A few years ago, Kinigra Deon met a group of YouTube creators and helped them out by appearing in some of their videos. The experience was fun, but Deon was put off by some of the racy content, so she decided to try her hand at making her own videos instead.
But first she had to learn how to do, well, everything.
Today, the Alabama native — who left a career as a clinical laboratory scientist to devote herself to content creation — is so proficient in so many aspects of production that her YouTube channel has attracted more than 4 million subscribers, who keep coming back for her family-friendly comedies, dramas, romances, supernatural fantasies and more. Many are feature length, with high-quality production values that belie their modest budgets, and nearly all log millions of views. Along the way, she has mentored dozens of other aspiring creators, many of whom now work as part of her burgeoning production team.
Deon is one of a growing cadre of creators — including her friend and fellow YouTuber Alan Chikin Chow — who have achieved so much success online that they are now building their own production studios to keep pace with audience demand and expand the scale, variety and quality of their offerings. Funds for the expansion derive largely from advertising revenue. For short-form videos with running times of less than one minute, YouTube keeps 55%, with 45% going to the creators. For videos longer than a minute, the numbers flip, with 55% to the creators and 45% to YouTube. Many creators strike deals directly with brands as well.
Deon and Chow are also at the forefront of creators whose content has been influenced by the extraordinary increase in recent years of YouTube viewing on televisions rather than on mobile phones and tablets. In May, at the Google-owned video platform’s annual Brandcast presentation in New York City — held during the television industry’s Upfronts — CEO Neal Mohan said that YouTube viewing on connected televisions has increased more than 130% in the past three years and, on average, viewers consume more than 1 billion hours of YouTube content on television screens every day.
Deon, who was at the Brandcast event, reported that, in 2023, her YouTube channel amassed 160 million hours of viewing time, and as much as 70% of it on TV screens — which heightens the demand that her production values are as professional as possible.
In late June, we caught up with Deon at VidCon in Anaheim, where she shared insights about her creative journey, the evolution of her content and her big plans for the future — including the construction of a full-scale production studio in Alabama.
Television Academy: How did you get started as a content creator?
Kinigra Deon: In 2018, I moved to L.A. from Alabama. I was working as a clinical laboratory scientist at the V.A. Hospital in Long Beach. I met a couple of YouTubers, and they asked me to be in a video. I was acting in a skit, and then I was like, “Okay, this is taking a little long — I need to go to work. Don’t you guys work?” And they were like, “No, this is what we do.” I thought, “Wow, this is fun.” Long story short, I just learned how to do it.
I started filming, and I learned how to edit, and I really enjoyed it. My family always said I was animated, but I never, ever thought I would do this as a career.
At first, the target audience was adults, but I really hated the content. It was like, someone catching her husband cheating on her — I hated it. One time, my niece called me and said, “I saw your video.” “You saw the video about my husband cheating?” Oh, I hated that. She was three at the time, and she watched me on YouTube because she looked at that as like, “I'm watching you.”
So, the next time I went home, I made a video with her. She was a three-year-old bully, but, like, a fake bully. She bullied me. It was so fun. Eventually, it went from just creating funny skits to like, “Wait, we could really act. We could really make this into a high-production movie, because that's what it feels like we're doing.”
In 2021, I moved back home to Alabama, and we started producing content with a little bit higher quality. We started using more shots — more wides, more mediums, more close-ups. It just kept increasing. It started out as family and close friends, and now it has expanded to the point where, if you want to be a content creator, I'll show you how to do it, and then you can be part of the team.
Did the money to improve the quality of your videos come from monetization on YouTube?
Yes. At first, I was everything. I was the editor, I was the videographer, I was acting. The monetization allowed me to invest in an editor, invest in cinematographers. And as my YouTube channel grew, I took [the advertising revenue] and reinvested it.
YouTube is known for working closely with creators and assigning what it calls strategic partner managers to advise them as they grow. What has that experience been like for you?
My SPM is amazing. He talks to me about my channel; he suggests me for press; he suggests me for different events to network. Anytime an opportunity comes up for me to showcase what I do and who I am, he helps. And every [YouTube] executive I've ever met with is all about the creator and helping us. They listen.
They’ve even influenced how our content looks on TV. Most of my viewers watch on TV, so it needs to look different than it does on a phone. I don't think there's a platform that has a better relationship with their creators.
The conventional wisdom is that an online creator starts out on YouTube, but the goal is to get a TV show or make movies. But you’ve become so successful as an independent creator that you’re looking for acreage to build your own studio.
When I was in L.A., I had a lot of friends who were actresses and actors. I would tell them all the time, “Hey, you can come be in some videos and we can create.” At the time, they felt that creating on YouTube was not real acting. I also saw that they would do a lot of self-tapes [for auditions] and not get callbacks. To me, if you love the art, and you like doing it, then let's just put it out there. That’s what it was for me: I love what I'm doing.
If I want to write, and I want to tell that story, I'm not limited by gatekeeping. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't want to put something on a different platform. It's just that I have the ability to put it on YouTube whenever I want.
So, if I do shoot a movie, I can still put it on YouTube. Because my audience is going to watch it. Even if I wanted to premiere it in a cinema first, I know I’ve built a big audience on YouTube that will watch it.
A lot of creators focus on a certain genre, but you make comedies, dramas, even a fantasy romance with special effects. Where do the ideas come from, and how big is your creative team?
Most of the ideas come from me and my husband. The fantasy romance, that's me. I love those. The drama and urban movies are more my husband. We also hire writers who pitch ideas to us. We have four or five writers now. We have two camera crews, which consist of two camera people and a sound person. We have three directors. We have at least 50 different actors who also have become creators. We had one editor, but now he has a team. He started on his own, and now he has an additional three editors. It's really like a studio.
What type of stories are your favorite?
I love things like high school stories, chick flicks, romances. And anything mythical. When I first started, the group I was working with would do things that were very risqué. That’s too negative. It's not something I would want my kids to watch, and it's not something I would want to watch.
What’s the age of your audience?
I thought it was just kids watching, but I’ve discovered that a lot of families watch. The parents and the kids watch together, and the parents are just as invested as the kids. That's one of the things I like, too — it's a place where everyone can come and watch without anyone having to cover their eyes.
Are you based in Alabama now?
Yes. And we're looking for land to build a full-blown studio.
Where do you want to go from here?
My goal is to be a mini-Netflix on YouTube. I want to make movies and tell good stories. I could do this every day because I love storytelling.
Is there anything else that you want to say, or that I didn’t ask you about?
I guess since you're part of the Emmy community, I wish they would see creators as TV producers, because we do really work hard for the content, and we do have full studios and the quality is really high. We're no longer just doing random videos on the phone and hoping it goes viral.
A lot of hard work and thought goes into the videos. If the Academy is meant to represent television, I think [digital] creators should be in that representation, because a lot of people watch us.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
