The revolution will be televised (sort of): KSI

Olajide Olatunji – 21 years old, confident, dressed in high-end streetwear – is sitting alone in a sparse interrogation room.

There are just a couple of chairs, a table, and a big mirror on one wall. Behind it, officious eyes bear down on him for nervous fidgets and garbled answers – the tell-tail signs of a plotting jihadist. It’s the kind of room where, put a foot wrong, and you’ll quickly hear the chilling snap of a latex glove.

Read FHM India in the digital libraryEvery issue, every shoot, on TCG Media.

“First time I went to New York, it was horrible,” says Olatunji, or JJ for short. “I just sat there in a room and they didn’t say anything for hours.”

For the uninitiated, passport control in the US can feel a tad hostile; a place where even a granny on her way to Disney World begins to question if her bridge club is not in fact a dormant Al Qaeda cell. Anything slightly unusual, or something the immigration officer just doesn’t get (which can be a lot), and you’re bundled into The Room.

For JJ, the sticking point is his job. “I put down ‘YouTuber’ and they’re like, ‘What is this?’ I explain I make videos and put them out on YouTube. And they go, ‘What? How can you can make money from that?’”

As it happens, JJ has made a considerable amount of money from ‘that’. If you need proof, how about the metallic-purple Lamborghini Aventador in his drive (starting price £250,500). Or maybe the flash London pad he bought for himself and his mates? Or perhaps the house in Kent he purchased for his parents?

But a 21 year old with a turbo-charged supercar can provoke more questions than it answers when it comes to The Room. So, why didn’t he just ask the official to Google him?

“I told them! Just type in KSI and you’ll find me. And they’re like, ‘OK, whatever.’ And then there were just a whole lot more questions!”

Thankfully for JJ, the amount of people who don’t know who he is is dwindling with each video he makes. Better known by his nickname KSI, the current number of subscribers to his main YouTube channel weighs in at more than 9.25 million (that’s equivalent to double the population of Ireland). His total number of video views is 1.6 billion. He has the second most popular YouTube channel in the UK, beaten only by One Direction, and makes those belonging to WWE, MTV and Miley Cyrus look like church parish newsletters. To put that into context, JJ has essentially built an entertainment channel to rival the likes of E4 from his bedroom.

It was there, back in 2009, in his parents house that the 17 year old began uploading videos of himself commentating on his FIFA sessions. “I was actually quite good back then… I was really good,” he says, ditching the modesty. “I’d literally run rings around people and do crazy stuff. Then I’d edit the footage, stick some cool music in the background and put it out there as a sick video.”

The videos quickly generated a small but loyal fanbase – just a few thousand people at first but enough to generate a tidy income for a teenager. “I told my biology teacher I wasn’t enjoying school as much as YouTube. He asked me how much I was earning each month. When I said £1,500, he was like, ‘What? That’s way more than I get.’” about 25 miles this morning, to be exact. We’re in a wrestling ring under a railway arch in south London; trains thunder above us, the commuters on the 9.45 to Victoria unaware that just a few feet below them, one of the UK’s biggest entertainment stars is limbering up, getting ready to try his hand at a suplex.

We’ve been told in no uncertain terms by one of his publicists to keep the exact location for the interview a secret. “Please, no tweeting, Instagramming or Facebooking where we are until after we’ve left,” warns one very excitable guy on set, “or we’ll have hundreds of fans swarming all over us in minutes.” JJ later tells us it’d more likely be “two fans, and their mates, who’ll all just line up for a picture.” But we decide it’s best not to put it to the test.

FHM is gatecrashing the filming for Rule’m Sports, an offshoot KSI channel in which JJ tries his hand at everything from slam dunks to keepy-uppies, with cameos from sporting megastars. If it all looks slicker and shinier than his normal output, then that might be something to do with JJ’s teammate on the project: Endemol. Yes, that’s the same Endemol that creates and runs TV stalwarts Big Brother and Deal Or No Deal, and one of the biggest media companies on the planet.

While US immigration might not be aware of KSI, the most powerful players in the entertainment industry are. And they are taking JJ very seriously indeed. They’re not alone; there are also brands from KFC and The Sun to Microsoft and Samsung who want a piece of KSI magic, and are prepared to dig deep for it. Which begs the question: can a homegrown YouTube star sell out?

“That all depends on the brands you work with. There are so many that hit me up, it’s just ridiculous.”

And the money? “Like, disgusting amounts! But if it won’t work for my audience then I turn it down. You can’t do stupid things for a bit of cash because it could ruin the brand and make me look cheap.”

