Ghanaian YouTuber Wode Maya shares story of how it all began

Ghanaian freelance Vlogger, Wode Maya, has shared the story of how he became a YouTube content creator.

It all started when he discovered YouTube while he studied his aeronautics major mostly online in China and started making videos for fun as a past-time.

Speaking in an interview with Solomon Ter on Asaase Radio’s “Accra-Lagos-Joburg,” Wode Maya revealed that his dad was initially not in favour of him making YouTube videos but his mother supported him.

The YouTuber continued that his father later – after being convinced by his mom who had advised him to keep making the videos “low-key” – pitched him his winning idea: to change the content he was making at the time; mostly “sharing his experiences with Chinese women as a young guy on campus,” and create content that will add value to society.

“After my dad gave me the go-ahead, my dad called me and said, ‘… I know you speak very fluent Chinese, but you need to use the language, that you speak to spark a change, to start something.’

“I was a comedian, I was just tickling out girls, let people laugh, and that’s it. My dad is like, that doesn’t bring any value to society. So try and add value to what you do,” Wode Maya said.

He took this advice and “started creating content about Africans living in China, trying to change the perception of what Chinese people think of Africa.”

And that is when his “channel just shot up.”

“…From 500 people watching me, I hit my first 1000 people and within two months I hit my first 8000 within the same range.”

He “realised that this is what I wanna do” and “kept on doing one video after the other.”

One-year ultimatum

Wode Maya added that after his graduation and his father’s death in 2017, he decided to go back to Ghana and become a full-time YouTuber but his mother did not support his idea this time.

Her reaction when he told her this decision, he said, was “’never step here! Because the job that you’re doing in China, is paying you… and you’re saying that you’re coming to carry a camera around and then be paid. What kind of job is that?’

“… But I had to follow my passion. What I did was to come back home without her consent; I flew from China, came to Ghana.”

However, on his arrival, his mother gave him a one-year ultimatum after which he was to return to China should things not go as planned.

“Do you know I even signed a contract with my mom? A contract that shows that ok, you know what, give me a year, if things don’t go well, I go back to China. So I had to get … a one-year visa in China before I came back to Ghana … that in case anything goes wrong, I’m just going to go back… I had that assurance …”

He has since created over 900 videos on his YouTube channel, “WODE MAYA” with over 25 million views and some 981k subscribers. His vlogs seek to display the beauty of Africa and what the continent has to offer to the world.

“It’s been … three years” since his return to Ghana and he said he doesn’t think he’ll “ever go back.”

Watch the interview here

Nana Abena Boakye-Boateng

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