04/15/2026
Huge congratulations to Steve Hofstetter on reaching 1 million YouTube subscribers!!! One of the funniest comics out there, and a great guy - give him a follow if you haven't already 🎉🎉
I have a million reasons to be grateful today.
I posted my first video to YouTube twenty years ago. It was the early days of MySpace, and YouTube allowed me to embed a video on my page. Over the next few years, I used YouTube as a place for outtakes from shows as I didn’t want to burn material I was still doing. I posted video when I ad-libbed a joke or did a bit I had retired from my set. And then, the occasional clip of my response to a heckler.
The heckler stuff started building a following, and I remember how excited I was to pass 10,000 subscribers.
Eleven years ago, I had a clip go truly viral for the first time, and my subscriber count passed 100,000. I was called an overnight success, despite having posted for nine years. My manager gave me some great advice: as exciting as the sudden attention would be, it would fade. Don’t get too comfortable, and continue to build a platform that people would come back to.
He was right. I saw the attention wane, then rise when something else went viral, and wane again. It was a sine curve of emotion. And so I continued to build an audience that would appreciate the term “sine curve of emotion”.
I leaned into the ad-libbed content by adding a Q&A after each live show. I continued posting clips of hecklers when they happened. And I started adding straight-to-camera videos that combined my penchant for progressive politics and comedy.
I was mocked openly by some other comedians who called me a try-hard and said that my having crowdwork and heckler clips prevented me from being a “real” comedian. As time rolled towards the pandemic, I was one of just four stand-up comedians who leaned heavily into YouTube, two of the others being my friends Josh Wolf and Drew Lynch.
The pandemic changed everything, as younger comedians saw the power of posting digital content to social media. Comedians like Jeff Arcuri, Taylor Tomlinson, Josh Johnson, and Gianmarco Soresi found huge audiences, and the rest of the industry finally followed.
I will always find it funny that the same comedians who trashed me for my crowdwork and YouTube clips now have entire channels of videos asking people where they’re from and what they do for a living.
I continued to post to my YouTube channel. People started coming to shows with questions prepared for the Q&A and I released my specials directly, not even trying to sell to a network or a streamer.
Without worry of corporate notes, I was able to produce an hour about the grief of losing my father and another about tolerance and growth. I sold shares of my YouTube channel through Gigastar to raise money for an experimental comedy special and documentary about anxiety. I used my channel to rail against fascism and corruption and sexual abuse because I didn’t ever have to worry about losing a sponsor or having a show cancelled. Simply put, YouTube allowed me to be myself for a living.
Armed with the independence and confidence that brought, I fell in love, got married, moved away from the industry hustle of Los Angeles, and started a family. And while my daughter has altered my sleep schedule in a way that being a road comedian never could, she also allowed me to see something pretty cool this morning.
I awoke to feed her at 6AM. While I warmed a bottle, I opened my YouTube knowing I was close to a milestone. And with my daughter half asleep in one arm and my phone in the other, I got to see my YouTube subscriber count roll over from 999,999 to one million. The key to comedy is, indeed, timing.
My wonderful wife Savannah (who bought me this shirt) celebrated by going to my favorite bakery for my favorite dessert: cheesecake. My life is wildly different than it was when I started posting to YouTube. But I am so wildly grateful for how it turned out.
I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you. Thank you for watching my videos, for subscribing, and for being with me on this long, incredible journey.
Thanks a million.
