
Why Does Charles Trippy Put His Life on the Internet?
Season 2016 Episode 15 | 8m 10sVideo has Closed Captions
Charles Trippy has been uploading his life to youtube every day for 7 years.
Charles Trippy has been uploading his life to youtube every day for 7 years. In that time, he has been married and divorced, won the Guinness World Record twice, and gone through two brain surgeries. And he shows no signs of stopping. Who is Charles Trippy? Why does he do it?
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback

Why Does Charles Trippy Put His Life on the Internet?
Season 2016 Episode 15 | 8m 10sVideo has Closed Captions
Charles Trippy has been uploading his life to youtube every day for 7 years. In that time, he has been married and divorced, won the Guinness World Record twice, and gone through two brain surgeries. And he shows no signs of stopping. Who is Charles Trippy? Why does he do it?
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship[music playing] Persistence is something we value in ourselves, the ability to go the distance and not quit.
Oftentimes, it seems like an inherent trait in people, an unexplained drive that's so a part of someone's being, they might not even know they possess it.
And the strive can manifest itself in surprising ways, take Charles Trippy for instance.
Hello, camera.
You can at me though.
Oh, look at you?
Yeah, yeah.
Hi, camera.
I know you're used to looking at the camera.
CRAIG BENZINE: Charles Trippy has a YouTube web series called "Internet Killed Television."
Good morning, internet.
Good morning, internet.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning, guys.
CRAIG BENZINE: The channel has over a million and a half subscribers, over 800 million total views, and ever since 2009, Charles has been documenting his life on video and posting it to YouTube every single day.
That was six years ago?
CHARLES TRIPPY: Seven.
Seven years ago.
And you've been doing it nonstop since then.
Nonstop, every day.
Have you missed a day?
I have not missed a day.
You've not missed one day?
Not one day.
Wow.
That's insane.
Gone through two brain surgeries, toured all over the world, did all that stuff, and I never missed one day.
CRAIG BENZINE: So what is your total videos now?
I want to say 2,277 as of uploading right now.
I just walked over here.
CRAIG BENZINE: Yeah, geez.
It's actually 2,493 right now as we film this, and it will be even more by the time you watch.
MATT WEBER: When he says he doesn't miss a day, he's serious.
Do you enjoy it?
Why did you-- why did you keep doing it, first?
I love doing it.
But a lot of people ask if I set out to never miss a day, and it's just, I went probably a year or two.
And then, somebody was like, hey, you've never missed a day in a year.
I'm like, oh, well, this is interesting.
Let's just keep going, see where it can go.
I'm a very stubborn person.
And when I put my mind to something, I'll try to achieve it whether I fail at it.
So I just kept going at it, kept going at it.
CRAIG BENZINE: But you could take a day off.
You could skip days, you could-- why do you keep going?
Why do you just do every single day?
Because when I was little, I used to read the "Guinness World Record."
I used to have one of those 197-- I still do at my house-- 1972 "Guinness World Record."
It looks like a novel.
It's brown.
It's old looking now.
And there's old photos in it.
It looks like a dictionary.
You're reading through it and you see all the weird things.
And I was infatuated with that thing as a kid.
And I always said to myself, I want to be in there.
I had no idea-- I didn't want to grow my fingers out or anything like, do something weird.
I had no idea how to do it.
And I've been fortunate to have this as the ability, and this was presented to me.
So now, I'm just like, well, I'm in it.
Keep going.
In 2013, Charles Trippy was awarded the Guinness World Record for most consecutive daily videos ever.
Hi, Charles and Alli.
Dan from "Guinness World Records" here.
We've looked into it in some detail, spoken to YouTube, and it turns out you've been vlogging consistently for longer than anyone else.
So I'm delighted to present you with this certificate for the most conservative daily video blogs posted on YouTube.
ALLI: Oh, my god.
It's so exciting.
CHARLES TRIPPY: Look at this.
I got goosebumps.
This was one of the bucket lists I had as a kid to get in the "Guinness World Records."
Congratulations.
You guys are officially amazing.
CHARLES TRIPPY: Officially.
WOMAN: Officially amazing.
CRAIG BENZINE: And he got it again in 2015.
We did it again, guys.
CRAIG BENZINE: 2,216 consecutive days all documented and uploaded for the internet for millions to see.
Yeah, it's sort of like "The Truman Show."
Remember that movie with Jim Carrey, lived in a dome, everybody watched him on TV?
CRAIG BENZINE: Yeah, except Charles Trippy knows everyone's watching.
So what are some big events that you've had to vlog, basically?
Well, there's been a lot of big events that I've gone through.
It's life, you know?
[inaudible] CHARLES TRIPPY: Without getting into a lot of things, I've been married.
Will you marry me?
Yes.
[applause] I've, unfortunately, been divorced.
I've gone through two brain surgeries.
ALLI: Did you just say, CT phone home?
CT phone home.
CRAIG BENZINE: Through divorce, through brain surgery, were there ever a time that you thought, I'm not going to show this?
I'm not going to do a video?
There was, yeah.
A lot of times, very much so.
A lot of times.
