Brothers start real-life farming career after virtual farming fame. BY JOSEPH HOPPER
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rant Hilbert can’t stop thinking about farming. Younger brother Spencer Hilbert enjoys farm work. They’re a natural fit for life on the farm in Iowa, but their careers began working with tractors made of virtual polygons displayed on computer screens. Grant and Spencer are both successful YouTubers, creating video content viewed by more than 2 million people across the world. Grant was the first to start a YouTube channel, The Squad, in 2014 while he was a high school student at Ankeny Centennial. Spencer would soon follow, with Spencer TV in 2017. Both channels have cultivated an audience who eagerly follow along with their adventures playing farming video games. “A buddy and I wanted to start a YouTube channel. He was like, ‘We should start a gaming channel,’” Grant says. “I had played games like Call of Duty but I wasn’t into games that much. I ended up saying, ‘Okay, let’s take a business approach and try really hard at YouTube and making this gaming stuff successful.’” After some trial and error, Grant found his audience after making his first few videos playing the video game Farming Simulator on YouTube. When a $600 check from YouTube arrived in the mailbox, the youngest brother realized it could be a business opportunity. “Farming Simulator” features a virtual world which is highly customizable, featuring all sorts of environments, 8 | JANUARY 2024 | IASOYBEANS.COM
Grant Hilbert and Spencer Hilbert broke into a career as farmers through their skills making videos on YouTube. Today, they also share their experiences f rom the farm to the online video platform.
buildings, equipment and machinery. The end result is a blank canvas for a farmer’s wildest dreams to take place in-game. Both brothers agree: the farm-gaming audience always wants to see something new. “The hardest part is just thinking of ideas for the videos,” Grant says. “If I go out and just plant corn and harvest corn, it’s going to be super boring. You have to be creative.” With nearly 4,000 videos between Grant’s The Squad and Spencer’s Spencer TV YouTube channels, scenarios these virtual farmers face go beyond planting and harvesting. Videos range from restoring a classic pick-up truck found inside a barn to starting a secondary business like a lawn mowing service, and from becoming the world’s best backwards-driving grain cart driver to racing stock cars with farmer friends on a dirt track. The views and subscribers to the brothers’ channels continue to grow. It took The Squad two years to reach 15,000 subscribers, but after taking his YouTube work more seriously after entering Iowa State University, Grant grew his YouTube channel to 1 million subscribers by the time he graduated. Two years younger, Spencer wasn’t far behind with his own channel. Spencer says it was common to get a shocked reaction when talking about their YouTube careers, initially being more known for athletics in school than gaming.
