Thetford performer James Samuel hits magic number for YouTube award

A Thetford magician has been given an award by YouTube after passing 100,000 subscribers for his channel on the social media platform.

James Samuel, who also has 1.6 million followers on TikTok and 12,800 followers on Instagram, received the award last month.

The 2019 Britain’s Got Talent finalist said it was his best belated birthday present ever.

He said: “As a child I grew up fascinated with YouTube, especially magicians on the platform.

“I remember watching videos of other people unboxing these shiny awards, so to finally get my hands on one felt like a lifelong goal had been achieved.”

James started making social media magic clips properly during the first lockdown, even being flown out to Playa Del Carmen in Mexico in November 2020, to work with global social media magician Julius Dein.

The rise of his popularity on social media and the number of people he is now reaching with his videos has really surprised the magician.

James said: “I honestly never thought I would get many people other than family watching my videos.

“After a lot of trial and error I seemed to crack creating a video that gets views, but I am still learning, improving my techniques and skills to continuously up my game in the video- making and content world.”

During the pandemic, and even now, James feels putting his magic out there on social media platforms as well as performing live, as he did in Thetford with a Magic Stars Live show he organised back in November last year, is a very useful tool to use.

He said: “Social media has been extremely useful over the past few years within my magic career in a huge number of ways.

“When we were all locked down it gave me a creative outlet to continue performing, albeit virtually, and knowing that I was still able to share magic with people from the comfort of my home is just an awesome feeling. Also as the numbers grow it allows me to promote other things such as live events.”

James said social media had definitely changed the way he performed magic for the platforms compared to being in front of a live audience.

He said: “It has really my opened my eyes as to what people want to see and how to hold someone’s attention for an extended period of time.

“With a live audience they may just be polite but with online I can see if people are watching the entire video so it really gets you working to see if you can hold someone’s attention for the duration of what I put up.”

James is now looking to ‘step up another level’ going into 2022 and said he could not even have thought about that without the great support of the followers and subscribers he already has.

He said: “I am insanely grateful to everyone that supports my content. I put a lot of time, effort, and money into creating it.

“The views, positive feedback and comments make it truly rewarding and I cannot thank people enough for spending time out of their day to watch my magic videos.

“To level up this year will involve a better work ethic. To produce as much content as possible but also maintain the care and quality in my work.

“The most successful creators are the ones that continually work hard, produce and work on content daily but more importantly never give up and that is what I plan to do going forward.”