How Scientology Destroyed A Popular Skateboarding Channel

Summary

In one of YouTube's most unusual downfalls, Braille Skateboarding, once a beloved channel known for its unique skateboard tutorials and creativity, saw its decline tied to founder Aaron Cairo's involvement with Scientology. The channel, which started shortly after YouTube's inception, initially gained significant success with its 'how-to' tutorials, expanding into series featuring bizarre skateboard experiments that drove millions of views. However, as Cairo's financial contributions to Scientology and personal involvement increased, concerns regarding his priorities arose, especially since employees were underpaid while Cairo donated vast amounts to the church. These issues, coupled with losing key team members and viewer fatigue from repetitive content, led to a steep decline in both the channel's creativity and its audience.

Highlights

• Braille Skateboarding blossomed with unique 'how-to' skateboard videos in YouTube's early days. 📈🛹
• Founder Aaron Cairo's dedication to Scientology shifted focus away from the channel's growth. 📜🔄
• Employees were underpaid while Cairo made hefty donations to the Church of Scientology. 💸🤔
• As the creative spark faded, the channel's content became stale and predictable. 😴📼
• Major team members departed due to dissatisfaction with management, weakening the channel further. 🙅‍♂️🚶‍♂️
• Closure of the Braille skate park symbolized the downfall of this once-thriving channel. 🌪️🏢

Key Takeaways

• Braille Skateboarding rose to fame with innovative skateboard tutorials but fell due to its founder's heavy involvement in Scientology. 🛹😮
• Aaron Cairo, the founder, prioritized donations to Scientology over his employees' wages, causing dissatisfaction among his team. 💸😕
• The channel's unique skateboard experiments became repetitive, leading to viewer fatigue and decreased interest. 📉🥱
• Key members of Braille's team left due to low wages and management issues, contributing to the channel's decline. 🚪😢
• The skate park closure and Aaron's lack of communication with fans and employees further damaged Braille's reputation. ❌🏢

Overview

Braille Skateboarding was once a beacon of creativity and fun in the world of skateboarding content. Launched shortly after YouTube began, it quickly became a favorite for beginners and seasoned skateboarders alike. With enticing 'how-to' videos like kickflips and ollies, followed by unique series like 'Skate Everything,' the channel pulled in countless viewers eager to watch skateboards crafted from iPads and surfboards. However, founder Aaron Cairo's growing involvement with Scientology slowly began to overshadow these successes.

As Cairo started donating significant amounts of money to Scientology, tensions rose within the Braille team. Employees, who worked tirelessly to keep the channel thriving, were reportedly underpaid, which became a major point of contention, especially when contrasted with Cairo's generous donations to the Church of Scientology. This financial choice, paired with a noticeable absenteeism from Cairo as he pursued Scientology courses under the guise of attending business school, catalyzed frustrations within the team and among fans.

