iDubbbz is a YouTuber who's been posting content online since 2013. Known for series like Content Cop, Kickstarter Crap and the Save the Squirrels Initiative, iDubbbz has recently been exploring documentary content, releasing full-length documentaries on creators including AirsoftFatty, Daxflame and Sam Hyde.
This year, iDubbbz has gone all-in setting up and training for his own influencer boxing event, Creator Clash, where he's set to take on influencer Doctor Mike on May 14th. We spoke with iDubbbz to talk about some of his most classic memes, learn about the ins-and-outs of influencer boxing and his inspiration going into the fight.
Q: Before we get into Creator Clash, let's talk about your origins. Going back to the very beginning, what was your motivation to start posting to YouTube
A: I think at the time I was watching a lot of gamers like PewDiePie, it seemed like that was a pretty good career path. Playing games, getting paid seemed like a dream job. So that's what I started out doing. But once I realized that there's a lot more I could do than just play games… and I also do suck at games, so it wasn't the ideal strategy for me.
Q: One of your most popular memes in our database is Hey, That's Pretty Good. What's the context behind that meme and what was your reaction to it going viral?
A: That's an odd one, because I can't even recall where that started. It might have been in a Filthy Frank video, or maybe one of Maxmoefoe's videos. But I just know that it's just such a common phrase that I've had people sending me clips of people on CSI and just random places where people say it. Vsauce Michael saying, "Hey, that's pretty good," or "That's pretty good." And people think it's a reference to me. And I'm like, "It's not at all. That's a very common thing to say." It's kinda funny. I like hearing every iteration of, "Hey, that's pretty good."
Q: Two other popular entries in our database are I Have Crippling Depression and I'm Gay. What's the context behind those and what's been your reaction to them?
A: Yeah, those were both filmed in Australia with my buddy Max. I think that was sort of when I was blowing up the most online and I don't know, that was the spontaneous weird content that we made. The "I'm gay" one is funny because Max… The whole context is out there for Max telling me to jump down and say something gay. And I don't know, it was just a lot of stupid fun back then. But yeah, hanging out with Max and Filthy Frank was certainly… Lots of interesting memes span out of that, for sure.
Q: Some of your most popular content comes from your collabs; who are your favorite people to collaborate with?
A: I'm really good friends with Maxmoefoe and HowToBasic, they're a lot of fun. Another person I'd like to hang out with a lot is William Osman. He's a little bit more local to me so I can hang out with him more often. But yeah, at this point, pretty much everyone on the Creator Clash boxing card I'm seeing pretty regularly and checking in, trying to film some collabs between boxing and stuff.
Q: Your content used to be classified as a lot "edgier" by people and you've kind of stepped away from that type of content more recently. Memes like "I'm gay" and "I have crippling depression" are sort of an extension of that past edgyness. Has your perception of memes like this changed since your content changed?
A: Yeah, it's all still fun. That is my past and I'm still hella open to doing and saying more controversial or edgy stuff. But right now it's just sort of just taking life a little bit more seriously with what I'm doing online. And I got to worry about other things these days. I'm open to it. I think it's all good fun. A lot of people, I would say on our card right now are kind of in that phase of their career where they're just going off through either live streaming or making super interesting videos. So they're always saying crazy off the cuff stuff which I'm a fan of.
Q: What are your favorite memes these days? Do you have any recent run-ins with memes?
A: To this day, I'm still getting Rickrolled. I was trying to start a new series where people would send me clips from their Ring door bells or their neighborhood websites. I was thinking it could be really cool to have this ongoing series where I'm seeing what the hell is going on across neighborhoods in America, and people… Man, I got Rickrolled so many times. It was such weird phenomenon in 2021, getting all of these clips sent to me of Rick Ashley, I was like, "Man, this is strange." But yeah, I would say nothing in particular really. I'm not too heavily involved in meme culture right now.
Q: You're also largely known for series like Content Cop, Save the Squirrels and Kickstarter Crap. What was your favorite series to film and why?
A: I like them all for different reasons. I think the Save The Squirrels initiative I really like because I wasn't relying on too much other than what was in my backyard, what I had available. It was very uninvolved with other creators. I wasn't calling anyone out or dissecting a Kickstarter projects. It was very unreliant on other people. So I kinda like that for that reason, but I love the Content Cops. It's a lot of fun to have that huge of an impact on the online landscape with everyone reacting and tweeting. It's kind of crazy.
Q: So, when did you first get into influencer boxing?
A: Here's an interesting story. Do you know TheOdd1sOut? I messaged him something, I think back when the first Jake Paul boxing thing got started, I guess it was Jake, Logan, KSI, all of that. And we both were in the mindset of like, "Oh, this influencer boxing thing, it's just a fad," and it's like, "Oh, they're falling off, they're just looking for some clout." That was the last message I had with James, basically saying like, "Oh yeah, he's just doing it for clout." Fast forward four years later, the next message I send James is, "Do you want to be in an influencer boxing event?" And I was just like, "This is so bizarre and weird." That was the only contact I've had with him for four years, but I'm a fan of it. I think it's good fun to see who shows up and doesn't.
