Oklahoma City's Rob Squad Reactions stars stir up positivity on YouTube one song at a time
MOORE — Eight months ago, Jordan and Amber Robinson knew their family of four was growing, but they didn’t expect it to be by six digits.
The fifth Robinson, Luca, was born in August, joining a family of more than 150,000.
His parents aren't cloning, they’re building an international global congregation on the spirit of music. As of Dec. 23, their Rob Squad Reactions and Rob Squad channels on YouTube had a combined audience of 200,000.
Folks from as far away as Australia, stream the hours away watching Jordan and Amber react to songs they’ve never heard on Rob Squad Reactions, and share family activities on The Rob Squad.
“Life-changing” is what Jordan Robinson calls their 21st-century side-hustle, but the extra income these two local educators get from YouTube pales in comparison to connecting with people from around the world.
“What the channel has given us is restoring our faith in humanity,” Amber says only half-joking. “It's been a grim year, and when I think about how I've got people now that I would call my friends who live in Germany, one in Switzerland, it's absolutely crazy. I think that's honestly, the channel’s real value.”
Rob Squad born
The Robinsons met as freshmen at Northeastern Oklahoma State University in Tahlequah and started their family not long after. Jordan, who is from Wagoner, was a wide receiver on the football team, and Marietta native Amber ran cross country.
They were blessed with a daughter, Bria, now 8, while in Tahlequah. The couple transferred to Southeastern Oklahoma State University and graduated with education degrees.
When the family moved to Moore two years ago, it had grown to four with the addition of Kiya, now 5.
Today, Jordan and Amber are 28. He teaches geography to sixth-graders and coaches basketball and football at both the middle school and high school levels in Moore. Amber is on a sabbatical from teaching elementary school physical education to give birth to Luca.
They launched their first YouTube Channel called The Rob Squad about a year ago to share videos with family, including Luca's gender reveal. That channel has more than 12,000 subscribers and shares a variety of content aimed at young families.
Rob Squad Reactions
In each Rob Squad Reactions video, Jordan, or "Ya' boy Jay," reminds the "RSR Fam" he and Amber record "three videos a day, every day."
They've now accumulated a library of hundreds of reaction videos to classic rock, country, symphony and opera performances.
Jordan's first video was an attempt to get a friend who had a channel to quit bugging him about reacting to rock music.
"I kept telling him, 'That's just not me,'" the lifelong rap and hip-hop fan recalled.
Weeks later, Robinson finally relented, promising to launch his own channel if he enjoyed the experience.
"It was AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck,' and that's where my love for Angus Young was born," Robinson said. "But that's a whole other story."
As promised, Jordan launched Rob Squad Reactions with Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music."
"It got some good feedback," he said. "Got a couple thousand views, couple thousand followers, and I kept posting every day."
Growth was steady until Amber came aboard a couple of months later with a tearful reaction to "Believe" by Brooks & Dunn.
"That's when it just completely blew up," he said. "It went from a couple thousand subscribers to 10,000, 20,000 to 30,000. Thousands of subscribers every day, so she's really the star of the show."
Pop music royalty reacts
When the reaction channel began to take off, the Robinsons converted their spare room into a studio, decorating the walls with framed photos and artwork of Amy Winehouse, Frank Sinatra, Janis Joplin and The Bee Gees sent in by RSR family members.
The incoming booty became so intense, Amber recently asked the RSR family to steer that spirit toward charity.
The spare room isn't the only thing that's gotten an overhaul. Once upon a time, Jordan's morning routine included a soundtrack of Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Lil Wayne and Nas. Now it includes Corey Hart's 1983 hit "Sunglasses at Night."
"He loves that song," Amber says with a little eye-roll.
But Jordan's affinity for Canadian synth-pop might be colored by what the channel has meant.
"The journey that it's taken us on, and the opportunity that it's given us has just completely blown up," he said. "It's been a total whirlwind."
Amber's musical roots were broader, growing up on Pink, Alicia Keys, and her mom's love of 1980s pop music.
"My dad listened to rap, but he didn't like me listening to it, so he played a lot of bluegrass when I was in the car," she said.
She's enjoyed broadening her musical horizons, but she wasn't prepared for what happened after they celebrated bringing baby Luca home with with a reaction to John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy."
"Yoko Ono congratulated us on the birth of our of Luca," she said. "And she thanked us for reacting to her husband's music."
Neither was she prepared for Tom Jones.
The 82-year-old, golden-throated Welsh crooner loved the Robinson's reaction to his performance of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" enough to leave a comment, "Thank you for listening, glad you both enjoyed it!"
Amber was so excited she called Jordan while he was in the middle of practice.
"I totally freaked out," she recalled.
The positively simple secret ingredient for reaction video success
Rob Squad’s recipe for success is only eight months in testing, but one ingredient is never missing.
“We like to bring positivity to everything we do whether we’re on YouTube or not,” Jordan said. “But when you see the RSR family having these great conversations in the comments of your videos it’s the best feeling in the world.”
Responding to Michael Franti and the Spear's "A Good Day for a Good Day" a few months ago, Amber had trouble holding back tears describing the "hard journey" she and her husband have traveled and how the song represented the positive vibes they aspire to share daily.
Sure, they come across songs they don't enjoy as much as others, but Jordan said, "The RSR family usually recommends amazing stuff."
The cost for broadening their pop-music horizons has mostly been time, but doing it together has given the young couple alone time that's usually hard to come by for parents with two elementary-age children and a newborn.
"It ends up being our time together," Amber said. "Sometimes Jordan doesn't get home after practice until almost 9 o'clock, and we'll go straight in and start recording."
The constructive time spent together has bonded their relationship, and it's provided a nice boost to their educators wages.
"We never really started this to make money," Jordan said. "It's almost a full-time job right now, and we can see how it could be."
Jordan said YouTube pays them a variable rate for every 1,000 page views a video gets. Views for RSR videos range anywhere from 10,000 to more than half a million.
"They might pay 50 cents per thousand for a certain kind of video one day, and then the next day it may be like $1.25 per thousand," he said. "So it's not really something that's super consistent.
"Some people will flood their content with ads to make money, and you know that's fine, but we we usually let YouTube place two or three because like I said, we're not here about the money."
The Rob Squad's plans for 2022 include a movie reaction channel and some travel. The Rob Squad channels helped the couple surprise their kids on Christmas with plans for a weeklong trip to Walt Disney World.
The most important person they'll meet on the trip will no doubt be Mickey Mouse, but Jordan said the last eight months has created plenty of kind of kin to visit.
“There are RSR family members all around — that's the coolest thing."
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC's Rob Squad Reactions stars stirring up positivity across YouTube
