THINGS A YOUTUBE GUITAR HERO SAYS

THINGS THE KING OF GUITAR YOUTUBE DOESN’T CARE IF YOU DON’T LIKE HIS CHANNEL. A decade after JARED DINES first joined the streaming platform, he’s got more than he ever could have expected: more than 2.7 million followers, more than half a billion total views, onstage guest spots with some of modern rock’s biggest bands and a huge network of friends and collaborators.

- ADAM KOVAC

BUT AFTER A YEAR THAT SAW SOME OF THE highest and lowest points of a career spent redefining what a guitar hero can be, what he doesn’t have is a rat’s ass to give about what anybody has to say. “I got to a point where I just said ‘screw it,’” Dines tells Guitar World. “I was so worried if I don’t post this week, I’m going to be irrelevant. If you don’t tweet every day people are going to forget about you. Now, I just don’t care. I don’t give a fuck. I just found I need to do the things that I feel inspired to do and motivated to do on any given day.” With the haters forgotten in his search history, Dines’ future is calling. The question, in this age of rapidly shifting tastes, evolving platforms and increasing competition among content creators, is what that future will look like.

FOR THE PEOPLE WHO DON’T YET KNOW HIM, HERE’S DINES’ BIO IN BRIEF: He started playing guitar 17 years ago. He worked as a recording engineer, and about five years ago he started posting on YouTube in earnest. Whereas many creators in the online guitar community were looking at YouTube as a way to promote their bands or to shill for instruction courses, Dines stood out because of his willingness to indulge in sheer silliness for its own sake. Many of his most popular early videos poked fun at musical tropes and the stereotypes of being in a metal band: “Things Beginner Guitarists Say” (“I just don’t see the point in learning sheet music!”), “Every Guitar Store Guitarist,” “Things You Should Never Say to a Guitarist.”