Don’t Listen to Anyone: Casey Neistat on Trusting Your Instincts & The Principles That Guide A Creative Life

Today marks my third conversation with the singular Casey Neistat. Does a guy who has amassed over 100 million total views on his YouTube Channel — not to mention 1 million views daily — really need a formal introduction? Unlikely. But if for some reason this exciting filmmaker has eclipsed your radar, you can read my in depth thoughts on his extraordinary life and listen to our prior conversations HERE (RRP #73) and HERE (RRP #144). If you're well on board the Casey train, you’ve witnessed quite an evolution in his recent trajectory. Since Casey began daily vlogging — posting a new movie on his YouTube Channel every single day since March 27, 2015 — his already incredibly popular YouTube Channel has exploded, growing from around 500,000 subscribers to well over 1.1 million in less than five months. On average, each vlog amasses around 500,000 views. This one tops out at 1.5 million (which incidentally has absolutely nothing to do with what occurs at the 4-minute mark): A major network television show would kill for these numbers. But Casey has no interest in such matters. He's not making videos to capture the interest of the system he consciously placed in his rear view. For Casey, YouTube is the finish line — a juggernaut channel he built all by himself. DIY on the most democratic video platform in the world. And that is far more powerful and compelling than anything HBO, NBC, Disney or any other traditional mainstream outlet could ever offer him. Ever. If you’re not yet hip to his channel, get on it. A unique voice delivered with expert filmmaking acuity, each and every movie hooks you emotionally and never fails to captivate. His movies are so popular in fact, crowds of people congregate daily outside his downtown New York City studio, pining for a mere glimpse of the populist artist. And now thanks to the new social media video sharing platform he co-founded called Beme, Casey can add technology entrepreneur to his expanding resume. Intended to change how we view and use social media, Beme allows users to post successive 4-second video snippets without the opportunity to preview, review or even view the clips before they publish. By altogether dispensing with the opportunity to edit and filter, the big idea is to promote honesty, authenticity and ultimately empathy through shared experience. Rather than sharing the well crafted and highly filtered version of ourselves we want the world to see, Beme is about sharing our point of view the way we actually experience it.