Grant Thompson

TKOR (formerly known as The King of Random) is a YouTube channel created by Grant Thompson that originally conducted DIY projects and experiments, often involving large amounts of a single item.

Thompson created the channel in 2010 and operated it until his death in 2019.

The channel is now run by Thompson's friends and family and no longer has a DIY focus, but produces content such as "life hacks, experiments, and random weekend projects."

The channel was originally hosted solely by Thompson, and then by sculptors Nate Bonham and Calli Gade, later joined by meteorologist Grace Dirig.

Bonham and Gade left TKOR in 2021 citing creative differences with TKOR management and a downturn in viewership.

The channel has 12.4 million subscribers.

TKOR maintains three other channels: "2KOR", for behind-the-scenes and other content, "TKOR Shorts", for use of YouTube's "Shorts" feature, and "The King of Random en Español", for videos from the main channel translated into Spanish.

At the age of 29, Grant Thompson, who was an airline pilot in Farmington, Utah, became deeply interested in studying the way things worked.

Thompson began tinkering with things and doing random household projects in his spare time.

Eventually, Thompson realized that his friends were becoming interested in his projects, and had the idea to film some of them and upload them to YouTube.

In January 2010, he created a YouTube channel with the name "01032010814", the exact date and time Thompson created the channel.

The second video he uploaded to the channel in 2010 was the start of his DIY and life hack videos.

However, it was not until late 2011 that Thompson began actively pursuing the idea of creating a branded YouTube channel devoted to life hack videos.

A few years prior, a friend of Thompson's had told him that he was the "King of Random" because of all of the random things he was always involved with.

Thompson thought this would be a good name for his YouTube channel and started making plans to convert his existing channel to "The King of Random" in early 2012.

The first video Thompson released under his newly named channel was published on September 6, 2012, and was titled "How to Make Slime (Ninja Turtle Ooze)".

Prior to releasing the first King of Random video, Thompson had limited video editing experience.

He purchased the original King of Random metallic ball intro clip from a freelancer in Asia, and started toying around with it on his neighbor's computer in Adobe Premiere.

He then purchased Adobe Premiere for himself and was determined to create a channel with high quality content, by spending countless hours teaching himself how to film and edit his own videos.

Due to the early success of his channel, Thompson realized that it had the potential to grow with a steady release of quality content.

He quickly transformed his basement into a creation studio for many years worth of projects that he had ideas for.

Thompson continued to produce his own videos for the first couple years of the channel, but due to growing popularity and success, Thompson began to hire additional help with the production side of the channel.

The King of Random grew so quickly from its inception that Thompson was flying as an airline pilot less and less as time went on and ultimately retired from flying to focus solely on his YouTube channel.

On September 9, 2017, the channel introduced Nate Bonham as co-host and he became the permanent host a few weeks later.

On October 25, 2018, the channel introduced Calli Gade as co-host.

Thompson reportedly stepped away to spend more time with family, but still owned the channel and was involved in its day-to-day operations until his death.

Ownership of the channel passed to Thompson's wife Janae after his death in July 2019.

In September 2020, the channel added Kennen Hutchison, Grace Dirig, and Kevin DeBruin as co-hosts.

They acted as "secondary" hosts to Nate and Calli, with Nate, Calli, and one of the newer hosts in each video.

On March 24, 2021, The King of Random Team created a second supporting channel, "2KOR" where they would post support experiments, reactions, behind-the-scenes, bloopers, and more.

In early 2021, DeBruin and Hutchison stopped appearing on the channel.

In a Reddit comment made by Bonham, he said DeBruin was unable to reach an agreement with the channel to continue appearing.

In May 2021, the channel changed its name from "The King of Random" to "TKOR".

Gade announced her departure from the channel on July 9, 2021.

In her Twitch stream, Gade mentioned that it was not her choice to leave the channel.

She also said, "It's really sad. I would've had stayed with TKOR for the rest of my life, but I understand that they got to move into a different direction and they've got to do what's best for them."

The channel was then hosted solely by Bonham and Dirig.

This was later corroborated by a Reddit post made by Thompson's widow Janae who also said Hutchison would be returning to the channel's studio to film more videos once COVID-19 pandemic restrictions lifted.

On July 16, 2021, TKOR announced the Grant Thompson Outward Bound Scholarship.

On November 15, 2021, TKOR released the first episode of their weekly podcast Random Theory.