A New Way to Ride

Have you ever seen those people riding motorbikes with fluffy animal helmets and cameras on their bikes? No? Yes? Well whether you have or have not, those riders are part of a growing worldwide community of motovloggers.

Motovloggers are content creators who capture video content from their motorbike rides and load this to social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. They capture and show a range of content, not limited to scenery, but including interactions with people, commentary, capturing reactions and street scenes.

Motovlogging is growing internationally, both in content and audience with creators trying new ways to boost their content and make it entertaining.

There is a small community within Aotearoa New Zealand scattered around the country, including here in Kirikiriroa-Hamilton. While they are visible on the streets with their distinctive helmets, Motovloggers typically post under usernames that reflect their interest in bikes, rather than their own names.

Two local riders ‘mot0girl’ and ‘jd.moto.nz’ spoke about their content creation journey as motovloggers. 

Mot0girl‘s Mia is mainly on TikTok, a short-form video platform, and says there are a lot of different reasons people create content.

“I create mainly for myself but I have also realised that it makes other people happy”. Mot0girl, who wears a Panda-head helmet, says when she started riding with it “it made people smile in the street, it made my day.”

mot0girl

Mia rides on her own as well as with a local group, capturing content from around the region to share with viewers. 

Content creation can have an impact on not just the viewers but the creators when something they have created for their own entertainment has turned into something that brings joys to people they have never met.

The motovlogging community isn’t just about the cameras and videos, that’s only a perk of the adventure, something to show to the world the things the rider enjoys. 

Another local rider, JD says a highlight he has had while riding has been “when I was parked up at an intersection and one of those window washers came up and asked if he could wash my helmet to which I enthusiastically said yes”. That clip was then posted on TikTok and from there has been shared on other platforms by other people from around the world.

For some riders it is their livelihood or for some, it is their passion for riding, it’s the people they have met along the way and the sense of community Mia says “I’m friends with a few bikers all over the world on TikTok which is really cool because they are always supportive”.

Riding From Further Afield

What about outside Aotearoa New Zealand? As mentioned earlier, content creation and motovlogging is a worldwide activity. Where there is a bike, there is bound to be someone who has a camera strapped on to record the events of their travels. Brian636 a motovlogger from Chicago Illinois explains  “the content creation side within motorcycling feels like I’m on an island, we are all so far apart”. 

Motovloggers are not always as close together as they are here in New Zealand. Being such a small country there isn’t as much space to expand, whereas in other countries people have much more room to move and explore. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t many people out there who record or ride. “I think Chicago Illinois has probably the highest density and population of stunt riders in the world.”

“I think Chicago Illinois has probably the highest density and population of stunt riders in the world.”

Brian636

Brian636 has had the opportunity to ride in many places around the world and has seen the riding community in all its glory, something that he mainly records for his videos is stunt riding.

Something that has become very popular overseas is doing tricks and pushing yourself and the bike to the limits while riding.

We all know the basic wheelies that we see people do on their bikes when they want to show off a little. Well, stunt riding is that but more, doing wheelies for longer while moving around and changing positions on the bike or doing burnouts on the bike. That is only a small part of what stunt riding is, but you get the idea.

For some bikers, content creation is their full-time job.  Platforms such as YouTube have the option to get paid for their videos, but there are still rules in place and when a rule is broken it can result in not getting paid for that video. That is just one of the struggles that Brian636 has. Another one is injuries “Injuries come with our sport, I’ve had a few surgeries related to bike stuff”.

For a lot of content creators, they tend to start their own merchandise line, for some this may be clothing or accessories that are themed around the content they make. Brian636 not only has clothing but himself and a couple of others not long ago opened up a physical store for their brand, Misguided Motorsports. Misguided Motorsports has a range of merchandise from clothing to bike parts and they also film their content and post it to YouTube.