Well mine is! The difference is, as of this week, he is actually on YouTube.

I give you RoguePancake19. Want to make an 11 year old day? Click the link and subscribe to his channel.

Owen, my 11 year old son, spends most of his free time doing one of three things: playing hockey, playing video games, or watching people on YouTube play video games.

I don't quite get the whole watching people play video games thing but who am I to judge; I spent my teen years staying up until 2am watching people waxing cars and lighting them on fire to sell product.

So, shortly after Christmas my son approached me and asked if he could set up a YouTube channel so he could start recording "Game-play Videos" using the xBox One he got as a gift. Now, you have to realize that he rarely asks for much. And, as an employee of the Tech sector with a background in marketing and promotions, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to introduce him to the world of computers, social media, and mass marketing. Always looking for the next life lesson! 

In this day in age, when adults and kids alike are jumping on youtube to broadcast everything from video game play to opening Kinder Eggs, I was amazed at the hoops I had to jump through to get him on line. It was no easy feat and even less easy to explain to him that there was no magic button to push and BAM, the world knows about "RoguePancake19".

After setting up his channel and helping him record, edit, and publish a few videos, Owen found his friends were asking him how he started a channel and was recording his xBox games. Of course, he was in no position to walk them through it and I even questioned if I could do it again without notes. So here they are...

HOW TO GET YOUR KID ON YOUTUBE:

Set up a Gmail account - I have to be a little creative here. Google has age restrictions for their accounts so I signed up myself but with my son's gamer tag as the name. Sign up for a Google account

Set up a YouTube channel - With a Google account comes the ability to sign into YouTube. Yes, Google owns everything Microsoft or apple doesn't already own. Starting a channel

Register for a Twitch account - Twitch is an online streaming network and will work as your connection from your xBox to your YouTube account. There are other ways to get your videos in to YouTube but this way is free. Open a Twitch account

Install the Twitch app on the xBox - From the apps tab in your xBox, search for Twitch and instal. If you are stumped at this step, ask your kid for help.

Now everything is in place and ready to go. Kinda... There is still the matter of creating a header banner for your channel, recording some videos to Twitch, export your twitch videos to YouTube, and let the world know you are out there. Here is a video which helped me out when I was setting things up.

KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER:

Lag - If you do not have a fast internet connection, your game will lag as it tries to both pull game info from the internet and push your streaming video back up.

Tags - Make sure you tag your YouTube videos with words or phrases that describe what is in it. Things like what game you are playing, what system you are playing on, what character you are playing with, etc.

Indexing - Your YouTube channel needs about 3 to 4 videos before YouTube will index it making it findable using the search.

Subscribing - Get your friends to subscribe to your channel and subscribe to anyones channel you know.

Cursing - Keep it clean guys. Parents love gameplay videos that aren't littered with F-Bombs.

Humour - Have some fun, get some laughs. People love gameplay that is funny and really shows your personality.

You can also use the built in xBox DVR to quickly capture the last 30 seconds of play or 5 minutes worth of play without comentary. One recorded, you can export to SkyDrive or download an app called Upload to edit your videos right on the xBox. If you have any questions about this, you can find videos about just about anything on YouTube itself.