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What makes Casey's videos so alluring is that they are charged with motivational and inspirational messages. Telling the audience to work hard and do more. His videos are positive and lighthearted, but there is a good message - work hard and do more, never stay too comfortable or it will all go away. Nike approached Casey in order to commission a video on one of their new active watches at that time. Casey embodies Nike's ideals, a company that encourages a go-getter attitude and positive energy.

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The latest Nike ad begins with a shot of director Casey Neistat's hand removing the company's FuelBand fitness tracker from its case and pointing at the slogan on the packaging: "Life is a Sport. Make It Count." The director included this shot at Nike's behest. It was the only element of the ad's creation that the brand exercised any control over.

After making two ads for the FuelBand earlier this year, Neistat and his editor Max Joseph were a little Nike'd out. When it came time to do a planned third commercial, the director ended up throwing away the script the company had signed off on and opting for something else altogether. Something kind of crazy. The original treatment would have shown how everyday people "make it count" in their own lives. Instead, Neistat decided to turn the camera on himself.

The director and Joseph took the entire production budget and rather than make anything resembling a traditional ad, the two shot the world's most expensive video travel journal.

"My vision for it was forget about what Nike is, forget about sneakers, forget everything; what does 'make it count' mean to me?" Neistat says. "And what it means to me is take a huge chance. Consequences aside, if I could do anything in the world, what would it be? Do I really want to produce another regular advertisement? No. I would take this production budget and go around the world and see all these places I want to see."

It was a voyage that included stops in Zambia, Doha, Bangkok, and many other places. An extensive montage of atypical airplane food gives the viewer an idea of how far afield the pair of adventurers found themselves until the money ran out (10 days later). Over a pulsating dance track by Tiga, the two are shown running around and sampling local customs in each new city, culminating in a new tattoo and a gripping slow-motion jump off a ridiculously high cliff. It all looks loose and spontaneous and about as fun a time as anyone in Nike's athletic-skewing demographic could wish to have. "There wasn't much premeditation involved at all," says Neistat. "We were just like 'Fuck it,' and we took off."

Considering the sizable risk he took, though, one fears for what happened when they came back. After returning from their trip, the director and his editor had captured 29 hours of footage, and they had 11 days to deliver an ad with it. They also had absolutely no idea what they'd shot. There were clips of Neistat running in every city they were in, which had been planned as a connective motif, but everything else was up in the air.

Joseph was able to work quickly and find other patterns to cobble into interesting visuals, though, and the two made it work-interspersing the footage with inspirational quotes from the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, Albert Einstein, and Marilyn Monroe. "The quotes represent ideas that are not mine; what I think are universal ideas about what it means to sort of make life count," says Neistat.

The final step was getting Nike on board.

Of course, it's rare that an advertiser wouldn't be hovering over a commercial shoot and aware of every second of production time, but Neistat says he has "a great relationship with Nike; they grant me a lot of room." The brand had zero involvement in the production, he says, but by about halfway through the edit, the client was "aware of just what the film was."

"There was a very scary amount of time between when I sent them the first edit and I got back any feedback at all," Neistat says. "I work in both very strict conditions and very loose, more open-minded conditions in advertising, and Nike is by far the most open-minded of all. But there was still a great deal of risk there. When the executive from Nike first came into my office to see what I had, there was some sweating going on, some head-scratching, and it was all on his part, like 'what did you guys do?' But I wasn't nervous. What was the worst that could happen?"

Well, a breach of contract lawsuit is probably the worst that could happen, but that's beside the point. The best that could probably happen is what did end up happening: the ad is a viral hit (790,000 views and counting in just over a day) and one that is on-brief too. Neistat took a risk and made it count.

"As a director I have the greatest job in the world," he says, "but if I don't push the boundaries, then what's the point of having it?"

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How Director Casey Neistat Went Rogue With Nike's New Ad

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The latest Nike ad begins with a shot of director Casey Neistat's hand removing the company's FuelBand fitness tracker from its case and pointing at the slogan on the packaging: "Life is a Sport. Make It Count." The director included this shot at Nike's behest.

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Sweeping multiple  categories including creator of the year,  cinematography and editing etc. Casey unique style of story telling made him standout against other vloggers on the platform. His presence online at this time was undoubtedly unchallenged. Also winning the audience choice as one of the best creators of the year, Casey's was well received by viewers and critics alike.

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The nominees for the 7th Annual Streamy Awards have been announced! Don't miss the 2017 Streamys, airing LIVE on Twitter on Tuesday, September 26.

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Casey winning Shorty Awards, Youtuber of the Year. Recognizing his content creation on the platform. The award only cements his star icon on Youtube and the success his vlogs.

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About Casey Neistat

YouTuber Casey Neistat has been an online innovator known for his "wonderfully renegade" videos, including 2003's "iPod's Dirty Secret," 2013's #MakeItCount Nike collaboration gone rogue, and his New York Magazine-coined "Bike-Lane Vigilante" PSA. In March 2015, Casey started producing daily YouTube vlogs, crossing the 1 million subscriber soon after. A few months later, Casey and Matt Hackett unveiled their cutting-edge Beme video-sharing app, met with press acclaim, 1.1 million videos and 2.4 million logged reactions within eight days of the app's release.

Casey Neistat's best work on social

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRv7G7WpOoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z61pIsuI3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMF9I_9DAcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtm_tIkEbMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9JguCjLrCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KnNVK-udTU

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YouTuber Casey Neistat has been an online innovator known for his "wonderfully renegade" videos, including 2003's "iPod's Dirty Secret," 2013's #MakeItCount Nike collaboration gone rogue, and his New York Magazine-coined "Bike-Lane Vigilante" PSA. In March 2015, Casey started producing daily YouTube vlogs, crossing the 1 million subscriber soon after.

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Casey taking a break explaining he wants to be there for his family. It is a respectable option, him valuing family over work shows his priorities and human nature despite his almost inhuman work life

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A multimedia company founded by Casey and Matt Hackett (friend). A large portion of his vlogs centred around developing his company until it was eventually acquired by CNN in 2016 (reportedly around $25 million). The emphasis on his hard-working star status shows him hectically travelling across the world advertising and building BEME.

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Getty/Bennett Raglin
CNN is betting that YouTube star Casey Neistat, who has 5.8 million followers, can help the company package news in a way that appeals to younger audiences.

On Monday, CNN announced it had bought Neistat's social-sharing app, Beme, for an undisclosed amount, and that all of Beme's employees would join CNN. (The Wall Street Journal says the deal was for around $25 million).

CNN will shut down Beme, and Neistat will get to work building a new startup inside CNN.

Neistat's new startup will try to tackle news, particularly through mobile video, but won't be a traditional news network.

"A huge part of my particular audience sees news and media as largely broken," Neistat told The New York Times. "My dad sees it as the word of God, but I think the young people definitely do not."

"The new company will be devoted to filling the world with excellent, timely and topical video and empowering content creators to use technology to find their voice," CNN said in a statement. "It won't be what most people think of as 'news,' but it will be relevant to the daily conversations that dominate our lives."

