Thread by @nbashaw

David Dobrik has a really interesting moat

If you're not familiar, he's a former Vine star turned YouTuber.

His videos revolve around the stunts / pranks / jokes / misadventures of his "friend group" ("the vlog squad"—consisting mostly of former viners like him).

Each video gets ~10m views

David's videos are each 4:21 minutes long. They're extremely fast / chaotic. The density of "wow that was crazy" or "i'm laughing out loud" moments is honestly disorienting.

The first video you watch, you pay attention because of all the crazy stuff happening.

But gradually it becomes like a weird gen-z version of "Friends" and you watch because you feel like you get to know everyone in the vlog squad.

Feels like this:

Anyway, back to David's moat:

All his friends have YouTube channels, but none even attempt to match his level of quality. They're meandering 15 minute self-portraits that feel like the cutting room floor of David's vlogs.

Why is this? Do they not bother to edit? Does David hire professional help they can't afford?

I think the answer is probably weirder:

They don't want to their videos to be too interesting because maybe they don't want David to think they're competing?

He also seems to plow a big percentage of his advertising revenue into making crazier content.

(He's given away like a dozen cars, and generally spends lots of money on things for videos.)

It's kinda Amazon-esque

I'd be very curious to study how he got his flywheel going and established so much dominance in his corner of the world.