Who is David Dobrik?

Part 1: The Man Behind The Newest Late Night Show

David Julian Dobrik is a 23 year old YouTuber and a social media star. He’s also the winner of multiple Shorty awards and Kids’ Choice Awards and he’s the co-host of one of the biggest comedy podcasts, Views alongside Jason Nash.

That definitely reads like a Wikipedia article. Well, that’s kind of the start I wanted.

So, let’s continue the Wikipedia-esque writing.

David was born in Slovakia and moved to the suburbs of Chicago where he grew up.

He attended Vernon Hills High School and was pretty good at tennis to say the least. He was always the class clown and you can see why when you take a look at his old vines. He loves to make people laugh.

Dobrik moved to LA right after high school to collaborate with popular Vine stars. It proved successful, but his growth on the platform didn’t take off like other Viners.

While most Viners like Logan Paul, King Bach, Amanda Cerny were making almost 6 figures from posts, David was making a fraction of that. But he had a dream and an idea. What if he took these skit ideas and posted elsewhere?

Instead, he started filming smaller bits and compiled them into short videos for YouTube. This was before vlogs and where 10 minute videos were better for ad revenue. For most YouTube content creators, they focus on ad revenue on their videos. It’s been this way for almost 15 years. There was a time in 2012-2016 where 10 minutes meant you could qualify for more AdSense. But instead of adapting to the norm, David decided to make his content shorter.

Ad companies also only want their ads on content that they deem as universally friendly. Family friendly channels, not ones where people excessively drink, pranks, and general college age debauchery.

And of course, if you’ve seen any David Dobrik vlog, you know it’s an amalgamation of all of that. It feels like you’re back in college (if you’re older) and just hanging with a group of friends.

This was his first vlog from back in 2015.

A few things to note about this first vlog. It’s not 4 minutes and 20 seconds, an ode to 4/20 that would be a staple for his vlog lengths in years to come.

There’s no consortium of established characters in this vlog.

There’s no celebrities, no brand deals, just a bunch of friends goofing off. That raw authenticity is what David started with over 5 years ago and he’s kept that same authenticity almost 600+ vlogs later with a huge rotating cast of characters, celebrities and brands.

WHY DOBRIK’S MODEL WORKS

Much like a regular sitcom, there’s a regular cast, a recurring cast and celebrity cameos. There’s a laugh track. There’s a predictable pacing to the show. There’s moments that people can recall vividly. The exact staples of a sitcom.

Think of Friends or Big Bang Theory (or whatever your favorite sitcom is), two huge sitcoms in their own right. Now when you were reading the word Friends in the last line, what did you think of? Central Perk? Your favorite line from the show? Your favorite character? (Mine is Joey). Exactly.

When you read Big Bang Theory, did you think of the laugh track? Maybe your favorite scene, your favorite character (Mine is Raj).

That’s what makes sitcoms sitcoms. They’re memorable. Whether it’s your favorite character or scene, you remember them because they follow the same format. Especially the ones with laugh tracks.

Dobrik took that format and adapted it to YouTube. No big production. No scriptwriters and cable TV. No huge brand or company behind him.

David is the director, editor and puppet master behind it all. His friends act as characters in the show, as well as some brand, some recurring. Each person is different and has a role. And they all play it well. It’s authentic. Real. The vibe you get is that everyone is friends with everyone else. It makes you want to be a part of their friend group. It’s all fun. No gimmicks.

And that part that sets Dobrik apart from the rest is that he’s figured ways to seamlessly interweave celebrities and brands into his vlogs. Take Seatgeek, a relatively unknown company before it starts sponsoring David’s vlogs. Now Seatgeek is synonymous with Dobrik. Fans literally do Seatgeek ad reads for him.

Name another brand that has FANS doing ad reads for them for free. I’ll wait.

Well that’s pretty much it for Part 1.

This post was inspired by Blake Robbin’s deep dive into David Dobrik, read it here: https://blake.substack.com/p/who-is-david-dobrik

——————————————————————————————————————

In Part Two, I’ll dive deeper into who the vlog squad is and why it works.

Stay tuned for more and subscribe if you want more of these deep dives into content teams/houses and syndicates.