YouTuber Casey Neistat says goodbye to vlogging
LOS ANGELES -- Casey Neistat is officially over vlogging.
The YouTuber, who recently won a Streamy for best first-person show, said goodbye to his daily vlog on Saturday.
“It’s not clickbait. I really am ending the vlog,” he said in his farewell video (above), which has amassed more than 4.7 million views.
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Why? The 35-year-old, who starred in his own HBO show before becoming a popular YouTube star, said he feels he's "gotten lazy on this platform."
Vlogging became too easy after he "found a rhythm." Since joining YouTube in 2010, Neistat has built a following of 5.8 million subscribers.
“When I think back to why I started this vlog, I spent so much of that time sitting here talking to you about this premise about this idea that I need to challenge myself creatively," he said. "That’d I’d gotten lazy on this platform and I haven’t been posting. And by issuing a mandate to post every single day I would challenge myself creatively in a way I have never done before. And that’s exactly what happened.”
This isn't the first time Neistat has said he's leaving the platform. Back in August, he posted a video with the title “my last daily vlog," which ended up getting construed as clickbait by the general public.
He told fans he was taking a break, not actually leaving, because he had uploaded videos to his channel for 534 consecutive days.
Now it seems the decision is final.
It's a complete 180 given that during his acceptance speech at the Streamys, Neistat said he felt the first person video genre is more honest and real than reality TV.
"This is a huge honor," he explained to Mashable backstage. "The beauty of it is that reality TV — the messages, the ideas, the narratives that were communicated — were always filtered through TV producers. But now, creators that are nominated for this award ... we are telling our own stories. I think there's so much integrity in that then having them sort of be dictated by others whose interests may not align."
Now, he wants to utilize the platform for different kinds of videos.
“The kinds of videos that take a little thinking," he said. "The kinds of videos that take more than a day to produce."
Topics YouTube
Saba was a Los Angeles-based reporter who covers all things digital entertainment, including YouTube, streaming services and digital influencers. Prior to that, she spent two years at the Los Angeles Times covering entertainment for the Calendar and Company Town sections. Saba grew up in Santa Monica and graduated from Boston University with a B.S. in journalism and B.A. in political science. When not reporting, she is usually binge watching shows online or looking for new coffee shops to frequent.
