Famous YouTubers: how a magician in Indonesia put away his wand and became a professional prankster
- Having failed to hit the big time with his magician’s act, Yudist Ardhana turned to YouTube, where his practical jokes soon made him famous
- His elaborate stunts have been described as Candid Camera for the internet age, and his channel has more than nine million subscribers
Five years ago Yudist Ardhana was an Indonesian magician struggling in relative obscurity. A number of his magician friends had already found recognition through TV contest shows such as Indonesia’s Got Talent, but Yudist just could not get his big break.
He was running his own magic store and performing the occasional show before a limited audience. But he wanted more, driven by the conviction that magic was his calling. Yudist, who grew up in Denpasar, Bali, yearned for recognition, and he found it on YouTube.
These days, with more than nine million subscribers on his official channel (and 1.3 million on Instagram), the 33-year-old has reached his goal, though not exactly in the way he craved. Most of Yudist’s fans know him as one of Indonesia’s biggest YouTube personalities and not as a magician.
But one day, Yudist says, “I plan on finding fame and returning as a magician with, of course, a lot more people watching … My magician career is something I still feel very proud of.”
For now, Yudist understands and appreciates his contemporary role. He is the perpetual prankster and tireless entertainer – shooting hidden-camera videos and getting reactions through pranks such as driving a child-size car or plastic dinosaur to a petrol station, dressing as a tree to shock passers-by, or shopping for a “long sleeve bra” at the supermarket.
His supermarket videos are so popular that Yudist has made a whole series – the videos show him asking clerks to help locate items such as “armpit shampoo”, “milk to shorten” himself, or an “anti poorness” traditional drink. It’s Candid Camera for the YouTube age.
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Other videos, dubbed “experiments”, show the YouTuber doing thinks such as mixing Coca-Cola with Mentos to cause a gaseous explosion. There are also video series showing Yudist visiting supposedly haunted places across Indonesia, and of him approaching women with the aid of magic tricks.
His training in visual communication design allows him to incorporate stylistic flourishes that are rare among Indonesian YouTubers.
His fan base is loyal and invested enough that videos of him doing something casual with his wife, Christina, or friends can earn half a million views. A video of his and Christina’s wedding ceremony last year got over five million views.
A lot of what he posts is simple – Yudist riding a trail bike, using stilts in the pool, bathing an elephant at the zoo, and making pizza or sushi. Fans regularly send in questions that he and his wife answer. Still, he says that it is never as simple as it looks.
“The challenge for me is creating content that is better and more entertaining than the last, because there is an increasing number of people who watch my channel,” Yudist says.
“There are many more YouTubers, many who are younger and more ‘fresh’, which makes the competition harder.”
He started a separate channel called Yudist Gaming (790,000 subscribers) which was registered in 2010 but to which he did not begin uploading videos until a year ago.
Yudist keeps pumping out content because, as he says, “a store that is open 24 hours a day is going to be better known than one that opens only when the owner feels like it”.
Initially, Yudist intended to focus on showcasing the use of magic in everyday life – “social magic”, he called it. Like many magicians, Yudist says, he was a shy child, fearful of social interaction and “always in my room”. After being introduced to it by his grandfather, magic helped him build enough confidence to talk to people.
A lot of new subscribers do not even know me as a magician and that is fine because I want to entertain a wider audience not only using magic
But magic wasn’t an immediate cure-all. During puberty, Yudist grew taller than most of his peers and was often made fun of. He moved to Jakarta to study at a prestigious university, but his lack of confidence followed him and the “magic” started to wane.
To buy magic goods, he started reselling magic equipment to his friends, and launched an online shop, Toko Sulap. It did well, but not enough to get his life going.
A friend told him that he’d get nowhere as a magician if he did not perform, so Yudist began performing at private events while still at school, still without much confidence or momentum – but things soon changed.
One night, Yudist watched a YouTube video by Bayu Skak, one of the earliest Indonesian YouTube stars, who spoke about how he was a “no one” who became “someone” through YouTube. Inspired and desperate, Yudist started his channel in January 2016 and his videos caught on quickly.
As it turns out, social magic was something a lot of people needed. “It made it easier to introduce yourself, to get women’s phone numbers, make people laugh, and so on,” he says. “But as time went on, the channel needed consistent content with new ideas, which is hard to do with magic because each trick needs a lot of planning.”
Though he has found fame, Yudist laments the lack of interest in magic because of YouTube and the internet at large.
“It’s so easy for viewers to find out how a magic trick is done. So my branding shifted little by little from ‘magician’ into ‘content creator’,” he says.
Yudist tries to be satisfied with the role he’s acquired and is proud of his contribution to Indonesia’s magic scene. “I help a lot of magicians enter the internet so that they can progress within the digital world.” His fame increased Toko Sulap’s sales.
And if some people do not even know of his true calling, that is OK too. “A lot of new subscribers do not even know me as a magician and that is fine because I want to entertain a wider audience not only using magic. It’s no problem,” he says.
