Casey’s Origins
Casey Neistat is a filmmaker who was born in Connecticut. In his career, Casey has transformed how content is produced on the internet, created one of the internet’s first viral videos, and revolutionized how creators use the platform Youtube (Galloway, 2017). Casey describes his childhood as “wonderfully unsupervised” (Neistat, 2015), as his parents left him and his three siblings free to do what they want (Neistat, 2015). He struggled in school and ended up hanging out with the wrong crowd, this all led to him being kicked out of his house at the age of fifteen. Neistat ended up moving in with two girls, one of whom he moved to Virginia with and had a child with. He was a young father, but his child inspired him to become the man he is today. He and his girlfriend eventually broke up, but Casey made every effort to be there for his son. Casey soon discovered video editing and maxed out his credit card to begin making videos with his brother as he moved to New York. He and his brother began by making any video that people would pay them to make and eventually found an investor who bet on the two. The investment paid off and the Neistat brothers were able to make a series that they sold to HBO (Neistat, 2015), this was just the beginning for Casey. Throughout his life, Casey has dealt with troubling environments and tough situations, but he has constantly believed in what he was doing and bet on himself to succeed and did so. [This paragraph is an excerpt from a previous assignment I did for a class titled Introduction to Innovation and Entrepreneurship]
Casey from 2016 to Now
In 2016, Casey ended his daily vlog, which at the time was devastating to me. I knew that Casey was going to continue to post, but was unsure about the frequency. But, Casey continued to post regularly and I continued to greatly enjoy the content he produced. The reality was that at the time Casey had a young family to support, two daughters Georgie and Francine, so it was very understandable that he made the decision to give up daily vlogging. The regular posting stopped, however, once Casey moved to California, or better put away from New York (the town that made him who he is) in 2019. He continued to post, but only about once every two months, it had seemed the days of Casey Neistat’s reign on YouTube had mostly passed.
Casey Now
Recently, Casey has reemerged. He and his slightly older (albeit still young) family have moved back to New York, and Casey is posting two videos every week. His return has been well received. His videos continue to accumulate the same amount of views that they had when he posted regularly, and the testimonials in the comments speak for themselves.
Lessons Learned from Casey
Casey has always been incredibly inspirational to me. From him I have learned:
- Embody yourself creatively, do not be afraid to shy away from conventions and break norms.
- Your environment shapes you. Be in and create the right place for you.
- Bet on yourself, take chances and believe in what you can do.
Recommended Casey Neistat Videos
Casey’s most-viewed video of all time
Flat out absurdity
A simple short film
And there are honestly so many more videos that I would love to put here, but if I put every video I liked then this page would simply become equivalent to Casey’s YouTube channel. I highly recommend you check him out and his channel is linked here.
References
Cudd, S. (2022). Why did Casey Neistat move back to New York? https://wegotthiscovered.com/youtube/why-did-casey-neistat-move-back-to-new-york/#:~:text=In%202019%20Casey%20and%20his,more%20time%20with%20each%20other.
Galloway, P. (2017). How Casey Neistat changed Youtube forever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFLz_-u2CXM
Neistat, C. (2015). Draw my life – Casey Neistat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Y-ahQFQDA
Skip to content