Meet Tonnie Stam: The YouTuber Filming Tractors and Gaining Thousands of Subscribers

He has almost 100,000 followers on YouTube: Tonnie Stam from Appingedam. Almost every day he goes out to film the farm. And with success: “People think it’s just turning the key, but there’s so much equipment in such a tractor.”

“When you retire, you continue with your hobby. And that’s what I did,” says Tonnie. Armed with a camera, go-pros and drones, he tries to spot tractors and film them. He also shows the inside of the cabin. He edits what he has filmed himself and puts it on YouTube. And then the viewing figures will rise in no time.

Emotion during filming

You could almost call him the ‘Monica Geuze of the North’, he says with a laugh. Although, unlike Geuze, he is far from thinking of stopping. Filming tractors is Tonnie’s favorite thing to do. No matter how level-headed he is as an Appingedammer, making his videos also involves a little bit of emotion.

He lets his drone take off to film a special model from the air. A large tractor with caterpillar tracks: the youtuber wants to portray it up close. “This one has 500 hp. It gives me goosebumps. It’s hugely cool to get this in front of your lens. You’ll do anything for that,” he says.

Motivated by ratings

The man in the tracked tractor knows Tonnie. He turns out to be a viewer of Tonnie’s YouTube channel TSN AgriCultureVideo’s to be. “When I’m home in the evening, I watch his movies. It’s just what you like,” says the driver.

The figures show that more people like the videos. “I can’t complain,” says Tonnie. “It’s gotten pretty fast in recent years. I’ve posted about 1,500 videos so far and I think I’m at 92,000 subscribers. That also encourages me to keep going. As long as there are so many viewers I’m just going carry on.”

Interested in equipment

Agriculture has always attracted the youtuber, but the Appingedammer himself comes from a different sector. “I used to be a machinist. So I did all the making and welding of parts.”

“A lot of people think it’s turning a key in a tractor and there’s a radio in it, but you have no idea what kind of equipment is hidden behind it. People just like to look at it,” he says.

Full of surprises

One of his most viewed videos Tonnie posted almost 4 years ago and has been viewed over 20 million times. Why exactly that video attracts so many viewers, he does not know. “The video was shot in Germany, which is about hemp. People think of drugs, I think. Maybe that’s why they find it interesting. Or maybe they think they can learn something from it.”

He doesn’t always know in advance what Tonnie is going to film. It often happens spontaneously, says the youtuber: “I might just drive home after filming this tractor and come across something else interesting that I also want to show people.”