Robert Carpenter has built an online following by filming candid street interviews with students at Brigham Young University and other religious campuses, clips that often mix humor with cultural curiosity and have become a recognizable feature of his channel. Yet beyond the viral moments, Robert sees himself as both a drummer and creator seeking to merge two creative paths into a sustainable career.

He grew up “basically outside of Chicago,” splitting his time between practicing his percussion and watching creators. “The two biggest things in my life were playing drums and watching YouTubers like FaZe Clan,” he says. He remembers coming home from school to binge their videos and feeling as if he were part of their world, a feeling that pushed him to start posting his own.

He began with drum covers on YouTube around 2018, when short-form wasn’t yet the default format. Those first uploads “did horrible… absolutely atrocious,” Robert says, but he kept going. The first hint that social platforms might carry him further came in the summer of 2019 when a TikTok he posted reached 20,000 views. “At the time, my views were so bad that 20,000 was like, whoa, this is a big deal. So I leaned into it.” By 2022, he had fully pivoted to interviews.

From the start, Robert wanted this work to be his livelihood. “All I want to do in general for a career is make videos for social media and then play the drums,” he says. 

Touring, sessions, and online videos were all on the table, and he planned to integrate his musicianship into his content rather than keep it separate. “It’s part of me … I am, technically, a professional drummer, and I’m going to be leaning into that.”

The Accidental Niche

Robert’s now-familiar focus on interviewing Latter-day Saint (LDS) students was, in his words, an accident. In January 2023, friends from his high school drumline who attended Brigham Young University (BYU) invited him to Utah. He shot a few “random videos” on campus, and they became “my best videos for the rest of that year.” He returned in the fall and doubled down. “Whatever I see that works, I lean into it,” he says.

The response cemented a niche he hadn’t expected. He acknowledges that he often looks for LDS participants and related settings. He recently filmed at the LDS General Conference in Salt Lake City, speaking to members “with the actual name tags on.” 

Not everyone appreciates his content, and, by his own admission, he is now banned from BYU. He also interviews at Utah Valley University and at Christian schools such as Liberty and Bob Jones. “I’m banned from BYU, but I’m not banned from UVU,” he adds, explaining why he diversified locations while keeping similar lines of questioning.

The turning point was a payment notification. “It was either September or October 2022. I looked at my phone and I saw that Facebook had paid me $4,000. So I was like, this is real.” That proof of income made the creative path tangible, and not long after, he moved from small-town Illinois to Los Angeles on the strength of social video.

How He Works: Control, Speed, and Scrappiness

Robert’s process is fast and largely solo. “I just come up with the questions on the fly,” he says. 

He shoots with a phone on a tripod, edits every video himself, and has struggled to delegate. “I’ve tried to hire editors. They just piss me off. I edit all my videos. I control everything.” On outreach, he relies on a mix of agencies and his own prospecting. “I just bought LinkedIn Premium. I feel very bougie.”

He is keenly aware that watch time drives performance, so he cuts for pace and carries audio across jump cuts to keep viewers immersed. “I’m very hyper attentive about how short people’s attention spans are; watch time is everything for TikTok, YouTube, all these platforms.”

Volume for its own sake isn’t his approach. “I’m not a fan of approaching as many people as possible,” he says. Instead, he reads for approachability and quick consent. 

His opener is simple: “Would you like to be in a viral TikTok interview?” He looks for people who are unlikely to “snitch on me to security,” and says he now prioritizes “the chillers.”

Robert doesn’t hide that interviewing around faith can create friction. “It’s in the gray area. I’ve had people approach me and say that they hate my videos,” he says. He emphasizes that his goal is not to “make their faith be seen in a negative light,” but to make valuable, funny videos. 

“People can believe what they want to believe,” Robert stresses. “I want to make funny videos. And the funny videos happen to be centered around that faith for the most part.”

What Performs, What Doesn’t

When it comes to formats and which works best, Robert doesn’t hesitate. “It’s really just the Mormon interviews,” he says, adding that attempts to interview other groups often “just flop.” 

He also experiments with culture-specific bits, such as NCMO, a slang term for “non-committal makeout session,” and wants to weave his own music into those concepts. “I’m basically pitching songs that people would make out to, and one of the songs that I worked on. I want to throw that song in and combine it into my vertical.”

He’s also pressure testing edgier prompts. One he’s planning to stage asks, “Would you rather have a sip of alcohol or kill a puppy?” Next time in Utah, he intends to bring both a bottle and, via a friend, a puppy as props to force an on-the-spot choice in front of the camera.

The revenue stack is diversified. “Every platform pays me except for Instagram,” Robert says. “TikTok is usually my biggest bag. Facebook’s paying me pretty nicely. Snapchat pays me too. YouTube pays me.” On the brand side, he pointed to a recent partnership with Stake and ongoing agency outreach, supplemented by his own outbound because he doesn’t like “to wait around.”

Setbacks, Reframing, and Long-Form Goals

Robert is frank about dry spells. “My relevancy has plummeted” on TikTok recently, he says, noting a lack of fresh posts over the summer and months of reposts while school was out. 

Recognition remains high in Utah, which he cites as evidence that his videos still circulate locally. To build a sturdier moat, he’s aiming for longer YouTube videos while staying active in short-form, where he’s most fluent.

He measures success differently than he did a few years ago. Early on, hitting monthly income targets meant survival and independence. Today, the goalposts include the YouTube Silver Play Button and a deeper bond with viewers. 

“Followers” matter less than “three mil views on every video,” he says, reflecting a market where brands value attention more than static counts.

A Broader ‘Robert Universe’

For Robert, a throughline in the conversation is expansion. “I’m trying to expand my whole universe. ‘The Robert Universe,’” he says, listing ideas from interviewing swingers at a Salt Lake City country festival to exploring other belief communities and sharpening running bits such as the alcohol-or-puppy prompt. 

He is also building a drum recording studio in Los Angeles and wants to integrate original music into videos, sessions, and touring.

Robert’s confidence in combining hustle from social media with a drummer’s work ethic shapes his outlook on the music business. Many musicians, he argues, wait for gatekeepers. He prefers self-reliance. “Relying on other people slows you down,” he says, adding that with his new studio and creator mindset, he expects to compete aggressively: “I’ll just be able to absolutely slaughter everybody else that’s a drummer.”

Street interviews have sharpened his communication and resilience. He describes learning to push through low-motivation days, especially on self-funded trips. “There is often a moment where a switch flips in my head, ‘Okay, let’s just go,’” he says. The format also helped him practice conversation as an introvert and learn to adjust on the fly when early attempts “did not pop off.”

The Vision: Two Worlds, One Career

Robert’s ambitions span social video and music. “My goal ultimately is to be a David Dobrik, a Logan Paul, a FaZe Banks, an Aiden Ross, a Kai Cenat,” he says, quickly noting he doesn’t aspire to the absolute top tier of fame. 

In the same breath, he lists Travis Barker, Chad Smith, and Josh Dun as drummer models. “I want to make these two worlds connect,” he says.

When it comes to what’s next for him, Robert concludes that he is “looking to innovate, expand, and implement, whether that means integrating the music or having a standalone thing. I’m figuring it out.”

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