

Right around when I was graduating high school, I discovered that there was an actual community around exploring abandoned buildings, and that there was even a name for the hobby: urban exploration. I would see all these old buildings and huge decaying factories and be captivated by them, because it was so different from any of the scenery I had growing up in Florida. Michael: My interest in abandoned places goes back to my childhood, when I would visit my dad’s side of the family, who lived in the rust belt. How did you get involved in exploring abandoned areas? What made you decide to launch a YouTube channel? Tubefilter: Looking back at some of your older videos, it’s clear you came onto YouTube knowing you wanted your channel to be about abandoned sites. Originally, it was just going to be a variety channel with a focus on photography, but we very quickly found a niche with abandoned places. We just wanted something that would be catchy and memorable. The truth is, we came up with the name before we even knew what we were going to post on our YouTube channel. TPP: One day we saw a sign on a building we wanted to explore that said “ACCESS PROHIBITED EXCEPT BY THE PROPER PEOPLE”–and ever since then, we decided to call ourselves The Proper People…Actually, though, that’s just an explanation for the name we came up with retroactively. Tubefilter: Where did your channel name come from?
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We switched our majors at school to film, and began using what we learned there and our added free time to really bring the YouTube videos to a whole new level. Once the channel began to gain traction, we soon realized this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I also had a part-time job repairing cell phones. We were both engineering majors, so we had a lot of schoolwork, and the YouTube channel was put on the back burner for a while. We started the YouTube channel pretty early in our freshman year of college, just as something fun to do. We grew up in the same town, just down the street from each other. Tubefilter: Tell us a little about you! What did you do in ye olde days before YouTube? How did you meet?īryan: Michael and I met in grade school. It’s been a long journey, and we want to thank our viewers and supporters for making this all possible. Our videos require a lot of travel and production effort, and many of the places we were able to document would not have been possible without our viewers. The Proper People: Reaching one million subscribers has always been something that seemed impossible or so far away. Tubefilter: How does it feel to hit one million subscribers? What do you have to say to your fans? But for those that are lost, The Proper People’s channel is a living memorial of the majesty that once was. Not all sites Bryan and Michael visit are endangered.
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Among the dozens of sites they’ve documented for viewers are abandoned movie theaters, a Chinese “ ghost city” left to rot after its developer ducked out, asylums, factories, mines, a boxing arena, and a Disneyland knockoff. The Proper People put out at least one video per month.

That doesn’t mean their videos are sparse. That incident is one of the reasons why Bryan and Michael sometimes visit sites and take footage only they will ever watch. After they uploaded their video about it, the site was broken into and vandalized now its security is so thick no one can visit it. Once, in 2016, they explored an abandoned nuclear power plant. But as their channel has grown–now to more than one million subscribers–being on the platform hasn’t always been a bright experience.

YouTube is their full-time job, and a way for them to instantly share what they enjoy with viewers. Nowadays, they view their videos as a kind of digital preservation, a way to keep sites alive after they’re gone. and eventually the world, they began to feel not just awed by but protective of buildings they visited. As the their adventures took them to more locations around the U.S. They originally intended to use YouTube to casually document explorations of abandoned sites in their home state of Florida. In the years since they–longtime friends who collectively go by The Proper People–joined YouTube, that’s become their mission. What they can do, though, is preserve those sites on film. Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top Stories Subscribe
