“I must be doing something right”: Interview with YouTuber Vaping With Vic
Imagine being able to make a living from talking about vaping? Well, that’s the dream that Victor Mullin gets to live every day.
Victor, from Irvine on the West coast of Scotland, holds the distinction of being the UK’s only full-time, tax-registered vaping reviewer, and his YouTube channel, Vaping With Vic, has amassed nearly 80,000 subscribers at the time of writing.
Each week, these subscribers are treated to his straight-talking, easy-to-understand product reviews, educational top tips content, and entertaining live shows.
This breadth of unique and insightful content has seen Victor pick up numerous accolades, including four successive Vapouround awards. However, his mantra is ‘I’m not going to get it this year’; despite his success to date, there’s no sign of him letting up just yet.
We interview Victor about his journey so far, what he’s got planned for the future, his thoughts on the media portrayal of vaping, and much more.
For anyone who isn’t aware, you started using e cigarettes nearly a decade ago, after the hospital informed you that your lungs had begun deforming due to 20 years of heavy smoking. Can you describe what that moment was like?
It was March 2014. I was lying in bed; it was before I had my gallbladder whipped out. They were taking chest X-rays to make sure everything was fine, and the anaesthetist said to me, in an almost nonchalant way, ‘By the way, your lungs have started to deform.’ I was thinking: What?!
I was in my early 30s at the time, and I thought to myself, ‘If my lungs are deforming now, what’s going to happen in ten years?’. That prospect really got me worried.
I looked at my dad as an example. He was in his mid-to-late 50s back then, and he was coughing his lungs up all the time because he was smoking ‘roll-your-owns’. I started smoking them as well, but I added a filter to them because I thought it was safer. But it’s not.
I knew that if my lungs had started to deform at that stage in my life, then I needed to find a way to give up smoking. That’s when everything clicked into place.
After the gall bladder operation, I lay in bed recovering for about a day and a half. I was chatting with the bloke next to me who’d had his appendix taken out, and he said he’d given up smoking using the patches. I told him that I’d tried the patches, the nicotine spray (which was brand new at that point), and gum, but none of this stuff worked.
A surgeon was listening in to our conversation – he was stood by another guy across from us who was also having his gallbladder taken out – and he said to me, ‘Try e cigarettes.’ At the time, vaping was relatively new. He then pulled out a little cig-a-like, and I said to him, ‘What’s that?’, and things went from there.
It took another couple of weeks for me to give up altogether and move over to vaping, as I still had some tobacco left in the house.
I’m Scottish, so I don’t want to waste anything! Once I smoked my way through the tobacco, I moved on to the cig-a-like.
If we stay with 2014, what do you recall about the support that was available to smokers like you at that time?
There were stop-smoking services, but they were severely underfunded – even less so than now. At least stop-smoking services these days have got a little bit more funding, but back in 2014, the picture was totally different.
There was no dedicated stop-smoking service in the West Coast of Scotland – that only arrived very recently.
Most of the support available to smokers was online. You’d see adverts for Nicorette gum and Nicorette patches, but for me, they never worked. They never worked for my dad, either.
Nowadays, smokers have a lot more help.
You’ve said on your website that Vaping With Vic wasn’t initially intended to be a review channel. What were some of the early ideas you came up with, and how were these initially received?
At the very beginning, I was set on being a vlogger. I was a vlogger on a long-dead website called Live Video that shut down because it went bankrupt. I didn’t use YouTube.
The idea was that when I started the Vaping With Vic channel, it would be a vlog. I thought it would last for about a month, maybe a month and a half, and I would chronicle my attempts to give up smoking and take up vaping.
My intention was to post a vlog every day letting people know how I was getting on, and then at the end of the month, I planned to give up vaping as well.
That never happened, though!
What worked and didn’t work for you at the start? Were there any ideas you came up with that you thought would do really well, but didn’t for whatever reason?
2014 was a completely different year for reviewing compared to now. I can count the number of vaping reviewers back then on one hand – you had Todd on the East Coast of Scotland, Safer Vapers featuring Damian Morter and big Tom, the legend that is Scott Bonner from igetcha69, and Martin Parker. There weren’t many at all.
So, if a UK reviewer started up back then, which I did, then there was a gap in the market that you could take advantage of and loads of opportunities to be creative.
Practically all of the ideas I came up with back then were successful. For instance, the Watts UP?! Vlog that still goes out every Sunday, the juice reviews which I put out regularly over many years, and the hardware reviews. These reviews were basically a follow-on from the way Scott Bonner did his – the FaceTime introduction, down to the table, and back up. That’s the format I still use to this day.
