From TikTok to Peacock 🦚
Your next Creator Mag cover star is...
blog.sixty-nine // It’s official: Your next Creator Mag cover star is Daren Vongirdner, also known online as Darendarendaren.
We started chatting with Daren way back in January. Moy and Shua pitched him for a story because they found his work quite inspiring—especially his YouTube series Miles Away, which followed the filmmaker as he traded his day-to-day in New York City for a slower pace in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
What we didn’t realize then was just how many creative lives Daren’s lived. He got his first job in the creator world over a decade ago…simply by tweeting at veteran YouTuber Phil DeFranco. Fast forward to today, and Daren’s quietly been working on People Like Me, his own NBC television show (!!), for several years.
We traveled to Grand Rapids in May to gather an up-close look at the life Daren has carved out with his partner, Ava. Paired with our background interview in January, our goal was to shine a light on Daren’s journey—in his words.
You can watch more above. And the full story, “The Many Lives of Daren Vongirdner,” is available to read in the print zine! Preorders are now open for Issue Six: WHERE DID YOU GO?
Block Party attendees will be the first ones to receive their copies on July 19. Orders will then begin shipping out the following week.*
In the meantime, read on for a new edition of Five Things I Think (I Think)—including reflections on the story behind Daren’s story.
— NGL
P.S. Last blog, we reviewed the show Wild Geese—and introduced our new intern. You can read it here.
One :: I think this is the most incredible way to get your first “actual” job. In 2012, Daren was scrolling Twitter when a familiar name popped up on his timeline: OG creator Philip DeFranco.
DeFranco has been publishing his near-daily news commentary show on YouTube since 2007, garnering him a cult following in the process. On that fateful day five years later, DeFranco was en route to a wedding—and decided to get something off his chest.
I’m drunk on a plane, he tweeted. Ask me anything.
Daren shot his shot: Can I have a job?
What’s in it for me? Phil replied.
Daren jokes that he followed up with something generic. I’m a really hard worker, I’ll do this, I’ll do that, blah blah blah. But the next day, he was on the phone with DeFranco’s executive assistant, Dani Rosenberg, who explained that they were starting a new media company called SourceFed—which had recently received a million dollars from YouTube’s Original Channel Initiative.
Daren didn’t get the job…at first. A self-taught videographer, he hadn’t gone to film school (like many of Phil’s employees) or college, period. Nevertheless, he was constantly experimenting, taking on creative projects of his own.
“Within two weeks, I had sent Phil a video of mine—even though we were instructed not to do that,” Daren told me. “He pulled me into his office and [said] ‘This is excellent work.’ And they hired me, and it's kind of been a journey ever since then.”
Two :: I think Daren’s story shows the power in leveling up as an artist. While researching Daren ahead of our background interview in January, I began to realize just how many lives the dude has lived. “I’ve been in the YouTube world behind-the-scenes for a long time,” he jokes.
A (brief) overview of his curriculum vitae:
Worked for SourceFed for three years as an editor and on-screen talent
Went full-time on his music career under the pseudonym “D.V.G.”
Transitioned into freelance cinematography and editing for creators including Smosh and Jarvis Johnson
Throughout his twenties, Daren produced plenty of big projects. Some of his songs topped a million streams, and his 2016 album, My Life Became Beautiful, reached the top ten on iTunes.**
Still, he never truly made it. He couldn’t support himself with his music full-time, and it wasn’t until he left LA for New York City during the pandemic—and went all in on TikTok—that he began to find his voice, as well as some traction.
Yet Daren’s collective experiences weren’t a waste. They helped him continuously level up as an artist, step by step. And when it came time to shoot his television show, he now found himself directing a crew of thirty-eight people, by far the biggest group he’d ever worked with up until that point.
Speaking of which…
Three :: I think you never know who’s watching. I’ve said this one before—and I’ll say it again.
