Never without a camera, Mr. O’Brien is the vlog OG. Photo: Red Bull Content House
Pioneered by Jamie O’Brien, perfected by Ben Gravy, and continued by Julian Wilson, Nic von Rupp, Koa Rothman, Mark Healey and more, it begs the question: is a successful vlog now essential for a pro surfer?
“I enjoy the filming and the creative aspect of the Von Froth vlog, but the timing aspect and sheer amount of work can suck,” Nic von Rupp tells me. “I can be up at 5 a.m. to surf 70-foot waves all day at Nazare, and then we’re editing till 3 a.m. so that it’s live the next day. You are chasing traffic, to be the first, but it’s exhausting.”
Von Rupp is the European freesurfer whose vlog is one of the more successful recent surf video series on the web. His single episode from an insane session at Greenbush in 2021 has had almost 450,000 views, and he currently has 35,000 subscribers.
Seemingly that should be a fairly good source of income for a free surfer who increasingly needs more than just sponsor money to pay the bills and feed his big-wave addiction.
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“The main goal for me isn’t sheer numbers, but the viewing figures define if I can get more support from my sponsors,” said von Rupp. “And by support, I’m not talking about profit, just about covering the bare-bones expenses. It doesn’t make money. I see it as a fun and creative form of self-investment. That’s me personally. I mean if you ask Jamie O’Brien for example, he’ll be making x-amount per episode.”
I couldn’t extract those numbers from Jamie, but clearly, he has made some serious cash. And rightly so. After all, he is the man that invented and monetized the personal surf vlog.