Danny Duncan escaped homelessness by Tinder dates

By Miguel Gutierrez –

Danny Duncan was homeless, so he looked for a place to sleep each night… on Tinder.

For an influencer famous for his Virginity Rocks clothing line, it seems like a strange start. There’s not a more anti-virginity app than the hookup culture Tinder.

“I would stay at Tinder girls’ houses all the time,” Danny says on the Jon Joushaei YouTube channel. “That was the biggest breakthrough for me to not be homeless.”

Raised in Englewood, FL, by an alcoholic mother (he still cries thinking about his rough childhood), Danny Duncan wanted to become a sports rehab coach doing YouTube, but his knack for wisecracks brought more than just mission drift. It brought unforetold success.

He made $9M last year alone. He bought his mom a house. In fact, he bought massive amounts of land around his native Englewood.

Piercing the upper echelon of YouTube stardom delivered to him a massive advertising platform. (He doesn’t make much money from views). Just his ice cream shop, Danny’s Cream Pies, in englewood, made $1M last year, he says.

But the brand name that went huge was his Virginity Rocks wear, which he started selling via Zumiez retail stores, then at Tillys. He sold out and crashed websites. He’s moved an estimated $150M in merchandise.

When a high school student wearing a Virginity Rocks shirt to school nearly got suspended by an Oregon high school because it was “disruptive,” Danny showed up with a truckload of shirts and handed them out to the crowd. The next day, almost the whole high school wore them in class.

Christians have been among his biggest clients. But Danny is not a Christian. Nor is he a virgin. Why the apparent push for morality?

He’s not pushing Christian ethics, he insists; he’s encouraging kids to feel comfortable with whatever life vision they have. He himself has never taken drugs or drunk alcohol (after going through the gauntlet of his mom’s alcoholism).

“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do any drugs,” Danny says. “I don’t see why it’s hard for people who get peer pressured. It was never difficult for me to say no.”

Danny moved to Los Angeles to make it as a YouTuber. He was originally homeless and slept on trains and buses. Then he used Tinder to find a place to crash at. He never did the video, “Thirty nights, thirty swipes.”

One of Danny’s early hits was when he drove his sister’s truck into the pond. “My sister was livid,” he says. In the video, he then presented her with a brand new vehicle.

He repeated the prank by crashing into his dad’s trucks. “He came out all pissed off,” he remembers. As before, he gave his dad a new one, on the video.

“I would just go film crazy stuff,” he says. Not all his videos are pranks. He does eating challenges, vlogs and stunts. He shows up for interviews in pajamas.

Danny has 7 million subscribers.

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