The resulting issues were compounded by a creative drought, as the tried-and-true skateboard experimentation videos lost their shine. High-profile departures from team members like Gabe, who ran much of the channel, further exacerbated the situation. Ultimately, the closure of their skate park marked not just a physical loss but a symbolic one for Braille Skateboarding, signaling a disconnect from their roots. The audience's disillusionment, reflected in declining views and negative comments, underscored how Scientology's influence had dramatically altered the trajectory of Aaron Cairo's skateboarding empire.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Scientology's Influence The chapter titled "Scientology's Influence" discusses the downfall of the YouTube channel Braille Skateboarding due to its owner's involvement with the Church of Scientology. The channel, which was initially started by pro skateboarder Aaron Cairo, paid its employees minimum wage while donating over a million dollars to the Church of Scientology. This led to the neglect and eventual death of the channel, marking it as one of YouTube's strangest downfalls.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Rise of Braille Skateboarding The chapter discusses the rise of Braille Skateboarding, emphasizing the role of YouTube in its success. Aaron Cairo, a skateboarder, initially uploaded clips to gain sponsorships, but noticed a significant increase in views with a simple 'how to push on a skateboard' video. This led him to produce a series of tutorial videos such as 'how to OE', 'how to nose manual', 'how to pop shove', and the popular 'how to kickflip'. These tutorials contributed to the channel's growth, giving it a clear purpose and direction: to help everyone learn skateboarding tricks.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Exotic Skateboard Series In the 'Exotic Skateboard Series' chapter, the focus is on Braille Skateboarding's mission to help viewers improve their skateboarding skills, enhancing their enjoyment of the sport. The channel's success is highlighted by its rapid growth to over 200,000 subscribers. However, the story takes an unexpected turn as the narrative shifts to Aaron Cairo, a prominent figure in the skateboarding community, who gains attention for a completely different reason - his association with Scientology. The chapter delves into how Aaron's connection with Scientology began during a vulnerable time in his life when he was offered a free personality test, marking a significant personal revelation.
• 07:00 - 10:00: Scientology Courses and Donations The chapter examines Scientology's courses and the associated donation system, featuring a personal experience from someone who felt their communication skills improved significantly after completing a communication course. This improvement in communication led to further engagement with Scientology. The individual attributes improvements in skateboarding skills to the courses taken, noting an increased ability to learn new tricks.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Criticism and Backlash In this chapter titled 'Criticism and Backlash,' the subject discusses the perception that Scientology was responsible for his career success. He reflects on how his career in communication blossomed, yet attributes this to hard work and consistent practice rather than the influence of Scientology. The period between 2013 and 2014 was pivotal, as he was highly active, uploading videos twice daily, which naturally resulted in growth and improvement. This effort contributed to his channel's rapid growth, reaching 400,000 subscribers, and led to the expansion of his team with new hires.
• 15:00 - 19:00: Decline and Team Departures The chapter titled 'Decline and Team Departures' discusses the role of Lance Silba, who was not only a member of the Church of Scientology but also became the main filmer and editor for Braille. Lance, known as the channel's guinea pig, featured in videos where Aaron taught him basic skating tricks. These videos, although simple, performed surprisingly well as they provided learning opportunities for viewers. This success led Aaron to the decision to hire more skaters, eventually introducing Gabe Cruz to the team. Gabe was known for suggesting unconventional video ideas, including games.
• 19:00 - 22:00: Aaron's Absence and Return Aaron was initially concerned that creating a video using Walmart skateboards would make him a laughingstock in the professional skateboarding community. Contrary to his fears, the video was well-received and became popular. This success led to the creation of a series called 'Stupid Skate,' where skateboarding was done with bizarrely modified boards, such as those with suspension, 10 sets of trucks, or ones that could be ridden from both sides. The more outlandish the skateboard, the more views the videos attracted, motivating them to push the boundaries even further.
• 22:00 - 25:30: Current Struggles and Fallout The chapter titled 'Current Struggles and Fallout' describes a new series concept called "skate everything" where skateboard trucks and wheels are attached to random objects to create unique skateboards. Initial experiments include attaching wheels to a skinny plank of wood and a sharp square of metal. By the third episode, a more extreme approach is taken as an iPad is used as a skateboard. This decision, while controversial and brutal, garners significant audience attention. The creator expresses guilt over damaging the iPad for views, humorously attributing the blame to a team member named Lance.

