Thanks for my Tesla, Youtube

dog to play Minecraft’’ that went viral.

The Mt Albert teen used treats to successfully teach his family’s pet dog Max to step on giant keyboard buttons and play the popular open world game.

At the time, Thompson had been Youtubing for just a few months, had just 80 subscribers on his channel and was considering other career options.

But the video quickly found an audience, sending his Youtube career into the stratosphere.

‘‘It took me four months to get 80 [subscribers] and, a week later, I had 150,000,’’ he says. ‘‘It changed my entire life path.’’

Youtubing is a far cry from Thompson’s initial career options when he left school as a high achiever in maths and physics at the end of 2018.

‘‘He started engineering school, came home after a day, and went, ‘I don’t want to do that’,’’ mother Jill says.

‘‘Then he said he wanted to be a Youtuber.

‘‘I didn’t even know what Youtube was. I said, ‘What? No you can’t do that Liam, no-one makes their career that, it’s not a proper job’.’’

Despite their hesitation, Thompson’s parents gave him a three-month ultimatum to make Youtubing work, or he’d have to find proper employment.

Initially, his videos only got a handful of views, including repeat clicks from his mum.

‘‘I just loved it, I didn’t think it would work out as a job so I kept doing it for fun,’’ Thompson says.

While he filmed, Thompson kept his options open, moving furniture part-time, enrolling in Police College and considering film school.

Once his Minecraft clip went viral, he was forced to give all of those up. Thompson was able to start playing ads on his videos, for which he is paid about 40 per cent of the revenue, with monthly deposits made into his bank account.

Each of his clips get hundreds of thousands of views, with many of his viewers coming from America and Europe.

His channel has become so popular Thompson is recognised by fans when he visits his local mall. And now that Youtubing has become his fulltime career, Thompson treats it like a job.

He uses the time his family – mum Jill, dad Will and sisters