A fan of documentaries since he was very young, Christian Simpson started making videos on his phone at age 10. That interest would develop into a passion that now drives the 18-year-old senior at Lutheran West High School in Rocky River, Ohio.
“I wasn’t really trying to make videos at that time since basketball was what I was really interested in, but even then, I was making and editing highlight videos for my teammates,” recalled Simpson, whose injury during his sophomore year turned his focus from basketball to videography. “I started recording videos off my phone for my teammates and came up with the Instagram name, ‘Clehoopmixtape,’ he laughed. “Some of the varsity players suggested calling me ‘Courtside Chris’ and that stuck. I made the decision that summer not to continue playing basketball, which was hard for me because basketball had been everything to me to the point that I watched ‘Space Jam’ every night for three years. Basketball just wasn’t fun for me any longer and I didn’t realize how much I love making videos until I started doing it.”
Courtside Chris
With help from his grandfather and using money he saved, Simpson bought his first camera, a Canon T-7. “I started attending basketball games the next season and would pop out to different schools. I started hearing ‘Courtside Chris’ more and more because I was now uploading my videos,” he stated.
He was surprised how quickly he found success. “Two months after I started, I made a video of my little brother playing basketball and put it on TikTok one night and went to sleep. I had no expectations that many people would see it,” he remembered. “I woke up the next morning and it had 600,000 views. It had zero when I went to bed. I went from having fewer than 100 followers to 10,000. ESPN was interested in posting it and from then, my TikTok just kept growing. I had one million views on several videos and 30,000 followers. It is not about the numbers, but about the reach and knowing I can reach that many people. That motivated me to keep going and take video content a lot more seriously.”
Unaware of TikTok rules about posting videos of minors shirtless, he posted a video of his then 14-year-old brother playing basketball without a shirt on, causing his ‘Courtside Chris’ account to be banned. “I took it as a lesson to make sure I never got so caught up in the numbers and views. I want to keep myself from being washed up in that and staying true to why I do this in the first place,” he explained.
Building Relationships
Last year, Simpson met SkyHigh Sportz owner Lamar Sykes, who was also filming basketball when they struck up a conversation and quickly bonded. “He told me he had a camera I could use and the next time I saw him, he handed me a Sony camcorder,” Simpson described. “I used it for the next eight months and did so much with it. I practiced color grading so that you couldn’t even tell the videos were off a small camcorder. I am good at making the most of what I have. Lamar has been a mentor to me and provided me with the opportunity to go a lot of places to film.”
Sykes remembers that first meeting vividly. “I met him at the same time I met a host of other young photographers and videographers who were on the high school basketball scene. Many were doing their best imitation of Steve Newton (3rd Coast Hoops), while others were hustling to make some cash. However, Christian told me from day one that he wanted to be a storyteller,” he recollected. “Whether it’s just a random guy that takes photos like me, famous YouTubers or professional athletes, if he has a burning question inside, he will ask it, and immediately try to apply it in his life or content.”
Simpson does not take it for granted that Sykes never charged him for the camcorder and then switched that out for a Canon EOS70 Mark II. “Thanks to Lamar, I have never paid a dime for any camera other than my first one, which I will hang on to forever. I am very blessed. If you are good to people, they will be good to you. I have built countless relationships and been given so much advice,” he remarked.
“As I observed him in action, I knew there were some things that I knew about videography that I could share with him. I also accumulated a lot of camera gear over the years. As he asked questions over the coming days/weeks/months, I’d pour out whatever I could to help him get closer to his goals,” Sykes commented. “I look at it as just paying it forward, the same way others did for me. The cool thing is that I already see him doing that for people younger than him who have decided to pick up a camera and tell stories that are important to them.”
Los Angeles
Local St. Edward’s basketball legend Demetrius “Meechie” Terry provided Simpson with the opportunity of a lifetime, a trip to Los Angeles. “I was at Cleveland State one day when he was there and he came up to me because he had seen my videos,” he communicated. “He asked if I wanted to come to L.A. with him to film videos with YouTubers, including FlightReacts (who has more than 4.8 million subscribers on YouTube), who my brother watches every day and I had watched so often. A month later, we flew out there.”
“I never thought I would ever be in L.A. and now I am out there filming a video with my camcorder. I hung out with a lot of content creators and asked a lot of questions. It was a life-changing experience,” Simpson continued. “I got to meet FlightReacts and he gave my brother a shout out. That kind of stuff always motivates me. God always places things in my life to keep me going.”
Hard Lessons
Late in 2022, Simpson’s faith and spirit were tested by an unfortunate event. “I got an offer to film a video at a club late at night. Being young, I wanted to go. When we returned to the parking lot after the event, we saw that my friend’s car had a window busted completely open. As we examined the car, we saw that only my stuff was missing. I stood there wondering what I was going to do, knowing that a year’s worth of footage was gone. I was crying hard, thinking about all the hard work I had put in,” he conveyed. He had filmed a basketball game between Akron and St. Mary’s earlier in the day and had all his equipment with him. That included three hard drives, a camera lens, microphones, memory cards, money, phone charger, and his school computer. “The trunk in the car didn’t open, so I had to put all my stuff in the backseat, though I did cover it all up. I called my mom, who is very understanding, and she came to get me. I was asking, ‘Why God? Why is this happening to me?”