It's unclear exactly what form that will take, but Neistat is a superstar in the the vlog format, and has a knack for creating videos with a sense of authenticity. The app Beme, which will be shuttered, is focused on unedited, user-generated short videos.

The new venture will launch by summer 2017, and CNN says it's hiring "dozens of producers, builders, developers, designers, and content creators of every mold."

While Neistat's new startup will exist inside CNN, he will be given "full creative control" to build something different, according to The Times.

"Casey has tapped into nearly six million really powerful viewers, most of which do not tune in to CNN," Andrew Morse, CNN's digital boss, told The Times. "To build this audience authentically, we believe we need to build something new."

CNN will not get ownership of Neistat's personal YouTube channel.

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CNN is betting a YouTube star with 5.8 million followers can snag younger viewers

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CNN is betting that YouTube star Casey Neistat, who has 5.8 million followers, can help the company package news in a way that appeals to younger audiences. On Monday, CNN announced it had bought Neistat's social-sharing app, Beme, for an undisclosed amount, and that all of Beme's employees would join CNN.

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Young people inspired by Casey's vlogging style

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Young people inspired by Casey's vlogging style

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Online breakdowns on the style of Casey Neistat 

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Online breakdowns on the style of Casey Neistat 

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His vlogging style is so recognizable and unique, there is even guides on dissecting it

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Casey appeared on the front cover of Esquire Middle East in 2018. The magazine denotes Casey's international star presence. His videos and philosophy is gracefully accepted abroad. Transcending language and culture all the way from New York.

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When Casey Neistat speaks, the world listens.

He has millions of fans, and a global reach comparable to the likes of David Letterman at his peak, or Jimmy Fallon. But unlike the host of a late-night talk show, Neistat doesn't rely on a team of writers, producers, support staff or a live studio audience. Instead, he entertains an audience of millions almost every day, using nothing more than a handheld camera and a laptop. And what an audience he has.

Neistat's videos are regularly seen by millions of people. He has a subscriber base of just shy of nine million and has racked up more than two billion video views on YouTube alone. Not counting his other social media accounts (he has a million followers on Facebook and three million on Instagram), Casey Neistat has one of the largest and most engaged audiences on the internet. In the world of cat videos and 'food porn', that's saying something.

9 MUST-SEE CASEY NEISTAT VIDEOS
WE TOOK CASEY NEISTAT SANDBOARDING IN THE DESERT

Neistat joined YouTube in 2010, initially using the platform as nothing more than a place to host the quirky videos he made on the side of a moderately successful career in filmmaking and advertising. There are shorts dedicated to his first car, a weekend away in California, as well as funny videos of him flying a blow-up shark around the subway. So far, so pedestrian. Then, after picking up a ticket from a police officer for riding his bike outside of a bike lane in New York City, he made another short film.
The video, aptly titled ' Bike Lanes by Casey Neistat ', features the titular character running into all manner of obstacles, which were either dumped or left in one of the city's many bike lanes. The video ends with Neistat being unceremoniously flung off his bike, having rammed into a police car (itself parked where it shouldn't be, in a bike lane).

Casey wears jacket, shirt Topman at namshi.com; Chinos by Corneliani

Part citizen-journalism and part self-injuring comedy, the video was shared by millions, picked up by news organisations like The Guardian and the BBC, and ultimately prompted a statement by then New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. For Neistat, the reaction to the YouTube video was a significant moment, when he first realised the power of the new platform.

"That's what I love about technology. It has democratised video content. I shoot half of my uploads via smartphone," says Neistat. "It has a super-high-quality camera; it has a zoom lens and a stereo microphone. To a naïve eye, there is not much difference between what it can do and what a formal production company does. On YouTube, I don't necessarily know what was made by a big company, or by a single person, the production is not what I'm paying attention to, it's the story being told."

Today, Neistat's videos set the standard that defines how social-media influencers go about creating content (you'll be hard-pressed to find a vlogger who has not copied or is at least familiar, with Neistat's video style and recording setup; a DSLR sat atop a large bendy tripod). But while the technology has changed - what used to take an entire production company months now takes minutes using any old point-and-shoot camera or smartphone - so too has the notion of celebrity.

"I am a YouTuber. I like that title because any 11-year-old in the world with a smartphone or a camera can be called a YouTuber" - Casey Neistat

"I had a TV show before I was on YouTube," says Neistat. In 2008, HBO commissioned an eight-episode series of The Neistat Brothers, which ran for one season. The show was largely autobiographical, made up of short stories about Casey and his brother, Van Neistat. "I had some notoriety from being on HBO, but it's nothing compared to what it is now, being on YouTube. The content I shared on both outlets was the same. The HBO show was 11 years ago, but it was absolutely a vlog. It was self-produced content that I shared."

"But when you are on TV, your audience treats you differently. You are not a relatable person. It's like you're not a person at all. Just this mythical character. If Scarlett Johansson walks down the street, people will gawk at her. The way they would treat her is very different from the way they would treat a YouTuber like PewDiePie [a vlogger with more than 60 million subscribers] walking down that same street."

What started as a small group of people making short videos on the internet, has quickly become a dominant form of entertainment, especially for younger audiences. Last year alone, the top 10 social influencers on YouTube brought in over 10 billion views on the platform and made a combined US$127 million dollars.

While those numbers do not surprise Neistat, he will be the first to admit it's still baffling to some, "I have friends in the professional, mainstream media world, and they are absolutely perplexed by the relationship that I have with my audience."

****

Casey Neistat is referred to as the 'gold standard' on YouTube.

The key to much of Neistat's success lies in his authenticity. He takes his audience on a what appears to be an unabridged journey of his day-to-day life. While he is the first to admit that it's more an enhanced version of reality than a fly-on-the-wall representation of it, it still has a vastly more genuine feel than the scripted and over-produced video content that is popular on television.

"My vlogs are entirely enhanced reality. But I think to preface that you need to define what enhanced reality actually means. Keeping Up with the Kardashians - although, I admit I have never seen the show - is 45 minutes long, but it's meant to encapsulate a week of their lives. It is sculpted and put together by a set of editors and producers to create the most entertaining 45 minutes possible. They use a real life person, or a set of people, and their authentic real life, to create some interesting entertainment."

"I posted a video today that is nine minutes long, and it's certainly a day in my life. But it's without question the part of my day that was the most interesting. I did leave out the part in the morning where my wife and I met with a psychologist to discuss the best tactics to get our daughter to sleep because that was boring. I don't think it is something the audience could relate to or understand."

Casey wears blazer, shirt and chinos all Ermenegildo Zegna

Social media is often accused of warping expectations of reality, allowing the billions of users across the likes of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to present an inauthentic version of themselves, and of events (there's no going back from the allegations regarding the 2016 US presidential election, nor the current outbreak of #FakeNews paranoia). But Neistat doesn't believe this is the same thing as his vlogs.

