In the early days of 2018, just a year ago, I came across one of Casey Neistat’s videos on YouTube. At the moment I didn’t realize I had seen some of his work before, particularly a video about not being able to use the bike lane in New York, which was very funny and to the point. Now I saw him snowboarding through New York and I wondered: “Who is this guy?”
Casey seemed to be a daily vlogger, one of the people who revolutionized YouTube. I started to check out his channel on a regular basis, and watched a lot of his past episodes. Following someone like Casey, who for a long period of time made a video per day, became addictive. But it was an inspirational addiction.
In his well-crafted, well-structured and tightly edited videos Casey seemed authentic, funny and positive. I also loved the fact that often New York City was a character in his stories. Casey inspired me to make my own videos. So, I started making those since May last year.
I make vlogs about stuff that fascinates me, particularly comic books and other forms of popular culture. To be honest, I’m still figuring out what works for me and ‘my audience’. I’m still looking for my voice and style. But it has been fun so far.
I started doing vlogs in Dutch, because that is my native language. Later, I stared Amsterdam Comic Geek: a second channel to post English vlogs on. So far that channel hasn’t been a success and I am still struggling with the language. It’s easier for me to make a video in Dutch, instead of having to find the right words to express what I want to convey. It’s a work in progress.
Today I discovered a video made by Alex Gasaway. Another YouTuber named Cody Wanner pointed her video out to me. Gasaway explains what Casey’s work means to her and how he inspired her to pursuit her own creations. She also goes to New York to check out locations that feature in Casey’s vlogs. I recognized that: I went to New York to check out locations from Spider-Man-comics for my book about my favorite character. I thought Gasaway’s video was very inspirational and heart warming, so here it is:
