Influencer
After Almost a Decade on Screen, Kaido Lee Roberts Is Writing His Own Script
A fan once told Kaido Lee Roberts that they had nearly pulled the fire alarm at their school because of something his Dhar Mann Studios character Mischief Mikey had done. Kaido’s response was quick. “The whole premise of Mikey was to not do what Mikey was doing,” he says.
For a 16-year-old who has spent nearly a decade playing someone else on screen, that single anecdote captures a tension he has spent the last two years actively working to resolve.
Kaido is an actor, TikTok creator, singer, and media personality whose professional career began before most of his peers had a phone. Best known as “Mischief Mikey” in Dhar Mann Studios’ viral scripted series, Kaido built a parallel identity as a social media creator over the last year and a half, one where his TikTok content now averages over one million views per post.
This month, he arrives at VidCon Anaheim 2026 as a featured creator for his fifth consecutive year, carrying a schedule that includes an emcee role, a podcast booth on the convention floor, a live performance, and back-to-back creator interviews.
“I have a lot going on,” he says.
Separating Kaido from Mikey
Playing a beloved character for nearly nine years comes with a specific kind of visibility problem. Mikey, the mischievous kid at the center of Dhar Mann Studios’ scripted moral scenarios, is defined by qualities Kaido doesn’t recognize in himself. “He doesn’t really pay attention to the other people around him. He gets what he wants. He’s kind of selfish,” Kaido says. “And he robs banks. I don’t do that.”
When he built his social media presence, the goal wasn’t just growth. It was a distinction. “When I hear, ‘Oh, you’re Kaido, it’s Kaido, oh my gosh, hi,’ it makes me happy because they don’t see me as Mikey. They see me as a completely different person.”
His content across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram is personal: boxing sessions, cars, time with friends, and collaborations with other creators. The categories are chosen to make the real person visible rather than optimize a niche. “I love cars. I love hanging out with my friends. I love meeting other creators. I love boxing, working out,” he says. “That’s what I want them to see.” The message he wants to convey through all of it is direct: “kindness, courage, and to be social.”
A Fifth Year at VidCon
Kaido first attended VidCon as a fan. He returns this year as a featured creator with a full week of programming built around his name. That distance is not lost on him. “Every time that I went to VidCon, it’s been like a super positive and exciting adventure,” he says.
This year, he is emceeing “Crown the Creators,” the convention’s competitive game event, a role he describes as being “practically just an audience member with a microphone in my hand,” calling the action for creators and crowd alike. He is also running “Run It Back with Kaido,” a reactions and podcast format set up on the convention floor, and hosting a separate interview series from an upstairs booth. Planned guests include FGTeeVFamily and Brent Rivera.
On Friday evening, he is performing a Justin Timberlake cover at the awards ceremony. The performance replaces a blind karaoke appearance he had originally been scheduled for. Kaido pulled out deliberately: he has original music releasing later this year, and performing in an improvised karaoke setting didn’t fit where his music career is heading.
What the Meet and Greet Teaches Him
The Thursday (June 25) morning meet and greet is, for Kaido, as much a listening exercise as a fan moment. He pays close attention during these sessions. “I love hearing my fans’ stories,” he says. “That helps me figure out, okay, this is what they like. So this is what I need to keep posting.”
The fans he meets have followed him long enough to recount specific moments from their lives. They quote Mikey episodes. They describe watching his content before school. For Kaido, those exchanges run directly into content decisions. “They’ve been following me, they’ve been supporting me. They’ve helped me get to where I am right now.”
He approaches fan interactions with a particular posture, one he applies consistently. “I’m just another person that makes content that you watch,” he says. “I don’t think of you as lesser. I think of you as an equal.” It’s the same openness he brings to VidCon itself, where other creators remain a source of ideas rather than competition. “When we’re together, we brainstorm and make ideas,” he says. “I love learning new stuff from them.”
The Collaboration Strategy Behind the Numbers
Kaido’s TikTok posts average one million views. When asked what’s working, he doesn’t point to format or trend cycles. He points to other people.
“My YouTube, my TikTok, and all that are doing well because I collab with tons of other creators,” he says. “When I’m with those other creators in the TikToks, that helps bring my content up. That’s what people love seeing.”
The approach compounds with consistency rather than replacing it. “You have to be really consistent on TikTok to be able to maintain and grow your page,” he says. “When you stop posting for two or three days, your viewers go down, and TikTok stops pushing your video.”
Jet House, the creator collective and lifestyle brand he founded, is currently on hold. It began as “a collaboration between another company and me,” with an original vision of a global content network where creators would travel together to new locations. His schedule made the concept impossible to execute. “We will definitely do something with it soon,” he says.
A Year That Doesn’t Slow Down
By the time VidCon ends, Kaido will be deep into a year that may be the most professionally consequential of his career. He has two scripted series in production: one confirmed for Netflix, and another called “Gifted.” Original music is being released later this year. A six-city national tour runs from October 3 through October 25, with stops in Detroit, Chicago, New Brunswick, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, where he plans to perform, run fan challenges, and sing.
A clothing line under the name “Kaido” launches in September at Old Navy and other major retail chains. He is also joining the advisory board of a new series called “The Vault,” connected to Stan Lee Productions, where he will contribute to scripts and production structure.
At VidCon, an augmented reality installation in partnership with a company called Shot House will let attendees put on headsets and interact with a virtual version of Kaido in their environment, a format he describes as one where he could appear to step out of a viewer’s closet to perform a song or music video.
Finding the Audience, Finding Himself
When Kaido imagines a VidCon panel with his name on it, he lands on a topic that maps precisely onto his own professional arc. He would call it “Finding Your Audience and Finding Yourself,” framing it as a session on storytelling and making your life familiar to your audience. The content would trace the distance from Dhar Mann actor to social media creator, a journey that spans nearly nine years.
What he wants attendees to take from that story is direct. Help your audience understand what is happening in your life beyond your social media accounts: the hobbies, the interests, the personality that doesn’t fit inside a scripted scenario.
“That’s what my audience loves,” he says. “I feel like that’s what I would teach the people on my panel to understand.”
At 16, Kaido is still forming his own answer to that question. But he is asking it publicly, which is, for a creator, most of the work.
VidCon Anaheim is officially taking place on June 25-27, 2026 (with early registration kicking off on June 24) at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Follow this link for more information.
Cover photo source: dharmann.fandom.com
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