Meet Manchester’s YouTube Sensation Joseph Andrews – AKA BluMaan

Will Stevenson | 13th February 2018

YouTube star Joseph Andrews (AKA BluMaan) is waiting for me at a table in the lobby-slash-bar of WeWork, a Spinningfields based office space that seems to be used exclusively by the coolest media types around Manchester.

He’s wearing grey tee, checked button-up and black skinny jeans; his hair is in its signature, miraculously high, quiff and his skin flawless. He describes his style as “a mixture keeping it pretty clean and simple –  with a little streetwear.”

There’s a half empty beer on the table and he offers me one right away. He’s welcoming, disarmingly charming and easy to laugh along with. It’s no wonder he’s hit over a million YouTube subscribers in just a few short years.

The 23-year-old YouTube sensation / hair guru / social influencer has just moved into this work space. For the past four years, he’s been creating videos from his bedroom, but with the success of his BluMaan hair products, he’s stepped up into an operation that has 13 staff working on the product in Canada and an assistant, Josh, helping him out on this side of the Atlantic.

Whilst his official YouTube channel was started age 19 in 2014, there were Blumaan videos before that. On a channel he’s since removed, these “learning experience videos,” as Joe describes them, managed to amass just 150 odd views. For the Head-and-Shoulders sponsored influencer with over a 150k Instagram followers, that seems like a world away.

Growing up, Joe lived in various parts of Africa and was only just coming to grips with Western beauty standards by the time he began his YouTube channel. He tells me this experience helps him keep a level head in the beauty-first world of hair and fashion vlogging:

“Fashion is all surface level stuff- I come from a background that doesn’t really know anything about doing stuff to improve your physical appearance.” He explains.

“It’s always been important for me for people to understand that, yes, we have a hair product brand but people need to understand that that’s all surface level and actual importance and actual depth comes from within you.”

With Instagram recently identified as the most damaging social media for young people’s mental health, Joe goes on to say he doesn’t believe in uniformity – and standing out from a crowd is a good thing, no matter the amount of likes you get.

“Our slogan is ‘stay true to what makes you different’ – it’s is on the inside of all our boxes. Staying true to yourself and who you are is going to be different to anyone else. What you do to your physical can help express yourself better because you feel more confident therefore the more important stuff can show itself more.”

For young people interested in following his path into fashion or lifestyle influencing?

“You have to represent yourself the best you can on camera; it’s not about being the most outgoing, the most this or the most that. If that’s not you, then don’t do that. Find your niche but more than that find the best version of yourself. People connect with people who are real. If it’s your mannerisms, the way you speak – whatever – find something real.”

When it comes to income, his best advice is to “diversify” it. ‘Social influencers’ these days tend to rely on a variety of income streams including brand promos, video revenue and products.

For Joe, that product is his signature collection of Blumaan hair products.

“Except for a select few, most YouTubers have a rise and a fall. It’s important to have different forms of revenue… I got an email from this guy named Ben, asking if I’d ever thought to make a hair product. I didn’t think I had time but he said ‘maybe I can help you out with that.’

“That’s how the company side started. it was a little bit of his influence to take the channel more seriously, because then I had someone else relying on me for their own livelihood and success in a way, so I started posting more frequently. if went to Vancouver, where he lives, spent two months out there with him, brainstorming and eventually releasing pre orders.”

With a full team of twelve now out in Vancouver on the Blumaan payroll, the YouTuber could feel like more of a brand than a person, but Joe likes to keep his videos personal, he tells me.

“I have watched YouTube for as long as it’s been going and the one thing that keeps viewers going back is if they connect with the YouTuber themselves. Even though what I do is information first, no one watches information for a long period of time if they’re not feeling compelled to tune back in. I try to include as much of my personality and make it about Joe and about the information. I’ll put out videos about who I am, where I’ve lived videos now and then, but since people are there for the information first, there’s a limit of how much I can do that compared to hair videos.”

I ask him if it’s daunting the rate at which the brand continues to grow, but he laughs it off easily:

“We’re learning [along with the audience] how the channel expands from one guy in a bedroom to a global team… it’s all fun though!”

We finish our beers and head into his office. After a quick tour, including a look at his video studio and table packed with hair products, the time comes for me to head off: it’s been an interesting insight into both the creation process behind YouTube videos, and the truth behind the vibrant, excitable Blumaan himself.

Truth is, Joseph Andrews is the same off camera as he is on.

Blumaan publishes new videos every three days on his YouTube.