Sam Denby (born March 17, 1998) is an American YouTuber, best known for creating the edutainment YouTube channels Wendover Productions, Half as Interesting, Extremities, and the travel competition show Jet Lag: The Game.
Across all of Denby's channels, he has accumulated more than 1 billion views and more than 7 million subscribers.
2010
Created in 2010, Denby's primary channel is Wendover Productions.
that channel has over 4.42 million subscribers and more than 674 million total video views.
His videos most commonly feature the topics of logistics, most notably those of aviation, as well as geography, economics, and military.
The Wendover Productions video about tourism in Iceland received significant attention from Iceland's national newspapers.
Wendover Productions is based in Aspen, Colorado.
2013
The show was nominated for Best Editing at the 13th Streamy Awards.
All air travel on the show is carbon-Offset by a multiple of 10 via Gold Standard carbon credits.
As of October, 2023, the channel has over 540 thousand subscribers and more than 40 million total video views.
The episodes were released on Nebula one week earlier than YouTube, causing large spikes to Nebula's usage traffic.
On August 25, 2023, Nebula announced that they had appointed Denby as their chief content officer.
Nebula's CEO stated, "the process for developing Nebula Originals should be creator-led, so we turned to a creator with a solid track record for format development across production styles and genres to lead the charge on content as we continue to expand our Originals slate for Nebula."
Denby also holds a minority stake in the content distribution platform.
Denby was born and raised in Washington, D.C..
2017
Created on August 26, 2017, Denby's second YouTube channel, Half as Interesting, creates videos that detail curios in comedic style.
The launch of Half as Interesting marked a definitive end to the Wendover channel covering entries from a Wikipedia list of unusual articles, also known as "That Wikipedia List.” As of January 7, 2024, the channel has 2.54 million subscribers and 397 videos, which have gained over 551 million views.
He covers many topics on this channel as on Wendover Productions, including geography, economics, military, and aviation, but with a greater focus on short-form content delivered in a sardonic style.
2018
In 2018, Denby stated he had been living in Edinburgh, Scotland, for the past two years for university studies at the University of Edinburgh.
he was studying international business.
He has said that he has also lived in Rennes, France and Sydney, Australia.
2019
In June 2019, Denby created a scripted podcast called Extremities about the logistics of living in the world's most isolated and populated locations.
The show's format has since been modified into short documentaries exclusive to the streaming service Nebula with the same concept.
Denby's YouTube channel Jet Lag: The Game hosts a travel competition show created by Denby and Half as Interesting's writers, Ben Doyle (the son of writer Larry Doyle) and Adam Chase.
Inspired by The Amazing Race, the season usually consists of four players (with the fourth player being another YouTuber).
2020
As of 2020, Denby stated he has lived in Colorado, somewhere around Aspen.
Through Standard, he became a minority owner in the streaming service Nebula in 2020.
