Dave Disci in Conversation with FAULT Magazine
Dave Disci
Dave Disci is a YouTuber who vlogs primarily about K-Pop. Now with 279k followers on YT alone, Dave set up his channel in 2014 but only really exploded into prominence once he started releasing K-Pop content in 2017. Videos covering and reacting to BTS news rapidly racked up views, but alongside that came a hasty introduction to the intensely passionate K-Pop fandom. Dave Disci soon became the recipient of online hate from individual ARMY (hardcore BTS fans) – something that he still deals with today from stans of the various groups and personalities he covers. That said, the abuse he receives from “haters” is balanced out by the compliments he regularly receives from engaged fans of his channel and, in releasing new videos regularly, it’s good to see that Dave refuses to be discouraged in his work.
We caught up with Dave Disci to discuss his career so far, how to tow the line between creating provocative vs offensive content, and what advice he’d share with new or existing creators looking for a fresh angle.
FAULT: Looking through your old YouTube videos, it looks like you’ve always seen content creation as a career rather than a hobby. You can really see how your style and tone evolves over time: your early experimentation seems to have given you the feedback and platform you needed to build a successful channel. Is that a fair assessment?
Dave Disci: Absolutely. In the early days, I think that I was hoping one day to have a career as a YouTuber, and it was definitely experimental. I don’t think I had any strategy or any idea what I was doing. I actually had a friend who straight up told me that my videos sucked and my energy on camera was not as good as it could be. We would literally practice vlogging at full voice in public to get over feeling uneasy about talking to a camera. And now, of course, I am no longer nervous to vlog – whether in public or my own apartment.
In that early stage, there were obviously a few successes and a lot of things that just didn’t gain traction. Was that ever discouraging to the point that you considered giving up? Or did it just serve to make you more determined to succeed?
So, my channel started around 2014 and, actually, a little bit before then – I think around 2011 – I had a different channel to which I was uploading pretty consistently as well. But neither channel was even starting to gain any traction. As in, every video would just get, like, 50 views and then the views would slow down or just stop altogether until closer to about 2017. So for about 6 years I was doing videos not only for free but without anyone really watching them.
And so, yeah, it was very discouraging for a really long time to see that I was uploading weekly, almost, and there were no results. I wasn’t really growing, but a lot of my friends and people around me were blowing up and I didn’t really know why. There were so many times I wanted to quit, but there was this voice in my head that kept saying over and over again, “If all these people around me are doing it, then I should be able to do it too.”
And I think that [persistence] is a very important lesson to learn. If I didn’t have a bunch of YouTubers or creator friends around me, I probably would’ve given up much sooner because I probably would’ve thought that it was impossible to do it. But seeing all of my fellow creators do it made me realize that it was probably just a matter of time before I got my chance.
You’re a prolific creator, recording and releasing new videos every day or two. K-Pop is a fast-paced industry, and the fandom is always hungry for new content, but do you ever find it hard to motivate yourself to cover the same or similar stories surrounding the same characters so regularly?
First off, thank you, that means a lot to hear. The motivation has come and gone, but probably not so much about the stories or the topics. The stories and the topics have been very easy for me to talk about. I’ll talk about things from different perspectives and I have always been very passionate about the community surrounding K-Pop. And even more so in terms of being an advocate against some of the horrible things that can be said by that community.
Motivation is hard to come by on days where I’m just having a bad day. Let’s say something bad happens the day before, like I just had an argument with a family member and I don’t really feel like sitting there and filming a video. That’s where discipline comes in, and it becomes part of my normal day-to-day now to sit down and do the research, and all of that stuff, and make a video. And if I’ve been having a bad day, I just go through the motions.
It’s so hard to get the tone right with published material: you want to invite conversation around your content but, often, fans can be so protective over their idols that saying the wrong thing (or even the right thing the wrong way) can lead to major recriminations. How do you get the balance right? And have you ever got it really badly wrong?