The only thing I probably shouldn’t have done, which I started doing at the end of 2014, was the live shows. That period in time was too early to start filming live shows, as the format didn’t work back then.
I basically wasn’t ready, and there was a lot of trial and error going on during the first year. If I could rewind the clock, I would hold off doing these shows for about another year and a half.
Once you started doing reviews, your channel really took off. Was there a particular video or set of videos that signalled a step change for the channel and propelled it to its current level of popularity?
It was the two videos I put out about the Hyon mechanical mod cease and desist controversy. The videos are still up on the channel.
The controversy happened in 2015 when I was still doing videos from my bedroom and long before I became self-employed. I can’t remember the full story, but what basically happened was that Hyon Enterprises LLC started ripping off its customers.
The company’s then-CEO, Fernando Solis, began attacking YouTubers in the United States because they’d cottoned on to the problems that were occurring within Hyon. He went on an absolute tirade on Facebook in which he blasted YouTubers, claimed they didn’t know what they were doing, and said that his company was fine.
A load of comments started popping up from people who said they’d been ripped off by Hyon and that they felt the workmanship was shoddy. The list went on and on.
I made two videos – Hyon Part I and II – in which I tore into Hyon the company and its CEO for coming after YouTubers and claiming we don’t know what we’re doing.
Those videos received tens of thousands of views, and that’s when things ‘took off’ if you like. Before that point, Vaping With Vic as a channel was only viewed by UK people. But when the Hyon videos came out, that opened up the channel to an American audience.
Did you have any inkling when you published the videos that they could have been as popular and well-received as they were?
No, not at all. I was just pissed off at the time. I was an angry Scotsman who switched the camera on and started ranting!
From 2016 onwards, you began winning awards, starting with the Ecigclick Award for Best YouTube Reviewer. How did it feel to get the first one under your belt, and did it further cement your confidence in the channel?
It did – definitely.
In 2016, the channel only had something like 15,000 subscribers. At that point in time, the Ecigclick Awards didn’t have separate categories for US and UK YouTubers. So, the likes of me, Mike Vapes, GrimmGreen, and Todd Reviews were lumped into one single category – and I won it!
I was thinking, ‘How the heck did I win this?’. A lot of people voted in the 2016 Ecigclick Awards, and I thought that if all these people voted and I won, I must be doing something right.
Of all the awards you’ve won since then, does any one award mean the most to you?
The one that stands out for me is the first Vapouround award that I won in 2019. I’m lucky to have four big crystal Vapouround trophies on the top shelf of my office, but that first one meant everything.
Vapouround has a real worldwide reach, so to receive an award from this publication was a serious achievement.
When it launched its awards four years ago, I put my name in the hat thinking, ‘I’ll be lucky if I get into the top five.’ I won it. That’s why it stands out.
This award took ages to sink in, as has every Vapouround award I’ve won since. I’ve picked up that trophy four years in a row, and each year I think, ‘That’s it. I’m not going to get it this year.’ There’s that voice of doubt that says, ‘You’re a dinosaur, Vic. You’ve had your run now!’
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You can’t expect to win it, but it’s a great feeling when you do. I’m just happy if I get nominated, and if I get somewhere in the top three, I’m more than happy.
The product reviews are what your channel is most synonymous with. So, I want to know – what is the best e liquid you’ve ever reviewed?
The Black Vine from the Rochford Project is one. I’ve been vaping that e liquid since it came out. Before the Rochford Project appeared, another of my favourite e liquid manufacturers was Decadent Vapours.
And the best hardware?
For tanks, the one standout for me is the original Geekvape Griffin RTA, as this changed the industry.
This tank showed other manufacturers that rebuildable tank atomisers could be made to be as good as the high-end, expensive stuff, but be made cheaply. In other words, you could sell the tank for £35, £45, and that’s continued until the present day.
When it comes to the mods, that’s tricky for me because there are that many good mods that have come out over the past three or four years. In terms of tanks, I tend to use the same tank for months on end. I chop and change the mods more regularly because I get that many in for review. So, I couldn’t say which are the best because I’ve been through a lot of them.
What are some of the upcoming product launches in the vaping world that you’re most excited by?
A dripper’s just come in, but I can’t mention what it is at the moment due to a non-disclosure agreement that’s in place.
There are also a couple of tanks I’m looking forward to reviewing.
The rebuildable market is slowly starting to come back. I don’t consider myself a full-on hobbyist – I don’t like using mechanical mods because they scare the crap out of me, and I don’t tend to use drippers. I’m more of a rebuildable tank fan.
