BYU sophomore Jesiah Olson founded a social media platform that showcases theme and amusement park content from around the world in 2018.
Dubbed National Coasters, this social media account has now amassed over one million followers for Olson across all platforms.
As a California native, Olson developed a fascination for theme parks at a young age.
Olson said his parents would take him and his siblings to Disneyland several times a month. Spending time from opening to closing at the parks, he learned to love being immersed in themed worlds.
In addition to cultivating a love for theme parks themselves, Olson said this time also created some of his best memories with his family.
"It would be cool if I could create a place for other kids to have a similar connection with their family and friends," Olson said.
In 2018, Olson was gifted a GoPro. Initially he was going to use it for surfing, but he said he brought it to Six Flags to take pictures of the rides instead.
"I posted some to Instagram, and all I would do was write a little blurb about them," Olson said.
Olson's descriptions included the ride's name, location, builder and occasionally a fun fact.
Soon afterward, people began to comment on Olson's posts, asking questions about the rides.
Olson said he began reaching out to individuals to ask if he could use their pictures and videos to post on his channel to accompany his descriptions for roller coasters located outside his hometown.
When he hit ten thousand followers on Instagram, Olson decided to continue to see where his channel would go.
"I started learning how algorithms worked. I started figuring out how Instagram, Meta, Youtube, Google, kind of how all that stuff works, like search engine optimization, even for getting my stuff to pop up first on search bars," Olson said.
Once he reached a point where he knew how to work the system, Olson waited for a spike in the algorithm to post a video, gaining sixty million views overnight.
Once Olson reached over one thousand followers, parks started reaching out, asking him to video their rides and leave reviews.
Today, Olson has visited 27 countries and ridden over 500 rollercoasters. He continues to post highlights of rollercoasters across the globe on his platforms for dedicated followers.
Antonio Gioia, a friend of Olson's, has traveled to multiple countries with Olson to ride coasters together.
Gioia said contrary to other platforms, Olson's has never edited out certain aspects of the hassles of traveling or attempted to make everything look perfect.
"Jesiah's platform is not particularly performative. It showcases the aspects of travel for what they are," Gioia said
Olson's National Coaster accounts and marketing experience have given him the opportunity to start his own social media company, Social Pro.
Olson launched the company with classmate and peer Jake Cutter. It aims to help other aspiring creators succeed.
"Social Pro is just kind of my stab at, like: 'Why not have a little business that's generating some revenue on the side and seeing if it goes somewhere?'" Olson said.
Susan Kruzinga, Olson's former boss and director of sales and marketing for Wild Rivers Waterpark, said that the number one thing she liked about working with Olson was that he cared about the business industry and the park's success.
"You can teach a kid to flip a hamburger, but you can't teach them to care," Kruzinga said.
Since Olson's public debut, multiple creators have contacted him for permission to use his videos.
Two of Olson's rollercoaster videos will be featured in the upcoming movie, "Sonic the Hedgehog 3."
Jason Derulo, American singer-songwriter and
dancer, reposted one of Olson's videos on his YouTube account.
Olson acknowledges all the individuals who have helped him along the way.
"You know how many people have been willing to help me, been nice to me and just given me a chance that they totally should not have given me?" Olson said. "This is so not my own adventure. So many people were involved."
Olson is pursuing a degree in experience design and management at BYU. His goal is to open a theme park of his own.