11 Things You Missed On The Internet | 1.24.24

A short history of the BroBible YouTube channel

Author

Brandon Wenerd
January 24, 2024

Sponsored by

Hello. Hope you’re having a great week.

12 days ago, I wrote a newsletter about some personal goals for BroBible this year. The first goal was to hit 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Guess what? In less than two weeks, thanks to a video of Theo Vonn going viral at UFC 291 and Jason Kelce shenanigans putting up numbers, we crossed that milestone.

Woo! Go us!

In this week’s newsletter, I thought it’d be fun to write a little history of our extremely fragmented YouTube presence.

Like I mentioned in that previous newsletter, it’s sorta crazy that it’s taken us 15 years as a media company to get to 100,000 subscribers. The BroBible YouTube channel is practically as old as our site. If you look at the account information, it was registered on February 3, 2009. I was ski bumming in Colorado at the time, just six weeks or so after graduating college. The creation of our channel predates when I moved to New York City and linked up with the other original founding partners as a freelancer writer in September 2009. I told our new video guy how old it was the other day on a call and he said something along the lines of “that’s crazy, I was six years old” or something like that. It made me feel like I needed to call the AARP.

If you get in a time machine and go back to 2009, the birth year of BroBible, the site had raw ingredients to skyrocket as a YouTube powerhouse. YouTube was the only really important Internet video platform at the time. The things going viral on YouTube were nut shots and fail videos, rarely thoughtful or scripted comedy or sports information. In the era of Funny or Die and College Humor sketch comedy videos, BroBible could have taken that path and thrived at it.

But we didn’t. A couple of hurdles stood in the way. Monetizing YouTube wasn’t as clearcut at the time with the way the YouTube Partner Program worked, and our audience was glued to visiting the site for content – a typical media consumption pattern before the digital tide turned towards platform-centric media. Back then, we also just didn’t have the funds to invest in it. So we focused on making the easy dollar with the site and treating the YouTube like a secondary channel when we had something worthwhile to blog about on the site.

Also working against us: None of us in the office really wanted to be on camera, with little eagerness to step into the spotlight – a stance a couple of us on the team later outgrew in our careers. We just wanted to blog. None of us knew how to shoot or edit videos, nor really wanted to sink our time into doing it. Finally, our YouTube channel lacked a razor-sharp vision, becoming a sort of mishmash of “Bro” content, missing a solid anchor.

Advertisement

This AI Startup Investment is Winning

RAD AI has developed technology that transforms the $633B MarTech industry. Its award-winning AI tells brands who their customer is and how to best create content for them. 

Investors are taking notice, here’s why: 

1) $27M raised from 6,000+ investors, including VCs, execs at Google and Amazon. Backed by Adobe Fund for Design.

2) Dubbed “essential AI” for brands looking to attract new audiences and boost ROI. 

3) 3X revenue growth, clients include Hasbro, Sweetgreen, MGM and more.

83% Subscribed, Invest Before Feb. 16th, Closing Soon.

At the end of the day, we’ve outlasted both the College Humors and Funny or Dies of the world. So, from my perspective, it’s hard to get all that down about what could have been when things have worked out pretty well for us in the crazy Internet media business. We’re still here!

Here are some early hits from our YouTube Channel with a little history mixed in, all before the modern BroBible era. Some of it is cringe, but hey - that’s kind of fun in retrospect, right? This stuff is an important part of early days BroBible lore. Maybe, if you’ve been reading the site long enough, you even remember it yourself:

#2. A few months later, an exclusive premiere of the Samuel Adams song “Tab Open”, in which Boston’s Boy shouts out hanging with his “BroBible Boys.”

#3. The very first Jersey Sports Fan videos, which rolled out during a very hectic and hilarious fall of sports news, complete with Mark Sanchez on the Jets and the Tiger Woods-Ellin Nordegren drama. I can’t remember exactly when, but we removed these at the creator’s request over concerns about their career.

#4. Ultimate Lax Bro II: "The Official Visit" - Other BroBible partners back in the day might disagree, but this was the video that, in my opinion, put us on the map and in the conversation. Brantford Winstonworth aka the "ultimate lax bro" is an early-day YouTube comedy legend. Doug, BroBible’s founder, scored an exclusive on making the follow-up, featuring Winstonworth’s official recruiting visit to Syracuse. I was just looking over the YouTube comments while writing and one person nailed it: “This kid was YouTube gold before you could make a living doing jack shit on YouTube. We used to piss our pants laughing at these videos in high school lax…then college club lax lol. Kid just was before his time, and that is sad.” I will add this: I actually don’t think it’s that sad. Winstonworth is a character and the person who played the character simply didn’t want to continue with it. Donald Glover, who was also making YouTube videos are the same time, did and went on to blow up as Childish Gambino and with stand-up comedy. He simply just continued with it. Someone has to be the pioneer and it warms my heart that it was Brantford Winstonworth is an early days YouTube comedy pioneer.