The separation of myself and my wife, which, you know, was a hard time for everybody, myself and the internet, I didn't know if I wanted to really explain everything.
But there was one day I just flipped over the eyesight camera.
And I just started talking.
And it just felt right.
Hey, guys.
So we kind of need to have a little conversation.
CHARLES TRIPPY: And I didn't want it to be scripted or anything like that.
You know like, Hi, blah blah blah blah, this is what's happening.
I just, all right, guys, this is what's going on.
And it was a very vulnerable situation because you're putting yourself out in front of, I don't know how-- the internet.
And then YouTube picked that up, and they put that on the front page.
I saw that.
Yeah.
I was like, oh, god.
This is going to be really hard now.
So that happened.
And then the brain surgeries were even weirder and tougher because I didn't know if I want to do that.
In 2012, Charles Trippy suffered a seizure and was rushed to the emergency room.
There, a CT scan revealed that he had a brain tumor.
CHARLES TRIPPY: This is kind of briefly what it looks like.
But as you can see, it's not this big.
This is more of just layers or excess.
But it's on this side of my head.
So I have to get it removed.
That's what's happening.
But I've been debating on whether or not I should just vlog this or if I should just not vlog it all and just, you know, at the end tell you what happened.
But I feel like that just completely goes against the whole nature of what Alli and I started doing with daily videos.
These are things that not only are for you guys to see, but for us to build and document our life and be able to look back and all that stuff.
So I said, I'm just going to film it.
CRAIG BENZINE: And Charles Trippy filmed all of it, even his surgery.
Since he was going to be awake during much of the procedure, he took his camera into the operating room with him and filmed his own brain surgery.
What's up, internet?
I actually got a phone call from one of the head people on YouTube and they're like, I can't believe you're [bleep] doing this.
CRAIG BENZINE: Charles actually had brain surgery twice.
And doctors were able to successfully removed about 98% of the tumor.
Unfortunately, Charles has a stage three oligodendroglioma, which is a type of malignant brain tumor.
Since the surgery, Charles has undergone chemotherapy to reduce the tumor.
But he still continues to fight it.
Charles has made great progress though.
And he doesn't let his illness stop him from touring the world with his band and making daily vlogs for his fans.
I want to keep making these videos because it's one of those things that really makes me happy.
You guys really make me happy, doing these videos.
And life is too precious to do anything but what makes you happy.
Exactly.
So it was kind of nice to see that the things that I was going through were kind of helping people.
And definitely, the people that had things that were going on were helping me because the doctor, they told me I need to go to a support group and stuff like that-- my friend's a surgeon, too-- and vent and do all that stuff.
I was like, I have a support group.
I don't need to do this.
And so I didn't do that.
I did YouTube instead.
Love you all.
Thank you guys so much for the support.
I know I say this a lot, but you guys are freaking unbelievably awesome.
I just wanted to say thank you guys for understanding.
I tear up every single night I read your comments.
Thank you for the love and support and sorry that was pretty gory.
CRAIG BENZINE: Do you have a plan to stop ever?
CHARLES TRIPPY: I have no plan to stop.
I figured since I've already kind of done the brain surgery thing, I don't know what possibly could stop me now.
It's nice because daily videos allow you to make yourself do something new or be active every single day versus staying home and kind of really doing nothing, to live your life every single day as if it's your last, I guess.
It's very dramatic sounding, I know.
CRAIG BENZINE: Do you think, like, when you're 85 years old, you'll still-- It'd be awesome if I'm still doing it when I'm 85.
Just not missed a day until you're-- That'd be awesome.
That'd be real-- I'm not shooting for that.
If it happens, it happens.
But that would be freaking awesome, just have your life chronicle on YouTube.
Yeah, I look forward to seeing you at 85 every day.
[inaudible] Are you guys ready to internet high five on the count of three?
One, two, three.
CRAIG BENZINE: So what do you think?
Do you have any world records that you've broken, or are going to break, or on the way to breaking?
Or is there something that you're just persistent at in your life?
Yeah, let us know in the comments.
Let us know.
Maybe commenting?
Is that something you do?
Yeah, how many comments you got going so far.
Yeah, see how many can do in the comments.
Thanks for watching.
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Last video, we talked to hackers.
And you had a lot to say.
molybdnum and Jeremy Goodchild expressed some concern over the legality and ethics of what these guys are doing, calling their tactics tantamount to blackmail.
The line between security researcher and malicious hacker is thin.
All I can say is that these guys are doing what they do with good intentions, oftentimes for no compensation.
On top of that, a lot of companies are encouraging this type of hacking.
And it's becoming more accepted.
Are all hackers so well meaning?
Probably not.
But as jaydeep ghose said, "power is never good or bad.
It's how you use it which matters most."
Alexander Gosselin had a particularly profanity-laden comment about how we use a xylophone every time someone talks about something technical.
Well, I'm pretty sure it's a marimba, dingus.
And it's the sound my brain makes when the knowledge goes in.
Play some, play some marimba.
[marimba music playing] OK. Yeah.
Thanks for all of your awesome hack comments.
Next week, we're going to talk to a professional wrestler.
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Can you smell what we got cooking?
Slip into a Slim Jim.
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