Casey Neistat has been a YouTube creator since February 15, 2010. In his first five years on YouTube, Neistat’s channel garnered 500,000 subscribers mainly through the success of viral videos such as "Bike Lanes" and "Make It Count." On March 25, 2015, the filmmaker announced that he would start daily vlogging; "vlog" is a shortened term for video blog.
After uploading daily content for five months, Neistat’s subscriber count jumped up another 500,000. Presently, a little over a year after starting to daily vlog, Neistat’s channel is quickly closing in on 3 million subscribers and the filmmaker recently won YouTuber of the Year at the Shorty Awards; the Shortys recognize short form content shared through the social web. Along with creating and uploading daily videos, Neistat co-founded the video-messaging application Beme and is a husband and father.
Neistat’s daily vlogs are littered with stunning cinematography that uses skillful shots, timelapses and, more recently, drone footage to visually please the viewer. Besides his obvious skill behind the camera, Neistat’s personality is one that endears him to his viewers.
Neistat is hard working, positive, and honest. He openly discusses, for example, having his first child at the age of 17, dropping out of high school, and living in a trailer park on welfare. The 35 year-old’s rise from his tumultuous adolescence serves as an empowering example for all of Neistat’s viewers. Neistat use his own experiences to encourage his viewers to work hard and partake in individual passions. Most importantly, the self-taught filmmaker manages to come across as authentic.
Neistat’s authenticity is best exemplified by his answer to a question he received during his weekly questions & answers session. Neistat was asked by a viewer, “Do you love us? Us the subscribers.” Neistat responded, “I love like six people on planet earth. Two of them are my children.” He further explained that, although he has a great appreciation for viewers who are so generous with their time and that his career as a vlogger, filmmaker, and app developer are reliant on the viewer, he “would not use the word love.”
It's understandable why Neistat might pander to his audience. As he himself points out, Neistat's entire career is reliant on the people who take the time to support his work. For a daily vlogger especially, success is based on making mundane events seem interesting and exciting; augmenting one's personality could help a vlogger achieve this goal. Neistat, however, manages to create professional, authentic content that always leaves his viewers clamoring for more.
