Shane Brown (00:00):

This kid that I knew, he’s like, dude, you should post your videos on TikTok. I’m like the dancing app. Are you serious? A real photographer like me posting on TikTok, come on. Cringe.

Ross Borden (00:10):

I first saw you definitely on TikTok with your diving videos. When did you start being like, holy shit, this is going huge. This video getting millions of views and this is, I’m onto something here,

Shane Brown (00:20):

Literally one short that has 400 million views. It says, I got over a million subs from that one video.

Ross Borden (00:28):

This is creator, the podcast from Matador Network. I’m your host, Ross Borden, and I believe creators are the future of all global advertising. So join me as I sit down with top creators to hear about how they got started, the challenges they’ve overcome, and the tips you need to become a full-time creator. Alright, we are back with another episode of Creator the podcast. We’re here today with Shane Brown, AKA Danger, danger, CEO of the Ocean, which I love that title. Shane, how are you?

Shane Brown (01:01):

I’m good. I’m happy to be here. I haven’t done a podcast in a while, so this is exciting.

Ross Borden (01:06):

Yeah, it was time. And are you in Oahu right now?

Shane Brown (01:10):

Yeah, I live in Coni. It’s on the east side of Oahu. Later today I am going to go try to surf Pipeline, so I’m excited, not trying to make too big of a deal out of it, but I’m like

Ross Borden (01:23):

Me. That’s a pretty big deal.

Shane Brown (01:24):

Yeah.

Ross Borden (01:24):

Do you surf pipeline often?

Shane Brown (01:27):

I’ve been on small days. Today is another smallish day. It’s six to eight. I’ve been watching the cam and just see people getting barrel after barrel and I’m like, I got to try. Even if I eat it, I got to try.

Ross Borden (01:39):

Wow. Good luck, man. We’re excited to see that maybe on your channel. So for those who don’t know Shane or Shane or Danger, he’s an absolutely massive creator across a number of platforms. You have 7 million followers, almost 8 million followers on YouTube, 11 million on TikTok, two 60 K on Instagram. So tell us a little bit about how you got started, the early days of posting content and being a creator, and we’ll jump into a lot more of the detail around your career as a creator, but I would love to hear the origin story to start.

Shane Brown (02:19):

I think GoPro came out and started marketing that GoPro existed, and I was like, dang, GoPro is so cool. And it was like my lifestyle was GoPro things and I’d always heard you can make money on YouTube, that kind of thing. Then I started with the first HD hero going out and writing BMX and making the worst videos completely unwatchable. I don’t know, I’m so embarrassed even that I posted them and then just kept at it and started to see what would do well on social media. And for me it was like when I moved to Hawaii and started posting beautiful scenes here and stuff like that and people doing cool stuff. Then I started to do well on Instagram.

Ross Borden (03:07):

What year was that? When did you start posting content?

Shane Brown (03:10):

Maybe 20 13, 20 14.

Ross Borden (03:13):

I know you, I first saw you definitely on TikTok with your diving videos. How did that All Star, was it basically going out for a dive with your friends and the GoPro, and then when did you start being like, holy shit, this is going huge, this video is getting millions of views and this is, I’m onto something here.

Shane Brown (03:32):

So I was always diving like that. The dives that I go on are exactly the same way that I’ve been going diving for 10 years. I just love the ocean. I love being out there and finding stuff. It’s like when you’re a kid and your mom throws a pool of toys out and you go get them from the bottom of the pool. That’s like me picking up trash. All my friends tell me, when I started making videos of it, they’re like, oh, I’ve always seen you pick up trash in the ocean. That’s what made me realize I should pick up trash when I see it. And it was like this kid that I knew that was 17 at the time or something, he’s like, dude, you should post your videos on TikTok. And I’m like, the dancing app, are you serious? A creator, a real photographer like me posting on TikTok, come on, cringe.

(04:19):

And then I was like, you know what? Nothing else is hitting for me right now. I might as well try. And I started scrolling TikTok too and seeing what was doing well, and it was like people telling a story that had multiple parts of the cliffhanger and I had just found someone’s phone while diving and just went and found a phone that was still on underwater, which is crazy. And so I find this phone and I’m like, even as I do it, I’m like, this could be a video. And in real life I found the phone, didn’t even have a GoPro on me, went back to the car, got the GoPro, and they recorded us finding the phone again.

