It takes some real chutzpah to declare yourself “the king” of anything, much less the “King of Random,” especially on the internet, land of the non sequitur. Yet while scrolling through Grant Thompson’s YouTube channel—where a video of how to light a fire using your own urine is alongside a series of tutorials on the fine art of napkin folding—one gets the impression that Thompson is no pretender to the throne.

If you’re looking for the common thread it might be that the King of Random videos are a celebration of the curious amateur. If you ignore what he’s doing in the videos for a moment, Thompson comes off as a normal, if very fit, husband and father of two, with a third on the way, in some tidy upscale suburb of an American anytown. The difference seems to be that when he idly wonders, “What happens when you eat dry ice?” Thompson is the guy who gets out the camera and has a bite.

Needless to say, many of his videos are covered in disclaimers. Others, like the King’s “10 Life Hacks You Need to Know For Christmas” don’t have any explosions at all, just pointers on last-minute ways to wrap gifts and make Thank You cards. So before you write Thompson off as some dad-bro, lightin’ fires with his pee, you have to reconcile that with his instructional on making decorative apple swans. He contains multitudes.

After watching his Thanksgiving video (below) and seeing that his channel has over 880,000 subscribers, I decided it was time to reach out to this guy, so we started emailing back and forth.

MOTHERBOARD: When did you become the King of Random?

THOMPSON: Three years ago. Every time I would visit my brother, I showed him a new project I was working on. Usually he had friends over visiting. Some weeks it was homemade rocket fuel, some weeks it was building an arc welder out of a microwave, and sometimes it was origami. One of his friends was blown away how passionate and diverse my interests and exclaimed one day, “Dude, you’re like the king of … random.”

Do you have any specific goals as the King of Random, anything to teach the world?

Call it “Mad Science,” or just a “Quest for Discovery.” These are some of my experiments, and “Random Weekend Projects.”

I like to make videos of things I’m learning about, excited about, or think people would also enjoy.  My only goals are to keep doing what I’m doing.

Were you a big fan of Mr. Wizard and other sciencey demonstration shows as a kid?

Who is Mr. Wizard? I do remember MacGyver as a kid, but I was pretty young so didn’t retain much. Just the sense of awe of a guy who could do anything with basic resources.

Did you set out for YouTube fame?

No. I set out to make 100 videos whether or not anyone watched them. (Note: He is now at 103 videos.)

So why all the napkin folding?

To celebrate 500,000 subscribers I took my wife on a cruise. I’ve always enjoyed origami and while we were there we took a course on napkin folding. I thought that would be a good video series to make for the holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years all involve fancy dinners so I put that together. I realize it’s completely different from any other project I’ve done, but it’s something I really enjoyed and wanted to share. Random!

More pressingly, why the exploding pumpkin pie?

The exploding pie is more like a controlled burn actually! :) 

This was a King of Random original. I wanted to make a video to celebrate Thanksgiving. Walking through the bakery at the grocery store one day, and seeing the pumpkin pies on display, made me realize how similar r-candy and pumpkin pie are in appearance. That got the wheels spinning and spawned this video.

The video is for demonstrative, educational, and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to be duplicated.

One aspect I take pride in is the “Mad Science” approach. My wife calls me a “happy scientist” though. To combine something as unassuming as a pie with something as exciting as homemade rocket fuel is totally my style. “King of Random style”.

Basically, you never know what you’re going to get on my channel. I make videos about what I’m interested and passionate about… and those change on a fairly regular basis. But life-hacks, how-to’s, survival, and party tricks will always be a common theme.