For most of June 2023, David and Daniel Hulett spent their days in their parents’ Virginia basement flipping nickels. They took turns—first David, then Daniel—trying to land the coins perfectly on edge. They knew the odds were nearly impossible, but not zero. This was their job.
After a few days, frustration crept in. “When you’ve been at it that long, you start thinking, This next one has to be it!” says Daniel, 26, the older and more upbeat of the two. “You get hopeful, then crushed when it doesn’t happen. It’s almost painful. Messes with your head.”
They adjusted their grip, changed the spin, even swapped surfaces—ditching the bouncy ping-pong table for wood, tile, and granite. For David, 24, the constant failure took a toll. “I couldn’t sleep,” he admits. “I’d dream about flipping nickels. You start questioning reality—like, What even is real anymore? Who am I?”
Who they are, in fact, is professional trick shooters—better known to their 12.5 million followers across social media as the Hulett Brothers. They’ve mastered an art that’s evolved far beyond pool halls, thriving on short-form video platforms. Their craft? Pulling off absurd, near-impossible stunts that blur the line between luck and skill. Or, as Daniel puts it: “We invent dumb challenges and try to beat them.”
Trickshots come in many forms—ping-pong golf shots, full-court basketball throws, sliding phones perfectly into chargers—but the best creators carve out their own niche. Mike Shields (aka That’ll Work), recent winner of the first-ever Trick Shot Championship, specializes in tossing discs into a Nintendo Wii. Turkish shooter Gamze May (aka @gmzmy) wows with oud tricks, like flicking a cigarette into her mouth mid-riff.
Then there’s Amanda Badertscher, a Georgia PE teacher who recently appeared on America’s Got Talent after a producer spotted her Instagram (@thetrickshotqueen), where she smacks basketballs into nets—with a baseball bat—from across the court. Her defining skill? “If I had to pick one? Hitting crazy shots with a bat,” she says.
The Huletts, though, are the ultimate all-rounders. They’ve kicked soccer balls into bins from 50 meters, dropped paper into shredders from ladders, and thrown plungers onto tables with pinpoint accuracy. They might even be the world’s best at stacking red plastic cups midair. Their signature celebration? Frantic jumping, wild screams, and a synchronized “LET’S GO!”
Finally, in November 2023, after an estimated 70,000 tries, Daniel landed the nickel on edge. The coin flipped, bounced, spun—then settled perfectly on a sheet of paper. A stunned pause. Then pure, unfiltered joy.They celebrate as they realize they’ve finally done it. David looks like a man freed from an immense weight.
Trickshots have become big business. In the world of short-form videos, where algorithms dictate what we see, these oddly satisfying clips of ordinary people pulling off extraordinary feats are one of the few things that bring us together. The best ones cross language, religion, and cultural barriers. They work as both sport and a playful jab at how pointless human effort can sometimes seem. Their appeal lies in the balance between the hours of hard work the creators put in and the instant joy they give viewers. To borrow from Shakespeare’s Richard II: they’ve wasted time, and now time wastes them.
### Dude Perfect: Making It Look Easy
The undisputed kings of trickshots are Dude Perfect, five college friends from Texas A&M. Their first viral video in 2009 featured Tyler “The Beard” Toney casually sinking no-look basketball shots in his backyard—without reacting, as if it happened every time. That effortless cool is their signature. Whether it’s tossing sliders onto feet or keys onto hooks, they make life look effortlessly satisfying. Of course, it’s all in the editing.
Now, with 17 billion views and 60 million subscribers, they’ve turned trickshots into a massive enterprise. They’ve even sunk a basket from the top of an 856-foot tower in Las Vegas. Earlier this year, they announced a $100 million investment to build “Dude Perfect World,” a family-friendly resort complete with a 330-foot trickshot tower.
### How Ridiculous: The Underdogs
Their biggest rivals, Australia’s How Ridiculous (14 billion views, 23 million subscribers), are like the Buster Keaton to Dude Perfect’s Charlie Chaplin. The Perth-based trio once made a blindfolded, backward basketball shot from the top of Switzerland’s 540-foot Luzzone Dam. Like Dude Perfect, they’re devout Christians, often thanking Jesus for their success—even quoting Psalm 115:1 on their website: “Not to us, LORD, but to your name be the glory.”
### Fake or Real?
As budgets grow, so do accusations of AI trickery and green-screen fakery. Debunking videos have even become their own genre. But after 15 years, no solid proof has emerged that Dude Perfect’s stunts are fake. Both groups emphasize the countless failed attempts in their behind-the-scenes clips. After all, is it really easier to animate a perfect basketball shot than to just spend an afternoon throwing one?
