Sam Denby
Denby in 2023
Personal information
Born (1998-03-17) March 17, 1998[‡ 1][‡ 2]
Washington, D.C., United States
NationalityAmerican
OccupationYouTuber
YouTube information
Channels
Years active2015–present
GenreEducational entertainment
Subscribers
    • 4.22 million (Wendover Productions)
    • 2.48 million (Half as Interesting)
    • 527 thousand (Jet Lag: The Game)
    • 164 thousand (Extremities)
    • 56.6 thousand (Sam from Wendover)
Total views
    • 623 million (Wendover Productions)
    • 566 million (Half as Interesting)
    • 37 million (Jet Lag: The Game)
    • 1.56 million (Extremities)
    • 726 thousand (Sam from Wendover)
Website
100,000 subscribers2016
1,000,000 subscribers2018
Last updated: July 16, 2023

Sam Denby (born March 17, 1998) is an American YouTuber, best known for creating the edutainment YouTube channels Wendover Productions, Half as Interesting, and Extremities, and the travel competition show Jet Lag: The Game. Across all of Denby's channels, he has accumulated more than 1 billion views and more than 7 million subscribers.

Career

Wendover Productions

Created in 2010, Denby's primary channel is Wendover Productions. As of December 28, 2023, that channel has over 4.38 million subscribers and more than 660 million total video views.[1] His videos most commonly feature the topics of logistics, most notably those of aviation, as well as geography, economics,[2] and military. The Wendover Productions video about tourism in Iceland received significant attention from Iceland's national newspapers.[3] Wendover Productions is based in Aspen, Colorado.[4]

Half as Interesting

Created on August 26, 2017, Denby's second YouTube channel, Half as Interesting creates "Education-y explainer videos that are almost good enough to watch". The launch of Half as Interesting marked a definitive end to the Wendover channel covering entries from a Wikipedia list of unusual articles, also known as "That Wikipedia List".[5] As of January 7, 2024, the channel has 2.54 million subscribers and 397 videos which have gained over 551 million views.[6]

He covers many topics on this channel as on Wendover Productions, including geography, economics, military, and aviation, but with a greater focus on short-form content delivered in a sardonic style.[6]

Extremities

In June 2019, Denby created a scripted podcast called Extremities about the logistics of living in the world's most isolated and populated locations.[7] The show's format has since been modified into short documentaries exclusive to the streaming service Nebula with the same concept.

Jet Lag: The Game

"It is a brutally exhausting show to film. Imagine a bad travel day where you end up waiting between flights on connections and going in and out of airports all day."[8]

Sam Denby

Denby's YouTube channel Jet Lag: The Game hosts a travel competition show created by Denby and Half as Interesting's writers, Ben Doyle (the son of writer Larry Doyle) and Adam Chase.[8] Inspired by The Amazing Race, the season usually consists of four players (with the fourth player being another YouTuber). The show was nominated for Best Editing at the 13th Streamy Awards.

All air travel on the show is offset by a factor of 10 via Gold Standard carbon credits.[9] As of October, 2023, the channel has over 540 thousand subscribers and more than 40 million total video views.[‡ 3] The episodes are released on Nebula earlier than YouTube, causing large spikes to Nebula's usage traffic.[10]

Nebula

On August 25, 2023, Nebula announced that they had appointed Denby as their chief content officer.[11]

Personal life

Denby was "born and raised" in Washington, D.C..[‡ 4] In 2018, Denby stated he had been living in Edinburgh, Scotland, for the past two years for university studies at the University of Edinburgh.[‡ 5]: 1:32  As of April 2018, he was studying international business.[‡ 6] He has said that he has also lived in Rennes, France and Sydney, Australia.[12] As of 2020, Denby stated he has lived in Colorado, somewhere around Aspen.[‡ 7][‡ 8] Through Standard, he became a minority owner in the streaming service Nebula in 2020.[‡ 9]

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Work Result Ref.
2023 13th Streamy Awards Editing Jet Lag: The Game Nominated [13]

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Youtube.com. "Wendover Productions - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
  2. ↑ Dudley, David (August 19, 2020). "Bad Trains, Explained". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  3. ↑ Hafstað, Vala (June 7, 2019). "Iceland's Tourism Explosion Explained". Iceland Monitor. Retrieved August 3, 2022.
  4. ↑ Reynolds, Jacqueline. "Film takes a deep dive into river issues". Aspen Daily News. Retrieved September 21, 2022.
  5. ↑ "TWL is back! (But not here...)". Wendover Productions.
  6. 1 2 "Half as Interesting - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved May 23, 2023.
  7. ↑ Scott, Richard (July 5, 2019). "'Extremities': taking you to the world's most isolated places" (Audio). Radio New Zealand. The Podcast Hour. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  8. 1 2 Anderson, Pearse (June 29, 2022). "This Travel Game Takes Connect Four to the Extreme". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved July 12, 2022.
  9. ↑ Griffiths, James (September 16, 2022). "Are travel-centric reality shows like The Amazing Race worth their carbon footprint?". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
  10. ↑ Rose, JSam (January 13, 2023). "Jet Lag: The Traffic". Retrieved October 8, 2023.
  11. ↑ "Nebula taps Wendover Productions creator Sam Denby as its chief content officer". Tubefilter. August 25, 2023. Retrieved August 25, 2023.
  12. ↑ WendoverProductions (May 5, 2020). "I've lived in Washin…". r/watchnebula. Retrieved December 31, 2023.
  13. ↑ Brant, Brian (August 27, 2023). "Streamy Awards 2023: Complete Winners List". People. Retrieved August 28, 2023.

Primary sources

In the text these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):

  1. ↑ Half as Interesting's Crime Spree (February 16, 2022). "We have no idea why he's using the ruler - 1. The chase begins". Nebula TV. Timestamp 1:00.
  2. ↑ "Crime Spree: The World's Most Illegal Game Show". Nebula TV. Half as Interesting.
  3. ↑ "Jet Lag: The Game - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  4. ↑ "We Raced To Visit The Most US States In 100 Hours". YouTube. Retrieved December 17, 2022.
  5. ↑ Denby, Sam (March 27, 2018). A Moderately Successful Face Reveal (Video). Sam from Wendover. Event occurs at 1:25. Retrieved April 6, 2018 – via YouTube.
  6. ↑ Denby, Sam (March 27, 2018). "Economics has too much math. I study International Business". Reddit. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
  7. ↑ "Life update: I've moved to Colorado Pictured: Skiing, a week ago". Instagram. Archived from the original on December 24, 2021. Retrieved December 19, 2020.
  8. ↑ "In case you didn't know, I'm a #influencer". TikTok. Retrieved February 23, 2023.
  9. ↑ How a Small Group of Creators Built a $150 Million Business (Video). Wendover Productions. June 15, 2023. Event occurs at 15:10. Retrieved June 15, 2023 – via YouTube.

Further reading

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