ROSEBURG, Ore. — The internet is a way to connect people from all over the world. Just about anyone from anywhere can gain a following.
In Roseburg, a father and son have built up over a million subscribers on YouTube.
When you think of a popular YouTube channel, your mind probably goes to video games or silly videos.
That's not the case for Scott and Nate Wadsworth.
They've gotten a following doing videos about trades like blacksmithing and carpentry.
"The channel started really simple," said Nate Wadsworth. "It was just making educational content and showing the skills and tools my dad has used for decades. It really just grew from there."
Scott owns a blacksmithing shop in Roseburg and one day Nate decided to film him working
And that's when “Essential Craftsmen” was born.
"There was one moment that sticks in my mind," Scott said. "The fourth or fifth video we uploaded got 100k views over a weekend. We went from 300 subscribers to 5,000."
Now they're up to over 135 million views on their videos.
They built an entire house for their channel, and they're going to be selling it soon.
"One of the really interesting things about this project in building a house, a lot of the choices were not driven by the house as much as by the fact that it's content for YouTube and people would be watching it," Scott said. "I said something like 'I don't think I'm going to live long enough to wait for addition and remodel jobs to come along to show the number of tricks that need to be shown. And within about 10 seconds it hit us at the same time: let's just build a house and make a video series of the whole process."
They've had two open houses where almost 600 people from all over the world showed up.
"There was a fellow that came from London," Scott said. "He had to quarantine in the Bahamas for two weeks before he could get stateside. He flew to LA and then came on up."
With over a million subscribers, someone's bound to recognize you, and Scott is still getting used to his newfound fame.
"I've merged onto the freeway and had people roll down their window and give me a thumbs up," Scott said. "I was sitting in the airport at Eugene and a guy came off the airplane, walked 20 feet passed me, turned around and said, 'pardon me, do you have a YouTube channel?' It's the strangest thing you can imagine."
The house in Roseburg they built will be on the market in a few weeks.