Jonathan and Anna Sacconejoly are Europe’s most successful YouTube family, with a following on YouTube of 1.8 million followers, as well as 2.5 million Instagram followers between them.
With YouTube success well and truly conquered, the couple are moving on to publishing, releasing their very own children’s book, The Great Cat-Nap.
The book, inspired by their family, their three children and their six dogs, is step away from YouTube, and into a whole different world.
Talking exclusively to OK! Online, Jonathan revealed: “We’ve been making YouTube videos for eight years now, we’ve always kept our videos really family friendly and fun, all about life with three kids and six dogs.
“As it’s evolved, there’s been a lot of opportunity over the past few years to move on to other platforms.
“Converting it into a really fun cartoon version seemed like a really good idea. Two years ago,everyone thought I was mad and I said, ‘no it’s going to be cool.’
But who are the Sacconejolys? Here’s everything you need to know about the most popular YouTube family right now.
They have filmed their lives for eight years, including the births of their three children
Anna and Jonathan havefilmed for eight years, not missing any of the important moments including their engagement, their wedding and the birth of their three children.
Anna and Jonathan reveal: “We’ve filmed our lives from meeting to getting engaged to having three children and six dogs, and moving to the UK. And you can watch the entire journey.”
And they mean the whole journey, with Anna’s birthing videos bringingin over 1 million views each.
Heartbreak over miscarriage
The Sacconejolys reached their toughest point in their lives last year when they suffered a tragic miscarriage.
The pair kept quiet about the news for sometime before revealing the news to their fans in an emotional YouTube video.
Talking about that time, Jonathan said: “The hardest thing was last year when we found out we’d lost our baby. Before you ever have a miscarriage, you think no one has them, and that was so hard.”
“And not only did we know, but we also had to tell millions of people who were also excited about the baby.”
Speaking about the tough time, Anna revealed how fans helped her through it, explaining: “We took our time, we didn’t tell people straight away. It was extremely difficult, but we needed that just to figure out what we were going to say.”
“Afterwards I felt good, I’m happy we waited, but afterwards I was really shocked about how lovely people were and how many people had been through the same thing, it normalised it a lot more. It made me, and a lot of the audience, feel like they were notalone.”
Dealing with Internet trolls
While the family of five are loved my thousands of people, the pair have also had horrific experiences with trolls over the years.
Opening up about the difficulties of receiving hate on the Internet through anonymous people, the pair commented: “I don’t know why, but I feel like we’re the most trolled people in the UK.
“People have heard only a percentage of the things that have happened to us and people ask me ‘why don’t you tell people, you have an army behind you’ but I think if I tell people, I’m engaging with the trolls.”
They continue to explain the extent of the grief they’ve been caused, explaining: “It’s one thing having hate said about you online, but when it gets into your real life like trying to find out what school the kids go to.”
Staying private
While they film their lives, the pair are adamant that they are really private people.
Anna revealed: “We’re actually really private people which people may be shocked to learn, because we get to do this ourselves, we get to choose what we put out there and what we don’t.”
“We like sharing, but we do hold things back.”
Keeping their children’s lives as normal as possible
With so many followers and such a high status on the Internet, the pair are still determined to keep their children grounded.
Jonathan explained: “We try and keep the children super grounded. Some families on YouTube will indulge their children because it makes better content, but we try and keep them grounded.
“About 80 per cent of the things that get sent to us will go to charity. And we will make the kids understand and show them.”
The future
So what’s next for the Sacconejolys? How long will the vlogging last?
Speaking about the future, the pair explained: “I don’t know if we’d stop, I feel like I should continue for a decade though. I started when I was 30 and I’m 37 now, that’s crazy.”
“It just keeps evolving. I never thought I’d be an author, I don’t know what will happen. We’ll always be doing something.”
The SACCONEJOLYs and the Great Cat-Nap (Egmont, £6.99) publishes Oct 19, available to pre-order in all good bookshops and online.
