It was in January 2009 when a 15-year-old named Marques Brownlee turned the tech world on its ears. It was then Brownlee did his first YouTube video about tech. Now his channel, “MKBHD,” has 5.9 million YouTube subscribers and over 860 million total views on 998 total YouTube videos, according to Business insider. This is up from his 2014 stats, when he had 1.5 million YouTube subscribers and nearly 130 million total views on 640+ YouTube videos.
Today, he is considered by many tech insiders as the “best technology reviewer on the planet. And all the big tech companies are vying for his attention in hopes of him reviewing their products.
To date, Brownlee has produced and posted nearly 1,000 YouTube videos over the last nine years. These are not just reviews but also tutorials, interviews, impressions, and explainers. He is widely recognized within the tech world. “When the Samsungs and Apples of the world have a new phone coming out, Brownlee is one of the people invited to those products’ unveilings, in the hope that he’ll make a video about the new product that will attract millions of views,” Recode reported.
And Brownlee knows all eyes are on him. “We’re at a point in 2018 where pretty much every company recognizes, there’s eyeballs on YouTube,” he told Recode. “If you want to reach them, you’ve got to have some sort of relationship and work with the creators.”
But to the rest of America he’s just a normal guy.
“That’s the beauty of the Internet,” Brownlee said on the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka. “A lot of people who are on the Internet most of the time aren’t in the street most of the time. So, I can just walk down the street and no one knows.”
Brownlee, who is now age 24, now has hired three full-time employees because his videos are so much in demand. There’s a reason people tune into his videos.
He told Business Insider: “I think one thing I’m able to notice more that I didn’t really have access to before is the bleeding edge of tech. There’s still the classic reviews of smartphones, tablets, people making a purchase decision–that’s still the core of the content, for sure. But then there’s also the “dope tech,” the crazy bleeding-edge stuff that most people don’t have access to, or don’t even get to see or experience for the most part.
Just being a window into that world has been really exciting. There have been companies reaching out and more than willing to offer a look at their tech, or a demo of something that may come to market eventually, or a prototype–fun stuff like that. That’s something I never really got to do before, but now that they’re willing to reach out to the audience that watches these videos, we get to have a little more fun that way as well.”
Your shirt made it all the way to #Jamaica @MKBHD it's so #crispy though pic.twitter.com/j5jEGpxF4e
— Chan 새련 (@tabooxchanz) April 7, 2018
https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/984977665823334400
