.jpg "A Lesson in Creativity and Capitalism from Two Zany YouTubers")
A Lesson in Creativity and Capitalism from Two Zany YouTubers
James Hobson began publishing videos on YouTube in 2006, when he was still a high-school student in Ontario, Canada. His early uploads were crude by today’s standards—some gymnastics tricks, some parkour, and some mildly anarchic silliness (for example, a 2009 clip of Hobson drinking raw eggs). “It was just the easiest way of sharing videos with my friends,” Hobson told me recently. “I would upload on YouTube and then share a link using MSN messenger.”
Hobson’s relationship with YouTube began to evolve in 2013, when he crafted a pair of metal claws to help him dress up as Wolverine, the Marvel superhero, for Halloween. The resulting video, which he titled “Make It Real: The Wolverine’s Claws!,” was so popular that photographers asked him to star in photo shoots; a follow-up video in which he electrified the claws earned him a writeup in a tech publication. “That’s kind of cool,” Hobson remembers thinking. A year later, another installment of “Make It Real” showed him building a mechanical exoskeleton of the kind used in “Elysium,” a science-fiction film starring Matt Damon, out of perforated square tubing and compact hydraulic actuators. The exoskeleton attracted even more viewers than the Wolverine claws, and Hobson—a systems mechanical engineer—began to reconsider his line of work.
In 2015, Hobson quit his job to become a professional YouTuber, funding the transition by taking money out of his fledgling retirement account and selling laser-engraved goods on Etsy. “I had, like, six months to make it happen,” he recalled. Fortunately for him, his next project, a real-life version of Captain America’s electromagnetic shield, drew millions of views and pushed his subscriber count past five hundred thousand. He began attracting sponsorships and soon was earning enough sponsorships to make his channel financially stable.