"There is an important caveat to what I do, and it's a very important caveat. Everything that I share is the truth. I don't fabricate anything. I don't create anything out of thin air. I guess I just curate aspects of my life that I want to share and the parts that I am comfortable with sharing."

****

Casey Neistat doesn't like the word 'influencer'.

He doesn't like the term 'content creator' either. He sees both as lazy, and unimaginative. "The title that I have attuned," says Neistat, "and the one
I really like for humility - and myriad other reasons - is simply 'YouTuber'. I am a YouTuber. I like that title because any 11-year-old in the world with a smartphone or a camera can be called a YouTuber."

That's easy for someone like Casey Neistat to say. If his daily vlogs are anything to go by, a regular day can involve anything from taking an UberChopper over New York City, flying to some faraway country for public-speaking engagements (indeed, Neistat is speaking to us on the back of being flown to Dubai for VIDXB, the region's first online video conference) or hanging out with other equally famous YouTube stars.

Esquire Middle East's March 2018 'Influencer Issue'

"I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that you need to have an exciting life to have an exciting channel," says Neistat.

"I have an exciting life, and I would never suggest otherwise, but some of the biggest vlogs have very little to do with excitement. Look at family vlogger Roman Atwood, who has almost double the views that I do. Or look at PewDiePie, the biggest YouTube creator in the world. Their lives aren't particularly exciting, but they are incredibly good at sharing them."

While Casey will often name-drop his fellow YouTubers, that doesn't mean he agrees with all of them. PewDiePie, aka Felix Kjellberg, is a Swedish web-based comedian and gamer, who is still the most popular creator on YouTube (60 million subscribers and counting).

Casey wears blazer, shirt and chinos all Ermenegildo Zegna; Sandboard by Above Sandboards

When The New York Times released reports detailing several instances of anti-Semitic and racist content that Kjellberg released on his channel last year, Neistat was one of the first creators to openly comment (via his vlog, naturally). Likewise, when Logan Paul uploaded a video depicting a dead body found in Japan's Aokigahara Forest (the resulting uproar caused YouTube to remove Paul's ability to monetise his videos), Neistat quickly took to social media to condemn Paul's actions.

Neistat puts much of his fellow creator's misdeeds down to immaturity. "Any other star that has the fame of Logan Paul at the age of 22 will be surrounded by agents, editors, publicists, other people who are there to help them, shake their images, and control how they put themselves out there" admits Neistat, "But YouTube is the very antithesis of that. There is no one between Logan Paul and his audience. It's just him."

Logan Paul had a single subscriber in September of 2016, but today has a subscriber base of 16.7 million (by comparison, it took Justin Bieber almost triple the time to grow a similar-sized audience). "I think what we are seeing now is what happens when you combine really, really poor judgement with [the mentality] of a 20-year-old millionaire."

Last month Neistat sat down with YouTube's Head of Business to talk about the changes taking place on the platform, in part due to the recent uproar around Logan Paul. The interview, which was recorded and uploaded on Neistat's channel, was lambasted by the press but welcomed by the broader creative community. It painted Neistat a somewhat of a father-figure on the platform, a role which he now must contend with.

Casey wears jacket, shirt Topman at namshi.com; Chinos by Corneliani; Sandboard by Above Sandboards

"I think I am a lot like other top creators, but I have the benefit of being an old man. I have been working for 15 years, not fifteen months like Logan Paul. So I have an understanding that comes from experience. But I don't act on behalf of YouTube. I think there's a total lack of understanding in our community, and so I thought I would take that to YouTube. When they agreed to the interview, I thought I would do it publicly."

****

Casey Neistat wants to go beyond YouTube

In 2015, at the height of his YouTube success, Neistat announced that he was co-founding a startup company called Beme (pronounced: Beam). The company produced a video-sharing app that allowed users to disseminate quick, short clips, but lacked the facility for its users to edit their videos. In the first few days, the app racked up half a million downloads and more than a million video uploads, but things went south soon after, so much so that Neistat posted an explainer video on YouTube a year after the launch, entitled 'What the hell happened to Beme?'. After months of speculation about if and when the company would shutter, it was acquired by an unlikely saviour.

Casey wears blazer and chinos all Ermenegildo Zegna

Jeff Zucker, president of CNN, first heard of Casey Neistat via his children, and in 2016 it was announced that CNN would be buying Beme for close to US$25 million, in the hope of securing and growing its six million viewership.

Indeed, Neistat isn't naive to the potential his audience provides, "The largest part of the equation was me. I am not blind to that at all. If you look at the demographics, I capture a sizeable audience in a demographic that CNN just doesn't reach."

But CNN's views on Neistat have probably soured somewhat since the acquisition. On 25 January, 2018, Neistat posted a heartfelt video on his YouTube channel, announcing that he was moving on from Beme. In his first video (which was quickly removed from YouTube) Neistat laments what happened, but admits that his creativity is less geared towards group environments.

In a shorter video which has since been reposted, Neistat says, "We did a lot of interesting things, and I think I might have struggled more in that environment than I had anticipated. But ultimately, I am very proud of the work that we did there." Neistat is staying on as executive producer of the Beme News media channel on YouTube, but, having closed Beme as a company last month, it's clear that CNN didn't get the digital saviour that it presumed Neistat would be.

****

Casey Neistat isn't going anywhere

Neistat's very public exit from CNN was portrayed as somewhat of a personal failure (indeed, the fate of his co-founder Matt Hackett became a footnote in many of the news stories). While he's keen to point out that CNN was ultimately pleased with what was produced (most members of the BEME technology team were offered a position with CNN), after the teary-eyed video explaining the situation, much of Neistat's nine-million-strong audience was concerned about what would happen next. They needn't have worried.

"What I am doing next? I don't know if I will be announcing anything until after March... F*** it, let's do this on the record. I don't want to have to do this twice."

"My next endeavour will be the most ambitious undertaking of my career," says Neistat, "and the culmination of 15 years in the media landscape. That includes my time on television with HBO and CNN, making feature films, my understanding of the landscape of YouTube and social media, as well as my experience working in the technology world. What I am doing will be a blend of all those aspects of my career; it will be the biggest swing that I have ever taken."

"What I am doing next will be the most ambitious undertaking of my career... the biggest swing I have ever taken. It will be built entirely around where I know I can be successful"

Unlike his previous endeavour, Neistat is putting himself front and centre of his new project. "I am not going for outside capital, so everything will be directly funded by me from the onset. No venture, no debt, and I will not be answerable to anyone. This is going to be a company that is built in its entirety around where I know I can be successful in new media. It's going to be social first. It's going to be YouTube first."

Neistat is keen discuss things like building out business verticals, marketing, advertising and the logistics of delivering merchandise. "There are myriad other factors that I need to look at,' Neistat admits, "including an entirely new video vertical, which is going to be a podcast that my wife and I are launching. That will include an all-new channel, where we'll be making videos around the podcasts."

