In the vast landscape of YouTube, where content creators rise and fall, Dave Levene Jr. stands out as one of the first-generation YouTubers in Korea with over a million subscribers on his YouTube channel, “World of Dave.”

Levene’s entry into content creation is a tale of randomness and unexpected viral success. In 2013, a video he posted on his personal Facebook account for his friends to watch went viral overnight, reaching over 40,000 likes and thousands of comments. This unplanned foray of online content sparked a chain of comedy shorts, marking the beginning of Levene’s journey.

“I was really young at the time, so getting that kind of attention was mind-blowing. If you look back at (the videos) now, they're extremely cringe and really hard to watch. But at the time, people found it funny, so I just went off with that,” Levene, an American expat who has called South Korea home for over 15 years, said in an interview with The Korea Herald for the “Life In Korea” series.