Yes, this is something that I struggle with a lot at this point in my career. I’ve been doing this for so long, I really just don’t care about what other people say. Because a lot of times the community will take what one hater will say at face value and just run with it, without them doing any research themselves. And some people even end up sending death threats over something they don’t fully understand. To be blunt, you can’t really argue with those types of people – the ones who have already made up their mind. They look at me, they don’t like my face, and they already assume that I’m a bad person. It just takes one hater taking something out of context and then it pushes the rest over the edge to attack.
I’ve also learned the hard way that things that are seen as normal, or as not a big deal within Western culture, or just in general online, can be a big deal within K-Pop. That’s very difficult. Often what I like to do is put the rumors or the allegations against the specific celebrity I’d like to address in the titles of my videos. Within my videos, if people want to watch them, you’ll see me kind of break down and debunk the rumor I’ve mentioned in the title.
I’ve spoken to lawyers and several other people who are in the same industry as me, and they all tell me this is what every new site does. So what’s the big deal? Why are people so angry about this?
Of course, there are times when I make a mistake and I do fix it. But, at the end of the day, if I know that or I feel like I’m doing the right thing, and I know people around me are saying that I’m doing the right thing, then I will just kind of ignore everything else that anyone else might be saying.
Who or what inspired you to do what you do? Are there any creators who have inspired you and/or your particular approach?
When I first started the K-Pop stuff, I was doing a mix of some of the creators that I had grown up watching and then adding it into the K-Pop world – which I found out very quickly that people did not like! Some of that included the raunchiness of Jenna Marbles. As well as the randomness of Ryan Higa. They were all my inspirations growing up.
When did you start working with Algebra Media, and how have they helped your career to date?
Algebra has always been really great to me. They are very boutique and small, but they definitely are very good at what they do. I started working with them in, I think, April 2020. They reached out to me. I was looking for an agency that could help with sponsorships and brand deals and that sort of stuff. Around that time, they said that they probably could do something with me, and they’ve been able to get me a lot of sponsorships and endorsements for the channel.
From your Instagram page, it looks like you’re slowly trying to move away from creating exclusively K-pop related content and diversifying into other lifestyle topics (particularly in NYC). That’s obviously an enormously competitive space: are you actively trying to differentiate yourself to cut through the noise or is it more a case of living your life and seeing what happens?
This is a very interesting question and I’m not entirely sure of the answer. When I started thinking of other avenues to go into, it was because I knew that I didn’t necessarily want to deal with the rabid community that comes with K-pop for the rest of my life. I was debating what to do and what content to make. Because at the end of the day, it’s not the K pop content itself that I dislike, but often the craziness that comes with the fan culture. I also sat there and watched how the K pop commentary genre had changed a lot, and I really didn’t feel like I had a huge space there any more – if I ever even did.
So I was doing a lot of different content. I was doing restaurant reviews, I was doing true crime… I pretty much tried whatever genre I found interesting! True crime really took off, but that was a little bit difficult because the content got pretty graphic, so it wasn’t safe for social media. Restaurant reviews were way too competitive – I definitely couldn’t do it. But then I found a mix where I wanted to combine the creepiness and the scary parts of true crime into the daily news. The result is a flavour of video that I think is very enticing, one that builds suspense, is creepy and also very interesting to watch.
You’ve done a couple of interviews and collaborations on your YT channel recently. Who would you most like to interview and/or collaborate with and why?
I would love to interview more K Pop idols and trainees on my page – I really want to continue doing that. I think there is a story there that hasn’t been fully told yet, and people are still very interested in seeing the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. So if I can get an opportunity to meet up with any of those people – they don’t even have to be super well-known, just if they’ve done something within the K-pop industry – then I would love to interview them for my page and give them another platform to speak out on.
Any advice for new content creators trying to break through?
Similar to what I was doing with my early or later content that’s different to K-Pop: I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck, and mixing different genres to create something that felt new and different. That’s an approach that I would definitely recommend to other people – not just those starting out as a new creator but even if you’re looking to pivot.
My FAULT is my struggle with self-doubt. As a creator, I often question the validity of my ideas, which can lead to hesitation in sharing my work. However, this fault has pushed me to seek feedback and grow, transforming my insecurities into a source of strength that fuels my creativity.