Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Milhoan.
Hi Matthew, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve always been intrigued with content creation and just general production my whole life. When I was in the 2nd grade me and some friends would create little characters and play around with their ideas during recess or lunch, and as time went on these ideas developed more until I was allowed to get my first youtube channel fresh out of elementary school. I started doing youtube back in 2020 releasing my first ever video on January 29th. At first my channel went under a whole different name and was very unorganized with me throwing basically anything at the content creation wall and seeing what would stick. As the pandemic went into full swing and I got ample time at home I started throwing more and more stuff at the wall until I found something that would stick, being what’s known as “video essays” and general history/review content. I took those and applied them to two of my hobbies, one being theme parks, the other being trains. I had a pretty good start with my first railroading channel dubbed “800 rail productions” however due to a long set of events, that channel died out at a respectable 2.8k subscribers. I immediately followed that up with my attempts at making a theme park channel work. This channel dubbed “Ray the Coaster Critic” is where I got my feel for working comedic writing into my existing style and audiences appeared to like it so I continued forward. At this point it was September 2022 and while a lot of my youtube success at this point hadn’t been insane or major, it was enough to give me hope that I could truly do this and make content creation work. So on October 7th 2022 I took an old 2nd channel that I wasn’t using, revamped it, and renamed it to “800 Creations”. Most railroading channels don’t typically use such a open to interpretation name, the reason I chose creations was because for starters the channel was made to upload basic mods I made for the game Train Simulator, but also because I knew as time went on, I would use this channel to create some truly awesome things that I wanted the world to see. So as time went on and the channel began gaining subscribers I began to get an idea of my end goal for content creation. As a kid I always looked up to big content creators, like most Gen Z kids born around my time. But what I wanted was to not just be one of those big content creators, but to be an inspiration to other kids to start them on their journey to make whatever they want to do. With this in mind I began to up the production value of my videos, which led to greater viewership. In July 2023, I renamed my channel to “5008 Creations” after the Coaster locomotive under the same number, In December 2023, I made the decision to put my channel on a hiatus to work on a sort of refurbishment. This refurbishment brought my first slam hit video essay gaining over 50,000 views, which gave me the propulsion to start really making my channel into what I’d always dreamed to make it. In April 2024 I made my channel’s most notable show at the time being “The 5008 Show”. a comedy based show which had me appear in voice and live action, discussing whatever train related topic I felt like discussing that week. My Subscriber count grew from 1,000 to 2,000 then 3, and then in November 2024 I released my first multi actor production being “The Curse of 2117”. While it did have big “small high school production” vibes, it was a big step as my focus had sharpened, with me now wanting to make shows and series and movies, live action, and animated, to entertain the world. I continued forward into 2025 where I began production on my first fully character based series that hasn’t released yet but should this May. I assembled a team of 2 artists, about 10 voice actors, and of course myself and fully established my “company” being L8 Productions. For the future I’m hoping to release my first animated series later this year and as an end goal, I want to be able to be at a position where I can inspire not just the small fanbase I have, but the world. I want to be able to be a shining beacon to all of the Nerds, kids with hidden talent, kids who are bullied for their ideas, all others to show that, we’re in a time where basically anyone can become big and change the world for the better, you just have to do it.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
A good few of my struggles came from procrastination and hate from others. I have ADHD which can be a big problem for trying to focus on wiring a script, editing a video, making music, etc. Thankfully I have been able to work past this for the most part, and I’ve been trying to practice a routine to allow me to work properly but also have some time to relax. Now because I’m a YouTuber and my videos are viewable to anyone with the internet, hate will naturally come. it has come in all forms but recently it has mainly come into the form of, most other people in the “railfanning community” don’t like my young gen alpha audience and thus that hate is redirected to me. And just a lot of people in said community don’t believe that I can do a lot of the things I speak of with me still not being an adult. I don’t typically respond to this hate because I feel that is basically pointless. Rather a lot of this hate has fueled me to make the things I want to make happen, happen. To be able to sit on a stupidly high sub count with a whole production team and be able to look back on the people who didn’t believe in what I could do.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in video editing, voice acting, photography, and music creation. in the railfanning community I couldn’t name another creator who creates his own music, let alone music that fans genuinely enjoy. I go to the San Diego School of Creative & Performing Arts and have received a lot of instruction on writing and creating music. Because of this I have created and am working on music that my fans have said they genuinely enjoy with some people even suggesting I consider a side hustle in music production. All of the talents I use for my channel are self taught in terms of the programs and my techniques, this mainly comes with video editing. My editing program, Camtasia, was rather daunting at first but over the past few years, I have gotten especially skilled at it, and I’m even looking to upgrade fully to more complicated programs like Adobe Premier. I was also lucky enough to get a microphone from my dad in 2021.. This allowed me to not only up my narration status, but also start with voice acting and singing, a talent I’ll be showing in the coming months with some of my bigger projects. I also partake in the railroading hobby of “railfanning” a hobby that boils down to going out to the tracks and recording. I have been all across California and plan to go across the country and the world for railfanning. I completely self taught myself with photography and have managed to get myself a professional tripod, and a few cameras I use to take videos and photos which I then upload to my channel raw and use in my videos, or upload to my instagram.
What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is making people happy. I made a quote for me to use in around 2022 being, “I can’t make the world a better place by solving climate change or world hunger or creating world peace, so I’ll make the world a better place by entertaining people”. I want to be able to be looked up to and inspire underdogs and other kids with big dreams to walk my same path to make them come true. If I can live my life with the ability to say I helped bring another big content creator or company to fame, I can leave this earth happy.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/official_5008_creations/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@official5008creations?si=IxlGoc1WsP_IhjCt
