My laugh & scream are having a moment

 


People are desperate to get out and live their lives. How do I know? The Boberg Family Youtube channel, which I use to share family vacation and holiday videos and random fun things, is seeing some serious traffic. I'm not talking new Taylor Swift music traffic, more like modest, viral niche video traffic.


This is a screenshot of our subscriber count jump as of April 15 and the view count is currently at 445k. I've produced a TON of content before. Professionally I've produced these numbers, but those were generally crafted for an audience. The Crazy Mouse at the Iowa State Fair video that is generating all this imaginary internet cache is a single shot, where I laugh and scream like an eight-year-old boy. So silly and surprising. From the comments I can divine that people are loving my silly yelling and laughing. That is fine with me, I can take a joke and deserve to be joked about. It seems the views come from earnest love for rollercoasters and people looking for a good time. If the video reaches a million views I might have to start shooting POV roller coaster rides more often, or not. 

This has happened on a smaller scale across the Boberg network of Youtube channels, most noticeably with our Beehive Trail hike from 2016 and a Guide to Kauai video from 2009. 10 years ago, my homeboy AJ and I produced a slew of kids songs and videos for our job at a cable access TV station and that thing rocketed (relatively) to the moon as well. 


Look, I am an optimist, an extrovert, and generally a bon vivant. Every time I see one of my clips take the mysterious YouTube hop I get amped. People enjoying me doing something fun or silly is the best feeling. That Beehive Trail jump was quasi expected as I knew it is a super popular trail and at the time there were no good videos showcasing it. The Kauai video was the first thing I ever produced that jump blew me away. I cut it together as an early entrant for a Lonely Planet competition, the first time Youtube sponsored a user-submitted content competition. YouTube's official blog shared it the night I posted it and I woke up to 25K views. The video is not the best and I didn't expect to win, but those views spun my brain. That happens every time now.

Who knows what will ride the algorithm to modest glory next? If I have one wish, it would be something from my short film crew, Tiny Explosions. We've made some super silly and fun short films. I'd love for them to find some eyes and produce goofy laughs. But if not, that's cool too. I'm a pretty fortunate guy and Youtube passive success is the cherry on top of the sundae that is my life.

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