There’s no denying that SSSniperWolf (real name Alia Shelesh) is mostly associated with gaming. After all, she has amassed over 33 million subscribers on her gaming YouTube channel alone. It might surprise many to learn, then, that once upon a time, she almost embarked on a completely different path.
SSSniperWolf previously revealed that she first got into gaming as a child. Speaking to British Vogue in a profile about her and two other gamers, she explained that her father bought a PlayStation for her and her younger brother in an effort to get them to get along. “It worked,” she told the outlet. A sibling ceasefire wasn’t the only good thing to come from her new found love of gaming, though. Far from it, she became a constant source of inspiration for SSSniperWolf. In addition to enjoying the games themselves, she began consuming gaming content. “One day [yo] I thought, ‘Hey, I can do that too.’ So I started my own YouTube channel,” she recounted.
That being said, this is not where we say, ‘the rest is history’. While SSSniperWolf’s love of gaming and decision to turn pro were a long time coming, there was a time when he considered going another route. And no, we’re not talking about his other big hobby: the “Martha Stewart shit” he talked about in a 2014 video. Although his love of crafts led her to create another YouTube channel, Little Lia, he was once on his way to doing something completely unexpected.
SSSniperWolf almost entered the healthcare business
SSSniperWolf may have loved gaming from a young age, but when it came time to consider career options, gaming content (or any content creation, for that matter) wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. Rather, as she explained in a YouTube video titled “Why I Dropped Out of School,” after taking a few classes at her local community college (an experience she hated every minute and which led to her moving to a different university), she had sight set on a job in the medical fraternity.
“I was trapped between nursing and pharmacyshe shared. Although initially leaning towards the latter, SSSniperWolf laughed that after the grueling pre-pharma schedule, she switched gears to nursing.
“It could save lives, and it was very nocturnal at the time, so I thought working night shifts sounded really exciting,” she explained. However, once again, after meeting the requirements to enter the infirmary, she was not entirely sold on the idea and opted out.
Fortunately for SSSniperWolf, dropping out of college didn’t mean he was out of options.
As he shared in another YouTube video a few months later, he had long been running his own eBay reselling business. In fact, that very business is another avenue she took from herself before becoming a YouTube sensation, and it certainly helped pay her way through her early days on the platform.
His merchant streak began in high school
Given his incredible following, it makes sense that SSSniperWolf was featured on Forbes. That said, something tells us that even if she hadn’t started her own YouTube channel, she would have been singled out by the magazine for her impressive business acumen.
In a 2014 video detailing his start in the business, SSSniperWolf shared that it was through a gaming forum, Gaia Online, that he first learned how to “buy cheap and sell more, and make a profit.”
While that started out as a way to make money from the game itself, he soon put what he had learned to use in the real world.
As he recounted, after seeing clearance Jack Sparrow action figures at Best Buy for 25 cents each, he bought the lot and then sold them online at a markup. “I practically turned $2 into over $100,” she noted.
That eventually snowballed, and while she had her fair share of mishaps along the way (such as her father using her success to his advantage on multiple occasions, even putting the car he bought in her name and forcing her to take the bus), it was that income that allowed him to spend more time growing his YouTube channel.
SSSniperWolf may have chosen to leave life in healthcare, but it’s safe to say that this businesswoman turned medical school dropout (turned YouTube sensation) has no regrets.
Source-news.google.com