Zachary Hsieh (born January 14, 1999), known online as ZHC, is an American

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influent ...

. He is known for his drawing and custom art challenge videos. Hsieh created his first

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel in 2013 while studying at the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Initially uploading art tutorials, Hsieh expanded to his current format and reached one million subscribers in 2019. His main channel now has over 25 million subscribers.

Early life and education

Hsieh was born in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

on January 14, 1999. Interested in art from an early age, he was inspired to practice

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

art by illustrated novels such as ''

Captain Underpants ''Captain Underpants'' is an illustrated children's novel series by American author and illustrator Dav Pilkey. The series revolves around two fourth graders, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, living in Piqua, Ohio, and Captain Underpants, a ...

'', and wanted to be a

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

artist. At 16 years old, he committed to spending 12 hours a day or more practicing drawing. He went on to study at the

. He began his YouTube channel in 2013, whilst he was a student at the school, and later dropped out to focus on practicing his art online.

Internet career

When Hsieh began his YouTube channel, he created mainly tutorial videos, including tutorials on

crosshatching Hatching (french: hachure) is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing (or painting or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines. (It is also used in monochromatic representations of heraldry to indicate what t ...

and refilling

Copic is a Japan, Japanese brand of refillable marker pen, markers and related products made by the Too Corporation and distributed in the United States and Canada by its subsidiary, "Too Corporation Americas". Description Copic is most famous for it ...

markers. His channel found viral success after the release of a 2018 "re-drawing" video in which he recreated hyperrealistic copies of a friend's drawings. Subsequently, his content evolved into competition based drawing videos and

vlog A video blog or video log, sometimes shortened to vlog (), is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in ...

s. He also expanded into

MrBeast Jimmy Donaldson (born May 7, 1998), better known as MrBeast, is an American YouTube personality, credited with pioneering a genre of YouTube videos that centers on expensive stunts. His MrBeast YouTube channel had 112.2 million subscribers as ...

style videos and stunt-philanthropy, including giveaways, contests, and marathon livestreams. By early 2019, Hsieh had reached a million subscribers and had become able to support himself full-time through his YouTube videos. That February, his channel was noticed by fellow YouTubers MrBeast and

PewDiePie Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg ( , ; born 24 October 1989), better known as PewDiePie ( ), is a Swedes, Swedish YouTuber known for his Let's Play videos and comedic formatted videos and shows. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media co ...

after he released videos in which he drew massive superhero illustrations of them, and experienced a surge of rapid growth. He went on to make official collaboration videos with MrBeast, in which he customized products such as an iPhone and a Tesla car, as well as influencer

Charli D'Amelio Charli Grace D'Amelio ( ; born May 1, 2004) is an American social media personality. She was a competitive dancer for over 10 years before starting her social media career in 2019, when she started posting dance videos on the video-sharing pl ...

and DJ

Steve Aoki Steven Hiroyuki Aoki (, ; born November 30, 1977), best known as Steve Aoki, is an American DJ, record producer, music programmer, and record executive.

. In April 2020, Hsieh was signed by creator management company Night Media. In September 2020, Hsieh launched the YouTube channel ZHC Shorts to release

YouTube Shorts YouTube Shorts is the short-form section of the video-sharing website YouTube, hosting content much like YouTube's primary service but in a vertical format with a maximum length of 60 seconds. Shorts have collectively earned over 5 trillion vie ...

content on. In February 2021, following grooming allegations against former host

James Charles James Charles Dickinson (born May 23, 1999) is an American beauty YouTuber and makeup artist. While working as a local makeup artist in his hometown of Bethlehem, New York, Charles started a YouTube channel, where he posts makeup tutorials. ...

, it was announced that Hsieh would host the second season of the

YouTube Originals YouTube Premium, formerly known as YouTube Red, is a subscription service that provides advertising-free streaming of all videos hosted by YouTube, offline play and background playback of videos on mobile devices, access to advertising-free mu ...

show ''Instant Influencer''. That March, Hsieh launched a collection of

NFT art A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the b ...

known as Critters By ZHC on the

Nifty Gateway Nifty Gateway is a digital art online auction platform for non-fungible token (NFT) art founded by Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster, and has since been acquired by the Winklevoss twins. Nifty Gateway has sold NFTs by Beeple, Pak, Refik Anadol and ...

marketplace. The art features four characters that are also heavily featured in his content and merchandising: Bun Bun, Fayur, Turkey, and Scrunchie.

Philanthropy

Hsieh's content has also expanded to incorporate

philanthropy Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

into his art videos by painting everyday objects for people. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Hsieh and his team of more than 24 artists painted classrooms at Strive Prep Montbello in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. He also painted murals at AdventHealth For Children in

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

, and donated

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

s and $240,000 to the hospital. In February 2021, Hsieh hosted a competition between himself and artists from his team to customize a 10 foot tall

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, it was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North Ame ...

for charity. As part of the video, over 24 PlayStation 5s were donated to Children in Need. Hsieh and his team hand-painted every home in the Arroyo Seco Tiny Home Village in

Highland Park, Los Angeles Highland Park is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, located in the city's Northeast Los Angeles, Northeast region. It was one of the first subdivisions of Los Angeles and is inhabited by a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups. His ...

, which was completed in October 2021. The village provides

transitional housing Transitional housing is temporary housing for certain segments of the homeless population, including working homeless people who are earning too little money to afford long-term housing. Transitional housing is set up to transition residents into p ...

for those experiencing homelessness in the community.

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hsieh, Zach 1999 births Living people 21st-century American people 21st-century American philanthropists American YouTubers American artists American people of Chinese descent Charity fundraisers (people) YouTube vloggers English-language YouTube channels people from San Jose, California YouTubers from California people from California American artists of Chinese descent Technology YouTubers YouTube channels launched in 2013 School of Visual Arts philanthropists from California YouTube critics and reviewers