Still, the more polished these stunts become, the further they drift from their humble backyard origins. Personally, I prefer the scrappier, less professional videos—the ones that still feel like dumb luck and spontaneous fun.
Once, in college, my friend Martin flicked a joint at me from across the room, and I somehow caught it in the corner of my mouth, lighting it in one smooth motion. Everyone cheered and declared me king. Sadly, no camera was rolling—otherwise, I might’ve ended up in a very different career. But hopefully, we all get at least one moment like that in life.
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This article includes content from Instagram. We ask for permission before loading, as they may use cookies and tracking. Click “Allow and continue” to view.”Trickshots are so relatable,” says Badertscher, who recently spent 16 days trying to throw an American football over her house into a hidden basketball hoop. “Anyone can try them at any skill level. When people see me practicing in my backyard, they think, ‘Hey, I could do that too!'”
To me, this captures the essence of trickshots—that childlike urge to play, experiment, and have fun. “I’ve been doing this kind of thing since I was little,” says Jacob Grégoire, a 25-year-old from Quebec with 1.8 million Instagram followers (@jacob_acrobat). “Even as a kid, I’d balance my toothbrush on my nose. Maybe it’s ADHD or something, but if I have something in my hands, I’ll toss it around.”
Then there’s that moment of inspiration—when you notice a cool move and think, Can I turn this into a game? In my favorite children’s book, How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen, the young hero Tom discovers that all his playful antics—the very things that annoy his strict aunt—actually give him the skills to outwit his opponents. After defeating the captain in made-up sports, Tom gloats, “Maybe that’ll teach you not to mess with a boy who knows how to fool around.” Many trickshot artists have had similar victories, proving to doubtful parents that flipping bottles or tossing cards can actually pay the bills.
### ‘Trickshots are like meditation’: Gamze May
Turkish trickshot artist Gamze May says she drove her parents crazy when she first started practicing during COVID lockdowns in Istanbul. “I was bouncing ping-pong balls on pans, and the noise annoyed them,” she recalls. “But for me, it was fun.” Now, her parents support her—her two hours of daily trickshot practice supplements her income as a digital marketer. But their initial skepticism reminded her of the disapproval she faced as a girl who always wanted to play with the boys.
“I was always running around, playing football, basketball—any sport. I loved video games and remote-control cars too,” she says. “My mum would ask, Why are you playing with the boys?”
Her answer was simple then and now: “It makes me happy. When I’m playing sports or doing trickshots, I feel like I’m in another world. It’s like meditation—no stress, no problems. Some people might not get it, but I don’t care when I’m making my videos.”
Of course, there are always skeptics in the comments—people calling the tricks fake or lucky. Anyone could do this if they tried for five hours and 29 minutes. But they’re missing the point.
### Mick Shields vs. 10 Ordinary People
For one thing, trickshot artists are far from unskilled. Mike “That’ll Work” Shields recently challenged 10 people with regular jobs to beat him at a series of trickshots—and he won every time. Badertscher played college softball, and May was the captain of the women’s football team Bakırköyspor before retiring in January.
“Athletes pick these things up a little easier,” May says. “But it still takes a lot of practice. I put in the time, and I get better.”Privacy Policy. We use Google reCAPTCHA to secure our website, and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
These are what David Hulett calls “super-strange skills.” With hours of practice, you gradually improve at tasks like tossing ping-pong balls to play a tune on arranged pans or dropping paper from a stepladder into a shredder. David had the key realization that a small fold in the paper changes its trajectory, making it more likely to land in the shredder. Just as Dick Fosbury’s high-jump technique revolutionized the sport in 1968, a single breakthrough can redefine trickshotting in an afternoon.
But the true skill lies in relentless determination—the patience and belief that, eventually, it will work. And it will, as long as you don’t quit. “Dan and I were always super competitive,” David says. “We wanted to win at whatever we did.” Trickshotters know that sheer repetition can overcome skill fluctuations. I’m terrible at darts, but if I threw thousands of them, I’d eventually hit a perfect 180—even if it took rage, starvation, and my family leaving me. All I’d need is to capture that one successful shot and ignore the 89,362 failed attempts. In this way, anyone can be Lionel Messi for 15 seconds. The smartphone has made sports accessible to all.
Still, as any child knows, the real challenge isn’t the game—it’s cleaning up. Throwing cards at a target is easy; picking up thousands of them is tedious. Then there are technical mishaps. Once, after hours of effort, Gamze May landed a card perfectly between two dice—only to find her phone had stopped recording due to full storage. “My phone is always full,” she sighs. “I constantly have to clear space.”