How Scientology Destroyed A Popular Skateboarding Channel Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Braille skateboarding paid his employees roughly 20 bucks per hour we're basically minimum wage employees but donated over a million to the Church of Scientology he'd gone to spend so much time with the strange organization that Braille was neglected until it died completely in what is quite possibly YouTube's strangest ever downfall the Channel's owned by Aaron Cairo a pro skateboarder from San Francisco my name is Aaron Cairo and I run this channel Braille skateboarding he started Braille skateboarding just 12 Days After
• 00:30 - 01:00 YouTube's launch uploading the clips that he'd used to gain his sponsors but when a simple video titled how to push on a skateboard gain more views than every other upload Aaron Cairo saw an opportunity he'd upload how to OE then how to nose manual this led to how to pop shove and most notably how to kickflip each gaining massive view counts for the early days of YouTube bra made tutorials on every possible trick giving the channel purpose and an obvious direction to help everyone learn
• 01:00 - 01:30 how to skateboard the whole purpose of Braille skateboarding to teach you guys to progress on your boards so you're having more fun on your boards these videos carried the channel to over 200,000 subscribers but as Aaron Cairo became more known so did another completely unrelated video I am a Scientologist Aaron skateboarder my name is Aaron I'm a skateboarder and I also a Scientologist during a vulnerable period in Aaron's life Scientology offered him a free personality test and on my
• 01:30 - 02:00 personality test my communication was really low and then they suggested you should do a communication course Aon took the course and saw significant Improvement and it totally helped me communicate helped me a lot and from that point forward I just had this ability to communicate it helped me a lot getting him hooked on the Church of Scientology so then I did more courses from there and and learned more and he'd argue it helped him improve his skateboarding the thing that happened before Scientology and after was I was learning tricks a lot easier things were
• 02:00 - 02:30 just coming to me a lot easier with less effort and that Scientology gave him his career and now I built an entire career on communicating yet all of his success could have easily been explained by simple repetition practice and wake onw Improvement between 2013 and 2014 he was uploading twice a day every day which guaranteed Improvement regardless of Scientology we now have 400,000 subscribers yeah it's a pretty big deal with Channel Growing rapidly Aaron hired
• 02:30 - 03:00 Lance Silba who also happened to be a Scientologist himself Lance became braille's main filmer and editor as well as the Channel's guinea pig who was learning how to skate videos of Aaron teaching Lance basic tricks did surprisingly well despite their Simplicity as skaters could watch and learn something new themselves this seemed to tell Aaron that he should hire more skaters and would therefore introduce Gabe Cruz who' suggest a slightly unconventional upload a game of
• 03:00 - 03:30 skate but on Walmart boards Aaron thought the video would make him a joke amongst Pro skaters but it rather did the opposite as everybody loved it they therefore do the same thing with minib boards and longboards turning it into a series called stupid skate playing the game with crazy modified skateboards there was a skateboard with suspension one with 10 sets of trucks and one you could ride on either side it seemed the crazier the board the more views they'd gain leading things to be taken to the ex dream we're going to make a new
• 03:30 - 04:00 series and it's going to be called skate everything and we get random things and we attach skateboard trucks and wheels to it and then we skate on it they planned on putting wheels on random different items beginning with a skinny plank of wood then upgrading to a sharp square of metal however by only the third episode Aaron was skating an iPad which was simply too brutal for people not to click I'm going to feel so bad to drill a hole in this iPad I want to make this video it's all Lance's fault blame Lance when the video attracted a whole
• 04:00 - 04:30 new audience and gained 3 million views in under a month Aon knew he' found the perfect series he'd repeat the idea with a Macbook then a keyboard then with a flat screen TV when they ran out of electronics that skat a full-size bedroom door a surfboard and a skate shoe generating so much Channel interest that gain almost 600,000 subscribers over a 2-month period in 2016 you guys are the best the absolute best because we just hit 3 million subscribers in
• 04:30 - 05:00 fact Braille skateboarding became so popular they'd build their own skate park called Braille house which acted as their own personal filming Studio I found myself running an actual company says Cairo who had three full-time professionals running the video editing merchandising and finance departments he'd also hire another three onscreen skaters fedy Potter Carlos lra and Nigel Jones but this wasn't only where braille's money went between 20 15 and
