I’m as much of a snob as the next guy but I’ll admit I like watching his videos. We all know the critiques but something interesting is happening with Dan’s vlogging if you get over the knee jerk reaction of “not core, pass”.
There was the Braille/Revive shadow industry that developed by side stepped the traditional industry by leveraging YouTube and selling directly to children. A number of other individual vloggers that were directly or tangentially related to Braille/Revive, got popular during this phase as well. This stuff was rightfully scorned as corny, annoying, or just not “cool”. This has now been (or is in the process of being) replaced by Dan, the Powell team, and the rest of that expanded universe. While someone like John Hill may still have more subscribers than Dan, Dan with his “post everyday approach” is getting many more views overall.
Powell has positioned themselves to somewhat straddle the traditional industry and the new YouTube based economy and this is due in large part to Dan’s popularity. Powell had been a bunch of groms that left as soon as they had a better offer or a death sentence for adults hoping for wider industry acceptance. Now it is starting to look like a viable option for these team members, even if they are a bunch of misfit toys on a variety of C-list sponsors that don’t fit anywhere else.
While all of this may be interesting, in an academic sense, what I find the most compelling about Dan’s videos is the fact that much of it, especially in the last year or so, focuses not so much on him but on the team.
This is unique and unprecedented. We have never seen this amount of video documentation of sponsored skateboarders. Between Dan’s channel and all the others that also vlog you can pretty much follow their daily skating.
Dan, if you are reading this make sure you are saving and logging all this footage. In 20 years, you will likely be able to follow in Stacy’s footsteps and make some documentaries about this era of skateboarding.