Marques Brownlee

Marques Brownlee
Personal information
Born (1993-12-03) December 3, 1993
Maplewood, New Jersey, U.S.
Nationality American
Residence Hoboken, New Jersey
Occupation Youtuber, Tech Blogger
Height 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)[1]
Website mkbhd.com
YouTube information
Years active 2007–present
Subscribers 4,013,129
(November 30, 2016)
Total views 524,272,310
(November 30, 2016)
Subscriber and view counts updated as of November 30, 2016.

Marques Brownlee (born December 3, 1993), also known by his stage name MKBHD, is an American video blogger, best known for his technology-based YouTube channel.[2][3] The channel, a concatenation of MKB (Brownlee's initials) and HD (for High Definition),[2] has over 3.9 million subscribers and over 510 million total video views.[4][5][6] In August 2013, Vic Gundotra, the former Senior Vice President, Social for Google,[7][8] called Brownlee "the best technology reviewer on the planet right now."[2][3] During one of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary debates that was cosponsored by YouTube, Brownlee asked the candidates a question by video about whether tech companies and the government can find a middle ground over encryption while considering rights to privacy and national security.[9]

YouTube career

MKBHD joined YouTube on March 17, 2008. He first started uploading technology videos in January 2009, while still in high school, about new products, or reviews of products he already owned.[6][10] He says his first 'videos' were screencasting where he would post an image and just talk over it, then responded to requests from viewers of what they would like to watch.[10][11] His first several hundred videos were primarily hardware tutorials, and freeware.[2] He was later approached by companies to demonstrate their paid software and hardware, but only reviews products that would be of interest to his audience of technology enthusiasts.[2] He is noted for responding to viewers' feedback about what questions they have, and features they want explained, as well as demonstrating a "deep knowledge of the products he discusses, and his understanding of what his audience wants to learn."[12] His reviews are often timely, coming out the same day or soon after for anticipated products. He is arguably best known today for his content about hand-held devices. As of December 2015, his channel has gained over three million subscribers,[5] making MKBHD the most subscribed-to 'tech-based' YouTube channel. On average, Brownlee uploads one video per week. The channel receives an average of 2,000 subscribers every day (as of July 2016).[13]

Brownlee's reviews have been promoted by other review sites as well. Engadget promoted the site in January 2012 when they featured his tour of the then-new cloud based storage service called Insync[14] In November 2013, one of Brownlee's most viral videos was posted based on the LG G Flex.[15] He performed various scratch tests to portray the self-healing ability of the device.[16] The video hit a million views on the first day. As of September 2015, the video has gotten over 5 million views.[17] In December 2013, Brownlee did an interview with Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside.[18][19] In May 2014, Brownlee did the first over-the-air interview with Evan Blass, also known by his previous name, evleaks (Evan has since retired from leaking various photos of unreleased gadgets, hence this title being dropped).[20]

Marques Brownlee's most popular video (in terms of views) is a review and scratch test of a rumored 4.7 inch iPhone 6 front glass component, uploaded July 7, 2014. The video gained immediate popularity, being featured on sites such as The Verge, Forbes Tech, HuffPost Tech, CNET, and Time Magazine. The video appeared on NBC news, and in newspapers across the world. As of August 2016, the video has gained over 8.5 million views on YouTube and has had over 50,000 ratings. Brownlee also has a similar video regarding a dummy model of the iPhone 6, uploaded a couple of months earlier, which (as of August 2016) has since gained over 7 million views on YouTube.

In December 2015, Brownlee did an interview with Kobe Bryant, the professional NBA basketball player, and uploaded the results, titled "Talking Tech with Kobe Bryant!" in which he talks about Tech interests of Kobe and the most recent Kobe designed Nike shoes, the Kobe 11.

Personal life

Brownlee, an African-American, grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey. He attended Columbia High School, and studied as part of the Howe School at Stevens Institute of Technology.[6][21] He majored in business and information technology.[2][3] Brownlee graduated from college in May 2015 and became a full-time YouTuber. Other than producing content, he plays golf, and is a professional ultimate frisbee player on the New York Rumble, which is a part of Major League Ultimate.[22] Brownlee was previously on the now-folded New Jersey Hammerheads, a team belonging to the American Ultimate Disc League.

