Christopher Slayton devoted two months of his life to researching black holes, determining the hues of Saturn’s rings, and gazing down on Earth from orbit while doing all of these things.
Mr. Slayton, who is 18, did not have to get up from his desk to complete the task. In Minecraft, a kind of online video game in which players construct and explore virtual environments, he decided to construct the whole observable universe by hand, one brick at a time.
By the time it was through, he got the impression that he had been everywhere in the whole world.
According to Mr. Slayton, also known as ChrisDaCow on his Minecraft-focused accounts on YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, he has been playing the game for almost a decade, and he is not a user of any other games. In 2019, he began uploading videos on YouTube that showcase his “builds,” which are virtual environments he develops while playing the game. Since he graduated from high school earlier this spring, he has been devoting the majority of his time and attention to this channel.
According to Mr. Slayton, while the idea of attending college has crossed his mind, now is not the appropriate moment. While he starts his new work as a lifeguard shortly, he plans to keep expanding the amount of material on his YouTube channel in order to attract more subscribers.
According to Mr. Slayton, who has approximately 25,000 followers on YouTube, the reaction to this video pushed him to continue pursuing ambitious ideas.
According to what he mentioned, his goal is to make the films more entertaining than they would be if they consisted just of narrations coupled with recordings of a player interacting with the interface. Mr. Slayton, who lives in San Diego with his mother, stepfather, and brother, has said that one of his goals with Minecraft is to use it to create tales.
Before beginning work on his vision of the world, he went skydiving for the purpose of the movie documenting the search to construct the universe. This allowed him to observe the earth from a new vantage point before beginning the project.
He used images as a resource for every feature in the Minecraft world, and he relearned math fundamentals in order to create his work to scale, making sure that the angles and proportions were as exact as they could be. For instance, the first time he tried to create Africa, the end product turned out to be far too little.
After completing the Minecraft world, Mr. Slayton felt a sense of relief. He said that he hadn’t been getting enough sleep over the course of those two months, that he felt stretched thin while finishing the movie, and that he ended up being sick due to the stress of the situation at one point.
In the near future, he intends to continue the manufacturing of his constructions by relocating the operation from his bedroom to a studio.
Despite the reaction, Mr. Slayton has said that he won’t be satisfied with his YouTube channel until he has built up a more consistent following there. “Until I can accomplish it in a regular manner, I feel a little nervous.”