And where better to run an ambitious project such as this than a brand new headquarters. "I will be taking on an entirely new storefront studio space in lower Manhattan.
I will be running the entire operation from that. It's going to be a collaborative environment where I will be working with other creators to help realise their ambitions. The goal for me is to really define what I understand new media is, and how it's capable of looking ahead."

Casey wears blazer, shirt and chinos all Ermenegildo Zegna; Sandboard by Above Sandboards

Neistat is obviously eager to talk about the new project but guarded enough to stay away from specifics. "I wouldn't call it a vlog, more a daily show," says Neistat, "which will be at the centre of everything I do. That is the nucleus, and there will be other spheres of content orbiting around that."

"One thing I can tell you about the new company is that my sole focus will be on creating the best videos on all of the internet. And I am going to approach it with that understanding every single day." Evidently, the world had better get ready to see a whole lot more of Casey Neistat.

- - - -
This article was published in the March 2018 issue of Esquire Middle East.

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Youtuber vs Celebrity: What Casey Neistat does next

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When Casey Neistat speaks, the world listens. He has millions of fans, and a global reach comparable to the likes of David Letterman at his peak, or Jimmy Fallon. But unlike the host of a late-night talk show, Neistat doesn't rely on a team of writers, producers, support staff or a live studio audience.

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Despite vlogs being abundant on YouTube, and a category saturated with creators, Casey's approach to vlogging is unique and has now set the standard practice of vlogging on YouTube. His emphasis on cinematography and story-telling entrances the viewers. He stood out as the vlogging star in a platform full of vlogging stars.

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Anyone who has seen any of Casey Neistat 's hundreds of YouTube videos knows the man lives an active lifestyle. For more than a year, starting in March of 2015, Neistat posted daily video updates about his life in New York City, featuring his various creative endeavors, his impressive workout schedule, and his thoughts on things happening in the news and in his life. In these videos, Neistat frequently spoke of his love of doing creative work and his obsession with productivity, which has allowed him to amass a tremendous YouTube audience and successfully run his businesses. While Neistat has since retired from posting videos every day, the creator maintains an audience of millions, and his influence has had an indelible impact on the landscape of creative lifestyle videos on the YouTube platform.

Neistat was born in 1981 in Connecticut and raised in the reform tradition of Judaism. A high-school dropout, Neistat lived in a trailer park as a teenager and worked as a dishwasher and as a short-order cook to support his son, Owen, whom he and his then-girlfriend Rachel Harris had when he was 17. It was during the time he spent living in a trailer park that Neistat discovered his love of filmmaking; he would record videos on VHS camcorders, and maxed out his credit card to buy an iMac for video editing. As a young man, Neistat wanted to follow his passion for film making despite his lack of formal education in the subject, so he moved to New York City in 2001 when he was 20 years old after his girlfriend broke up with him. While in New York, Neistat produced a series of short films for the artist Tom Sachs, but it wasn't until 2003 that he caught his first big break.

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Casey Neistat: The Original Lifestyle Vlogger | The National Digest

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Anyone who has seen any of Casey Neistat 's hundreds of YouTube videos knows the man lives an active lifestyle. For more than a year, starting in March of 2015, Neistat posted daily video updates about his life in New York City, featuring his various creative endeavors, his impressive workout schedule, and his thoughts on things happening in the news and in his life.

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Watching his vlogs has helped some of his audience develop structure in their lives and helping them through important moments to change their life for the better. Fulfilling the messages of star image.

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One of the people that most inspires me to do more is Casey Neistat.

Casey was a daily vlogger, whose vlog ended yesterday. A daily vlogger creates and posts one video everyday about something in his life. A kind of auto-biographical reality show.

In Casey's case, his show lasted almost two years, had more that 600 videos, almost 6 million subscribers and more than 1 billion views.

One of Casey's mottos, that he tattooed himself on his arm, is "Do More".

Sometimes, when I feel I don't have time do to something I think: "If Casey can, I can too".

Casey, between being married, having two kids, and managing his own company, can film and edit, everyday, a ten minute video with incredible quality. Spoiler alert: he sleeps 4 hours.

This epic journey ended yesterday for the best of reasons: Casey felt it was getting too easy. That he had found a formulaic way to do his videos that would appease his audience.

He didn't feel challenged anymore. And, in the moment he was truly getting attention (solely in September he got more than 155 million views), getting awards and getting hundreds of thousands in advertising revenue, he decided to end it.

Because he didn't want to plateau. He wanted to do more.

With the goal of doing more in mind, a few weeks ago I decided to change an habit in my life.

I stopped going to CrossFit at 7 at night, and started going at 7 in the morning.

And believe me: it hurts! The sun hasn't risen yet, it's freezing outside, the body doesn't want to and the brain is still sleeping. But my productivity increased enormously.

When I arrive at work, a little after 9, my head is racing. Everyone is still groggy and I'm full of energy. Until lunch time (my most creative and productive time of day) I feel that I can finish two times the stuff I used to do before.

On the other hand, I started going to bed at 10pm. Which implicated some sacrifices. I seldomly go out at night anymore. And if I do I will be the guy who's doing a nap on the dancefloor.

I gained more hours in the evening though. I used to rush from work to CrossFit and then home to eat really quick and go to bed. Now I have a solid 3 hours in the evening that I can fill with whatever I want. Reading, writing, family time or more work.
I do more of what matters to me. I do less of what, to me, is less important.
Casey's vlogs, apart from being one of my favourite entertainment programs of the last two years, inspired me to find time to do more of what matters to me.

Thanks Casey!

Casey's Youtube Channel here.

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How Casey Neistat inspired me to find time to do more

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One of the people that most inspires me to do more is Casey Neistat. Casey was a daily vlogger, whose vlog ended yesterday. A daily vlogger creates and posts one video everyday about something in his life. A kind of auto-biographical reality show.

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Casey did many talks all across the U.S to high schools, despite him dropping out of high school and yet reaching this amount of success, Casey is adamant that education is essential. his star power is that of an inspirational role model, as shown in this article, one of the students were so inspired by his talk that he started volunteering and starting a club at their school.

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Which TED Talks do students love? We asked TED-Ed Club Members around the world to share their favorites. Below, check out 9 great talks recommended by and for young people:

7. Casey Neistat: High school stories
Californian high school student Nathan Cao says that Casey Neistat's TEDx talk influenced his outlook on life: "Casey Neistat's talk taught me that as I am fortunate to live in the United States and go to a great school, I must seize this opportunity to help someone else who does not receive the same luxuries that I do. This has fueled my love for community service and helping others. I often volunteer at the senior home and the homeless shelter. At the moment, I am starting a club at my school that will help the refugees who are in dire need of our support. There is so much that I can do to improve the lives of people who need it most."

