Photo byEnis YavuzonUnsplash
Trevor Martin started making YouTube videos at 14 years old in his basement. Now 29, Martin is employed full-time as a YouTuber.
A dog lover, Trevor got his Golden Retriever Cooper eight years ago after moving to Orlando. Like most Golden Retrievers, Cooper is a friendly, high-energy dog. As a content creator, Martin saw a way to leverage that to create more fun videos.
He soon created a series titled “Super Cooper Sunday” in which he and the dog have adventures, like going swimming, paddle boarding, or trying out new dog toys.
Over the months, Cooper began associating Martin’s camera with playtime and would get excited every time it would come out, whining, panting, and writhing around.
Soon Martin added a greeting at the beginning of the videos: “What’s up guys, and welcome back to another episode of… Super Cooper Sunday!”
Hearing those words, Cooper goes nuts, jumping around excitedly. He loves the camera, playing, and hamming it up. Cooper was born to be a celebrity.
For 8 years, Cooper and his human companion have barely missed a Sunday. The two have done anything you could possibly think of on the series – gone boating and thrown pool parties, testing automatic ball throwing machines, and even tried out a dog park in an NFL stadium.
Along the way, Trevor and Cooper have been joined by Trevor’s fiance Chelsea Kreiner and her Great Pyrenees, Koda. The couple also adopted a cat named Bella.
All of this would be just a heartwarming story until you look at the popularity of the series. Each video they release generates hundreds of thousands of views, with some earning over 1 million views.
A video where Trevor and Chelsea try to ignore Cooper for a day to see how he’d react has 1.4 million views to date.
Another video where they fill their pool with ball pit balls for Cooper to play with has 1.4 million views.
There’s no doubt that Trevor’s hard work and Chelsea’s sweet sincerity are a big part of the series’ success. However, the animals, Cooper in particular, are really the stars here.
It’s hard to figure out what type of income would be generated by sustained success of this magnitude. Internet reports vary significantly, citing Martin’s net worth as anywhere from 6 million dollars to 110 million dollars.
However, there’s no denying that Cooper has set his owners up well, with a large house in central Orlando as well as a brand new wave rider boat. The two also take luxury trips to tropical locations around the world – the latest one to the Maldives where they got engaged.
Fortunately, creating videos doesn’t feel like work to Cooper. He loves it. Apparently, it pays to get your pets comfortable in front of the camera.
