Meet The 56 Year-Old YouTuber With 13 Million Subscribers

At 56 years old, Jordan Matter might be the Tom Brady of YouTube. In a field dominated by people half his age, Matter calls himself the oldest YouTube creator with over ten million subscribers. These days, the average YouTuber is in their mid-twenties, TikTokers skew even younger, and 77% of American internet users are aged 15-25 years old, but Matter’s career has been anything but average.

Beyond his YouTube following, he’s had an impressive career as a professional photographer known for his mesmerizing dance and portrait shots. He even wrote several New York Times Bestselling books including, Dancers Among Us and Born to Dance. In the past few years, he’s stepped out from behind the camera to evolve his content from 10 minute photo challenges to recently filming more with his daughter Salish Matter and Hudson Matter (who has his own following of 765,000 subscribers on YouTube) with videos about conquering stage fright, extreme hide & seek, and more. So how does Matters do it?

I interviewed Jordan about his career evolution, his unique approach to collaborating with others, and of course, his advice on building a long-term career as a creator regardless of your age or experience level. He took me behind the scenes and shared three important insights he learned along the way.

1) Don’t Take Ghosting Personally

Matter has made a career out of collaborating with fellow creators. While he’s worked with creators like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae, his outreach messages don’t always get replies back. “My job is getting ghosted,” he told me.

So how does Matter ultimately get their attention? His pitches consist of an opening sentence, the pitch itself, and an “easy out.” When Matter messages creators asking to collaborate for the first time, he’ll add a sentence that includes his background, following, and past collaborations to establish social proof.

Even so, Matter’s response rate is far from perfect. “You’re going to get ghosted most of the time. So expect that going in and don’t give up just because you got ghosted, but don’t be annoying either,” he said. He said the key is to come up with a better idea down the road.

When that better idea for a collaboration finally comes, Jordan says: “We both kind of pretend it didn’t happen cause ghosting isn’t about ‘I don’t like you,’ it’s more like ‘I don’t like that idea’ and I’m too polite to say no.” In other words, pitching and being ghosted isn’t about you. It’s about your ideas. Keep brainstorming and don’t take it personally.

2) Create With Your Community

Matter doesn’t just promote his videos to his audience; he involves them in the creation process. He routinely polls his audience on Instagram to weigh in on videos from suggestions for challenges or suggestions for his daughter Salish’s Halloween costumes.

Matter says the benefits are two-fold: it gives his community the ability to influence what they watch and become more invested. It also makes them more likely to watch his videos moving forward because they’ll be looking out for their own suggestions.

More than that, Matter told me, “I think that if you just drop a video and they don’t know anything about it beforehand, then they’re less engaged than if you’ve taken them along the process.” In fact, one of Matter’s favorite moments was when he gave five thousand dollars to a nurse during the pandemic.

What’s incredible about Matter is that he’s using these giveaways not for viewership — since they don’t always perform as well as his other videos — but to share other people’s stories. Throughout his career, Matter’s made people feel comfortable on camera, and that’s clearly still true of his YouTube channel as he grows.

3) Show the Journey Behind the Photo

As social media shifts from photos to videos, many photographers have felt stranded. Matter, however, has created a new blueprint. Instead of only posting his photos, he posts what goes into making them. While most photographers snap a shot then go about their day, he turns the journey behind the photo into its own work of art.

One of Matter’s most popular formats is his 10-Minute Challenge because it gives him the space to interact with people, take risks, and be spontaneous as he takes the photos. Instead of just posting the end result, he takes viewers along for the ride.

“Photography becomes secondary to the entertaining process of getting the photos. By turning them into challenges, dares, or pranks, I can make it about entertainment.” Matter said.

Now Jordan has reinvented himself yet again as he leans into filming even more challenge videos with his family. While he continues making videos on his channel with his daughter Salish, it was actually his son Hudson who provided the initial spark to evolve his content. Matter recalled, “My son Hudson had this great insight that if you’re popular on YouTube, it’s because you’ve found your lane. If you leave the lane, people won’t want to watch you. But if you stay in the lane too long, people aren’t going to want to watch you anymore. So you’ve got to expand the lane.”

Who knows what the next 10 years will hold for his journey and content but one thing will likely be constant: Matter’s story will continue to serve as a powerful reminder that age is just a number. “I know so many people who want to get started in social media but [say] ‘I’m 30’ and I’m like, you’re young!” he said. “And you’re saying you’re too old to do what I do?”