Daren’s cinematic, slice-of-life videos on TikTok—created alongside his partner, Ava—gained him increased notoriety around the city. Most viewers enjoyed living vicariously through the duo, as they approached each day in the Big Apple with a sense of wonder. Others chafed, though, at the transplants’ audacity to label themselves “New Yorkers” after only several months (“No One Is Selling New York Harder Than This TikTok Couple” read a headline in New York Magazine).
I knew all of this going into our first interview with Daren. I also knew that he eventually left New York for Grand Rapids—a move he documented in his beautiful series Miles Away, which dropped on his new YouTube channel throughout 2024.
What I didn’t know was that people at NBC had been watching Daren’s TikToks as far back as 2021, something he mentioned in our conversation in January. And when the company started an “Emerging Artists” program to begin developing original, scripted series with creators, Daren was one of the top candidates.
There’s no tried-and-true path to making it as a creative person. Sure, some people get lucky when they’re young, whether it’s appearing in the blockbuster film or writing a song that rides the radio waves for months.***
But the ones who keep putting themselves out there, even when it would’ve been so much easier to just give up years ago? The ones who bide their time, gaining experience and learning from others while plotting and scheming for their own big move?
I may be biased, but I believe wholeheartedly that those are the people who foster a perspective worth sharing. And even when the light at the end of the tunnel feels so damn far away, you never truly know when (and where) someone might come calling.
Four :: I think I agree with Josh Hawley on something. Shifting gears a bit for the last two mini-essays, as there was a CNBC report that ran last week with this headline:
“Creators say they didn’t know Google uses YouTube to train AI”
Last year, I spent a considerable amount of time reporting on how tech companies were using YouTube videos to train their AI models. I found it interesting how whenever journalists would ask YouTube and Google why they weren’t taking harder stances against this practice, the companies’ executives would always kind of respond in a milquetoast fashion.
Not that it was some big secret, but my theory was that Google couldn’t come out super strong against content scraping…because they were doing the exact same thing. If they threw a fit, it would look quite hypocritical.
Now, it’s official. Google is using creators' content to build its AI tools. And if its hyper-realistic Veo 3 model is any indication, one day, the company might use it to replace human creators.
Does that news finally coming out actually change anything? Will creators care? Will audiences care? I’m not sure. I also don’t mean to take a glass-half-empty view on this. My alarm more stems from the belief that we (the collective we) don’t have to accept this, rolling over and letting it happen.
Josh Hawley, a controversial**** senator from Missouri, was quoted in the CNBC article saying this:
“The people who are losing are the artists and the creators…whose lives are upended.
“We’ve got to give individuals powerful enforceable rights and their images in their property in their lives back again or this is just never going to stop.”
I’m not sure if there were ever a more perfect time to use the following meme.
Five :: I think we don’t live in a bubble. You’re going to see us promote the new season of Creator Mag quite a lot over the next five weeks. That doesn’t mean we’re oblivious to what’s going on around the world right now.
Truthfully, I always struggle with what (and how) to communicate what we do during moments like the one we’re going through. At best, I wholeheartedly believe that our work—and the stories we tell—have high aspirations to be a force for good.
At worst, I hope that these newsletters, zines, and videos of ours can provide a small spark of joy when they arrive in your inbox, mailbox, and algorithms, respectively.
What I have learned over the years is that in order to get anything done, you need to focus. My ultimate, idealistic goals are to wield this platform we’re building to tackle issues like media literacy and social isolation. If we can play a small role within these broad buckets, if we can partner with the right people and organizations, I’ll know we’re on the right path.
It’s a long road where the goalposts are always moving. But we’re quite grateful that you’ve joined us for the ride.
See you on Thursday.
Thanks for reading! Shoot us a reply, comment, or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—we respond to them all.
* Annual subscribers will also begin receiving their copies that week! Save up to $35 off all four 2025 editions when you sign up for a subscription.
** For my young Zoomers out there: iTunes was this thing where you bought individual songs and albums. Yes, there was a time before streaming. Crazy, right?
*** Again, for my young Zoomers out there: The radio was this thing we used to listen to—what’s that? Nope, it didn’t have an algorithm. So they used radio waves and real humans to pick what songs to play…
**** Remember this?