A couple of rebuildable tanks are coming out within the next couple of months, and, for me, their release will breathe new life into the vaping industry. Last year it was all about pods, pods, pods.
There’s only so much excitement you can communicate when you’re reviewing a second-generation pod that’s a copy of the first-generation pod from the same company that was only released recently!
There’s been several occasions – especially midway through last year – where I’ve refused to review certain pods because they’re copies of the same pod that was released a couple of months ago.
What’s the typical process prior to a product review? Do manufacturers usually get in touch with you, or vice versa?
The manufacturers approach me 99% of the time. There’s only been two occasions in the last nine years where I’ve gone out of my way to contact a company for a product review! And that was for a specific product, in case they’d forgotten I existed.
But most of the time, I’m approached by companies over email. Most emails I get are about disposables, and nine times out of ten I say no because if I’m doing a review of a disposable, it’s got to be something really special.
I usually get contacted by pod manufacturers – I’m just looking at my emails now, and I’ve got an email from Geekvape, two emails from Aspire, and an email from Steam Crave, and they all came in today. It’s a great position to be in!
Aside from your product reviews, the live shows are a big part of the channel. What do you enjoy the most about these shows?
The UK Vape Show has changed a lot since I started doing it about eight years ago. At that time, it was all technical – I’d rebuild a tank live, and that felt like work to me.
But the way it’s done now is completely different. Now, the show is me, Sean Grizzly from The Misfits, Aden from Little Bro Vape Reviews, and Adam sitting there as if we’re in a pub chatting away. It’s a casual chat about life in general, with some chat about vaping thrown in for good measure.
The live shows are a real break for me. I like doing the more serious stuff like the reviews, but sometimes I just like to kick back, chill, and have the occasional drink. When I did the Christmas live show, I got so drunk it was scary! I had a bottle of Metaxa 7 star Wine Brandy by my side, and I ploughed through about three-quarters of the bottle in two hours!
You regularly get thousands of viewers tuning in to these shows. What does it mean to you to hit these numbers on a regular basis?
It means that the format of the UK Vape Show – which hasn’t changed that much in five years – is liked. And that means a lot.
One of the biggest draws is the caster’s questions. There’s a Facebook group page for the UK Vape Show that people can join, and about five hours before we go live, either Adam or I put up a post saying ‘If you’ve got any questions, post them below.’ Most of the questions have nothing to do with vaping! They’re comedic and informal in nature, which we like.
Early on, the UK Vape Show was very technical. Some of the content I put out included showing people how to build a dripper and how to build a tank. I noticed the numbers were dropping, which is why I said earlier on that I wish I started the live shows a little later than I did.
It was only when I saw the numbers start to dwindle in 2015 that I decided to inject more of a ‘real life’ feel to the videos, and that decision has massively paid off in the long run.
Do you think that conveying that human element in your videos more frequently has been integral to the success of the shows and your channel in the long run?
Yeah – that’s exactly what I’m trying to get across. I also wanted to make the content more beginner-friendly.
At least every couple of episodes, we get questions from new vapers on the Facebook group. There was an episode where we had a vaper who’d only started vaping three days before the show went live, and they were asking a question because they were looking for advice.
Live shows are there for me and the others to relax, but when the caster’s questions segment kicks in, there are some serious questions in there. That segment and the chemistry that the four hosts have got have been integral to the longevity of these shows. We’re up to over three hundred episodes now, which is crazy to say out loud!
What tips do you have for vapers during the current cost of living crisis?
If you’re a pod vaper (which I imagine a large chunk of the people reading this interview are), you don’t need to buy the latest and greatest pod. There’s nothing wrong with the first-generation Uwell Caliburns, and they’re still making the pods for them.
When it comes to weekly outlay, if you buy a pod, the only thing you need to buy for that pod is the blister pack of pods, and you’re done. If you have a bigger kit, like a Geekvape kit with a crown tank, the only thing you need to buy is the coils. You don’t need to buy the latest and greatest tank. One of the tanks I use is a good five or six months old, and I love it.
E liquids are the biggest outlay for vapers. From the conversations I’ve had and the emails I’ve received, a lot of people are fans of the more expensive liquids on the market. But they’re now finding that they can no longer afford to buy them, especially when you’re talking about 50ml bottles, which can be hugely expensive.
That’s why I highly recommend that vapers look into DIY mixing. In fact, Season 3 of ecig 101, which I’m editing right now, is all about DIY mixing. That comes out at the end of January and runs through February.
If you get a one-litre bottle of VG (which costs something like £7) and a couple of flavours, you can make a whole litre of liquid that’ll probably last you about a month and a half, and you’re saving a fortune. That’s a perfect example of how cost-effective and simple DIY mixing can be.
