Being a “YouTuber” is a strange gig. It requires a person to film themselves almost constantly, be generally watchable, and constantly find new things to do. There aren’t a whole lot of successful ones — not in relation to how many YouTubers there are in the world — so the clique is a small one. With a little over 12 million subscribers, Casey Neistat is definitely one of them, but he’s not a professional surfer by any means. Some of his friends are, too, and when Neistat turned 40 recently, he invited a bunch of them to Kelly Slater’s wave pool for a day at the Ranch. Ben Gravy surfed the Surf Ranch along with them, and collectively, after everyone who was there drops their own vlog, the day will likely have more views than any other day the Surf Ranch has had.
Ben Gravy was among those invited, which is basically the same as saying he’s reached that elite level of YouTuber. “Absolutely honored to be invited to the Kelly Slater Surf Ranch for Casey Neistat’s birthday party!” he wrote. “Completely blown away by the level of fun we had today. Barrels, novelty waves, epic humans, this was the best wave pool experience I’ve ever had & I’m just tripping on it.”
