In 2018, Peet Montzingo was hopping fences to get inside VidCon. He was convinced an invitation would eventually come. Last year, his face appeared on the billboard outside the venue. This June, he is back as a Featured Creator, with 40 million followers and a new book in progress.

Peet is the only average-height member of his family. His mother, father, brother, and sister are all what he describes as little people, a fact that placed him in media view from childhood and shaped what he makes and why. The Los Angeles-based creator has built a following across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube by blending humor, sincere family storytelling, and a consistent thread of disability advocacy. He is also a musician who spent years touring internationally with the band 5WEST, a children’s book author, and the CEO of Ginger With A Soul LLC. 

This month, he participates in events ranging from a creator pickleball tournament to a blind karaoke showcase at VidCon Anaheim. He had been inside before, but not by invitation. “I used to literally hop the fence and sneak into VidCon,” he says. “It’s a full circle.”

From the Fence to the Billboard

The first time Peet received a formal invitation as a Featured Creator, he called his mother. They cried together on a FaceTime call. As for his face on the billboard? 

“This is unreal,” he says of seeing it. “I still feel like I have imposter syndrome being where I am today.” 

Events like VidCon function as the corrective: proof that the community behind the follower count is real. “It just reminds me that we’re all a community,” he says.

For Peet, the specific value of showing up in person is feedback that posting alone cannot replicate. “When it’s like theater, you see all the people clapping and cheering,” he says. “I feel like that is our equivalent to having the audience there.” He admits that approaching these events, he sometimes worries about how recent videos have been received. The worry, he says, usually dissolves quickly once he is inside.

What Landed, What Shifted, What’s Still in Progress

When Net Influencer last spoke with Peet in late 2024, he was in motion on several fronts: a music push anchored by a single called “Paranoia,” a potential re-release of his children’s book “Little Imperfections,” and a docu-series centered on his sister’s disability rights case.

The music landed. “Paranoia” is out, and Peet has since stepped back from releasing new singles to spend more time in the studio and focus on video content. The book re-release gave way to a new project, a children’s title called “Noah and the Never Pretenders.” He still hopes to translate “Little Imperfections” into multiple languages.

Photo credit: @natejensenphoto

The docu-series proved more complicated. It advanced far enough that a production company entered the picture, with plans to reframe it as a reality show. Then it fell through.

“Long story short, it didn’t end up panning out,” Peet says. “So now I’m looking for a producer again.”

He is not discouraged. Projects in his orbit tend to shift shape rather than disappear. He acknowledges that ADHD plays a role in how he navigates the flux. “It’s easy for me to get really excited about something and then pivot to something else when something doesn’t work out,” he says. “And then I’ll come back.”

Advocacy at Scale, Without Getting Absorbed

Advocacy is not separate from Peet’s other content. It is built into the premise. The challenge, at the scale he now operates, is keeping it there without watching it get diluted by trend cycles or audience fatigue.

As platforms have expanded, he says, they have opened genuine space for authentic voices. “I think it’s allowing people the opportunity to actually speak with their true voice,” he says. “Authenticity is actually so meaningful … more than it’s ever been.”

But the counter-pressure is real. Creators who post consistently about disability rights or representation face concentrated hostility alongside support. “People love to hide behind their phones and computers, so they’ll give you a lot of hate,” he says. The pattern, he observes, leads some creators to abandon advocacy content in favor of safer formats. His prescription is the opposite.

“You have to stick with it,” he says. “You have to figure out how to integrate it all.”

On whether the Creator Economy is producing genuine progress in disability representation, Peet is both clear-eyed and patient. “This is the first time in history where a minority group, like dwarfism, for example, can be put on a pedestal in the most authentic way,” he says. The contrast he draws is with earlier media formats. “It’s not like 10 years ago when we were watching a reality show, ‘Little Women: LA’, or people are fighting and throwing glasses at each other,” he says. “It’s not like we’re seeing the little people in the movies who are just stereotyped.” Progress, he insists, is happening. “I think it’s just such a slow process,” he says.

On the Content Treadmill He Admits He’s On

Peet does not pretend to have solved sustainable output. Ask him directly whether he gets pulled into the content treadmill, and his answer is brief. “I’m definitely pulled into the content treadmill,” he says.

His response is not to escape it, but to develop a longer view. He has watched creators spiral during brief posting gaps, convinced their careers have collapsed. He used to respond the same way. “So many people spiral so fast because they’re like, ‘My career’s over,'” he says. “I used to be like that for years when I started, and then I just kind of realized, after a while, people just kind of know who you are.”

Content comes first because it has to. It is, as he puts it, his bread and butter. Music and publishing follow, but he resists concentrating too heavily in any single lane. “I always hate to put all my eggs in one basket,” he says.

His creative decision-making is ultimately intuitive. There is a team, and the team helps shape direction. But below that, the final filter is harder to name. “It just comes down to something that I can’t even put my finger on,” he says. “It feels like a vibe or a feeling.”

What He Tells Creators Who Are Still at the Fence

VidCon draws a steady stream of aspiring creators each year, many of them at roughly the stage Peet was at when he was finding gaps in the perimeter. He knows what to tell them.

“Lean into the thing that makes you different,” he says. “Lean into the thing that people make fun of you for, that you hate yourself for. Understand that those maybe aren’t weaknesses, they’re just strengths. It’s a perspective. And if you really hone that strength, then that is probably the thing that can move mountains and change the world.”

The advice mirrors his own trajectory. The things that set him apart from childhood, growing up as the only average-height member of a little-people family, visible in ways he never chose, became the foundation of everything he has built since. That his presence at VidCon has grown from fence-hopper to billboard face is, in his telling, proof of concept.

He arrives at VidCon this June with a new book in progress, a docu-series still looking for the right home, and one item on his unofficial schedule that has nothing to do with content strategy. He plans to find the rumored secret basement beneath the Anaheim Hotel and has already decided his mother is coming with him.

“She’s never explored a haunted place before,” Peet says. “It’s time.”

VidCon is taking place in Anaheim from June 25 to 27 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Follow this link for more information.

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