To celebrate and amplify youth voices in your community, start a TED-Ed Club.
Author bio: Annie Brodsky is a university student and occasional intern at TED-Ed. We at TED-Ed Blog think she's fabulous. Art credit: iStock. To learn something new every week, sign up for the TED-Ed Newsletter here >>

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9 TED Talks recommended by students, for students

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Which TED Talks do students love? We asked TED-Ed Club Members around the world to share their favorites. Below, check out 9 great talks recommended by and for young people: 1. Cameron Russell: Loo...

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Articles such as these promotes the idea that he is very successful to be able to give advice. The name Casey Neistat connotes success and working hard.

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3 min read

In the past two weeks, YouTube star and filmmaker Casey Neistat has not only stopped producing his nearly two-year-old daily vlog -- he also sold his video-sharing app Beme to CNN in a deal reportedly valued at $25 million.

Beme's guiding principle was authenticity. Users would film videos lasting several seconds, but they weren't able to edit or even see the footage before sharing it. The recipient of the message could then film themselves reacting to it. All of the videos in question would instantly disappear, a bit like those on Snapchat.

The app, which launched in July 2015 and has been downloaded more than 1 million times, will officially shut down on Jan. 31, 2017. And while Beme itself will no longer be around, its team of 12 will staff a new company affiliated with CNN, with its exact mission around digital storytelling to be announced.

Neistat, 35, is also the co-creator (along with his brother) of an HBO docuseries and was an independent film producer before launching his YouTube channel in 2010. After six years, during which he's created well-received ads for brands such as Google and Mercedes and attracted more than 5.8 million subscribers, here are five lessons from his entrepreneurial hustle.
Related: How YouTube Sensation Casey Neistat Succeeded in Making Ads for People Who Hate Ads
1. No job is too small.

Neistat dropped out of high school as a teenager to take care of his son. Long before anyone knew about his films, he washed dishes in restaurants and took on an assortment of odd jobs to support his family and his moviemaking efforts.

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5 Lessons for Success From YouTube Star Casey Neistat

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3 min read In the past two weeks, YouTube star and filmmaker Casey Neistat has not only stopped producing his nearly two-year-old daily vlog -- he also sold his video-sharing app Beme to CNN in a deal reportedly valued at $25 million. Beme's guiding principle was authenticity.

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Casey repeatedly states throughout his vlogs, others can reach where he is at as long as they work hard. This certify his status as a celebrity, as he inspired a new wave of filmmakers and vloggers on the platform with his groundbreaking high quality, daily vlogs

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HOW TO CASEY NEISTAT A VLOG by Sara Dietschy

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Casey seems to hone this father identity onto his vlogs, often giving advice and lecturing the audience on doing more. This can be seen through some of his Q & A videos, where he answer questions on life. This builds an intimate connection between Casey and his audience, with his style of vlogs, he talks to the camera as if directly to the audience. With his image of him being grounded and self-made, his advice seems more genuine.

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Ipod's Dirty Little Secret & Sharing Videos Online

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Ipod's Dirty Little Secret & Sharing Videos Online

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in 2003, Casey was not too happy at Apple's non-fix policy with their iPod device line. Casey took the initiative and spray-painted on Apple's advertisements across Manhattan. Through the internet, the video reached many users and also news channels, forcing Apple to change warranties for new iPod owners. Casey actively developed his star image as someone who is willing to take action on what is unjust, even against a large company such as Apple.

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Casey Neistat is a 22-year-old multimedia artist who lives in Lower Manhattan, so it almost goes without saying that he's got an Apple iPod, and that he loves it, because what young, self-respecting multimedia artist in Lower Manhattan doesn't these days?

But his love was tested when his iPod went cold, and he could not bring it back to life.

It is the essential talisman of our yoga-tech times: Ownership of an iPod -- a credit-card-size, white-and-metallic digital music player -- has grown a bit culty, especially when people talk about how it has completely changed their inner musical lives. This sounds like crazy talk, until you get one, and then you understand, because now you, too, are having an everlasting love affair with something very tiny. (Here, small is good.) An iPodder has a telltale white cord coming from his coat pocket to his ears and lives in sonic smugness; he walks around in a kind of perpetually happy glaze, with his entire music collection -- as many as 10,000 songs -- going with him.

Neistat bought his iPod in early 2002, not long after Apple introduced it. He would usually listen to it on his daily bike ride to TriBeCa, where he and his brother, Van, 28, have a small studio and work together on films and other art projects, professionally calling themselves the Neistat Brothers.

In late October -- after about 18 months of use -- the rechargeable lithium-ion battery in Casey Neistat's iPod would no longer work.

So he went to Apple's enormous and terribly chic megastore on Prince Street in SoHo and asked to purchase a new battery. He was calm about it, and so were the clerks who dashed his hopes.

"I explained that it wasn't charging up anymore," Neistat recalls, "and they said, 'We don't offer a new battery. You should just buy a new iPod.' " This offended him on a lot of levels, mostly their assumption that he could simply plunk down several hundred dollars for a new one. Neistat told them he couldn't afford that. They shrugged him off, and so he went home and called Apple's technical support number, three separate times.

This is where the trouble started, and how, a month later, nearly 1 million Internet surfers (and counting) have come to know the Neistat Brothers as the makers of a two-minute, guerrilla-style film about deceit and revenge called "iPod's Dirty Secret."

In it, Casey Neistat calls Apple's tech support, presses 1 and explains his battery problem to someone named Ryan, a minion of the computer company.

Like a doctor with zero bedside manner, Ryan pretty quickly gets to the point: Since Neistat's iPod is past the year-long warranty, the cost of parts, labor and shipping will nearly equal the cost of a new machine, and so, Ryan suggests yet again, Neistat should probably just relax and buy a new iPod, which currently costs from $299 to $499, depending on the memory size.

As the voice of Ryan drones coldly on about the iPod's internal workings, we see the brothers getting busy against the Man. With the rap group NWA's song "Express Yourself" as a soundtrack, they make a large poster-board stencil that reads: "iPod's Unreplaceable Battery Lasts Only 18 Months."

The Neistats' funky but wrathful movie (www.ipodsdirtysecret.com) shows Casey merry-pranksterly strolling around Manhattan, spray-painting dozens of Apple's pretty pastel iPod posters with his warning, which the brothers consider "a public service announcement" to counteract Apple's current iPod advertising campaign.

(According to Apple, which recently shipped more than 300,000 iPods in time for holiday shopping sprees, there are about 1.4 million iPods in current use worldwide.)

Within days, thousands of iPod owners had downloaded the movie and, somewhat horrified at the news, forwarded it around the world.

Non-Fix Culture

There is something both wonderfully renegade and depressing about "iPod's Dirty Secret." It provokes an ambivalent despair in iPod owners, many of whom had not yet considered the mortality of their new little electronic friend.

The Neistat Brothers, who swear by Apple products (the movie ends with a credit to Apple's iMovie software and the Macintosh computers on which the brothers work), say they feel a little cheated by the company in which they'd placed so much faith.

Days after the movie made the rounds, Apple announced expanded warranties for new iPod owners to purchase for $59, and also introduced a new $99 battery-replacement mail-in service for others.