Broadly speaking, what do you make of the support that’s out there for smokers at the moment, and what more could be done to help them make the right choices when it comes to transitioning away from smoking?
The Smokefree initiative is one thing that’s been done right.
Before that, stop-smoking services were very poorly funded. They were in over their heads most of the time, and pre-2019, the messaging coming out of these services was that vaping was as bad as smoking.
It wasn’t until the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Nurses, Cancer Research UK, and ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) got together and pushed home the statistic about vaping being 95% safer than smoking that things started to change.
Now, the bulk of stop-smoking services are now including e cigarettes as viable stop-smoking aids. Some services in England still don’t mention vaping and recommend patches, gum, and spray, but the vast majority of services do mention vaping. The line they take is, if the gum, patches, and spray don’t work, try vaping – and that’s a great step in the right direction.
The help that smokers get now, from the general practitioners down to the stop-smoking services, is far, far better than it was when I stopped. Far better.
What do you make of the government’s smokefree target (5% or less of UK adults to be smokers by the year 2030)?
I don’t think the government is going to hit its target.
New Zealand has much stricter conditions, in that the country is going to ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009. This law is going to stop an entire generation in its tracks.
If the UK government wants to hit its target… I’m not saying it should go down the same route as New Zealand, as that’s a bit draconian! But I think that it needs to consider how it’s going to hit that target in the space of seven years, because it’s an ambitious target.
It’s all good and well saying we want to have a smokefree generation by 2030, but if you don’t have the infrastructure to back it up, you’re not going to hit that target.
If stop-smoking services continue to struggle to the extent that they have over the last ten or twenty years, and one person is trying to help sixty or seventy people quit smoking within a month, you’re going to have a problem.
If some GPs are anti-vaping, it’s not going to work.
You’ve got to get the message out to smokers about the benefits and accessibility of vaping first and foremost. Someone can walk into their local vape shop or go online and pick up a simple starter pod kit for £15. But many people don’t think to do this, mostly because of the lack of education they’ve had on vaping and some of the misleading information they’ve been given about it.
Vaping is the last means of defence for the ‘hardline’ smokers – and there are still eight to ten million of them out there – who’ve tried nicotine patches, gums, and sprays. We know that. But until all the NHS trusts and stop-smoking services get behind vaping, the government’s not going to hit its target by 2030.
What do you make of how the media portrays vaping?
The big problem with the media is that there’s still this over-generalisation regarding nicotine. The likes of The Daily Mail, The Guardian, and The Telegraph are repeat offenders.
Journalists and the wider public have locked into this idea that nicotine is the problem – but nicotine has never been the problem. Nicotine is as toxic as caffeine, but you don’t see the papers saying we should ban coffee!
Nicotine doesn’t cause cancer; it’s the smoke that causes this.
Nicotine doesn’t cause COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease); it’s the tar and carbon dioxide. It’s the 4,000 chemicals, 280 of which are carcinogens in cigarette smoke, that cause the problem.
Decades ago, as far back as the 80s, people presented the argument that nicotine was the overriding cause of all these diseases. But it never was! Yet, for some reason, the media keeps that argument from the 80s going to this very day.
The whole point of vaping is tobacco harm reduction – not tobacco harm negation. If you vape and give up smoking, or you vape and dual use, it’s not about the cigarettes that you smoke; it’s about the cigarettes that you don’t smoke. But the media don’t seem to recognise that.
Just finally, what does the future hold for the Vaping With Vic channel?
I’ve already mentioned the ongoing production and editing of ecig 101 Season 3. I’m currently in the middle of Season 2 about stock coils, sub-ohm tanks and dual-battery mods, which runs until the end of January, and then Season 3 will launch.
The clue is in the name with ecig 101. There’ll be four seasons in total, and none of the seasons are designed for advanced vapers. They’re for people who are starting out.
The idea is that the viewer can start with Season 1, Episode 1, grow with the pod kits, and watch Season 1 for a couple of weeks. Then they’ll jump into Season 2 for cloud chucking, then Season 3 to start mixing their own e liquids, and then they’ll finish with Season 4, due out later in 2023, which will be about mechanical mods. That’ll account for a large proportion of my content this year. I’m essentially going on the vaper’s journey with them.
The reviews will keep going at a rate of about three to four a week, depending on how busy or quiet the industry is.
I’ve started to slot in liquid reviews, but with a unique spin – I’m going to review naturally extracted tobacco liquids. I’m a big fan of NET tobacco liquids, so I’m really looking forward to trying them out.
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