Brent Austin Rivera (born: January 9, 1998), (formerly MrBrent98), is an American YouTube vlogger who was well-known for uploading 6-second-videos using the now-defunct app, Vine, when he created his account back in 2013 and had over 8 million followers at the time.
His YouTube channel has earned over 30 million subscribers. He was also extremely popular on Vine, where he earned over 8 million followers. In 2019, he began hosting the web series on Awesomeness TV: Dream Vacation, where he took his friends on a dream vacation to Europe, visiting new places and friends. Brent Later realized that he dreamed of being an actor when he was cast to play the role of Alexander in the film Alexander IRL. Brent played the role of a high school student who threw a party to become one of the cool kids.
The producers picked Brent since he appealed to the age bracket that the movie targeted. According to the show’s director, Asher Levin, Brent was also the perfect candidate to play the role of a high school boy. Levin called Brent a superstar of the future while speaking to Bustle. The idea was to bring someone like Brent, who has a tremendous reach with people 12-18 and above, to get them to watch one of these movies. Brent allowed us to have a whole captive audience. Brent enjoyed the experience, but he had to adapt to the lengthy process of filmmaking. Brent later starred in the shows Brobot and Light as a Feather.
In 2016, Brent teamed up with Hollister on their anti-bullying campaign. The campaign was close to Brent’s heart because he had experienced bullying on his online platforms. Brent was involved in spreading awareness and raising money for the cause. Rivera elaborated that the bullying he experienced was worse during the early days of his career. However, he chose to stay strong and because of that, he became successful.
History[]
He now posts weekly on his YouTube channel, which has grown extremely popular in recent times and His content mainly involves pranks and challenge videos. Rivera usually involves other YouTubers, friends, and members of his family in his videos. His sister, Lexi, known as Alexa Rivera appears in most of his videos as well as his friends.
In 2020, he created a group known as AMP World, consisting of himself, his sister Lexi Rivera, Ben Azelart, Dominic Brack, Jeremy Hutchins, The Stokes Twins, Pierson Wodzynski, and Lexi Hensler.
Brent created his YouTube channel in August 2009 but didn't upload anything until May 2012 where he started to get recognized in the YouTube scene.
Personal life[]
He has two brothers, Brice and Blake, and one sister, Lexi.[1] His parents are named John and Laura. Rivera always dreamed of being an entertainer, and he started acting when he was 10.
In middle school, he dated Liv Swearingen, who eventually joined AMP World in 2022 after making a guest appearance in one of his videos in 2021. He was in a relationship with Morgan Justus in 2017. He dated Eva Gutowski in 2019, but they decided to stay friends. He briefly dated friend and fellow youtuber, Pierson Wodzynski. They never officially confirmed there relationship but it was alluded to for content. Rivera admitted in a video on the official Amp World channel, he thought of Pierson as more than a friend. Pierson later confirmed they briefly dated during an episode of "The Good Boys" podcast in 2023.
Controversies[]
Content theft[]
Brent Rivera was accused multiple times for copying famous YouTubers like MrBeast, Airrack, and Ryan Trahan. He had copied many thumbnails from other YouTubers and sometimes the whole content itself.[2] In one of his Tiktok videos, Joshua Slavin revealed how Rivera plagiarized his food critic video without his consent, replicating the narrative of the former's video beat by beat.[3][4][5]
Hotel encounter with Tyler Oliveira[]
On January 24, 2023, Tyler Oliveira released a YouTube short of his visit at the Stanley Hotel and his encounter with Rivera and his team. He was filming his video, OVERNIGHT IN THE WORLD'S WEIRDEST HOTELS, prompting Oliveira to question to validity of his content after finding actors in costumes. Rivera and his crew became very belligerent towards him, due to Oliveira trying aggressively to inform viewers that most of Rivera's content is staged. Oliveira was eventually escorted off the hotel by police despite having payed to stay the night.[6]
Following the upload of the YouTube short and an extended video, the incident has sparked divided reactions among viewers of both creators[7], with the backlash leading Rivera's video to accumulate over 700,000 dislikes.[8] On February 16, 2023, Rivera posted a TikTok response explaining his behavior to his audience[9], but his statement drew further criticism for discrepancies between his claims and his behavior in Oliveira's original video.