Casey says he got a phone call in response to a letter of discontent he'd written to Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, from still another minion, still advising him to just buy a new one. Days later, another Apple employee called, this time to make sure the brothers knew about the new battery-replacement price. "Are you calling because of our movie?" Casey said he asked. "And the person said he could neither confirm or deny that he'd seen it."

Apple officially denies that the brothers' movie had anything to do with the new battery price. In fact, says Natalie Sequeira, an Apple spokeswoman, the longer warranty and replacement price have been in the works for a few months.

"And I can't believe we're still getting questions about it," Sequeira says from the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. She advises calm, and ably tries to deflect the idea that Apple would like to sell iPods as a disposable, pricey item that music lovers who get a taste of the iPod Kool-Aid will just have to keep replacing.

What the Neistat Brothers have done to Apple, however, is almost sacrilege to the Mac congregation.

"We got close to 1,000 e-mails the first couple of days," Casey reports. "A lot of people were in my exact position and had to buy the new iPod. Eighty percent of our mail was positive, people saying that they liked the sardonically irreverent way we did it. But there were die-hard Mac fans who were mad at us, who were panicking because they feel like we might cause somebody to not buy a Macintosh." (It is commonly known that Mac fans are always waiting for the sky to fall.)

Apple generally enjoys positive PR in print media and perky goodwill in the marketplace, especially from younger, hipper demographics trained from birth to shun expensive labels or corporate identity, and who view the Apple as both superior product and finger gesture toward the prevailing Microsoft/PC worldview.

Hollywood adores the Apple computer -- the counter-terrorism agents of "24" as well as the speechwriting staff of "The West Wing" appear to be Mac loyalists, as does almost any character on television or in movies using a laptop. In interviews with glossy magazines, celebrities are frequently asked, "What's on your iPod?" (And not: Do you have an iPod . . . because the conclusion is somewhat foregone.)

The iPod seductively oozes cachet, just out of reach of most people's budgets for such a thing. There are other and cheaper MP3 players, but, more than anything, iPodders like to proselytize. They effuse online at iPod fan sites, talking about their favorite, personalized playlists; they post pictures of their iPods to a communal gallery, as one might do for a beloved breed of pet or a newborn.

When you buy an iPod, nothing in the fine print of the owner's manual prepares you for the eventual, final power drain, or gives you any estimate of how far down the road death awaits. This appears to be less an omission or deceit on Apple's part and more of a callous assumption: All electronics go to heaven, kids. Apple and other manufacturers are carefully pushing consumers further away from the battery age, when consumers could try to fix broken things, or replace their power sources.

"There's a whole culture evolving," says Stan Ng, Apple's director of worldwide marketing for the iPod. "The iPod is a labor of love for everyone at Apple, but we still don't really understand just how much of a role it's playing in people's lives, how important it's really become. It's this emotional, visceral field."

Ng says everyone is learning together: Apple doesn't yet know how often consumers will want or can afford to replace their iPods, nor has the product been around long enough for the company to know accurately how long most iPods will last. (It's commonly thought the battery is good for about 500 full recharges. "We're hearing from people who bought theirs in November 2001 when it was first released," Ng says, "and they're still listening to their music.")

He's also not entirely sure they'll avail themselves of the battery-replacement service. The company has not yet made provision for a deluge of 1.4 million returned iPods awaiting service. "You're right, there are people who are running into the situation [of the battery dying] and who will use our replacement program," he says. "But there are also customers who, at that point, could decide, 'Wow, look at those new products,' which have new capabilities."

This is a notion Sequeira heartily seconds: "We're just not expecting this to be a big issue."

Beyond Salvage

Maybe it's a little issue, then, in a bigger culture.

Anyone who wears disposable contact lenses knows how these things evolve: At first, having lived through the days of crawling on hands and knees in shag carpeting looking for a lost contact lens, you cannot immediately adapt to a future in which we now blissfully wash month-old contact lenses down the drain. After a while it doesn't seem like such a costly tragedy. People now spend a few hundred dollars every other year or so on disposable lenses, but it took a slight mental shift to get there.

Same with electronics: Cell phone owners can replace their lithium batteries with relative ease, since phones are designed for batteries that snap on and off, but many consumers opt instead to get a newer, cooler, smaller phone at that point. (The iPod, by its irresistible design, is sealed tight like an alien spaceship from the Planet Groovy, with no visible seams or openings.) Laptop computers, meanwhile, almost seem born with a genetic disposition to chronic fatigue syndrome when it comes to the life span of their rechargeable batteries. To own one is to immediately suspect that something is wrong with the spark in the relationship; indeed, things are petering out faster and faster. Televisions and VCRs have been showing up in people's weekly trash for years -- no one even stops to examine them or salvage them.

Sony's Walkman and Discman models, no matter how sturdy, came to be viewed as semi-annual replacement purchases for people who became addicted to personal music on the go, and somehow we all got used to the $30 or $75 or more that new Walkmans eventually came to cost. Consumers hungrily purchased millions of AA-size batteries to pop into gizmos like pills. And that woman who claims to have been trampled in a Wal-Mart melee for $29 DVD players? She seems, at least on some level, foolish for having partaken in the mad rush -- cheap DVD players have become the snack of Christmas 2003, everywhere, plentiful, have one, take two.

"I certainly wouldn't want to compare the iPod to contact lenses," says Ng, who says that Apple never envisioned the iPod as a disposable item. He only wants people to feel the love. "It's like when you first heard your favorite song from junior high. We're seeing that we're getting into those kinds of feelings."

Amateur Neurosurgery

Some of the e-mail the Neistat Brothers received from "iPod's Dirty Secret" came from people who were quick to tell them "that we're [bleep]ing imbeciles, [because] you can buy a battery online and do it yourself," Casey says.

The brothers already tried that.

They Googled around and ordered the battery from a different vendor that came with complicated instructions and "these two plastic gigantic toothpicks," Casey says. It took a while to pry the back cover off the iPod's impenetrable design. Beneath that was "a gummy adhesive" which covered the mini hard drive, "and there were these two very tiny connectors with three prongs," in a work space "about the diameter of a needle."

He felt as if he was performing amateur neurosurgery.

The patient died on the table.

And soon enough, Casey Neistat went back to the Apple boutique and bought a new iPod for $400, which, he says, "is totally unfair." He took it back to the office and showed it to his brother, and they vowed to find a way, Casey says, "to get back at them." But the beat went on, and that's what counts most in a world gone iPod.

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Casey Neistat is a 22-year-old multimedia artist who lives in Lower Manhattan, so it almost goes without saying that he's got an Apple iPod, and that he loves it, because what young, self-respecting multimedia artist in Lower Manhattan doesn't these days?

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Some of Casey's early videos are his most popular, videos such as 'Bike Lanes', 'iPod's Dirty Secret' 'What Would You Do with $25,000?' etc. These are all social commentaries on his life at that current time - he is not afraid to speak up and take action against what he believes. This fits in his star image working hard for change. His videos are popular because his practical actions are inspiring to the audience.

