Wichita man behind viral mowing videos is a K-Stater
In August of 2021 Spencer B. ’21 started posting videos of his Wichita, Kansas, based
mowing projects on social media.
“I was pretty addicted to YouTube,” he said. “I made my videos around what I liked
to watch.”
It took off from there.
Almost four years later, he’s now a full-time content creator making ASMR videos,
which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, featuring mowing and pressure
washing across multiple platforms.
The videos have a unique sensory quality found in the ASMR genre. With each video
viewers witness Spencer transform the yards at a sped-up pace. Along with motion,
viewers hear the sounds of mowers, shovels, leaf blowers and more. The hum of mowers
and blowers, scrapes and cuts from other tools adds to the ambience of the video.
Studies from the National Institute of Health and Cornell University suggest that
ASMR videos have a soothing quality which helps with mood, attention and heart rate
among other benefits.
Spencer’s channel, SB Mowing, has more than 12.1M followers on TikTok; 11.1M followers
on Facebook; 4.1M followers on Instagram; 4.6M subscribers on YouTube Shorts; and
1.92M subscribers on Snapchat. For context the state of Kansas has approximately 2.94M
citizens. If each subscriber or follower were a person, his cross-platform audience
would have more than 11 times the size of Kansas’ population.
Every Friday he posts a new video showing a new lawn, mostly in or around the city
of Wichita. These lawns are in need of major care, sometimes they are abandoned. Many
of the residents are unable to take care of their property properly. Spencer connects
with the owner and rehabilitates the landscaping free of charge.
“I love it,” he said. “I found the best business model ever. I get to do something
that I love. Something that I’m really good at. I get to help people out that really
need it and then I get to provide entertainment for millions of people.”
In January, one of these videos went viral after Spencer helped an elderly homeowner
named Beth who was facing a $240 fine from the city if she didn’t get her lawn taken
care of. Beth has mobility issues and couldn’t do the work herself, but also had trouble
securing anyone to mow her lawn. Overcome with emotion, she graciously accepted Spencer’s
help.
“I spent my entire day just cleaning up, making it look the best it ever looked, and
she was really emotional from it,” he said. “You know someone's lawn is something
that really makes their day good or bad honestly. It’s the first thing many others
see.”
Shortly after the video was posted, his supporters reached out to see if they could
help with donations to make her home more accessible and safer. Spencer set up a Go
Fund Me to see what they could do. In total they crowdfunded more than $850,000 to
help her find a more accessible and safer place to live.
“In a day we raised over half $1 million which is absolutely insane and then I've
left it open this entire week and I think we're almost to $850, 000 and it's just
going and growing,” he said.
Spencer has been working with an attorney to set up a trust to protect Beth and secure
her a new, more accessible home.
At just 10 years old Spencer started a business mowing lawns using his dad’s old push
mower and knocking on doors.
Spencer came to K-State to major in computer science. As a student he was involved
with Cadence A Capella group. He also lived in West Hall where he served as a resident
assistant. Occasionally, you’ll find him working in a K-State shirt on the SB Mowing
channels.
He built up a large enough client list that he continued to mow lawns even into college,
coming home to Wichita on the weekends during mowing seasons.
“During the fall season and in the spring, I was back every single Friday night through
Sunday to mow,” he said. “It was pretty stressful. It did suck at times because a
bunch of my friends would get together and hang out. But I’m glad I did it because
it helped propel my mowing business.”
Spencer is no longer taking on mowing clients; he’s turned that over to his brother.
He now has pivoted to full-time content creator status, making that pivot just a few
months after he started making videos.
“Within a couple months I started making a little bit of money, but I had no idea
that this was going to happen,” he said. “I was in kind of a good spot in my life
where I had an amount of money saved up, I wasn't married yet, I didn't have any kids.
I was in a pretty good spot and so I just kind of made the decision to go all in on
it because you know it was something I loved and I felt like I wouldn't be in that
position to take that kind of risk again so I just did it. I quit my full-time job.”
During the summer months, he looks for people he can help by mowing, films his work
and creates content that he will post throughout the year. During the winter months,
he ventures to Arkansas with his wife, to make similar content for his pressure washing
channel, SB Pressure Washing.
In addition to his mowing and pressure washing channels Spencer also has a Spanish
language version of his mowing channel.
“I’ve been working really hard to make consistent videos,” he said. “It’s something
that I had no idea would honestly happen and it wasn’t in my plan for my life at all,
but I guess God put it in my hands. I’ve been really blessed.”
— Article by Tim Schrag ’12; photos by Tyler James Photography