One Doctor, 5 Million Patients
How the Subject of a Viral Buzzfeed Video Turned his Five Minutes of Fame into Five Million Subscribers
In 2012, Mikhail Varshavski was just another one of Instagram’s 15 million users, documenting his journey through medical school featuring his four-legged friend, Roxy. Little did he know that three years later, a viral Buzzfeed article titled, “Um, You Really Need To See This Hot Doctor And His Dog,” would spiral into a second career in the social media space for the aspiring doctor.
Doctor Varshavski’s popularity would continue to snowball following the viral article, leading to guest appearances on renowned TV programs such as The Ellen Show, The Doctors and Rachael Ray. After coining his social media presence as Doctor Mike, he launched his own YouTube channel in 2017 with a goal to increase awareness surrounding ongoing events and topics in medicine.
In today’s age of information, the general public has expanded the space between themselves and their family doctors, opting instead to self-diagnose with the help of sources such as WebMD and Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the ease of access to helpful and scientifically-accurate information is mirrored equally with the potent spread of misinformation through social media platforms. The anti-vaccine movement is one of the most infamous and negatively-impactful results of this phenomena, originating from extremist parenting communities on Facebook. Anti-vaxxers are known to over-exaggerate and fabricate the potential risks of vaccines, fear-mongering others in the parenting community out of vaccinating their children.
Dr. Mike’s videos directly aim to combat these types misconceptions by breaking down complex or intimidating topics into digestible explanations, in the form of the hottest trending videos on YouTube. His channel features videos like healthy morning routines, trials of the newest diets, and reviews on other medicine-related media, many of them in collaboration with top influencers on the platform, including Gabbie Hanna, Molly Burke and Phillip Defranco.
His influence is attributed largely to his reputation as a certified and practising family medicine doctor, but is amplified by his natural on-camera charisma, and his ability to engage and connect with his audience. In his videos, he responds directly to user comments on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, building a repour with his audience similar to one that people would have with their own family physicians.
Most recently, with the Corona virus being a widely discussed topic in the media, Dr. Mike released two YouTube videos rationalizing the risks and identifying the necessary steps for protection to clear the hysteria surrounding the viral virus. These videos gained extensive traction, massing over 7 million views cumulatively in less than two weeks time, successfully growing his channel by over 50,000 subscribers following the first video “The Truth about the Corona Virus.”
Through consistently creating content that is both educational and trendy, he is able to captivate a wide audience, whilst still resonating with his original cult following of health-conscious subscribers. It is with these values that he was able to turn what would have just been another five-minutes of fame into a fully-fledged career in the entertainment industry.
“As always, stay happy and healthy.” — Dr. Mike