• 05:00 - 05:30 2017 Aaron Cairo did 16 Scientology courses many of which were incredibly expensive the L10 rundown for example has an estimated cost of roughly 72,000 and this doesn't include the l11 and l12 both of which Aaron completed at the same time additionally Aaron completed something called ot3 which according to Reddit the running tally to complete ot3 would be $278,000 this ignores that he eventually
• 05:30 - 06:00 went up to ot6 presumably costing even more yet Aaron believed that all of this was worth it an article on his training wrote L10 was a particularly relevator experience for him the gains and abilities are so high I could not even dream they would be available my space is so big and so clean and my flows are wide open I got rid of masses that had been in my space for trillions of years I truly uncovered my basic goodness and rightness as a being he's still having having daily cognitions directly related
• 06:00 - 06:30 to L10 and his online traction has seen a noticeable uptick which to be fair was certainly true the channel was gaining so many views and all of the members were having so much fun that the massive amounts being spent on Scientology simply weren't a major concern theyd continue to ride different exotic skateboards and allow the audience to send in their own resulting in some of the Channel's highest viewed videos the Lego skateboard gained 8 million views the heavy skateboards gained 11 million
• 06:30 - 07:00 whilst the glass board with glass Wheels gained 28 million views but the trend of wacky skateboards was slowly getting stale viewers knew what to expect in every single upload and after over 200 episodes each variation was becoming less interesting to make matters worse at around the same time Lance announced that he'd be leaving which added to the channel slow viewership decline in dumb dat's video about Braille it's shown that from 2016 2019 bra's views fell by
• 07:00 - 07:30 almost 60% at which point things began to get weird at this point Aaron's involvement in Scientology wasn't super mainstream until an article was published titled the donors keeping Scientology afloat in 2019 with Aaron Cairo being pictured at the top it explained that he had earned what's called gold meritorious given to people who donated more than a million to Scientology on a podcast Aaron tried to play this down don't you need to give give the church a certain amount of
• 07:30 - 08:00 money each year to be a part or no you don't have to you don't have to give them any money no courses cost a fee so the communication course that I did was $100 and the books are like range from $25 to like $30 but his extensive involvement was documented everywhere it appear in yet another Scientology promo video for which he was heavily roasted in the comments beneath but negative audience feedback didn't change his feelings somebody said something bad about that so I'm just going going to stop like no way and to be honest again
• 08:00 - 08:30 at this point his involvement in Scientology wasn't really hurting anyone however this was about to change in January 2020 bra uploaded a video titled I need help requesting that viewers donate to him to save his hometown skate park anything that you guys can give would be incredible we're trying to raise $200,000 anything that you can give would be so so so so so amazing this led to videos such as Aaron Cairo gives
• 08:30 - 09:00 Scientology 750,000 but begs fans for donations whilst people on Reddit wrote maybe just funnel the massive donations made to Scientology rather than using your viewer base of children to recreate your Park comments read did he have this much money when they had Carlo sleeping in the warehouse like a homeless person leading people to make a realization I heard that most of the profits of Braille go to donations to Scientology instead of to the skaters that make it what it is the skaters were running all
• 09:00 - 09:30 the brand deals whilst barely being paid it's like you want us to be the face saying hey buy this product do this thing and then like we gain nothing from the brand deal like we have sponsors of our own as well we have sponsors that conflict with this brand deal that you're going to try to make us go and do on our own and we are getting nothing but our normal low wage and even built ramps for the channel without compensation they asked me to build it and I buil it the day of SC and from scratch and they didn't even drop a penny imagine working for someone
• 09:30 - 10:00 carrying the channel for $20 an hour then you hear that your boss donated 1 million to Scientology in the process fedy and Carlos two of braille's most beloved members left the team under sketchy circumstances Nigel also announced that he'd be leaving but would still be in the videos just not as an employee he' later explained the shocking reason for this I left because I was making more off of unemployment than I was filming for time with pay
• 10:00 - 10:30 Rises being few and far between how many raises did you get in 10 years one but in case conditions couldn't get any worse for the skaters they somehow still did as in 2021 Aaron came to the team with another wild announcement he goes in one week from now I'm going to business school for 5 months and I'll be back and then we're like whoa like what the as a result Gabe became responsible for running Braille completely as Aaron disappeared to focus on business school two months passed no one has talked to Aaron at all it's like it's not like
