Pat McErlean, a Scottish retiree, has posted videos about his camping trips on YouTube for the past two years, but with little success.
However, a well-known TikTok account noticed the 74-year-old's Wander with Mac channel, which has since gone viral.
He gives viewers tours of the scenic areas close to his Dumfries and Galloway home in his whimsical films.
A TikTok user's video promotion has received 12 million views.
Pat said on BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland that he likes getting the "young yins" who watch his TikTok videos to call him "grandad" because it makes them feel older.
"Pat get on to your YouTube channel, something's happening," he said in response to a message from one of the men who owns a vacation home in his community.
"I believe they approve of how I expressed things. They say, "That's my grandad," rather than calling them old gits or other things. ".
An Ordnance Survey map Pat received as a gift when he was 10 years old served as the impetus for his lifelong love of camping.
His storytelling approach was influenced by Tom Weir and Scottish filmmaker John Grierson when he started his channel two years ago to record his camping excursions with his dog, Morag.
I've been camping occasionally since I was a lad, he claimed.
"When I was ten years old, I used to live close to Edinburgh and would frequently vanish up the Pentlands at night to go for long walks. ".
He is now retired and resides in Garlieston. He stated: "I wanted to do something - something different, something that I'd enjoy, something that was a bit of an adventure so I thought well let's do some camping and I've loved every minute of it. ".
After being promoted on TikTok by musician Kristian Keenan, his channel has experienced greater success.
Keenan sought to publicize a YouTube channel with "little to no views.". More than 12 million people have watched his Pat-related video as of this writing.
The endorsement caused Pat's YouTube channel's subscriber count to increase by over 400,000.
Since then, Pat has created his own TikTok account, also known as Wander with Mac. The creator who promoted him already has fewer subscribers than it does.
Kristian Keenan, who Pat later got in touch with, expressed a similar surprise at the video's popularity.
Though I'm not very tech savvy, I was able to access TikTok and discover who the man was, according to what he said.
I reached out to him, and after exchanging messages, he expressed his shock as well.
"I might get this old guy 500 or maybe a couple thousand extra subscriptions and get his channel monetized," he reasoned. He also found it hard to believe. ".
Keenan has helped raise more than £1,000 to assist with the cost of operating a campervan since Pat recently had to put his camping hobby on hold due to health issues.
