3. Ben Gravy For the last three years, Ben Gravy researched and chased some of the smallest and most obscure waves in the country with one rule: it had to be a wave other people could surf. He surfed rivers, lakes, pools and oceans, and on August 12, he surfed the Alaska bore tide, checking off his 50th state.
When Ben first started surfing novelty waves, it wasn’t his mission to become the de facto novelty wave guy, he just had a good time doing it. The search and ensuing excitement of standing up on waves in obscure places is what fires him up. But as he surfed more of them, he saw his same elation reflected throughout the surfing community. Ben had stumbled onto something he loved and wanted to pursue, and the surfing community rallied around him. So he decided to surf a wave in every state. Along the way he met like-minded surfers, helped spread the sport to new places and filmed it all on his daily vlog.
Chasing waves is nothing new for Ben. He has been interested in two things his entire life: surfing and filming. Even before reaching the age of 10, Ben was filming himself, his brothers and friends doing Jackass-like stunts, skating and surfing. Ben grew his home movies into a popular YouTube channel coined NUB TV with almost 200,000 subscribers. The channel culminated in a 10-episode MTV show that was picked up, and then canceled just before filming started. At the same time, Ben seriously injured his knee filming a stunt and it served as a reality check for how he was leading his life. He became sober, started a daily vlog which has continuously grown over the years, and decided to focus his energy on spreading his love for surfing by bringing it to communities all over the country.
Ben’s goal is to inspire others to follow their dreams and to show it’s possible to achieve exactly what you want. But he doesn’t want to just show the highlight reel. For Ben, it's important that he is honest and transparent with his fans. Ben is living his dream but it still has highs and lows. He shows it all on his Vlog. He documents his daily life for others to see how he achieves his goals, and to hopefully inspire those watching to achieve theirs as well.
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