False copyright claims[]
On January 16, 2023, Ryth made a video where he talks about Brent Rivera (or his management) striking his videos. He brings up the controversy where Spizee striked multiple of Veshremy's videos for bullying him. These videos fall under fair use. He still hasn't responded to this and still hasn't removed the strikes as of January 24, 2023.
Following the height of the drama between him and Tyler Oliveira, this garnered more YouTubers criticizing Brent Rivera's actions. On late Feburary 2023, Rivera (or his management) began issuing takedown notices several other YouTubers such as Dumpy for their videos. Despite Dumpy's attempts to reach out to Rivera, he would end up being blocked by his TikTok and Twitter handles. Eventually, YouTube responded by ruling in Dumpy's favor that he will not be recieving any strikes.
This further gained backlash by Rivera's critics that called him out for abusing YouTube's copyright takedown system despite these videos falling under fair use. This also caught the attention of Penguinz0 and Keemstar, who adressed Dumpy's situation. On February 21, 2023, Rivera contacted Dumpy and apologized in a DM message. Despite telling Dumpy that his team will not be striking down his videos going forward, Rivera has yet to resind his previous takedown notices.
He would also comment in Dumpy's video discussing their messages, even paying him off with a $400 Superchat comment in consolation.[10] However, Dumpy refused to accept his apology for Rivera's failed attempt to take down his channel.[11] Furthermore, the copyright strike was not removed on his channel after several weeks until it had expired, which also garnered criticism for Rivera.[12]
Channel milestones[]
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
Subscriber milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: March 9, 2015
- 2 million subscribers: May 29, 2016
- 3 million subscribers: July 28, 2017
- 4 million subscribers: June 27, 2018
- 5 million subscribers: September 29, 2018
- 6 million subscribers: December 12, 2018
- 7 million subscribers: February 13, 2019
- 8 million subscribers: April 21, 2019
- 9 million subscribers: July 19, 2019
- 10 million subscribers: October 12, 2019
- 11 million subscribers: January 15, 2020
- 12 million subscribers: April 4, 2020
- 13 million subscribers: June 15, 2020
- 14 million subscribers: September 13, 2020
- 15 million subscribers: January 21, 2021
- 16 million subscribers: May 21, 2021
- 17 million subscribers: December 1, 2021
- 18 million subscribers: April 26, 2022
- 19 million subscribers: June 5, 2022
- 20 million subscribers: July 15, 2022
- 21 million subscribers: September 4, 2022
- 22 million subscribers: November 8, 2022
- 23 million subscribers: December 23, 2022
- 24 million subscribers: January 10, 2023
- 25 million subscribers: January 31, 2023
- 26 million subscribers: April 13, 2023
- 27 million subscribers: July 9, 2023
- 28 million subscribers: November 26, 2023
- 29 million subscribers: January 22, 2024
- 30 million subscribers: March 23, 2024
- 31 million subscribers: April 19, 2024
- 32 million subscribers: May 3, 2024
Video view milestones[]
- 1 billion views: April 4, 2019
- 2 billion views: March 25, 2020
- 3 billion views: February 13, 2021
- 4 billion views: April 2, 2022
- 5 billion views: October 13, 2022
- 6 billion views: March 19, 2023
- 7 billion views: November 2, 2023
- 8 billion views: June 8, 2024
References[]
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD3pkPaW96A
- ↑ https://x.com/dabidoYT/status/1648941973032808449
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBVWVOIUb3w
- ↑ https://www.tiktok.com/@slavinjoshua/video/7161002249911635242
- ↑ https://www.nickiswift.com/1511415/brent-rivera-youtube-star-most-controversial-moments/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wh-VcIgXkRE
- ↑ https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/brent-rivera-apologizes-after-confrontation-with-youtuber-over-fake-pranks-in-viral-video-2064856/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cGUkpa2WNc
- ↑ https://www.tiktok.com/@brentrivera/video/7200514153218313515
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddoYagfIPjM&lc=Ugxl-d8UFdQGYSMKfnJ4AaABAg
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddoYagfIPjM&lc=Ugxl-d8UFdQGYSMKfnJ4AaABAg.9mQkUSmtjOX9mQm_lenzqc
- ↑ https://twitter.com/BowblaxVideos/status/1633203227079606272