"I started my YouTube channel to stay sober."
Today’s guest on Dirty Water is the world-champion vlogger and high-end intermediate surfer from New Jersey, Ben Gravy.
His YouTube channel has 101,000 subscribers and so many little films you could watch them back to back on a rocket ship and not even be halfway through ’em as you touch down on Mars.
Thirty-two-year-old Ben’s themes are positivity and an everyman vibe.
If I can do it, you can sorta thing.
Consistency varies, as it does on such a prolific channel. Some will produce an unsettling gas; others stroke your stomach and whisper in your ear.
Over the past three years, Ben made it his goal to surf in each of the fifty states that make up the United States of America.
He succeeded at this bullish endeavour and even came close to meeting his maker during a river session in dirty ol Missouri.
In today’s podcast, he tells how YouTube saved him from a life as a drunk, “I drank like a fish,” he says; the bitterness he felt at being overlooked in the pro surfing game; and the joy, the relentless, beautiful joy, of making a little cash for waking up every single day and going surfing.
According to Statsmash, Ben is worth sixty-nine thousand dollars.
Oowee.
(Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, TuneIn + Alexa, iHeartRadio, Overcast, Pocket Cast, Castro, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, Deezer and Listen Notes.)
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Obrien looks like he’s on some testosterone injections. Getting cromagnony
Was Chas wasted during this interview? Lots of giggling
Jeez that plastic surgery has worked wonders for Russel Bierke.
Is it required to have a porn-star mustache to be ‘movie-star handsome’?
Another great podcast, you guys are on a roll. It was a genius move to get Ben, he’s the modern upstart outsider anti-hero of surf with more video views than the WSL. They’d be mad not to get him on the the ultimate surfer, even if it’s just for the social reach.
Surely a podcast with Joel Tudor and Skin Dog is next?
Who lent him the deposit on a house if he promised to stop bludging off them and become a non-drinking YouTuber perhaps…
assumptions don’t reveal truth
You’re quite right
Only a blatant fool would assume he bought a house with his meagre YouTube subscriber numbers…
Easy to get approved for a loan provided you have a decent income and credit, parents probably helped him out by cosigning. Let me guess still living in your parents basement? The house was a shitbox when he moved in, couldn’t have paid more than 200k. Ben hustling for that sponsorship $, quit yer whining and get to work.
Oh great
Another fuckin’ moron
I’m quite aware of his YouTube numbers and what they pay (do you ?) and it’d be a stretch to say it’d pay well.
As for me I’ve actually worked since the mid ’80’s and am now freehold on a farm, an apartment and a vacant lot.
Maybe you should quit ya whining and get to work…
Till then, fuck off !
you sound like a sad person, have a nice life sucking on them sour grapes 😉
Like coming full kook circle.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Ben seems like a good bloke. Making enough money to live off from surfing, can’t knock the hustle.
He’s gonna be able to have one hell of a comb-over soon if he doesn’t go and shave it all off…
“high-end intermediate surfer”
im gonna start describing myself as this.
I’m not. Seen a few of his videos of Great Lakes and FL surfing and it’s way beyond what I can do. Then again at this point of my career I’m just happy if I don’t tip over while sitting out the back.
You ever just pretend like you did it on purpose?
Fuk, I love this chick.
Keeps it real!!! Sexy too
Way more informative than gravy dribble.
https://youtu.be/ylAh9VjLTiU
Fuck, that was rad! You know she hit a nerve when they started chanting “shame on you”. And of course it was the white guilt folks who chanted that. Great find Bex.
Stab wouldn’t post it
Fascists!!!!
Yes, I’m sure she’s not alone
The others can’t be heard above the white noise
Epic! BG should do an article on HER, instead of some forgettable like Ben Grabby, er Grooby, I mean Gravy.
As a spokesperson for the aesthetically challenged, it’s a bit cruel to have two movie star good looks guys on the one episode
I am both astonished and impressed you found the time to put this together right now Derek
Lockdown laws just got eased and we can have up to ten visitors at our homes…so now that your sex life has finally got back to some semblance of normality, I figured you’d be tied up for a while
I don’t know, I’ve never considered Chas as having Hollywood looks. What am I missing?
Pretty sure no one actually considered it about wavy gravy either…
At least he has an ice cream named after him. Too bad for Chas that Rocky Road is already taken.
What icecream would gravy have named after him ?
(other than ‘headache’, cos watching more than 10secs of his drivvle gives you one…)
Ben and jerrys has a wavy gravy ice cream. We are talking about the old hippy right?
Yes that is an old hippy, so yes that name of icecream is also taken.
Maybe Ben is his prematurely balding love-child (who can’t handle his beer)…
Gotta make the guest interesting.
Nothing.
I am pretty sure Chas is the now grown up kid from home alone…after a lifelong battle against drug addiction and depression
the only one thinking Chas has Hollywood looks is Chas and he is an egocentric dresser just read “Welcome to Paradise” wanker!
All guys are ugly.
from my memory of that interview JOB mentioned that BG taught him a lot
Ben really is the definition of the wall of positive surf noise. That was almost a really good interview – especially how DR managed to still bring in another transexual reference…..but you failed to explore the actual dollars behind the surf vlog atmosphere. He has brought a house on the back of his efforts. Clearly doing significantly better than the majority of the WQS – probably 95% of them. Would have been interesting to see that explored a bit more. Opportunity missed perhaps. Damien Fahrenfort would have been all over that !
Maybe a fund raiser to send him to 7 gnarly waves in 6 States & 1 Territory in Oz would be pretty funny. Start him off gently at TOS on a solid day with a huge crowd…..then Ours in NSW, onto TAS for some Shippies action….then one of those VIC spots that shall remain unnamed west of Apollo Bay, some sharks in SA and the Right in WA and finish it off with some croc dodging in the Territory…..would be a goldmine of action.
What about Lake Burley Griffin? We could get Clive Palmer to bomb into the southern end
Huh, he’s made enough off softop advertorials to buy a house but we should donate for a surf trip? Sorry but I’m donating to looters of Patagonia instead. #kingofthevals #byeamerica
Totally agree that there are better places for one to put their cash – it was meant in the context of the podcast.
Wealthy parents…
I’ll listen to it later
Ben Gravy is to Vloging what beachgrit is to surf websites. Consistently varies, at its worst it’s best ignored, at its best it’s anti depressant and gets to the core of what surfing is all about. As Stalin purported said “Quantity has a Quality of its own”
Derek on bottom. Makes sense.
A sub needs his dom
You see New Jersey as a top?
Oh, it takes all kinds.