Ryan Trahan is attempting one of the most difficult challenges YouTube has seen in years.

Surviving on a penny for 30 days? That's nuts.

Did you guys want to buy some soda for me or?

No, thanks.

And then I wanted to take a step even further and post the videos in real time every day for 30 days.

What do you think about that?

Yeah, crazy Americans.

Over the last year, he's found massive success by stripping the challenge format down to its bare essentials.

22 million views, 13 million views, 11 million views, 10 million views.

It's been crazy. It's been awesome.

Let me get into it.

Just to run through some of the videos you've made since we last interviewed you, I survived sensory deprivation that has 12 million views.

100 days in the metaverse has over 20 million views.

I confronted Dr. Phil, 6.7 million views.

I spent 100 days in Grand Theft Auto, 6.5 million views.

This feels like a completely just like explosion for you since the last time we interviewed you.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been insane.

I feel like in the past, I was not even acknowledging the idea of what the viewer wanted.

And even what I wanted, it was almost like, okay, I run a YouTube channel and I should do this because the people at the top are doing it.

Meaning like retention is a primary focus exploiting CTR in any way possible to get like as many views as possible.

And it's crazy.

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