Casey Neistat was a name that I had heard about every now and then in the last few years but didn’t really think to look up. But after watching him collaborate with other Youtubers I followed (notably Karlie Kloss) I decided to see who he was and what he did.

As it turns out Neistat is this incredibly successful film maker and creative who has been making films for over ten years now, with most of his content on Youtube. Seeing when somebody has over nine million subscribers makes a person wonder, why is he so successful? Well after reading a lot and watching a lot, I got it. Here are a few reasons (in my opinion..) why Neistat is so successful in his craft and why you should go and watch him.

1. His stuff is well thought out and well executed

This can be attributed to his consistency and hard work, but also vast experience film making. The videos, (especially the more recent ones) are well shot, focused, the sound quality is great and you can tell when he is travelling somewhere that he goes that extra step in finding an angle that you weren’t expecting or haven’t seen before. It helps that he has an insane amount of cameras and toys to help achieve this but even really simple visuals that can be done by anybody are done pretty damn well by him.

A video I particularly love is Casey’s almost homage to his son Owen, where he talks about a trip they took together and from the get go, this video was amazing. There was so much content and old home videos edited together, it was completely seamless and the storytelling was excellent. Casey goes through “The three virtues of Owen” as though they are book chapters showing us videos from the expedition they took leading to Machu Picchu. It was really moving to see how Casey sees Owen and how he represented the pride he felt watching his son push through a tough but rewarding experience.

2. The content in his videos changes

Many Youtubers have this in their videos, but Casey I think is one of the best at it. Most of his videos change in where he is, what he is doing and what he is working on. Even if they are genuinely normal activities he makes things seem interesting and you find his adventures entertaining. He meets a lot of people and documents all of them, not just the celebrities or well known faces. It’s also a testament to the ability to keep creating things with so many years being a Youtuber and keeping his audience wanting to come back and watch.

3. He seems like a genuinely good guy

Casey collaborated with Jacksgap (another great channel) and talked about his views on film making and why he got into it. He came from very humble beginnings and had to work really hard at a young age to support himself and his son, even working jobs as a dishwasher to buy a ticket to see him and camera’s to work on his passion of making films. There are plenty of talented people out there with similar stories who have built their careers on the things they love, but I think its worth giving credit where credit is due. Neistat mentions to Jacksgap that he always wanted to make a living in order to make movies, not the other way around. I feel really lucky to have heard this from someone like that because I think we can get too focused on trying to make what we like doing pay us and help us earn a living, often loosing sight of if its actually a passion or not.

Something that keeps an audience coming back is the likability of the person. Even though he is on the other side of the world, older and has had a very different life to his viewers, they still want to see what he does. He’s someone who is interested in things, is honest and very likeable.

So yeah, Neistat makes great videos, is creative and overall is passionate about what he does. He is definitely a bit of a role model for this media student and I suggest you look him up, you’ll like what you see.

xxx