Alfie Deyes: ‘YouTubers Shouldn’t Be Judged If They Don’t Want To Be A Role Model’ - EXCLUSIVE

Alfie Deyes has fast become one of the most important and celebrated voices of this generation, with the YouTuber amassing a whopping 4.6million followers over on his channel, PointlessBlog, and he and his vlogger girlfriend, Zoe Sugg, slowly but surely taking over the world.

No, really, we’re not exaggerating.

Alfie Deyes at the Sky Academy Confidence Month launch

Which is why it made such perfect sense for Alfie to team up with Sky Academy for ‘Confidence Month’, with the star being a proud ambassador for the cause as Sky Academy continue on their quest to use the power of TV, creativity, and sport to help young people unlock their potential.

We decided to catch up with the lovely and adorable Alfie at the launch of Sky’s Confidence Month last week to find out exactly why he was involved with the cause and what confidence top tips he can pass onto his legions of followers as they navigate their way through those horrendously awkward teenage years.

Our conclusion? We bloomin’ love him.

Discussing why he got involved with Sky and the very fab movement in the first place, Alf exclusively told us: “Personally, I do feel like I have a responsibility to impact a positive message upon those who watch my videos.

“I have a very big responsibility and I do want to try and help other people. Having such an active, large audience at my fingertips - why would I not want to create a positive message?

“Even if I make a video and it helps one person out of the two million who watch it, that’s been worthwhile - I’ve helped somebody, so I will always try and create a positive message and effect on people’s lives.”

Beautifully said, we think you’ll all agree.

However, just because the 22-year-old totally wants to use his voice to help others on a personal level, he totally gets why some other famous YouTubers might opt to shy away from the industry.

He added: “It’s tricky, but I feel that somebody who makes YouTube videos shouldn’t be judged if they choose not to talk about certain things, like politics, just because they have a following.

“They started making videos just for fun; I didn’t choose to have the viewers and subscribers that I do have today, and neither did they.

“So if somebody else is like ‘Oh I don’t want to talk about this or that’, I wouldn’t judge them for it because they have their own reasons why they started YouTube.”

Speaking of starting YouTube, Alfie is understandably a little bit in awe of the fact that he managed to carve a career out of his hobby and passion, with he and Zoe being among the first wave of ‘YouTube Celebrities’.

He explained to us: “When I started YouTube, I didn’t even know it was possible for anybody to get the opportunities that I’m experiencing today, let alone myself.

“When I started there was no such thing - it wasn’t people’s jobs, people didn’t have as big an audience as they do today and I can’t really take it all in.

“I’m very thankful for what I do and all of the opportunities that I get, and i think in ten years time I’m going to have a ‘Wow, that was absolutely insane’ moment and think about everything that I have done…

“…But luckily I film every single day of my life, so I can just go back and watch it.”

Swings and roundabouts, eh babes?

Asked if he had any advice for his fans trying to navigate the cruel and dark place that can be the Internet, Alfie knew exactly what to tell us.

He shared: “I always try to live by ‘do more of what makes you happy’, it’s such a simple thing and so many of my friends in college are moaning because they don’t have the jobs that they want - put all of your spare time into making your dream a reality.

“I see so many unhappy people not doing anything with the position they’re in, if you enjoy something just do it and spend all of your spare time doing it.”

And for the online haters?

“Just block them,” he advises, “If people are leaving negative comments they’re not worth your time or even your thoughts.

“If I were to reply to a negative comment, I’m giving somebody who doesn’t like me my time, when I could be giving that time to somebody who loves me.

“I don’t understand why anybody would ever reply to negativity: block them, delete them, get rid of them, ignore them.”

Sound advice, Alfie, sound advice - and no doubt something that everybody should be taking on board.

Alfie Deyes was speaking at the launch of Sky Academy Confidence Month. Sky Academy is a set of initiatives that use the power of TV, creativity and sport to help young people unlock their potential and since launching in November 2013, has helped over 250,000 young people across the UK and Ireland, with a goal of helping one million by 2020. Go to sky.com/academy