Brownlee has been a resident of Hoboken, New Jersey.[23]

Middle name

Some speculation has existed for what the "K" in MKBHD stands for. Many names have been suggested including, more recently by the Youtuber Tquo,[24] Kumar. However, Brownlee has since denied that his middle name is Kumar.[25] He confirmed this for the second time and explained how the misconception came about on November 4, 2016 in a video titled "Ask MKBHD V11!" posted on his channel.[26]

References

  1. ↑ Marques Brownlee on Twitter: "@Harindu_Hippola I'm 6'3"". Twitter.com (February 27, 2013). Retrieved on 2016-11-05.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "New MKBHD Video is live! I spend a lot of time in thought for this one – I…". google.com.
  3. 1 2 3 Michael Fisher (October 25, 2013). "Pocketnow VIP, episode 3: meet Marques Brownlee from MKBHD! – Pocketnow". Pocketnow.
  4. ↑ Marques Brownlee. YouTube.
  5. 1 2 "Marquesbrownlee YouTube Stats, Channel Statistics - Socialblade.com". socialblade.com.
  6. 1 2 3 "Howe Student's First Million: Tech Reviewer's YouTube Following Reaches Major Milestone". stevens.edu.
  7. ↑ Raymond, Scott (August 24, 2011). "Google+ real name clampdown ignores own grace period". ZDNet. It should be pointed out that Vic Gundotra is the Senior Vice-President of Social Business at Google.
  8. ↑ "Management team". google.com.
  9. ↑ "CHS Grad Marques Brownlee Asks Question at Democratic Debate". The Village Green. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  10. 1 2 The Tato Show: After Hours – Episode 2 "We will also have a very special guest, Mr. Marques Brownlee who runs the YouTube channel MKBHD. "
  11. ↑ Wei, Will (November 21, 2014). "How A 20-Year-Old College Student Became 'The Best Technology Reviewer On The Planet'". Retrieved December 17, 2014.
  12. ↑ "Recording Artist: Stevens Student's Tech-Focused YouTube Channel Draws Millions of Viewers". stevens.edu.
  13. ↑ "VidStatsX". July 22, 2016.
  14. ↑ Insync: Wave 'Bye, Bye, Bye' to Dropbox, Daniel Cooper. January 4, 2012.
  15. ↑ Hands-on with the G Flex, LG's first curved smartphone Brad Molen. November 26, 2013.
  16. ↑ "MKBHD Goes Hands-on With LG G Flex Self Healing Back, Even Takes a Knife to it". droid-life.com.
  17. ↑ LG G Flex Self Healing Demo by Marques Brownlee.
  18. ↑ "Motorola CEO talks about Project Ara, wearable devices, and Moto X". Android Authority.
  19. ↑ Motorola's modular phone prototype is almost ready, final product might be sold on Moto Maker Sean Buckley. December 7, 2013.
  20. ↑ This website is for sale! – evleaks Resources and Information. Evleaks.at (May 23, 2014). Retrieved on 2016-11-05.
  21. ↑ Eisenhood, Charlie (August 22, 2013). "Ultimate's Most Famous YouTuber Is Not Who You Think". Ultiworld. Archived from the original on March 18, 2014. Retrieved March 18, 2014.
  22. ↑ "Marques Brownlee –". mlultimate.com.
  23. ↑ Yu, Roger. "20-year-old YouTuber is tech reviewing star", USA Today March 3, 2015. Accessed September 5, 2016. "Sitting in his bedroom in Hoboken, N.J., in June, 20-year-old YouTube tech reviewing sensation Marques Brownlee held a secretly leaked iPhone 6 screen up to a camera and began stabbing repeatedly at its supposedly indestructible glass surface."
  24. ↑ 10 Things You Didn't Know About Marques Brownlee from MKBHD. YouTube (August 15, 2016). Retrieved on 2016-11-05.
  25. ↑ MKBHD – Timeline. Facebook. Retrieved on November 5, 2016.
  26. ↑ First Video and Pixels: Ask MKBHD V11!. YouTube. Retrieved on November 5, 2016.

External links

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