An online video producer said yesterday he was “overwhelmed” by the response to a film that highlighted Bermuda’s high cost of living.

The video by Omar James — posted on YouTube and shared on social media — was viewed more than 4,000 times by yesterday afternoon.

Mr James, 37, said: “The reaction has been completely unexpected.

“I have done some Bermuda-themed content before, but the reaction has not been anything like this.”

The video, called “Bermuda is the most expensive nation on earth”, was watched more than 3,630 times in its first two days on YouTube and another 870 times on his Instagram page.

Mr James, who has produced videos on everything from video games to his diagnosis with heart disease, wants to produce work with a bigger Bermuda content.

He said the idea for the video was sparked by searches of island real estate company websites.

Mr James, from Paget, said: “I always search by price, starting low and working up, and one jumped out at me.

“The first picture looked really nice and the cost was only $225,000, but then I kept looking and discovered it was a shed that you would have to fix up yourself.

“I was sharing that with my sister and that sort of started the video idea.”

Mr James said he showed an early draft of the video to a few friends and, based on the response, felt it could be popular.

But he admitted he was surprised by how fast it took off.

Mr James said: “It’s been overwhelming. There have been a lot of messages, people are sending it to their friends and relatives.”

He added that, although the video featured clips of David Burt, the Premier, and Curtis Dickinson, the Minister of Finance, talking about the Bermuda economy, it was not designed to be political.

Mr James said: “It started out as a video to highlight some of the difficulties we have here in terms of the prices of items and how expensive it is, but as I was making it, I decided I needed some context about why people are frustrated.

“The cost of living is a part of why a lot of us voted for the Progressive Labour Party as they were supposed to make things easier on the average Bermudian and so far it hasn’t happened.”

Mr James added: “I didn’t want to come across as anti-PLP. It’s more of a ‘you’re the current Government’ thing.

“The reaction I have gotten is that a lot of people feel the video really captured their frustration.”