#5. Bert The Broker. The funniest video to grace our channel, in my opinion. Still quotable to this day. Just a clever masterpiece that makes fun of overconfident Wall Street and Lacrosse Bros back in the day, right in the middle of the recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis. The original was later followed up with a video about summer shares in the Hamptons.

#6. This is where we start to get into hodgepodge territory: We posted a very grainy video of Chiddy Bang getting iced during a concert at Dartmouth in the early days of the icing era. There’s a video of comedian Jamie Kennedy giving us a shout out at an AXE event. There’s our very first video that we made with an advertiser, a Loneley Island-esque music video called "Keep It Hairy?" by two guys in LA we dubbed “Hairy N' Shaved,” created and directed by the talented Win Bates. We post a really weird recap video of SantaCon during the middle of the original Four Loko era. To help promote a viral stunt, Carl's Jr. sent me a "security cam" video of Monster Energy's professional drifter Vaughn Gittin Jr. drifting through a driver-thru. It did major numbers. There’s an interview with Kate Upton, whom we covered quite a bit back then. Also: Kurt Warner. Jared Freid, now a famous comedian, also started making some videos for us around this time.

#7. After 2013, things sorta tailed off for our YouTube. Most of the videos we made we promoted on the site. Starting in 2015 we started “caring” about YouTube again in a very half-assed way. The time the late Ken Block gave me a ride in his Ford F-150 RaptorTRAX, the time Adam Richman made me a really complicated breakfast sandwich, the time I interview Ronda Rousey when she was one of the biggest athletes in the world, and an interview with Action Bronson.

I think I’m going to wrap it up here. My memory is a bit hazy and I’m certainly missing some major stuff. After the Brandon Cohen era, our YouTube turns into a bit of a hodgepodge again. We use the BroBible YouTube for a couple podcasts and interview-focused talk shows, then finally lock into a great rhythm with Jorge Alonso interviewing MMA fighters and boxers and even Dana White, along with Eric Italiano interviewing all kinds of major Hollywood actors and directors. Some stuff blows up and goes viral, some stuff doesn’t.

Maybe some day we’ll really figure out our YouTube presence and scale it to millions of followers. It certainly is a visual-information world. There’s just so much noise and competition out there these days, it’s tough to pick a lane. But, hey, crossing 100K feels like we’re on the right track. I’m certainly open to new ideas and suggestions if you want to email me: [email protected].

Anyway, here’s 11 Things You Missed On The Internet.

Trail Cam Footage Of A Remote Beaver Dam Reveals How Wolves And Bears Utilize Them Too

The beaver family really helped out the neighborhood by building that dam. Also: You have check out the wolf hunting the beaver.

Comedian Bobby Lee Recalls Joe Rogan Saving His Life At A Gentleman’s Club The First Time They Met

This happened in 1995, for context.

Gambler Hits $1.4 Million Pai Gow Jackpot In Pittsburgh Thanks To Extremely Rare Hand

I have no idea how to play Pai Gow, but now I’m wondering if I should learn?

One Super Bowl LVIII Referee Will Make History In A Really Cool Way

He will become the first person to both play in a Super Bowl and officiate a Super Bowl.

Deion Sanders Begs His QB Not To Injure Himself Snowboarding While Documenting ‘Scary’ Ski Lift Ride

This is so quintessentially Colorado.

Brazilian Surfer Lucas ‘Chumbo’ Wins His Second Nazare Big Wave Challenge

Dude gets so many style points for this one.

First Loch Ness Monster Sightings Of 2024 Show An ‘Obvious Pattern Of Behavior’

This year is Nessie’s year.

Utah Head Football Coach Reveals How Much NIL Money He Needs To Maintain Competitive Roster

I don’t doubt that you need at least $500,000 to pay for a good college quarterback to be competitive these days. Wild times to be alive.

Cam Newton Would Only Return To Play In The NFL For One Particular Team

Any guesses?

Notre Dame Football Adds Military Veteran Who Graduated High School (!!) In 2012 As New Kicker

Really cool story. Eric Goins, a 2025 MBA candidate with Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, joins the Fighting Irish as a walk-on after serving seven years in the United States Army. This final year of college football comes more than eight years after what he thought would be his final game.

SEAL Team 6 Member Gets Goosebumps Before Speaking To FSU Football About Focus And Drive

DJ Shipley became one of the youngest Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training (BUDS) graduates in history and completed the program at 18 years old. He then tried out for Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU / SEAL Team 6) at just 24-years-old and became the youngest person to ever pass green team selection. He is a living legend.

His comments to the Florida State football team will give you chills.

What To Watch Wednesday

Thanks again for reading, watching, and supporting BroBible. I’ll see you on Friday. If you have any comments or feedback on the newsletter, email me at [email protected].

Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Join the conversation

or to participate.