Blippi

About

Blippi is a children's entertainment character created and portrayed by Stevin John. The character is defined by his colorful hat, glasses, suspenders and bowtie.

History

Following four years in the United States Airforce, Stevin John created Blippi, launching his YouTube channel on January 27th, 2014. According to Mashable,^[1] "He came upon the idea for Blippi in 2013 after spending time with his then-2-year-old nephew, who was hooked on YouTube videos featuring excavators or tractors set to background music. John decided to make his own high-quality educational kids channel."

Less than one month later, on February 18th, 2014, he uploaded his first video, "Farm Tractors." The video, however, does not feature the character. Instead, the video's runtime is devoted to tractors in use. Within five years, the video has received more than 446,000 views (shown below, left).

The following week, John released his first video to feature the character. The video, "Learn to Count MONSTER TRUCKS! Numbers 1-10," received more than 3.4 million views in five years (shown below, right).

In 2016, Amazon and Roku began carrying episodes of Blippi.

Four years later, Blippi published "Videos for Toddlers with Blippi | Learn Colors and Numbers for Children." The video received more than 119 million views and, as of December 2018, remains Blippi's most popular video (shown below).

Reputation

As of December 2018, Blippi has amassed more than 3.1 million subscribers and 2.5 billion views. Though most of the revenue generated from Blippi comes from advertising, the character's likeness also dons merchandise, including toys and clothing, and John also appears at meet-and-greets in character. CNN^[2] reported that John's empire makes more than a million dollars a year.^[3]

In a profile for Mashable, the writer praised Blippi. They said:

"After speaking with John, I feel reassured. My kids are glued to his videos for good reasons. They’re learning valuable things from Blippi -- they often point out excavators on construction sites, and they sing songs about shapes and colors, And that's the driving force behind the whole brand. John's a nice guy who wants to get young kids excited about machines and shapes, and I am fully on board with that.

Harlem Shake Poop

In winter 2013, before John made videos as the character Blippi, he released a video entitled "Harlem Shake Poop," under his former alias "Steezy Grossman," as part of a series of prank videos meant to disgust the viewer.^[4] The post followed the format of other Harlem Shake videos, featuring someone listening to the song before a hard edit to the same person dancing. However, in this version, the person listening (Stevin John) is sitting on the toilet, and when the video cuts, that same person is seen standing on the toilet bowl and defecating on another man.

The video, which has since been removed, inspired various reaction videos. On March 15th, 2013, YouTuber John Ortenberg published a video of a woman reacting to the video. the post received more than 48,000 views in six years (shown below, left). About three weeks later, YouTuber adaisbeckfordg posted a reaction video. The post received more than 47,000 views in six years (shown below, right).

On February 13th, 2019, the video resurfaced in a piece by BuzzFeed News. In the article, John takes credit for the video. He says, "Yes, I did make a gross-out comedy video when I was in my early twenties, long before I started Blippi[…]At the time, I thought this sort of thing was funny, but really it was stupid and tasteless, and I regret having ever done it. I’ve grown up a lot since then, and I trust people will see me as the person I am now, not the idiot I was back then."

In the article, due to a cease and desist from John's lawyers, BuzzFeed was unable to showcase the video and instead published an artist's rendering of the clip.^[5]

Search Interest

External References