Casey Neistat

Casey Neistat

Casey Owen Neistat, born March 25, 1981, is an American YouTube personality, filmmaker, vlogger, and entrepreneur whose work grew out of the early internet video era and helped define what online filmmaking could look like. He was born in Gales Ferry, Connecticut, to Barry Edward Neistat, then a commercial kitchen appliance salesman, and Amy Louise Bickford Neistat. His parents later operated the Muddy Waters Cafe in New London. Neistat was brought up in Reform Judaism, and his family background included performance as well as practical work: his paternal grandmother, Louise Neistat, was a professional tap dancer and instructor who worked mainly at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Neistat’s early life was marked by sharp turns and responsibility at a young age. He dropped out of high school during his sophomore year at 17. That same year, in 1998, he had a son, Owen, with his then-girlfriend Robin Harris. From 1998 to 2001, between the ages of 17 and 20, he lived in a trailer park with Harris and their son. Before moving to New York City, he worked as a dishwasher at a seafood restaurant and as a short-order cook in Mystic, Connecticut. It was during this period that he decided to move to New York, a city that would become central to much of his later work.

In 2001, Neistat and his brother Van began working with artist Tom Sachs, making films about Sachs’s sculptures and installations. Neistat first gained international exposure in 2003 with iPod’s Dirty Secret, a three-minute film criticizing Apple for not having a battery replacement program for its iPod line. Posted online on September 20, 2003, the film drew national media attention and was praised by The Washington Post as “wonderfully renegade.” Apple announced a battery replacement policy on November 14, 2003, followed by an extended iPod warranty program on November 21, though an Apple spokeswoman denied any connection between the film and the policy change.

Neistat and Van continued with Science Experiments in 2004, a 15-minute film series made up of short films documenting different experiments. It was included in the 26th São Paulo Biennial in Brazil and later featured in Creative Time’s 59th Minute program in Times Square. In July 2008, HBO purchased The Neistat Brothers, an eight-episode autobiographical television series by Casey and Van, for just under $2 million. The show, written and directed by the brothers and produced with Tom Scott, premiered on HBO on June 4, 2010.

On YouTube, Neistat became known for short, direct films that turned everyday systems into stories. In 2010, he posted a video about when to use the emergency brake cord on New York City Subway trains. In 2011, his film Bike Lanes criticized the ticketing of cyclists for riding outside marked bike lanes by showing him crashing into obstructions while staying in the lane. Time later named it number eight on its Top 10 Creative Videos of 2011 list. He began posting daily vlogs on March 26, 2015, describing them more as a forum than a daily journal. By February 2023, his YouTube channel had 12.5 million subscribers.

Neistat also co-founded the multimedia company Beme, which was later acquired by CNN, and in 2018 founded 368, a creative space for creators to collaborate. His career spans internet video, television, advertising, documentary work, and a style of public storytelling built on motion, argument, humor, and visible effort. One of his quotes, “The most dangerous thing you can do in life is play it safe,” fits the record of a filmmaker who often turned a problem, a rule, or a city street into a pointed little film people wanted to share.