Q: Who would you say is the most interesting name in influencer boxing right now?
A: I think Jake Paul's a very good boxer from what I've seen. It's a little bit unfortunate because a lot of his fights haven't really gone the distance, which I don't think shows off as much boxing prowess as some other people would say it does. Keemstar is crazy about people getting knock-outs and it is exciting for the casual fan, but I think once you can see someone go the distance, go the full how many rounds it's somehow exciting. Oh, another person who's really interesting is Salt Papi. He, I think, surprised everyone because he clearly had a boxing background. He was off on the Showstar Boxing event in the UK, but he was super fascinating to watch. Hopefully his next fight will be a little bit more even.
Q: The Content Cop you made on Ricegum influenced Creator Clash. Can you give us a rundown of the beef between you two and how it influenced the event?
A: I think initially RiceGum back in, I wanna say it was 2018, after making the Content Cop he was really keen to pivot that into a boxing thing 'cause he saw dollar signs. And at the time I had no reason to do it like a lot of creators. My excuse was pretty much, "Yeah, I don't know how to do that." But fast forward four years, he ends up DMing Anisa, my wife, asking for a boxing match and this time I was four years older and a little bit less, I would say, insecure and just kind of ready to dip my toes in something that was a little bit more risky or challenging. And that's how it started. We thought it was gonna be RiceGum but it ended up being Dr. Mike.
Q: Shortly before Creator Clash you released a documentary about Sam Hyde where the two of you, in one scene, box under a bridge. Did your run-in with Sam Hyde have any influence on Creator Clash or your interest in boxing?
A: I don't think his fans would believe me, but it was one of many things that he had planned for the documentary. And I don't know, we just did it for, I don't know, 30 minutes under a bridge and I was just getting pounded on. I can't say that that inspired me. What inspired me was like, "Hey, I could probably win against RiceGum, so let's do that."
Q: What do you think about Keemstar signing Sam Hyde onto his boxing management company, Happy Punch?
A: Keemstar really hasn't been able to deliver on anything as far as setting up a fight so far. So I just don't think much is gonna happen with that. It seems very a difficult space to navigate, I wouldn't wanna be in Keemstar's shoes. I wish him the best of luck; if he can make it happen, good for him.
Q: You talked a lot about wanting to fight a "nemesis" in the first stages of setting up Creator Clash; if you had to fight one nemesis besides Ricegum, who would it be?
A: : Definitely Keemstar. Definitely Keemstar. I'd sought out some other people, like you got Leafy. Not too many other interesting faces that I think people would be too excited about, but Keemstar, for sure. He's made such a name for himself online, that would be awesome.
Q: What is it that makes Doctor Mike such a good first opponent for you?
A: Dr. Mike is definitely the toughest option that I had going for me. He's the biggest person… He might be two inches taller than me, weighs more than me. Well, I think all of that is good news because it's gonna be more of a challenge, but he's just been super positive about the whole thing. He wants to do it for charity. He brings a whole different audience. There's zero overlap between my audience and his, which I think is fantastic. And he takes it seriously. If we wanna keep doing these Creator Clash events, I think this is a great way to start it off. So people will know that it's a serious thing.
Q: How did you get set up with Doctor Mike?
A: He had just been making videos about boxing for a while. He'd put out a video with him training with Ryan Garcia. He makes it pretty apparent that he's an athletic guy and that he likes boxing, so all of his fans and supporters, I think they were just telling him like, "Hey, idubbbz looking for an opponent. He's looking for an opponent." I think he just started casually. Maybe he tweeted it or something. And I was like, "I don't know if this guy is serious about it, but let's do it." I showed his videos of him boxing to my coach just to ask him if I should take on this fight or not, and my coach was like, "Yeah, let's do it. No problem."
Q: What is it that most of these influencer boxing events get wrong? What separates Creator Clash from the next influencer boxing event?
A: That's a really good question. I think the number one element is the mystery element. I think you gotta have new and interesting influencers coming into the space. You can't just keep having the same people and sort of just pivoting that into just a typical boxing promotion. I think you always need this mystery element because it's there for a reason, that's what's bringing in views. I think a lot of the time the intrigue in the event is how people are gonna perform. As far as other boxing events or boxing promotions and what they do wrong… the Show Star boxing event was a bit of a debacle. It seemed like they did things a little bit haphazardly. We're trying to avoid all that. It's our first boxing production, so I'm sure we're gonna have plenty of hiccups along the way, but I think even if we do have some hiccups, we've sort of stacked the card well enough so that even if some fights are a little bit wonky, there's gonna be a lot more fights for people to look forward to.
