There has been a bit of ado about MrBeast’s lack of ambition to do stuff beyond being the biggest guy on youtube. Back in the day, social media hype without the real-life follow-up actions was called “slacktivism”. “All internet comments are meaningless unless a government official is reading them then you go to jail”.
I want to hear about people that took their internet fame/personal branding and launched businesses or activism or other interesting projects. There is an argument to be made that an internet media presence is necessary for most things these days, but that’s a topic for another day. I’m happy to report we’re entering the “parody” phase of this stuff. I Love The Donghua Jinlong Glycine Factory
Today I want to learn about the success stories, the people that got on their bikes and went to China to film that documentary: Watch Conquering China Series, 5 Year Anniversary Collection on Vimeo
Some shout-outs:
The poster-child for this stuff is Linus Sebastian, going from making videos for NZXT to leading a network of channels, a paid video platform, a clothing brand, Creator Warehouse, badminton center and the recent LABS. I find it impressive that he actually stepped down as CEO, because he’s in the business of making exciting stuff, not managing corporations.
“Asmongold Is A Genius”
He bottled the feeling of playing WoW with the boys, for the people that don’t have time to play anymore. Then went on to launch Prebuilt Gaming PC brand Starforge, and game publisher Mad Mushroom. I put too much value in themes and gimmicks in games, and lately so much of the gaming discourse has been focused on technicalities and drama in the dev’s kitchen, that it feels very refreshing to have anyone focus on “does the game play well? is it fun tho?”. Recently he launched a SharkTank-a-like show called Pixel Pitch to fund indie games close to release date and put devs in contact with publishers. Even the sponsor of that show is a snarky comment about creators being bad with money.
Louis Rossmann
He started a youtube channel to change the industry around his business. The channel got him in contact with good people that helped him advocate for right-to-repair in consumer electronics and medical tech, as well as helping open source software via FUTO. This video delves into the how’s and why’s of the business and the yt channel growing together, motivated by “what’s left behind” after the lights go out.
Close enough
Tyler McVicker of ValveNewsNetwork fame is putting together a Time Travel gaming show, all on period accurate hardware, up to and including IRC chat and viewers calling in, on an actual landline.
theeasternborder.lv
From a soviet history podcast to field reporter and drone operator in Ukraine. Latvia’s Kristaps Andrejsons hosts the most real show about living in eastern europe. There’s a certain gaming commentary influence to the show, even doing collabs with people running Europa Universalis 4 and Magic the Gathering yt channels. If I had a nickel for every journalist that I follow with a philosophy degree, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. Happiness is mandatory.
https://theeasternborder.lv/
Gordon Freeman!
You probably saw this clip a dozen times by now. Don’t tell Rossmann about it, he knows, they talked.
“if buying isn’t owning, then piracy…” …does nothing to help games relying on central servers. Or games that use Denuvo, a DRM that relies on a central server, that only a couple people on earth can barely crack. Beyond this campaign, he did the “digital nomad” thing. Since he earns money on the internet, he moved to a cheaper place to live, Poland.
[Placeholder for whenever “Tha Movie” gets completed.]
Whispers
Get that bread. The going is tough, you gotta clickbait, e-beg, I get it, no hard feelings. I have seen a couple of channels post a video that’s just an ad, and they start the video saying it’s an ad. Ok. But then they go ahead and spend the next few hours arguing and swearing at people in the comments. Please don’t argue and swear at people in the comment section. Everyone complains about clickbait or whatever, guilt trip, virtue signal, throw tantrums, but they still watch, it’s proven to work. If they cared so much they’d have installed De-Arrow by now. And hey, sponsor spots are impossible to skip during youtube premieres or other live content 
This topic is about the perfect ending, with the channel and the business being kind of separate, so folks can be “real” on the main channel and be abrasive and talk about whatever without fear of sponsors, but at that point the channel is a hobby, not a business. Asmon’s video near the end talks a bit about how there’s times to treat it like a hobby and times to treat it like a job. I’ve seen enough people bankrupt themselves because they don’t want to taint their passion project. 
Here’s Mr. Beast putting his life in danger by eating bread.
I’ll stop now before I add a section about Russia’s Mr. Beast, Moriarty He’s a skull masked drug lord.
So, let me know about more cool people doing cool things, in the comments section, down below.
