How Emily Ferrier edits for YouTubers

TikTok landed Emily Ferrier a role editing YouTube videos for big creators.

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, from Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci.🧩

In the not too distant future, learning video editing will be the new learning cursive. —Kate

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The online creator industry is much broader than just the people who do the work in front of the camera. Especially for full-time YouTubers like Ur Mom Ashley and Mai Pham, the amount of content they produce is far more than they’d also be able to edit in any given day. That’s where folks like Emily Ferrier come in.

YouTube video editors aren’t new, but the nature of their jobs mean you’re not supposed to know they exist. They’re behind the scenes making content flow smoothly, collaborating with the creator themselves to help shoulder the brand. Ferrier, a 22-year-old from Toronto, has wanted to be a creator for as long as she can remember. She started her first YouTube channel in 2011, and founded her current one in 2014. She’s a self-taught editor, but studied broadcasting and TV formally in college to land her day job at a media company in Toronto.

When Ashley Alexander, the 22-year-old creator behind Ur Mom Ashley, which has over one million subscribers, posted on her Instagram Story that she was looking for a video editor, Ferrier leapt at the opportunity. And once Ferrier began posting editing tutorials on TikTok, she was connected with Mai Pham—another YouTuber with over 1.5 million subscribers. 

“I was like, ‘Wow, those are actually useful,’” Ferrier says over the phone, referencing her TikTok videos. “They get me cool opportunities. I didn't think that was possible.” 

Now, Ferrier works with both YouTubers in addition to her full time job, and on her own work as a creator. In this interview for paid subscribers, we talk about the unique challenges of editing for YouTubers (How do you know what to cut? What to keep? What to charge?) and how working with clients like Alexander and Pham is helping her launch her own YouTuber career.