Ross Borden (04:57):

Re found the phone with the documenting

Shane Brown (04:59):

GoPro. Yeah, I put it there and then the girl, I was like, Hey, go find that phone and I’ll just be recording and I’ll freak out. And so then we make this video, and this was before I had posted anything on TikTok. I make the YouTube video post it, and then I’m like, Hey, did a pretty good job. Told a good story. I got 10,000 views, found the phone, returned it to the owner, really cool. And then I started to see on TikTok, they were doing part one, part two, part three with the cliffhanger. And I was like, oh, I can make a cliffhanger when I find the phone. Dory. Call mom, try to

Ross Borden (05:29):

Find the owner,

Shane Brown (05:30):

Which is how I found the owner. And then the mom picks up and then I cut it off right there. So then people watching were like, oh my God, I want to know. And I was like, wait until tomorrow. And I can’t believe that. I was like, I’m going to wait a whole 24 hours before I post the second part and made people wait that long and it worked. And that video super hit. It drove a ton of traffic to YouTube, which was my plan from the beginning. I was like, TikTok has no way to earn, but YouTube does. And so if I’m driving traffic to YouTube, I’ll actually earn money, which was always the goal from the beginning was to earn money from social media. So then with that video, I was able to drive a ton of traffic and then I was like, okay, the blueprint is made. Now I just have to do it over and over with different things, different scenes, different people, and then keep doing this until it doesn’t work anymore. And then by now, if you say come back later for part two, people are like, I will not. And then they block you.

Ross Borden (06:26):

Now there’s a backlash of the cliff,

Shane Brown (06:28):

So people know better by now, but back then it was a good way to, it

Ross Borden (06:32):

Was the thing to do. Yeah,

Shane Brown (06:33):

That’s interesting. There’s probably some other creator now that knows exactly what to do right now to get maximum views. And I’m struggling to find it again, to be honest. I open up TikTok and I see the Boom family, and I’m like, how do they post the same song doing the same thing every single time and every single video goes crazy. And I still have way more followers than them, but they’re just way more,

Ross Borden (07:01):

Their videos are higher.

Shane Brown (07:02):

It’s crazy.

Ross Borden (07:04):

So were you already posting content on YouTube before you started the TikTok? I think that’s a really savvy move is driving visitors or followers or viewers or subscribers from TikTok to your longer form channel on YouTube. But had you already started YouTube and had a pretty good foothold in falling already when you

Shane Brown (07:26):

Started TikTok? I think I had 10,000 subs on YouTube when I first started. So six years of doing YouTube videos all the time, like posting weekly vlogs where I would edit, spend 40 hours editing this vlog. And it wasn’t an interesting enough story. There wasn’t a good enough hook at the beginning. The thumbnails were weak. And so looking back, I can see all the things that I was doing wrong, but I was working really hard and getting very little out of it. And so getting fans and stuff like that, it was just not happening.

Ross Borden (08:01):

Starting on YouTube is a thankless job until it’s not, right. It’s like the people who I know who have millions of followers and subscribers, they just never stop. They’re like, fuck it, I’m just going to put on blinders and make videos every day. And all of a sudden they hit a hundred K, then they hit a million, then they hit multimillion. But would you credit, it sounds like you would credit a lot of your success on building massive subs on YouTube to the TikTok virality and success that you’ve had on TikTok

Shane Brown (08:32):

In the beginning? Definitely. So before Shorts came out on YouTube, it was driving traffic from TikTok to YouTube by, I do come back later for part one or go to my YouTube channel to watch the whole thing right now. And it would be like a 25 minute video where they would inevitably skip through, but some people would watch the whole thing. And so then I have a couple videos are 20 minutes long and have a really good hook. They had a really good trailer on TikTok basically. And then those have millions of views. So those were really sick videos that I did that I’m really stoked on the ability to drive traffic from TikTok. And then now with Shorts, that’s how I got from 500,000 subs to 7 million now is just short. Literally one short that has 400 million views. You can see how many subs you got from that one video. It says, I got over a million subs from that one video.

Ross Borden (09:38):

Damn, that is crazy. Which is insane.

Shane Brown (09:40):

That one out of 400 people subscribed from watching this video. I think that is incredible.

Ross Borden (09:46):

And are those basically a rinse and repeat? You’re taking the same exact videos you put on TikTok and putting them on shorts?

