there are treasures on youtube if you look hard

his name is Clint Miller, an Army veteran who appears to make a pretty good living buying palettes of returned Amazon products and selling them on eBay

what’s different about Clint is he enjoys teaching others how to do it too via his popular YouTube channel, Franchise Kicks

nearly every day Clint makes a video of how many boxes of random stuff he bought from Amazon, what he thinks he will make from it, and what he’ll throw away or keep.

sometimes he’ll get lucky and it’s a smart watch in a shabby box

sometimes he’ll get unlucky and it’s an article of clothing coated with a healthy layer of pet hair

so part of the joy of watching him dig through his daily haul is living vicariously through him, true

but the other part is getting to know this gregarious, seemingly happy, generous man

who has figured out how to flip the richest man in the world’s trash

and turn it into his treasure.

and it’s simple, according to Clint: just do it.

just buy a small box, he advises, something for, say $58. and then list them on ebay.

“the best thing about this is literally anyone can do it,” he said in a recent video to his viewers.

despite having 164,000 subscribers, his videos only average about 25k views,

but one last week, “I bought TWO 450 Pound Amazon Customer Return Pallets Valued at OVER $2,500” was seen over 200,000 times.

why? who knows. it’s a big bald guy taking things off the back of his pickup truck for a half hour in sweltering heat,

while showing a single camera if any of it was good.

we’re rooting for him, because we are rooting for our future selves. we want to believe that there is money in rolling the dice on gently used – and sometimes new – stuff that all we have to do is list, ship, and profit from.

while keeping some good stuff for ourselves.

we are rooting for us.

we see ourselves in him. our best selves.

once a week he has been doing videos of boxes of gifts his fans send him

he does it in front of his enormous shoe collection.

not only is the internet wild, and bizarre

but it is filled with love.

someone noticed he got ripped off of something, so they sent them theirs.

someone else drew a beautiful picture of him

someone else bought him a new knife for opening his boxes with.

who doesn’t love Clint?

well, it is YouTube, probably the most rude social media channel when it comes to comments

so there are some in there who make jabs at him.

can’t win them all.

Clint took to Twitter to admit that it does bum him out a bit.

we’re all human. even an Army man has feelings.

so i think im gonna send him a mystery box of my own. some fan mail from one cub fan to another.

His UPS box is: 484 E. Carmel Dr. #127 Carmel, IN 46032

Rock on Clint, YouTube star and dream maker, who, when he has earned some spending money,

pays what it takes to get some of the Avengers to autograph toys for him

dont ever change.

im most grateful for the ideas

a long time ago i was in a poetry writing class at my university

it was a trick class because the credits did not count for any requirement in letters & science

even though it was a letters & science class.

you took it because you wanted to

and that was all.

the trick though, is it was taught by the most popular writing teacher in

the mysterious college of creative studies

a place where if you could somehow get in, it would bless you with

the unimaginable gift

of no grades, no tests, no finals.

but none of us who took this class knew that.

at least i sure didnt.

none of us knew that this teacher was the key to that incredible world.

incredible, in part, because everyone in that college was super talented

in art or music or math or words.

one of the things this teacher did was she required each student to meet with her privately

twice that quarter, after class, for about an hour.

weird, but ok, whatever.

upon my first visit she asked how i liked class, and i said i liked it.

we went over some of the poems id written and after that i said

hey i have a 13 page epic love poem id like to ask you about because im having

a hard time finishing it.

and i gave it to her and we read it and the next time that we had a meeting

she was asking me if i would be interested in transferring from letters and science

to go to the college of creative studies.

little did i know it was a trick question.

because it tricked me into believing i could do it.

which i did.

one of the things i asked her that pivotal afternoon was something that i remember even now,

centuries later

i said, robyn, obviously you know a few things about creativity,

as that is the college you teach at, and also attended,

i am really afraid that the ideas will stop one day.

will they?

and she said:

nope.

and she aint never lied