Casey Neistat
I moved to New York City when I was 20 years old, started making movies non-stop. I didn't have any friends, so I would just sit at home all night editing on my iMac.Collection: Movies
Ideas are cheap. Ideas are easy. Ideas are common. Everybody has ideas. Ideas are highly, highly overvalued. Execution is all that matters.
Persistence and endurance will make you omnipotent.
For all the marathons I've run, including the Ironmans that I've run, immediately after the race, I clean myself up, do whatever I need to do to make sure I'm okay, and I get right back out there, and I cheer people on. Because it's the people who come in late in the race I find most inspiring.
My brother Van got the computer first and showed me what it was like to edit video. I definitely credit Van with turning me onto filmmaking.
I was in New York City for September 11th, and I was there for the 2003 blackout. I think in hindsight, you get a real perspective as to how unique those moments of crisis are in a place like New York City.
I don't keep an ongoing dribble of updates of my day, but I tell little compartmentalized stories every day on Snapchat. I use it much more like making a movie than maintaining a diary. When people watch my 60-second clips, there's a beginning, middle, and end.
If I'm in the stands at a U2 concert watching Bono, how can I capture this moment without interrupting it and making it fake?
I'm not able to make amazingly perfect, precious pieces of content, but I get to make awesome spontaneous content that's frequently ephemeral.
I get, like, 50 emails a day from kids being like, 'I want to go on this trip around the world. How do I get a sponsor?'
I don't drink much soda; I don't buy Big Gulps, and my body mass index is right where it should be.
Troubleshooting a wiring problem is a soul-killing experience.
I think you should dress nicely for airports. You're surrounded by people coming from all walks of life. You should look your best.
I don't know of a more noble, a bigger deal as a filmmaker than to be a YouTube filmmaker.
I washed dishes so I could make movies. it was never a way for me to make money.
I have 60-plus videos on YouTube and over 30 million views. Of those 60, only three or four are branded videos. I built that audience by telling stories the way I like to tell them.
I am so disappointed in Apple. I don't even use an iPhone anymore. Their marketing sucks. It's embarrassing. It's just garbage.
As a viewer, I care about people, I care about characters, I care about perspective.
I made a living for 10 years making very typical TV commercials. But I always wanted to reach beyond that and do stuff that people might relate to in the way they relate to my nonbranded content.
I love seeing the way in which young people embrace video, and the YouTube vlogger is a fantastic phenomenon.
Pablo Picasso would paint a painting and hang it on the wall, and you would go and see the painting exactly how he wanted it to be made. But if you have an idea for a TV show, for example, you're beholden to studios to produce it and distributors to distribute it.
Truth is so much more interesting than the fiction we're used to.
I work in both very strict conditions and very loose, more open-minded conditions in advertising, and Nike is by far the most open-minded of all.
As a director, I have the greatest job in the world, but if I don't push the boundaries, then what's the point of having it?
The reason why people wear pajamas to the airport in the first place is so that they'll be comfortable during their flight. But you know, typically, air travel is 50 to 75 percent of the time you spend traveling. The rest of the time you spend in public places like airports and around other people. That's when looking good trumps comfort.
I think I'm like that nerdy dad from middle school who always has a video camera, but in the same respect, I only take it out during interesting occasions.
I actively pursue experiences that are unlike any others that I've experienced and cultures that I don't know and unfamiliar places and unfamiliar history and things like that.
So many car commercials are shot in the Salt Flats, and so much great imagery comes out of that place, but I've never been there, and I'm curious.
If you type 'Salt Flats' into YouTube, you'll find 100 amazing videos that were shot out there, but you won't find any that were shot in the rain.
I consider myself to be a very good skateboarder, but the difficulty when you're being pulled behind any car, when there's only a 20-ft. line, is that you can't see the potholes.
I was raised on Nirvana and flannel shirts and Rage Against the Machine, and I sort of describe my youth as rebellious and always fighting the system.
I grew up in the Northeast; I've seen hurricanes before and trees down and cars destroyed.
I won't hire someone or date a girl who has not worked in a restaurant, and that's the honest truth. I don't think you know how it is until you've worked in a restaurant.
The reason why I'm sending my super-intellectual 12-year old kid to tech school is because I don't believe he would succeed in this world unless he first learned to work with his hands.
One of my first questions when I interview prospective employees is, 'Do you know how big a sheet of plywood is?' Most people don't, and say they are different sizes, but it's 4' x 8'. Anyway, working with your hands is a very American thing that we kinda lost here, but it's an important skill to have.
The idea that somebody would go to my YouTube channel and want to watch movies and then be subjected to some terrible car commercial - I don't like that.
I always thought of myself as an amateur stunt man.
I've always been an incredibly physically capable human being. I've always had good control of my body, walk a hundred feet on my hands, jump off rock wall and do a back flip into the sand. That's always been who I am.
I was always the guy who jumped off the roof of the garage, who could climb up the facade of a building.
I don't like to run, train, in groups. But racing, it's the groups that are most inspiring to me. I love racing with 52,000 people. I don't like training with any more than one person. Ever.
I use iPod all the time, almost every day. It's great.
I took my iPod to the Apple store here in Manhattan and asked them to replace the battery. And they explained to me that Apple does not offer a service to replace the battery in the iPod, and my best bet was to buy a new iPod.
If New Yorkers reduced portion size to 16 ounces from 20 ounces for one sugary drink every two weeks, it would collectively save approximately 2.3 million pounds over one year.
I'm not an exhibitionist; I don't have a compulsion to share the ins and outs of my daily life with a public audience.
I don't send and receive messages on Snapchat; I never have. Stories is the only feature I use. I think of them becoming a more dynamic social network, and I think it's great.
I run 50-70 miles a week and lift five or six days. It's my time.
Almost everything looks the same at art fairs - very hygienic, very white, lots of right angles.
The most dangerous thing you can do in life is play it safe.Collection: Play
If you're doing what everyone else is doing, you're doing it wrong.Collection: Doing You
As a guiding principle, life shrinks and life expands in direct proportion to your willingness to assume risk.Collection: Guiding Principles