Shane Brown (09:53):

Totally, yeah. Or did

Ross Borden (09:53):

You? Yeah, exactly. The

Shane Brown (09:54):

Same videos, that video that has 400 million on shorts got 50 million on TikTok, and it was kind of when shorts was first starting up, it still didn’t have an official uploader or anything. It was like just upload a short video and it will become a short, and that one video, it did really well on TikTok. I remember a couple million in the first few hours and then when I posted on shorts, it took a while. It was slow for a while, and then after a couple days it was like 24 million views in the last 48 hours. And that’s like psycho viral when

Ross Borden (10:30):

That is insane.

Shane Brown (10:31):

That many.

Ross Borden (10:33):

That is insane. So wow, that’s really amazing. So what was that video? What were some of the all time hits other than the phone finding?

Shane Brown (10:43):

Yeah, so that one video is Diver Cracks egg at 45 feet deep. And it came from a different video that I saw on YouTube. There’s a one minute video where the scuba diver cracks an egg, plays with it a little bit. And I was like, okay, that’s interesting. I could go do that, make something out of it. And so I go and crack this egg and then some other random funny stuff happens. And what I think made it work was that I really delay the actual cracking of the egg. So people are looking at it and they’re like, come on, come on, come on. I want to see it. I want to see it. I

Ross Borden (11:16):

Want to see it. I want to see what happens.

Shane Brown (11:18):

And so I get them to the 32nd view time mark before they finally get to see the egg being correct. And then by then they’re like, okay, I’ll just watch the whole video. And that’s what made it do so well. And then some of the other ones can be so random. There’s one with a hundred million views where I saw my friend out in the water and she’s wearing her whole mermaid outfit and we didn’t coordinate anything. She didn’t even know who I was. I just went up to her and I was like, Hey, can I take a video of you? And she’s like, sure. And then I’m like, oh my God, guys, a real mermaid is there. And then I show her, she does a flip. And then so Simple didn’t even do voiceover anything, just me talking and then showing her, and she’s the best mermaid out of anyone that puts on a mermaid till she’s the best. So it looks really good. And then that video is like a hundred million and it’s all these kids that are like, that’s not real. I can see her knees. So you never know what could go crazy. And then a lot of the other ones are just like, what feels like just my regular dive? And it just happened to be something that people are really interested in.

Ross Borden (12:26):

But that’s awesome, man. I mean that’s incredible and congrats for really cracking the case to get, because we talked to so many creators and if you could have 7 million followers on anything anyone is going to want YouTube, YouTube is by far the best monetization, the best consistent audience, and it’s also the hardest to get millions of followers there. So that’s really savvy of you to move it from short form towards the long form. I noticed for a creator of your size, which is as big as we’ve seen Matador, you have I think more followers than all of Matador combined. We’ve got 16 million, you’ve got close to 20. I don’t see a lot of brands on your channels. Is that intentional? Do you just like the YouTube revenue and you want to keep it brand free or what was that? Is that a

Shane Brown (13:20):

Decision? Yeah, it is not a decision. It is hard. I think the biggest thing is that my videos a lot of times are consumerism is bad. That’s kind of the broad picture. When I’m picking up trash in the ocean, I’m talking about how plastic stuff is bad. So many products come in plastic and that’s okay. It’s okay to use plastic, it makes food safer. It’s great for medical stuff. There’s lots of amazing uses for plastic. And the greatest harm to the ocean is from commercial fishing plastic. And so it’s really not brands that have plastic products are so bad for the ocean, but then it’s the optics of, so I just got this random email from this thing that’s like, oh, Lay’s is looking for people to do campaigns with, then what am I going to do? Take a bag of Lays out into the ocean to show it? No, because then it looks like trash, right?

Ross Borden (14:18):

You’ve probably picked up bags of Lay’s off the ocean floor in a different video. And so yeah,

Shane Brown (14:23):

The campaigns, a dream campaign would be a company Lay’s coming out saying We’re using a plastic free bag and it manages to keep the chips fresh, but it uses seaweed or whatever for plastic.

Ross Borden (14:38):

That stuff’s coming out. I’ve been looking that. I hope so. I hope they come to me.