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The rise of Casey's star image largely stems from his daily vlog series on Youtube. Each episode we learn more about Casey, both his family, friends and work. His image is slowly built upon on each video. The series shows his dedication and craft in delivering his promise in this video - Casey's daily vlog series standardised the expected quality of vlogs on Youtube with his storytelling and cinematography (one of the figures that made drone shots popular on Youtube)

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Casey's wife and a recurring character in his vlogs, despite being reluctant on Casey's daily vlogs and him sharing their private lives, throughout the series we see Candice opening up and the dynamic relationship between husband and wife is explored. Casey shows the up and downs (much to Candice's dismay), it adds a sense of reality to Casey, he too struggles to have the perfect family - despite not finding the perfect balance between work and family yet, Casey evidently loves his wife as shown in this video love letter to this wife (one of many).

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A candid podcast between husband (Casey) and wife (Candice) on the up and downs of their marriage. Known to be a workaholic, Casey shows that he is also working hard at home in supporting his wife and kids. This podcast adds an extra layer of authenticity and open star image of Casey.

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You're used to seeing Casey Neistat share his own life through his popular YouTube video series. But now, listen to Casey and his wife Candice discuss candidly the ups and downs of their marriage, friendship, parenting, and lives in the YouTube spotlight.

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Casey never had a normal childhood, being a terrible kid both at home and in school, he talks about how his brother had to adopt him in court after leaving home as a minor. This creates sympathy for this star image, as viewers from similar backgrounds can relate and view the struggles Casey once had.

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Fatherhood is a key part of his star image. In this short film, we see Casey embark on an adventure with his son Owen to Peru. He reflects on his time as a young parent and how he tries to be the dad he never had as a kid. It is an interpersonal video between father and son he is willing to share. It video suggests that he is a proud father, but also highlights the shortcomings of being a father without having one himself. It's raw and emotive storytelling adds onto his authentic representation of himself as a celebrity.

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read about Owen and me in the New York Times article: Wanderlust | Let's Get Lost -- http://tinyurl.com/o4f5xrh

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What lies at the core of his videos is his family, a recurring set of characters we see throughout most of his vlogs. Despite his rampant and hectic work life, he always finds time to be with his family, especially his first son Owen. Casey acknowledges he wasn't a good kid growing up, and he is trying his best to support his kids to be the best they could be. Being a parent is a key part of Casey, he doesn't want to drift apart with Owen as he did with his parent. Casey learns how to be a better father and husband in his two years of daily vlogs, he represents the identity of the good father figure.

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Casey seems to have a perfect life, he built a successful tech start-up company and sold it to CNN, a loving family and making films, a path he has always dreamed off. He often reminds his audience that he had a rough upbringing and he had to work hard to be where he is at today. This can be seen through videos such as "Do What You Can't", a love letter to his viewers to achieve their best. In a sense, it connotes the idea that they could also become creators such as Casey - he is breaking the boundary between himself and his audience as if he is one of them - or he was once, as his audience.

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Casey talk about "influencers" evaporating once they the are comfortable with their position. Referencing former Vine stars that are failing to re-establish themselves when they put all their "eggs in one basket" (Vine), remaining stagnant and not moving forward in this ever changing digital landscape. An idea that differs greatly to his star image of constantly working.

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A colloquial term often used to describe someone who attained celebrity status online - a term Casey dislikes as it downplays the work their role as an individual. It focuses on the effect (their ability to advertise and monetise) and not the cause (their purpose to advocate change). He prefers the term "creator" as it represents their creative identities and not solely their social identities. It can be read that he is proud of his identity as a star and does not want the term influencer to bring it down.

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Image credit: Hero Images | Getty Images

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that marketers ruin everything.

Pumping monetization strategies, ad real estate and loads of marketing jargon into our new favorite social media apps and then pushing them to the mainstream has been a prevailing sign of the times. First it was Facebook, then it was Twitter, then Instagram. Now it's the "influencer" space as a whole: The turf of individuals who have earned expertise, respect and leadership among a trusted following within their niche communities on social media.

There have been many positives for brands and influencers alike from the development of influencer marketing trends, such as a 90 percent believed success rate of influencer marketing tactics for brands, and the possibility of a stable income for hardworking influencers. However, there has been an elephant-sized downfall to this merge: the term influencer itself.

This word leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time I have to use it to describe a colleague of mine within the space, and many other influencers agree. Perhaps it's because the denotation -- an "individual whose effect on the purchase decision is in some way significant or authoritative" -- was coined by marketers who only see in green. Perhaps it's because people who are truly influential don't need to tell everyone that they are an #influencer.

Here are five reasons why the word influencer should meet a quick death in 2018:

1. Influencers hate the title.

Per the definition, calling someone an influencer defines them exclusively based on how useful they are to the advertising industry. As a result, some of social media's most prominent content creators have been vocal about the devolving reputation of the term.
Related: What I've Learned From Spending $10 Million on Influencer Marketing
In a GQ article written by Tom Goodwin, voted LinkedIn's #1 voice in marketing in 2017 and 2018, Goodwin delved into the paradox behind one desperately needing to assert their influence through a title, without actually "getting stuff done." He described influencers as those who have "mastered the art of follow-backs, buying likes, retweets, giveaways" and more, while those who are truly influential do not have the time to market and merchandise influence.

Further, a recent case study we conducted at Influencer News revealed that 85 percent of social media content creators preferred the title creator over influencer. When considering social media power-users, or those who have genuinely garnered followers counts between 5,000 and 50,000, the percentages of those who preferred the term creator sharply increased as follower counts increased. Within the 25,000-to-50,000-follower-count range, the data jumped to 95 percent who preferred creator.

2. Creators aim to inspire.

Influencing should be a byproduct of good content creation, not an end goal. It shouldn't be assumed that social media figures come to prominence with the dream of persuading others to buy a brand's new product, or to simply be a pawn in a marketer's larger scheme. However, that's what the name seems to imply -- an inherent agenda to manipulate or to control.
Related: How To Become An Instagram Influencer
In a Business Insider interview with acclaimed model and blogger Ruth Crilly, the beauty content creator said the term "goes against everything" she felt her blog stands for. It implies she is "doing something underhand to influence," she said, as if her "followers are sheep."

3. Influencers take. Creators give.

Customer loyalty is the foundation of longevity for brands hoping to utilize the basic principles of relationship marketing through their influencer base. The irony with influencer marketing, then, is that it hopes to capitalize on the facade of a connection between the influencer and the influenced with the aim of only pushing products. There is a spammy take, but there is no genuine exchange of value between producer and consumer.

In contrast, the term creator implies one who is not defined by their marketing utility but by their desire to create content that adds value to those who engage with it. The end goal is to foster camaraderie and meaning around their creations and thus become expert voices within their growing social spheres. This goal more fully aligns with the mission of relationship marketing, and promises a longevity that influencer marketing likely cannot sustain for the long haul.

