Sell the house, buy a bus and hit the road to interview YouTube stars? Sign him up
Hamilton native Greg Bond is all in on chasing his own rolling social media dream
He was reading about an American farmer who’d become an unlikely YouTube star, when the light bulb went on in his head.
I, a 47-year-old man, should sell everything I own, buy a rock ’n’ roll tour bus and travel the United States interviewing social media stars for a new YouTube show of my own. Because, of course. “It is a little bit crazy,” Greg Bond admits.
Some might think so. Including his parents, he laughs. But when you’ve got an idea you believe in, some confidence, a love of adventure and a willingness to take some risks, why not?
The Westdale Secondary grad has sold his house in Orillia, bought a loaded 45-foot bus and begun making plans to carve out a niche nobody else is filling. Beginning next month, he intends to travel from state to state interviewing those folks who’ve struck it big on social media. The ones now living in mansions and driving fancy cars.
He’ll then fill his own YouTube channel
and, if all goes well, eventually join them in the rarefied air they now enjoy.
It’s quite a plan. One surely hatched during the three hot and humid years he was running a beachside bar and hosting fishing tours in Nicaragua.
Actually, no. It was while quarantining in his parents’ Hamilton basement in the days after he’d returned to Canada last March that inspiration arrived. Bored out of his mind, the voice actor placed some mannequin heads and puppets — used for Halloween decorations — around the room, turned on the video camera and “interviewed” them on Facebook.
“There may have been some wine involved,” Bond says.
What emerged could fairly be described as unusual. Think “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” meets “Wayne’s World” meets Tim Burton. But it got over 600 views and nearly 300 comments.
That response prompted him to fire up a channel called Bondzee Live on which he discusses, well, whatever he wants to an audience of usually between 200 and 400 but hitting as many as double that. The shows have gradually become less raw. He even interviewed former NHLer Theo Fleury a few months ago.
This, combined with doing some voice-over work for various online channels and hosting a podcast, drew his attention to those folks who’d somehow parlayed their lives into fame and fortune on social media.
“There’s nobody out there delving into (these) peoples’ lives and interviewing them,” he says.
Bond figured if he was intrigued, others would be, too. He drew up a strategy, got some sponsors, studied the algorithms and tricks that make YouTubers successful, spent months searching all over North America for a bus and built up the courage to put his house up for sale.
At any point did he think this was all a little bonkers? “Daily,” he chuckles.
Too late to turn back now, though. He hands over the keys to the house on March 19. He and his 12-year-old mini goldendoodle, Tucker, will then go to Tennessee to pick up the silver 1995 Prevost bus, point it toward Texas and get started on his great adventure.
The plan will be to visit all 50 states and talk to people who’ve made their name online. Then put the videos on a channel called Bondzee Live on the Road in a Prevost.
Of course, none of his future interview subjects know he’s coming for them or have heard of him. Still, he’s confident he can get them to talk. Partially because the big, shiny bus will be a lure. And partially because …
“YouTube stars never met a microphone they didn’t like,” he says.
He’s probably right on that point.
Even so, the challenge he faces is obvious. Right now, his YouTube channel has 109 subscribers. It’s a long way from the 728,000 of the Millennial Farmer, who started him on this journey. Or the 109 million claimed by Swedish comedian PewDiePie.
Bond is not deterred. Those soccer videos he’s done on another channel have attracted as many as 21,000 views. Make good videos on popular topics, get a few big names to link to his site and a small snowball can become a giant avalanche quickly goes the theory. And if it doesn’t?
“If it doesn’t work out,” he says, “I can sell the bus.”