LYNN — One of YouTube’s biggest stars is going on tour and his first stop is in Lynn.
David Dobrik has been an online presence since he first started making videos in 2013 as a sophomore in high school. Dobrik is a product of the short-lived Vine, an app which once allowed users to make and edit six-second video clips. Now it’s five years later and the 21-year-old is headlining a tour across the country.
“It’s tough to get into this community and it’s one of the most-sought after jobs for kids right now, it’s the new actor or Disney star dream, so it’s that more much insane to me that I’m in this world,” said Dobrik. “I feel like I got a golden ticket to it.”
Even before Vine was around, Dobrik always had dreams of becoming a YouTube star. During his early years of high school, Dobrik was a big video-gamer, which is how he came upon the idea of buying a PVR (personal video recorder). But when the recorder wouldn’t work, the future star just about gave up on his dreams of becoming web-famous.
“Right after that is when Vine came around, which was basically a lazy person’s version of YouTube, and I started making videos just out of pure enjoyment and I started to get really comfortable with it,” said Dobrik.
After the disappearance of Vine Dobrik became introduced to the world of vlogging (video blogging) by his former girlfriend and close friend Liza Koshy, who is also a world-renowned YouTube star. By age 18, Dobrik developed a knack for posting vlogs on YouTube that generated hundreds of thousands of views from people all over the world. Now his vlogs reach an audience of more than one million views on the daily.
“I started doing it just for fun and it showed through the videos I was making and that’s when people really started watching,” said Dobrik. “This is the best job in the world and there are times when I’m making videos and I realize I’m getting paid to do something I love so much and it’s genuinely mind blowing to me.”
The YouTube phenomenon was born in Slovakia and moved to Ohio just before he was 6 years old. A few years later he moved to the suburbs of Chicago where he spent the rest of his childhood, attending Vernon Hills High School. Dobrik grew up watching his biggest inspirations, Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O’Brien, every night before he went to bed.
“I want to be a talk show host at some point in my life, that’s a huge goal of mine, so I think after a couple more tour stops I’ll get really comfortable with it,” said Dobrik. “My main goal with this tour is just to keep practicing and working on my stage presence and being in front of a lot of people.”
Dobrik will kick off his tour at the Lynn Auditorium Saturday night with Boston native Jason Nash as his opening act and Scotty Sire and Heath Hussar as his musical performers. Tickets for the 7 p.m. show are $35 and can be bought on the Lynn Auditorium website.
“I’m super transparent when it comes to this, so imagine your friend onstage or someone giving you a live show or a live podcast, and that’s what you’ll see on this tour,” said Dobrik. “It’s not a show for people who don’t know us, it’s more for the people who watch us and want behind the scenes stories of our videos.”