4. The influencer industry won't survive further fragmentation.

The term influencer is exceptionally vague when considering the breadth of individuals it aims to herd into one classification. From fitness gurus to chefs creating original content that encourages healthy lifestyles, from entrepreneurs to social justice figures sparking movements, from photographers to world travelers documenting their adventures: There is a wealth of diversity within the industry that is not adequately realized by the term.

And let's not forget about the sub-categories: Micro-influencers (5K-10K followers), mid-tier influencers (50K-100K followers), top-tier influencers (100K+ followers) and celebrity influencers -- the ones your cat follows on Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter and pre-ordered their spring hoodie line. Are you sick of this list yet?
Related: The Road Ahead for Influencer Marketing: 2018 and Beyond
Jack Conte, CEO of the social platform Patreon, said in a video blog titled I Don't Like the Word Influencer that the term ultimately commodifies creators by throwing them all into the same category, or makes them "non-differentiable from any other creator who also has influence."

5. The best of the best don't use the word. Why should we?

When Samsung partnered with social media superstar Casey Neistat for its commercial for the 89th Oscars of 2017, the term influencer was nowhere to be found when describing the community of social media content creators who are producing videos and sharing ideas with their audiences. Likewise, when Adidas brought together a remarkably diverse room full of the world's most influential designers, athletes, musicians and other creatives for its " Calling All Creators" campaign, their creative identities, not their social reaches, were the centerpiece of their conversation. When YouTube's CBO Robert Kyncl spoke to his community of social media in a recent interview with Casey Neistat, he referred to them as creators. Even Jimmy Kimmel's "Mean Tweets" series featured a segment exclusively for YouTube's biggest personalities, entitled "Creator Edition," not "Influencer Edition."

The best of the best don't use the term influencer. Influencers themselves don't want to be called influencers. So, marketers, why should we?

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Creators Are Often Influential But They Hate Being Called 'Influencers'

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6 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. It is a truth universally acknowledged that marketers ruin everything. Pumping monetization strategies, ad real estate and loads of marketing jargon into our new favorite social media apps and then pushing them to the mainstream has been a prevailing sign of the times.

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Arguably his first big break in entering mainstream media, him and his brother Vaughn managed to secure a mini-series from HBO documenting their experiments and everyday lives in New York. We can see flickers of Casey's cinematography style can be traced back to this mini-series. The amateur aesthetic and lo-fi manner champions a sense that you, the audience could also make a series for television.

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Have you ever watched a movie and thought, "Hey, I can do that!" If so, you most certainly will enjoy The Neistat Brothers. HBO's new Friday late night series is a testament to the "anyone can play guitar" theme of the 21st Century - a television show literally constructed with duct tape, iMovie and a host of trips to the dollar store, by two ostensible novices.

As the story goes, Casey and Van Neistat used their tax return money in the spring of 1999 to buy an iMac and DV camera. And 200-plus short films later - perhaps you've stumbled on their pre-YouTube viral hit, "iPod's Dirty Secret," which now plays like a nostalgia piece - they have an HBO series. Of course it wasn't that simple, but the way The Neistat Brothers presents things, everything is that simple. From expanding their studio space to smuggling maple syrup into Amsterdam to Van meeting his biological father, every issue is portrayed with the same shrugged attitude. And considering Entourage has used a similar tactic for nearly a decade, who's to say it won't work in the long term?

Still, the mileage you get out of The Neistat Brothers depends largely on your tolerance for the brothers themselves. They are bundles of boundless energy and - as a result - occasionally overbearing. That said, they clearly have a vision. During a Q&A following the screening of the first two episodes on Thursday night, younger Casey revealed that an upcoming episode would show him dumping a girlfriend. That he wasn't sure if it happened because he wanted to dump her or because it would make for good television shows the type of commitment the Neistat Brothers have to their work. They are filmmakers in the truest sense of the word because their entire life is a film that must be cut down into digestible shorts. Welcome to the American Dream in five-minute bursts.

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How to Make It in America: The Neistat Brothers

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Have you ever watched a movie and thought, "Hey, I can do that!" If so, you most certainly will enjoy The Neistat Brothers. HBO's new Friday late night series is a testament to the "anyone can play guitar" theme of the 21st Century - a television show literally constructed with duct tape...

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Casey's star image revolves around his almost perfect life in which he showcases during his two year daily vlogs. There is this ineffable charm to Casey's videos, he champions this do-it-yourself energy throughout his video, to achieve your dreams and shape your life, it is all dependent on how much harder you are willing to work to reach it - he has "work harder" self-tattooed onto himself. It is an attractive and desirable quality, Casey's philosophy is evidently echoed in his videos. His life shown through his videos is an idealized lifestyle, with each new video, we can see this almost perfect life through our screens and through Casey.

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YouTuber man of the moment and filmmaker extraordinaire Casey Neistat has a unique tattoo collection.

If you haven't heard of Casey Neistat then you're living life the wrong way.

Filmmaker, director, producer, and YouTuber of the year, it's safe to say that Casey Neistat is a busy guy, but he still has time to have an awesome and totally unique tattoo collection.

The New York based filmmaker shares his life through his camera and his inspiring daily vlogs have earned him an army of fans. It takes only one visit to his YouTube channel to get hooked on the guy and only one video to pick up on his somewhat obscure tattoos. Spread across his body Neistat has a collection of small tattoos that reflect his life and specific events. From a tattoo commemorating a fish bite he received to a reminder to work harder Neistat's tattoos are truly his life in ink.

Perhaps his most recognized tattoo is the bold 'Do More' written across his forearm which he got while working on an Ad for the Nike fuel band- an Ad where he blew the budget travelling the world and showing just what it means to Do More! You can checkout the video below and even see him getting the tattoo towards the end.

Accompanying his 'Do More' tattoos are a few other notable pieces. Also written on his arm are the phrase ' Always Be Closing', a line which any Alec Baldwin fan will know, the outline of his home-state and a tribute to his Tap Dancing grandmother.

His legs don't miss out on the ink either. Along with the fish bite commemoration are marathon times and his wife Candice's name, a tattoo he got when they were first dating and kept through their next decade of on off dating!!

Definitely a celebrity doing body art right, Neistat's tattoos are just one more reason to love the YouTube man of the moment and all round awesome guy!

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Casey Neistat's Awesome Tattoo Collection!

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If you haven't heard of Casey Neistat then you're living life the wrong way. Filmmaker, director, producer, and YouTuber of the year, it's safe to say that Casey Neistat is a busy guy, but he still has time to have an awesome and totally unique tattoo collection.

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Casey Neistat appeal can be attributed to his every-man and self-made rise into success. Starting from nothing, sleeping on his brother's floor in a single room apartment, Casey is now one of YouTube's most successful personalities on the platform. His star image links to his struggle prior becoming a star.

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Casey Owen Neistat was born March 25, 1981 into a Jewish Family in Gales Ferry, Connecticut. He had a fairly normal upbringing, which can be related to by his audience.