Yet these frustrations are outweighed by the thrill of success. “When I’m filming, it’s like a voice telling me, You’ll do this,” Gamze says. “I believe it, and then it happens. It feels amazing—like flying. Some might think it’s silly, but for me, it’s therapy.”
Trickshot culture is also influencing other performances. Grégoire, a former Cirque du Soleil acrobat, turned to social media after injuries cut his stage career short. “I have a herniated disc and a bad knee. Acrobats don’t last long,” he explains. Now, he blends acrobatics with trickshots, like throwing a knife into a flying onion balanced on a blade in his mouth. “I’ve pushed it so far, I don’t even know what to call it,” he admits. Though his feats require incredible skill, he still considers them trickshots—a mix of precision and luck, perfected through repetition.
Social media allows him to experiment in ways impossible on stage, where audiences wouldn’t tolerate multiple takes. But platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels demand constant innovation. “People always want more,” he says. The pressure to stay original keeps him pushing boundaries, redefining what trickshotting can be.Social media is a different beast from live performances. On stage, you can take your time to build a story—the audience is patient. But online, your content needs to grab attention instantly. People scroll so quickly these days that you have to hook them right away. It pushes me to find the most eye-catching, impressive thing immediately.
It’s a double win with the algorithm if you not only capture someone’s attention but also get them to rewatch your 15-second video. “That’s my strength,” Grégoire says. “Some of my tricks are so complex that people watch them three or four times just to understand how they work.”
The best trickshot creators lean into the absurdity of the format. Videos of ping-pong golf sit alongside grim news from Gaza and Ukraine, offering a strange contrast—much like the surreal, chaotic art of the original Cabaret Voltaire during World War I.
“Now when I open Instagram, it’s just crimes against humanity… trickshots… crimes against humanity… trickshots!” says Michael Rayner, 62, also known as @brokenjuggler. He creates bizarre trickshot videos in his Los Angeles front yard. “I’m here for all of it,” he says, arguing that short-form media reflects reality more honestly than TV. “America is violent right now. I perform in immigrant communities where people fear being taken by ICE. My videos are therapy for me, but I hope they offer others a brief escape.”
A professional entertainer, Rayner turned to Instagram after the pandemic canceled his comedy club gigs. His routines—honed over decades—include balancing a tennis racket between two sticks and spinning a cheeseburger on a parasol. But he mixes these with impossible trickshots, like tossing his daughter’s Nicolas Cage pillow behind his head into a basketball hoop.
His deadpan delivery, looking like “some schlubby dad in his driveway,” often confuses viewers. “People think my videos are fake—AI or green screen. That’s the sad state of reality now. Even real things are doubted.”
Recently, he’s added voiceovers, framing his tricks as mystical rituals. “I was summoned by the oracle,” he says in one video. “To complete my mission, I had to make a Nicolas Cage basket while riding a unicycle.” In another, he expresses gratitude for his unusual career: “Some people sit at desks pushing papers. But me? I’m lucky. I’m in charge.”
The Hulett brothers are grateful too. Without trickshots, they’d be stuck in finance—their college majors. “We went the opposite way,” David says. Their father is a banker, their brother an accountant, and their sister a financial analyst. “I never expected a creative job,” Daniel admits. “Or to spend so much time with my brother.”
But it’s a viable career now. When they told their father they were going full-time, he asked for a business plan. Once they delivered, he was fully supportive. “You’re making money. You’re happy. This is great.”
A single successful video can earn thousands.They earn thousands of dollars a month, but it’s not guaranteed. For instance, their nickel video performed so poorly that they had to take it down from TikTok. That’s why they re-edit their videos to work across Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube—to protect against unpredictable algorithm changes. Branding deals make up 80% of their income, which helps stabilize their earnings. Their long-term plan is to create more profitable, longer YouTube content. For now, they earn enough to rent a warehouse and hire business managers and editors, freeing them up to focus on what they do best: trick shots.
On a typical day, they spend five or six hours trying to land a Mentos mint into a spinning Diet Coke bottle on a bicycle wheel or guiding soccer balls through ping-pong table obstacle courses. When you think about it, that’s not a bad way to spend your time. Can most of us honestly say our jobs are more meaningful?
Michael Rayner believes it’s time well spent. “I get a lot of messages from people saying they were having a bad day, but my videos helped cheer them up, even if just for a moment,” he says. “I don’t want to sound dramatic, but if I can bring a little happiness to people struggling with mental health, that makes me happy.”
