last 10 to 15 years, it's a disaster out there. It can be good, but it can also be bad to social discourse, to democracy, to just good energy. There's a lot of nastiness. You go to any comment thread, it's awful. There's a lot of that. And I don't use social media for the most part for any personal reasons. The only reason why I use social media is to bring awareness to my storytelling and to this podcast.
So I was nervous—to be honest with you—when I started getting a lot of views. Not that I can't handle negativity, but I just was curious to see, and my instinct was that most of the comments on YouTube Shorts were going to be nasty, that they were going to be all hateful and hurtful. And I was even like, "Oh God, I'm going to have to turn the comments off."
And I don't know if it's just unique to me, but my experience was the exact opposite. So far, it's been 90% positive, good, kind, thoughtful, great perspective, great stories. Like 90% good and 10% assholes. Now 10% of a million is still a lot of people, but it's nothing compared to the 90%.
And so I don't think that proves something entirely, but it uplifts and reaffirms an instinct that I've always had. No matter what is out there, no matter the perception and the haze of what we see in the media and social media, there is something truthful, and I think that truth is that there's more good people than not. That there's more good than bad. And I'm aiming at all of you with these stories on 7 Minute Stories. And you're bringing that goodness back to me. I'll talk to you next week.
Seven Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Our senior audio engineer is Ken Wendt. Our resident artist is Pete Whitehead. Original music by TJ Duke. If you or your company needs help starting a podcast, Aaron and Ken's company, Valleyview, does just that. Reach out to them at valleyview.fm. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcasts, and I'm Corrie Burse. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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