Shane Brown (14:42):

I’m like, Hey, make sure I’m the number one person on that because it’s like that’s what I really need. So just in general, finding brand deals can be really hard. And another thing is if you want brand deals, you have to show products in your videos. Makeup people are a perfect example. They’re not going to be stingy about showing what products they’re using because you have to show what product you’re using to show a good makeup tutorial. And so then make brands look at that and go, oh, great, this person is showing them using a competitor brand, so we’ll sponsor them for our product and we know that their viewers are going to buy it because their viewers are there to learn about what products to use to buy. Whereas my videos, what product am I showing? Okay, my free dive fins and my mask is all professional expensive stuff that you have to really be a good free diver to get the most out of. So it’s not like the casual consumer that’s going to go snorkeling on vacation.

Ross Borden (15:41):

They’re not going to buy 600

Shane Brown (15:43):

On their gear.

Ross Borden (15:46):

And where I guess we didn’t even talk about, you are definitely a full-time creator now, right? Yeah. Were you basically a professional photographer and filmmaker before and now you’re just full-time creator?

Shane Brown (15:57):

It was sort of like I was getting by that I could make rent most of the time, and then until TikTok and YouTube blew up, I couldn’t afford because we own our home, but it was still hard. Even now I’m in the winter slump, which I have every year. It just slows down for either outdoor or ocean creators I feel like. And so now I’m trying to find a way to fight out of that winter slump to make the right amount to still be on track for paying mortgage, making sure I have enough for various expenses, wanting to invest. We have a daughter also, so it’s like,

Ross Borden (16:42):

Yeah, congrats. I saw that. That’s awesome.

Shane Brown (16:45):

But it’s for someone out there that wants to be a creator, you will always have economic insecurity no matter how big you are, unless you’re just one of the top 0.1% of people where you make it so big that you can buy your house outright and then you’re good. But until then, most creators I feel like are always fighting, which is fine. I like it. I enjoy working for myself and having a fight for my income. But I think a lot of people think, oh, you have millions of subs, so your life is made. It’s never like that.

Ross Borden (17:20):

What about TikTok? Do you have a monetization turned on when you get a TikTok video that gets tens of millions of views? Does TikTok pay your channel?

Shane Brown (17:29):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So TikTok now is like, you got to be over a minute. And I have been reluctant to adjust to that. I still felt like for a while I can still do my short form, it’ll still drive traffic, I’ll still get brand deals, blah, blah, blah. But then the brand deals have slowed, the views have slowed. And so then now I’m like, okay, I got to find ways to make my egg video again, basically, which is the core of that is it’s an experiment underwater where the first part of the video is a lot of you really want to see this. And then finally doing it towards the end. And so I finally cracked that again when I just did this two minute video where I took a prosthetic foot and I shoved it onto a sea urchin. So weird. And people wanted to see that. And I think that I could do that again with a better foot, get a ballistic gel foot. That’s really legit what they used on MythBusters type stuff because the foot kind of sucked. It was like a $10 foot off of Amazon.

Ross Borden (18:35):

You need a higher quality foot to put on that

Shane Brown (18:38):

Series. And so that video did really well. It got, it’s at 6 million or something right now, but on a two minute video, that’s a lot because compared to a 15 second video, the watch time is much higher. So the average view duration was like a minute seven. And so then that on 6 million views is a ton of watch time. And so then from that video last I checked it, and it probably takes a while to update, so it might be higher, but it was over a thousand dollars from that one video. And what was the production cost? I went diving and I brought a $10 foot that I got off of Amazon and just goofed around in the ocean for an hour. So that’s easy. It is just the idea, coming up with that experiment idea is what’s so hard for me right now? What do I do that’s interesting, weird, makes the viewer think and then also isn’t harmful. I don’t want to do something that’s going to harm the ocean in a serious way or get people upset in a way that makes Hawaiian people hate me. Something like that. I always am so careful to not be harming anyone in my videos, but also make them a little bit controversial so that it’s

Ross Borden (19:51):

Interesting. Cool, man. And what’s next? Do you have any next steps or big plans, plan products or trips you’re going to take?

Shane Brown (20:00):

So what I’m looking at now to be more brand friendly is incorporating my daughter into our videos more. We took this, we had this clear kayak that’s really, I

Ross Borden (20:13):

Saw that video sick,

Shane Brown (20:14):

And people are like that as a product. People are asking about it. I’m like, okay, how are you going to get a clear kayak shipped to your house? You can’t just buy that from me posting about it, but it’s right out here. We can see the bay for our house. We’ll see it when it’s perfect and then be like, okay, let’s go do that. And so that was a really fun day for us besides taking the videos. And then we make the video of it did really well. It had just the right amount of controversy where people are like, she should be wearing a life vest, but I’m standing in waste

Ross Borden (20:47):

Deep water

Shane Brown (20:48):

Holding the boat.

