- Wouldn't you know first thing in the morning I come out here, I open up my front door to see- - [Michelle] Westerly native Ian Brownhill has amassed a huge following on social media by creating videos.

Many of them poke fun at what it means to be a guy from New England.

- Hey, Ma, we got this nor Eastern on the way.

Just wanna make sure you got your milk, bread and eggs.

Call me back.

Oh God, I would not want to have to shovel that driveway.

- So for people who are unfamiliar with your videos, describe for me what is the typical New England guy?

- That's a tough one, that's broad.

I think New Englanders are very fast-paced, very impatient, very protective of themselves and their family members, but also incredibly caring and loving and I think we all just kind of wanna live like a good life and anything that interrupts that is very irritating to us.

- [Michelle] Irritated by things like snow the day before Halloween.

This video from 2020 has almost 10 million views.

- I should be putting on my Betty White costume for Halloween tomorrow, but instead I gotta go down to my mother's house and get my winter clothes out of a box, in the basement, because I wasn't prepared for this.

Nobody was.

Good friggin' morning from New England, folks.

- [Michelle] We met up with Brownhill at his home in East Greenwich where he gave us a behind the scenes look at what it takes to be, as he describes it, a content creator.

At 31, he already has 1.2 million followers on TikTok and more than 145,000 on Instagram.

- When I first started, I was like, how can I market myself so that brands wanna work with me?

And originally it was mostly because I wanted to create a name for myself in the acting world.

- [Michelle] But his popularity on social media has become more than a way to get noticed as an actor.

He's found a way to a living creating videos full-time, working with companies like Dunkin', Papa Gino's, and Iggy's Doughboys and Chowder House.

- All right, we are answering the question, do we prefer white chowder, red chowder?

- White chowder.

- White chowder.

We got another winner, folks.

These companies will reach out to me, we'll have a conversation, they'll say, Hey, we would like one, two, three, four, five videos from you spread over the next couple months.

We would like to talk about maybe some new products that we have.

We'd like to talk about, you know, maybe some things that we're doing for our local community, would you mind commenting on that?

- [Michelle] He was making videos for almost three years before he earned any money from them.

And even now, he says, 90% of his videos aren't sponsored.

- These videos I make because I love making videos, I love entertaining and I'm going for a laugh.

The fact that I've been able to fortunately get the following that I have and create the brand that I have is what attracts brands to wanna work with me.

98% of the people that I work with are all New England based.

- [Michelle] Brands that resonate with his New England persona, who, like Brownhill, runs on Dunkin'.

- Delish, I feel like I can fall asleep right here.

- And he's got the outfit to prove it.

The Dunkin' costume.

- Oh yes, my onesie.

- Did you reach out to Dunkin' and say, I need that costume.

- Nu-uh, nu-uh.

- They reached out to you?

- Oh no, I bought that.

- Oh, you bought that?

- Oh yeah.

Dunkin' put that online, I said, I'm gonna have that.

- [Michelle] Before Dunkin' was sponsoring Brownhill, he was dressing and acting the part.

- They were sponsoring athletes and mega million followers type of creators, but not smaller folk.

So I was kind of like, if I make videos and Dunkin' sees it at some point, maybe they'll reach out to me.

- [Michelle] All of those videos gave him time to find tune his New England character and his accent, a mix of Rhode Island and Boston.

- What's up with their accent too?

It sounds like Connecticut, Rhode Island, and like York Maine mixed in one, it's like awful.

- I don't got an accent, you got an accent.

If you're from like Southie or Easty and you're like a true, authentic like Boston person, it's really like the Rs are really what gets dropped.

Whereas in Rhode Island, it's kind of just words that are specifically missing letters and vowels.

Like, you know, Warwick, Rhode Island, there's two Ws.

But if you're from Rhode Island, you can say, oh, I'm from Warwick.

You don't pronounce the second W for some reason.

Or you, you know, my mom will always say like, well, not for nuttin'.

And I'm like, where's nuttin', what's nuttin'?

Is it not for nuttin'?

It's not for nothing.

- His mom isn't at all surprised by his success.

- And all my friends, "Your son is so good.

Your son's so funny, he's so handsome."

I'm like, "Hey, he's my son, so you don't have to gimme the handsome stuff.

Stay away, old cougar."

(Michelle laughs) - If there's one thing I hate more than traffic, it's New Yorkers.

Especially the Giants.

- [Michelle] while Brownhill's always looking for a laugh, he's also exploring how to use his social media fame to talk about another topic he cares deeply about, men's mental health.

- A lot of people don't know that I'm in therapy once a week, that I go and I talk about my emotions and my feelings and my struggles and things going on.

You know, my mom always created an open door policy for our family.

So my mom has always been someone to say, "You know, I know you're upset, don't walk away.

Sit here, let's talk."

- [Michelle] Brownhill's not sure what his future as a content creator looks like, but he says the type of digital marketing that he provides is here to stay.

- I think the biggest misconception is that it's not a career and that it's not a job, and that what I do isn't hard and that it isn't something that could be like sustainable.

- [Michelle] He says he's approaching the future one video at a time.

- I don't know that I necessarily have a plan, but for now, as long as people will have me on their screens of their phone, I would love to continue to entertain and be there for you.