• 10:30 - 11:00 he's on the phone going hey guys how's it going oh the videos have been good like oh you're doing really good nothing it was just silence like legit like silence this disappearance lasted longer than expected the 5 months it ends up being like I want to say like 8 or 9 months then he goes away again he's like oh I got to go back I didn't finish CP days it was it was not long and then he was gone for again like I want to say like four or 5 months maybe even more then he come back for like 1 week or something then he was gone again and I want to say the total time was about like 2 years I think after two whole
• 11:00 - 11:30 years of barely being on the channel Aaron returned with a video titled I'm sorry initially acknowledging his disappearance I've been absent from the videos I know you guys know that I'm back we're getting back on track before again claiming to be learning about business I did take some time for myself and I did learn as much as I could about business however conveniently upon his return another video was gaining some traction Aaron Cairo is the new leader of Scientology in San Francisco Aaron
• 11:30 - 12:00 had joined scientology's executive team as the time he'd supposedly spent in business school was actually him just completing more Scientology coursework this in combination with his absence put immense pressure on everyone else at Braille and I'm sorry for being gone for so long I know I was really hard on my team here so much so that they all began to quit he emerged as the leader of Scientology SF in that time this guy started quitting mowgly Uzi JD and then when Gabe gabee was the final straw as
• 12:00 - 12:30 mentioned this included Gabe who at this point was completely running everything for the past 7 years I've been doing all the behind the scenes stuff for the main Braille YouTube channel comments read well there goes the guy that's been carrying this channel for years honestly Gabe was running the channel Gabe was doing like lit literally 99.9% of the channel forcing Aaron to take back over who by this point seemed to be completely clueless now we no longer have Gabe to plan film and make
• 12:30 - 13:00 all those videos the content is definitely going to be changing and what you're going to get I actually have no idea but it's going to go back to the roots of this company teaching tutorials yes we are going to make weird boards weird videos this was far from an Innovative strategy with the lack of fresh skilled content being obvious to all you look at the videos now you look at the thumbnails now you look at the ideas now terrible right on bra's Channel much worse than when we and Gabe were doing it and that truly shows how much work we were doing this dropped the
• 13:00 - 13:30 Channel's views to just a couple mil per month forcing Aaron to destroy their skate park I was trying to negotiate with the landlords to get a break on the rent this is a huge overhead it's tons of money to have a warehouse and we just could not come to an agreement and then I got a letter from their lawyer that basically just said you have got to be out by July 5th un surprisingly the audience offered no sympathy that 750,000 you spent to go up in a spaceship to Heaven could have been
• 13:30 - 14:00 spent better but in true brail fashion it was even worse than this Ricky Glazer one of the last remaining members wasn't even told that the skate park was being destroyed I knew BR was struggling but man I didn't know the park was literally getting destroyed right now no one told Rick anything and it's like man I really would have loved to know that get one last SES like I portal this Blood Sweat and he is literally into that place he was saddened by the sight of everything being discarded which somehow offended
• 14:00 - 14:30 Aaron to such an extent that Ricky was promptly fired rail skateboarding and Aaron Cairo both blocked me Ricky glaza on Instagram Nigel decided to leave himself I will no longer be at Braille doing videos won't be doing lessons with them anymore obviously because there is no location pissed off by braille's blatant lack of care no goodby session no nothing 10 years of your life I haven't even gotten like a thank you for all of the years of dedicating my s to the channel Aaron responded with a video
• 14:30 - 15:00 of his own claiming he tried to save the skate park you guys must know that I did everything I could to save the brail house I literally took out a loan on my house but with over 50,000 dislikes it seems he missed the point completely Aaron no one is worried about the warehouse they're worried about the crew you ghosted WP WP you screwed the crew and that's who we cared about he is legit more upset about what he did to the building than what he did to all of the people that made it at what it was
• 15:00 - 15:30 without a skate park or skate crew the state of Braille is worse than ever Aaron recently uploaded a video titled thank you just reading positive comments from one year prior seemingly to convince himself to keep uploading videos I continue going because of comments like this I absolutely love this braille's viewership has fallen to roughly 5K per upload every comment section is filled with negativity which Aaron tries his hardest to defend himself against