Q: There are a lot of interesting first time fighters lined up for the event; who are you most excited to see get in the ring?
A: Hundar and AB. They're gonna put on a good fight. Now that I'm seeing more of Ryan Magee and Alex Ernst, they're also a very exciting one. Man, I wanna be honest, all of the fights I'm looking forward to. I'm just really disappointed that I'm gonna be so anxious waiting for my fight to be at the end of the night that I won't be able to properly enjoy it live.
Q: There are a lot of interesting first time fighters lined up for the event; who are you most excited to see get in the ring?
A: Hundar and AB. They're gonna put on a good fight. Now that I'm seeing more of Ryan Magee and Alex Ernst, they're also a very exciting one. Man, I wanna be honest, all of the fights I'm looking forward to. I'm just really disappointed that I'm gonna be so anxious waiting for my fight to be at the end of the night that I won't be able to properly enjoy it live.
Q: You've got a really stacked commentary team too, including people like Cr1tikal, xQc, and Chills. What was your philosophy towards getting influencers to do commentary for the fight?
A: The lead commentator, Wade, he has pretty good experience and he's been doing YouTube for a while, so he kind of experienced, but he's experience in the YouTuber-boxing sense. He has a good combat sports background, so he's the perfect role for that. I just sort of fear that if we got any mainstream guys in there that do typical boxing events, they're gonna really not understand the purpose and the goal of it as much. And they might be a little bit too confused by some of our weird antics. But yeah, I would say a Chills is an interesting story. Chills was originally going to fight on the card. But he couldn't make it 'cause of injury, but we've always been a big fan of Chills. He's super funny. I'm sure you guys are super familiar with Chills. He's a mmee god. But yeah, the rest of them it was just me reaching out and saying like, "Hey, do you want to do this?" And not worry about whether the answer is yes or no. Charlie was super friendly and willing to do whatever we asked him to.
Q: What's your training regimen been like for the fight? Has there been anything that surprised you about training for a boxing match?
A: Yeah, it's hell. I'm not a fan of it. We're doing two two-hour sessions a day, five days a week, roughly. And not everyone's doing that. A lot of our fighters are doing half that, maybe a quarter of that. But yeah, it's exhausting. I didn't think it would be as exhausting mentally as it is physically. But sparring days I just get super nauseous and it's awful preparing. It's not even in front of 10,000 people or whatever, it's just me and the guys in the gym and I'm still a mess. It reminds me that I need to fully prepare for what we're stepping into, which is maybe hundreds of thousands of viewers at this point. We'll see.
Q: Are you going to keep training to take part in future Creator Clash events?
A: That's the plan. I guess we'll, maybe, let the audience tell us what they wanna see. I wouldn't mind being just a helpful element to the fighter, because I think that's a component that some of these influencer boxing events are missing. They'll be like, "All right, what influencers can we get to do this event?" And they don't help them out with training, how much they should be training, what equipment they need, where they should go, if their boxing coach is legitimate or not. So I wouldn't mind just going around and hooking up all the influencers with all that they need to be successful. But at this point I think all the hard stuff is behind me as far as getting to coach myself and everything. So I don't see why not. I'll take on the Pauls, the Mayweathers, the Furys. I'll take on Greg Paul. Yeah. Hell yeah.
Q: Would you say it's more difficult setting up an event like this or training for it?
A: They're both really hard. I don't know. I guess I'm more familiar with the setup of the event. It's a little bit more part of my wheelhouse. The physicality and training and all of that is just not something I'm super familiar with. So it's intense. It's for anyone who's played a competitive sport. I'm sure they get it, but it's all fresh and new to me.
Q: You're also working on a documentary on Creator Clash; what can you tell us about that?
A: The focus of the documentary is just highlighting all the things that the audience isn't going to be able to see when the event comes around. All of the people on the card have stories and really difficult times training for this event. I think everyone has really low points, whether it's a rough sparring session, or they just don't have enough time to train and they're feeling overwhelmed. For me, it was all of the above. There's a lot of sh*t to deal with, and I just wanna show people what happens behind the scenes. And I wanna show them the sparring that we've done leading up to the event, how tough it's been.
Q: Ultimately, what do you want people to take away from Creator Clash?
A: Just that we're here to have fun and pay respect to boxing. Boxing is very serious sport. It's dangerous. People die in boxing. So we want people to know that we're taking it as seriously as we possibly can. And that we're doing all this for entertainment and charity. And we just wanna raise as much money as possible for charity. And ideally, we can do it again next year.
If you want to see iDubbbz face off against Doctor Mike on May 14th, you can buy streaming and in-person tickets for the Creator Clash at thecreatorclash.com. You can follow iDubbbz on YouTube.
