- Brian Barczyk is YouTube's resident reptile expert. He has collaborated with several of the platform's biggest creators, and has over 2.4 million subscribers.
- Barczyk is basically fearless when it comes to animals, even when faced with deadly black mamba snakes or a herd of curious white rhinos.
- "I never feel more alive than when I'm on the end of something that could potentially kill me," he told Insider.
- Barczyk is in the process of doubling his animal zoo, where visitors learn how intelligent reptiles can be — playing with a ball, coming over when they're called, and reacting to hand signals.
- As an animal lover, Barczyk doesn't have a favourite. But he is happy that his job helps people realize how "amazing" reptiles are, in particular.
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Brian Barczyk has worked with some of the most dangerous animals in the world. But it's not coming across a herd of curious white rhinos or a deadly black mamba snake that he lists among his career's biggest challenges — it's the YouTube algorithm.
"As a YouTuber, you don't have control of how many people see your video or how many people YouTube will serve up your content to," Barczyk told Insider. "I always call it the YouTube pixie dust because it literally doesn't make sense."
Like so many YouTubers, Barczyk has found some of his favorite videos have flopped, while others he doesn't think that much of go viral.
"Those are the biggest challenges to me: How do you continue to move forward when you don't have control of your success?" he said.
The other parts of his life, like dodging bites and training alligators, are easy to Barczyk. He's been in the animal business for 32 years, and is excited every day that he gets to work on what has always essentially been his "passion project."
You can hold anything at Barczyk's animal zoo
Barczyk owns a reptile zoo in Michigan called The Reptarium. He's currently in the process of doubling the facility to house 350 to 400 animals when it's completed.
His YouTube channel has been a huge part of his success, with 2.4 million subscribers and previous collaborations with some of the platform's biggest creators like Logan Paul and David Dobrik.
But Barczyk isn't a YouTube newbie — he started his first channel in 2008, as "one of the first reptile guys on Facebook and Twitter." Thanks to the success of his channel and businesses, he said he's grossing about $2 million a year, which he can pump back into his zoo and breeding center BHB Reptiles, which is run by his wife Lori.
Barczyk's zoo is unique because visitors can hold, play with and interact with nearly all his animals, including 18-foot pythons, six-foot alligators, giant tortoises, and tarantulas.
"I'm finally able to have a place where people can come in and do the things that I've been able to do my whole life, which is hold their first snake or hold their first tarantula," Barczyk said. "All these different experiences that you really can't do at any other zoo."
Barczyk said there's probably a thousand people who visited the zoo in the past year who started the day terrified and left after holding multiple animals. Many come back again and again.
"I've literally had people shaking and almost crying, and then a month later they're telling me they bought their first pet snake," he said. "And I'm just like, wow, man, it's so frigging awesome."
'All I want people to do is realize how amazing reptiles are'
Education is a huge part of why Barczyk does what he does, and why he set up his YouTube channel in the first place. Thanks to him, people have learned how intelligent reptiles can be.
They see Elvis, his monitor lizard — usually food motivated animal — chase a ball instead of going for a snack, and Bella, the rhino iguana, come running when she hears her name. Even the albino alligator, Salt, knows to keep still when being held by a visitor with just a few hand signals.
"People think reptiles are very primal and not very intelligent, but the truth is they're so much more intelligent than most people would ever give them credit for," Barczyk said. "I love all animals. But in particular, I have an affinity towards reptiles and all I want is for people to realize how amazing they are."
He doesn't have a favorite though. He said that would be like asking a mother of four to rank their children.
"You love them all differently, but you definitely love them all," he said.
Nobody who has visited the zoo has been hurt by any of Barczyk's animals, and none of the animals have been harmed either. Barczyk himself has never been to hospital to treat an animal bite in over three decades of working with them. He puts this down to experience, as well as a little bit of luck.
"I know how to get bit without hurting myself, if that makes any sense," he said. "If you pull away, that's when you're going to get stitches. Let them bite you and don't pull away, don't jerk back. It's just going to have some punctures in your hand and it's going to heal relatively quickly."
He also stays completely calm, even when meeting a pure white King Cobra — one of the top three or four lethal snakes in the world.
"I spent a good hour interacting with the animal and it was a very high energy hour for sure because they love to chase you," Barczyk said. "I loved every minute of it and I've always said, I never feel more alive than when I'm in the end of something that could potentially kill me."
When faced with animals like these, Barczyk said it's a little like time going in slow motion. He knows being nervous and panicking is what causes people to get hurt. One time this really came into practice was when encountering a herd of white rhinos in South Africa about four years ago, who started slowly making their way towards him and his camera crew.
Afterwards, a cameraman turned to him and said: "Brian, I literally thought I was filming you die."
"I just thought, stay calm, everything's going to be good," said Barczyk. "I actually thought it was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. And there's many of those types of experiences that I've had over the years where looking back you go, 'Wow, that could have really been bad.'"
Barczyk isn't going to slow down
Barczyk was working in South Africa about a year and a half ago. A month after he left, one of the guys he was working with was killed by a black mamba. Looking back, he said, it can put things into perspective. But while it's happening, he's just enjoying every moment.
"It's a dream come true when you do find a black mamba or a coastal Taipan or any animal," he said. "Just to have the honor to spend a few minutes with those animals is one of the most breathtaking things you could ever imagine."
In 2020, Barczyk hopes to collaborate with some of the YouTube creators who continually reach out to him, and put more time into his second channel AnimalBytesTV. Even if the unpredictability of YouTube does threaten to stress him out slightly, there's nothing that can take away his joy of getting to spend his days with his favourite critters, or make him slow down any time soon.
"I said to my staff, 'Hey, 2020, we're going to work harder,'" he said. "And they all kind of laughed and said, 'Brian, I don't think that's possible.'"
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