This article was taken from the December 2014 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
This 20-year-old guy is a YouTube sensation. Tech-review prodigy
Marques Brownlee has 1.8 million subscribers -- more followers than Kanye West, Marvel or Disney Animation. Under the user name MKBHD, he tests everything from cameras and headphones to Google Glass and the latest Tesla. This summer he got his hands on a sapphire crystal display rumoured to be for the iPhone 6. In the video, which has attracted about eight million views, he took keys, his foot and even a blade to the screen, with no damage. (A follow-up featuring stand-up comic Joe Rogan wielding a crossbow proved it's not indestructible.) The best part: this gadgetry powerhouse is just a kid from New Jersey.
Brownlee began making review videos almost six years ago, though it's only in the past few that he developed his affable persona and slick filming style. "If I'm going to give someone advice on what to buy, you want a personality to back it up rather than some robot telling you X is better than Y," Brownlee says. Today, his channel generates enough money from ads "to pay for itself and to make it worth my time."
Brownlee is currently balancing this one-man production with his senior year of college and -- of course -- laying professional Ultimate Frisbee for the New York Rumble. He wants to expand his universe of review subjects too. "Anything with an On button is fair game," he says. Like most people his age, he's not sure what he'll do after he graduates. We suggest media mogul.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
