SNAKES, TANKS AND PRANKS: This 27-year-old college drop-out travels the world turning other people into YouTube and Instagram stars
Greg Baroth became known as the guy that helped make party-animal socialite Dan Bilzerian Insta-famous. Baroth no longer works with Bilzerian but he helped capture (and sometimes thought up) some of Bilzerian's most popular stunts.
Turns out, Baroth's love and experience with reptiles is a great asset for his chosen career. Here he is with Finnish prank star Jukka Hildén. They are hanging with a 16-foot 150-pound reticulated python. Baroth is perfectly happy having a massive snake draped around his neck.
The python is one of several huge snakes visiting Hildén's house. "Jukka wanted to swim with snakes. He has a nice house in Beverly Hills with a pool," Baroth says. So Baroth contacted famous reptile man Brian Barczyk who brought the snakes.
Here's the video of Hildén and Jake Paul (Logan Paul's brother) swimming with multiple giant snakes.
Baroth also helped Jake Paul and Brian Barczyk prank YouTube stars "Team 10" by bringing snakes and other reptiles over to roam the house.
It's not always snakes. Here's Logan Paul holding an alligator snapping turtle when he and Baroth visited Prehistoric Pets, a reptile pet store in the L.A. area.
These days Baroth is often helping Verne Troyer with his social media life. Troyer challenges pro athletes to video games in a YouTube series called "PWNED!". Here they are with Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown. Behind the scenes: Brown showed up with an ESPN camera team in tow. They were shadowing him that day documenting his social media adventures.
The "PWND!" show is also how Troyer wound up hanging out with Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller. Baroth took this photo.
The best way to get a good viral video is to do a collaboration with another social media star, who can help get viewers for it, Baroth says. Do enough viral videos and you will become a YouTube/Insta-star. The trick to going viral is to think up a great, but easily do-able prank. For instance, they dressed Troyer up as a baby, put him in a stroller pushed by YouTube star Roman Atwood ...
... look closely. Troyer is vaping. TMZ covered the prank, catching the surprised look on people's faces as they walked around town and people noticed the baby was smoking. "Vern is definitely a lot of fun," Baroth says.
Meanwhile, here's Baroth, setting up for the prank and on his phone, as always.
One of his most famous bits happened back in 2013 when Baroth took a photo of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wearing a Darth Vader mask next to model Katherine Webb. They were all on the set for the short-lived ABC show called "Splash." Abdule tweeted the photo and the tweet went crazy. Lesson learned: famous + funny = viral.
More recently, Baroth found himself spending a weekend at a place called Weed Island with his client, who goes by "BigMIke" on Instagram. He's the CEO of a company that makes fertilizer for marijuana plants (and has an Instagram a lot like Bilzerian's). "BigMike took me on a private jet with a bunch of models." The landed in Oregon where famous weed grower Ken Estes has cultivated giant marijuana plants on a private island in a manmade lake. You can imagine the resulting photos.
If you can't imagine the photos, here's a link to BigMike's instagram.
Here's another shot of Weed Island.
It's not always private jets around the US. One day Travel Channel food star Adam Richman called up Baroth and a few days later whisked him off to Portugal. Here they are sampling the famed Portuguese cherry liquor Ginjinha. It's very sweet.
Or there was that time when music star Steve Aoki invited him to a backstage performance in Melborne, Australia. Baroth was determined to be one of the first people in Melborne with Snap's Spectacles, which had just came out in pop-up spots. He failed to get one by standing in line in Venice Beach but managed to buy one off of someone on Craigslist. Aoki loved them and ...
...later, wore them onstage.
And here's Baroth hanging with Wiz Khalifa during a music video shoot. Baroth helped Khalifa's photographer procure a video drone and got invited to the shoot as a thank you. That's another trick of the trade: Network like crazy with everyone and always be available to do someone a favor. Also be available on a moment's notice to jet off someplace fun. (That's one reason why he's always checking his phone.)
Sometimes, a video goes viral through luck though. For instance, Baroth took Troyer to a Wolf Sanctuary ...
...where they filmed Troyer interacting with the wolves to raise awareness ...
And Jimmy Kimmel surprised them by showing a satire version of the video on air. (Scroll to 0:52 to see the joke.)
But you don't have to be huge celebrity to live a YouTube dream. One of Baroth's favorite projects was helping travel vlogger Jax Austin, who "quit his job, and sold his belongings and bought a school bus. He's converted it to be completely livable," Baroth said. He helped Austin find an PR agency and together they convinced Virgin Mobile to help sponsor his trip. Virgin put an ad wrap on his bus. "His plan was to drive around the United States in it and that's what he's been doing," Baroth says.
Here's Jax Austin living his dream life.
Baroth certainly isn't the only one making a living procuring snakes, tanks and drones for wanna-be social media stars. Other people have also made this their career charging anywhere from $500/month to $5,000/month (and big social media agencies can charge up to $10,000 a month), he says. The upshot is: If you have a great film-able idea, with some help from a professional social media guru, you can become Insta-famous yourself.
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