Inspirations 2016

Why write a piece like this?
I’m convinced that we all have our inspirations. We’re inspired by actions, ways of thinking and creations of other people. At least that’s what I’m experiencing. We socialize all the time and gravitate towards like minded people. The internet has brought us closer together. Everyone can express themselves freely and without any gatekeeper these days. Of course this makes for a lot of content in varying degrees of quality which permanently tries to gain our attention. In this piece I want to show you the people who inspired me most in 2016 and why. Some of them changed the way I produce my content, some of them inspired my thinking and all of them confirm a few things I’ve always known to be true.

Casey Neistat

OK, Casey. Where to begin? I’ve been following your YouTube Channel ever since the Gizmodo 3 part series of your wildly functional studio came out. It was immediately clear to me that something like this studio would be useful for my purposes as well. The DIY touch everything has, the rawness yet functionality of your overhead shooting rig, just as one example; it’s all very inspiring and practical. So I’ll give you that at the very least. You’ve changed the way I think about many things especially in filmmaking. You’ve influenced the way I edit movies. Casey, you’ve made me start a YouTube channel on which I did 30 or so Vlogs until I realized how brutally unforgiving and hard it is to really get off the ground. It must be a pure grind every single day for you! I haven’t given up on the idea of a Vlog or the constant production of content so every opportunity I have to film something and make a movie out of it, I use. Thanks for that! Yes, I’m a bit jealous that you get to try out all the nerdy stuff before everyone else gets a chance but you’re a really hard working man. You need to let me in on two secrets, though: How do you manage to live a family life, being a celebrity and still maintain the business side of things. And I also need to know how your business is going. I’m currently also a product manager of an app so, there’s that.