Mark Rober
Mark Rober took his engineering degrees and his nine years with NASA and created a science design YouTube channel that over 28 million subscribers are following. His December 2018 video "Package Thief vs. Glitter Bomb Trap" went viral and as of August 5, 2021, had over 86 million views. This video has been featured on national media news outlets such as CNN and New York Post. He has created Glitter Box 2.0 and 3.0 videos that have millions of viewers. His "Exploding Glitter Bomb 4.0 vs. Package Thieves" has over 25 million views as of July 2022.
His videos typically receive more than 10 million views each. For a time his channel held the YouTube title for the highest average views per video for an individual creator.
Some of questions he explores on his YouTube channel include How best to survive a grenade blast? Would you sink or float in a pool full of 25 million Orbeez? How do you beat the odds at carnival games? He has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! several times. On July 14, 2022, he was the guest host of the show, announcing there that his YouTube channel has 22 million followers.
He even tackled international scam call centers, sending their headquarters an epic glitter bomb. He infiltrated four scam call centers. With the help of authorities, and other YouTubers, he shut down the scammer’s offices and saw 15 executives arrested for their roles in the scam. His 2022 YouTube culminating video about the scammers netted 84 million views.
- Rober didn’t talk until age 3 or 4, and, by his own admission, he was spacey. “Everyone just thought I was really dumb,” says Rober. In fact, when he took his first standardized test in the third grade and scored off the charts, his mom was in disbelief, he recalls. “She was like, ‘There’s a mistake. This is definitely not my son.’”
- It’s not that she wasn’t proud of him. “I grew up creatively encouraged,” says Rober, crediting his mother, who celebrated and snapped pictures when he nailed together two wood blocks and called it a violin or donned swim goggles to cut an onion.[1]
Rober earned his bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University and his master's degree from University of Southern California. For seven of his nine years with the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, he worked on the Curiosity Rover.
In 2011, he came up with a viral Halloween costume that had 2 iPads, one in front and one in back, that made it look like he had a hole through his stomach. The video with the costume went viral, with 1.5 million views in one day. He founded a company called Digital Dudz (a line of smartphone-based Halloween costumes) in his free time while working at NASA and sold it to Morphsuits in the United Kingdom. He quit his job with NASA and worked for that company for two years as chief creative officer.
He worked with Apple, although his work is confidential, and he left in 2019 to pursue YouTube full time.
“I don’t fit the typical engineer mold, but they are my people. I speak their language,” says Rober. “I also have the mind and humor of a 12-year-old. . . . It’s a beautiful combination.”[2]
"He’s using his megaphone to be a teacher and an advocate. He’s taken on issues like climate change and deforestation—rallying the internet to plant 20,000,000 trees along the way." And in early 2021, "he released a video on the cause dearest to his heart: his son’s autism."[3] In the two TED talks he has given, he talks about failure and not concerning yourself with setbacks. “Failures,” he adds, “are opportunities to make successes mean more.”
He is getting his teaching credentials, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, he live-streamed classes and launched an online Monthly.com course, which he teaches a few times each year.
He has been working on a series called "Revenge of the Nerd" with Jimmy Kimmel that will air on the Discovery channel in 2023.[4]
In 2022, Rober was nominated for six Streamy awards including creator of the year. He won four awards: creator for social good, collaboration, science and engineering, and Streamys Brand Awards: brand engagement.
He also launched CrunchLabs, where he shows kids how to think like an engineer. Subscribers are sent a monthly build box.
Rober teamed up with YouTuber MrBeast (James Donaldson) and started #TeamTrees, a collaborative fundraiser that works to plant trees globally. The initial goal was to raise US$20 million to plant 20 million trees. The goal was met, and the trees were planted. The effort is ongoing, with US$24,527,940 raised as of December 14, 2023. They then formed #TeamSeas to crowd source the removal of trash in the planet's oceans, especially the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. As of December 14, 2023, 33,531,978 pounds of trash have been removed through two non-profit organizations.
Rober is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
