The 20th Century gave rise to the rags to riches story of the guy playing a guitar in his bedroom one day, the next he is walking on stage to an adoring crowd of 135,000 people. Or the waitress working in the diner, who is discovered and catapulted to stardom on the silver screen.
Fast forward to 2014...
In the evenings, on her own time, she made quirky short YouTube videos about anything that inspired her at that moment. As she told us at the DO Lectures, it was an emotional outlet, a way to escape and express her own aspirations to be a content creator.
She was driven creatively, she wanted to do things.
These informative and early practice sessions led her to discovering, via a suggestion from friends, she should turn her attention to the video game MINECRAFT as a film set for her creative endeavours.
In less than 6 months, her garage-band short MINECRAFT inspired misadventure films, had amassed an audience of 50,000 regular YouTube viewers.
A simple and direct email to the CEO of MINECRAFT, asking to interview the creators and development team, led Lydia to being offered a more engaged role at an upcoming computer trade event (E3 Los Angeles). It was during the trade event that she made the bold move to take a risk, she asked them for a job - this in turn led to her moving to Stockholm to become the Community Manager of the active user base of over 35,000,000 players.
As of June 2014, Lydia is now also leading and managing the entire brand experience across licensing agreements and product development - film, music, games and toys. As she told me, she wasn't qualified or even the right person to do the job, it was simply that she was the right person at that time to take on the responsibility and she showed the desire to make it happen. She was committed and engaged, willing to do it and get the job done right.
Each year, when Lydia steps out on stage as the host of the annual MINECRAFT player convention, she is the front person of a global pop cultural phenomena that touches the hearts and minds of millions of people.