(20:49):

They’re like, what if a storm pan so annoying? I’m like, I wouldn’t be out there if the storm was coming. I can see, and we’re only out there for 30 minutes. She has to get back to take a nap. This was a quick little activity for our baby, going out and doing fun stuff with my daughter. I feel like that is really brand friendly family stuff. And also there’s a lot more products involved. We go on a hike with her, she’s in the backpack thing, and then we link that on Amazon, and then that’s easier for brands to grab onto. But then I can still tell a story. I’m not picking up trash, but it’s like today, this is what me and my daughter did, and there’s challenges and then there’s the climax of the story where we get to the really cool lookout or something and she gets to see the sunset over the mountains for the first time, something like that. And so I feel like there’s a ton of potential there, and I just want to find a way to do it where she’s always happy and having fun. And it’s like the priority is her going on a cool adventure. And then if we can make a cool video from that, then that’s great. But if we go do something and she’s not having a good day that day doesn’t want to do videos, then that’s okay.

Ross Borden (21:58):

Cool. So Shane, one thing I always ask every guess here is if your passport only worked in three countries in the whole world for the rest of your life, you choose three countries to live in only those countries for the rest of your life, what would the countries be and why?

Shane Brown (22:16):

So Fiji and Tahiti are just like automatic pops into my head. I think they’re both just super Hawaii. They both have these incredible offshore reefs that either have the most insane swell with barely anyone out because there’s just so many breaks and so few people there. Or if there’s no swell, it’s the best diving that you’ve ever seen, like fish coming up and looking at you. You almost have to be careful of the big fish coming up and messing with you because they’re curious of what you are. They don’t know that you could have a spear gun to take them home for dinner. And so yeah, those two places are just automatic. Can’t wait to go back there next time. I just got to go to Fiji with GoPro for what was called a creator summit, one of the coolest experiences of my life, going from being someone who was inspired by GoPro to even create videos, and then being there as one of the people who’s inspiring others. That was a life achievement for me. Sick.

Ross Borden (23:22):

So are you a GoPro ambassador?

Shane Brown (23:25):

Yeah, something like that. I would say supported by GoPro. I can ask them for whatever products I need. I have a drawer full of GoPro crap. My contact just asked me what I want, and I’m like, I already have everything. So I just got extra just in case one breaks that way, I’m just ready. They’re waterproof, but when you abuse them, they eventually get corroded and stuff like that. And I definitely abuse my GoPro taking it out every single day. But yeah, so Tahiti and Fiji, and then, I don’t know, Thailand is really sick. Indonesia is really sick, so it’d be tough pick between those two. Bahamas also. Oh my God. And then, yeah, it’s tough for me to

Ross Borden (24:12):

Pick the last one. An island theme, not surprising surfing

Shane Brown (24:14):

And diving theme, just me. It is just places with really great ocean. But then I’m also like, okay, Italy is really beautiful. All the, oh,

Ross Borden (24:22):

Shane, you’re going off the rails, dude, I need three

Shane Brown (24:25):

Countries. Okay, so I’ll pick Tahiti, Fiji, and Italy because I want a place that’s also nice, regular travel, and so it has the sea and is beautiful. There’s clear places to go. There’s like cliff jumping. That way I can mix it up that way I’m not only surfing and diving.

Ross Borden (24:46):

Yeah, nice. I like that mix. Very unique, very unique. No places that we hear a ton about, but not all surprising with the surfing and diving passion. So,

(24:58):

Awesome, man. Well, Shane, thanks for the time. Thanks for coming on the show. I’m really excited to hear about all the stuff that you’re doing, and congrats on all the success. And I’m definitely, we’re going to have another conversation about some tourism and brand partnerships because that would be really cool channel, and I love what you’re doing also to clean up the beaches and the ocean. So congrats. Thank you, creator. The podcast is produced by Matador Network. We are a leading global travel publisher focused on travel and adventure. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe. Every week I interview a new top creator. New episodes are released every Tuesday on YouTube, apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Thanks for listening.