It’s a balance that, right now, JJ appears to be getting right: raking in money with no signs of discontent from his loyal fanbase. We suspect that if he chatted income with his former biology teacher today, the poor bloke would likely crumple to the floor, sobbing into his hands over his life choices and shattered dreams. after flunking his A-Levels (“thanks to YouTube”), which meant more time to dick around in front of a camera and, almost inadvertently, build the KSI brand. He’s long since expanded from FIFA commentaries to producing as many as 40 videos a month; everything from interviews with The Rock to very-close-to- the-bone comedy sketches.

Our favourite: JJ is dressed in a monkey costume roving around central London, preying on hapless tourists. A mate asks the strangers what they think the animal is. When they answer correctly, JJ whips off the head and chastises them for daring to call a black man a monkey.

It’s edgy, it’s bloody funny, and it’s got 8.4 billion views and counting (that’s more than an average episode of EastEnders). It’s also a perfect example of the borderline-offensive videos that KSI fans lap up, and have helped make JJ an idol to millions. Most of them, as he readily acknowledges, are primary and secondary school kids. However, not all his sketches are the right side of the borderline; in 2012, he was widely criticised for his so-called ‘rape face’ videos.

The humour was offensive and inexcusable but in reality, it was the sort of poor-taste joke that many young lads make. The difference? JJ wasn’t making it in a bar with his mates – he was doing it in the public eye, and in front of millions of impressionable fans. At the time, his manager issued a public apology attributing the debacle to his age (he was 18 years old).

The same publicist who asked us not to tweet JJ’s whereabouts has asked us not bring this up. But we don’t have to – he does it for us. “Listen, I was young and naïve and didn’t really know much about the world” he says. “Of course I regret it. But I’ve become a man since then.”

There is a lingering sense that JJ has begun to accept that, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. That and the fact he’s a superpower brand that needs careful management.

“My new videos have changed,” he adds. “I don’t do certain things just because it will affect people. Whereas before, I was just a boy making videos in my room thinking no-one’s here.”

manically rotating his fingers: international TV sign language for ‘wrap-it-the-fuck-up’. Filming is about to begin on the next instalment of Rule’m Sports.

When the camera flicks on, we witness an amazing transformation. JJ is, by all accounts, a polite, charming, down-to-earth individual, but when he’s on screen – when he puts his KSI hat on – it’s suddenly much easier to understand his huge, meteoric success. The achievements of YouTube’s handful of megastars leaves many bewildered at how it’s done but the answer, for JJ at least, is blindingly simple: he’s absolutely bloody brilliant in front of camera. This is helped, in no short measure, by his laugh. It’s booming, infectious and reverberates around the entire room.

Like all the best presenters – Davina McCall, Jonathan Ross, Dermot O’Leary – on screen, JJ has that exaggerated ‘normalness’. It doesn’t feel like he’s presenting; he talks to the lens as he would a mate and it creates an intimacy with the viewer which, be it on a TV or mobile screen, is entertainment golddust. Where the average person shrinks in the same situation, JJ is about 20% bigger – his laugh is louder, his jokes are natural and free-flowing… and he does it all with apparent effortless charm

It’s not hard to see why so many have clicked the ‘subscribe’ button on his channel. But what for the next generation of YouTube wannabes? The bedroom web nuts who dream of following in his Lambo tread marks? With the influx of cash from huge corporations, the production values getting slicker and a small elite dominating the platform, has it now become impossible for a young guy or girl with shit-hot FIFA skills or useful make-up tips to build a fortune from their room?

“It’s definitely a lot harder to make it on YouTube nowadays than it was a couple of years ago,” JJ reflects. “It’s just the way it’s built now: it feeds the big guys and then it doesn’t really do much for the little guys. And the guys in the middle: nothing happens.”

It’s an explanation that belies how much effort JJ has put into building his channel and brand. Perhaps the ‘little guys’ or ‘guys in the middle’ just aren’t prepared to put in the hours. Making 40 videos a month requires a hell of a work ethic, and then there’s the 5am bedtimes. “It’s normally me just editing or going through emails” he says. “Then there’s Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. Just making sure everything’s on check.” From the outside the KSI story looks very much ‘on check’.

“I’m happy with the position I’m in,” he says, just before we leave him to his wrestling. “But the thing is, I always want to do more. I’m looking to get a Bugatti next. That’s my mantra: I’m always moving on to the next.”

Watch new episodes of Rule’m Sports every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday

From the June 2017 issue of FHM India.