After an emotional night with little sleep, Simpson began the next day with a changed perspective. “I woke up with a completely different attitude. I had to decide if this was really what I wanted to do with my life. I could just stop at this point, but I love to too much to quit. Content creation is my life. That is all I care about other than my family,” he explained. “I decided not to say, ‘Why God?’ but rather “Trust God. It is important to trust Him in bad times too.”
He also discovered how much people valued him and were willing to help him recover from the theft. Ganley Nissan General Manager Brandon Boro had previously connected with him when he reached out to several people about doing some work and Simpson was the only one to respond. Boro donated a computer to help alleviate the costs of replacing his lost equipment. “Brandon spoke highly of me and that made me feel really good. I was so grateful for the way people were helping me out. I saved more money and bought some more equipment to replace what was stolen,” Simpson stated. “I have seen too many people in life quit. This was a real test for me. I was humbled that I have to be smarter. Just three weeks after all this happened, I was filming an NBA game.”
Filming the Cavs on a Historic Night
The night of Jan. 2, 2023 was going to be one that Simpson remembered regardless of what happened on the court when he went to film two boys invited to the game by Chicago Bulls’ veteran Andre Drummond, but it turned out to be one of the most unforgettable evenings in Cleveland Cavaliers history.
When a seventh grader named Melvin Anderson was being bulled at school for having worn out sneakers, classmate Romello “Mello” Early saved up enough allowance money to buy him a new pair of Nike sneakers, which he presented to him on the following day. “As a kid, I have had the finest clothes or the finest shoes. I was reading the story of how (Mello) saved his money and helped out his friend in need. For me growing up as a kid with big feet and not having the coolest shoes, it touched my heart,” Drummond said on Simpson’s documentary of the evening. “I sent them a bunch of shoes and clothes and gear, and I thought why not bring them to an NBA game and have the experience of a lifetime.”
Simpson started in seats high up in Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, but eventually made his way down to the floor. “I was thinking how is a kid like me getting to film at the NBA? I was just a regular player at Lutheran West and now I am here,” he articulated. What he and a packed house witnessed that night was a team-record 71 points by Donovan Mitchell as the Cavs rallied from a 21-point deficit for an overtime victory. The 71 points was the most by an NBA player since Kobe Bryant netted 81 in January 2006.
Always willing to stretch the boundaries to tell a great story, Simpson made his way behind the Cavs’ bench, unaware that the NBA prohibits filing from behind team benches. “One of the Cavs’ coaches or personnel chewed me out and told me to delete my footage immediately. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use the footage, so I returned to the original seats and focused on telling the story of the two boys,” he remarked.
Name Change and Vision for the Future
After building a following as “Courtside Chris,” he recently changed his moniker to “Chris The Creatorr (christhecreatorr on Instagram).” “The name ‘Courtside Chris’ was really catchy and a lot of people recognized me by that name, but I have a bigger vision for myself. I know I want to make documentaries and one of my ultimate goals is to win an Oscar. I had to ask myself if filming basketball every day was going to help me achieve that. The answer was no. I want to travel the world and win that Oscar. You can’t accomplish that by just sticking to one category and being a one-trick pony,” explained Simpson, who purposely added an extra “r” to the word creator. “I like to stick out and be different, even if it’s a little thing. It’s just me and I love to be myself.”
“My vision is to tell all types of stories of people all around the world, but to do it my way. I want there to be perspective in the way I present the stories. I allow people to put themselves in the shoes of the person I am filming, but they are seeing it through my way and lens to show what it is to be with this person,” he continued. “My social media would probably be popping 10 times more than it is now if I had kept the ‘Courtside Chris’ name because I am still known by that name, but I don’t want to get stuck doing one thing and figured it was better to make the change now than later.”
Simpson has been driven by his goals and by the things he has seen in his young life. “Lamar told me I am always 10 steps ahead and I have always been like that,” he noted. I saw drugs and violence when I was young and thought, ‘I don’t want to be like that. I want to live the life of the people I see on television. I’ve been thinking this since I was eight years old. I was the first person from my family to ever go to L.A.”
He also has a deep appreciation for the opportunity to attend Lutheran West. “I am so grateful to be here. I never thought I would be here as I did not come from money. That helps me appreciate it even more,” he remarked.
“Christian has embodied the core values of our school and has grown into the type of student who takes full advantage of his gifts and academic potential,” said Lutheran West Principal Michael Waugh. “His entrepreneurial spirit has already opened new doors for post-secondary success, and his commitment to hard-work will make him successful beyond his graduation from the school.”
Simpson admits people think he is crazed about his passion. “I have to be obsessed with it. I study Kobe Bryant, who was one of the most obsessed people about basketball. That’s how I am with video,” he recognized. “I believe you need to obsess about your dream. I noticed that switch in me that this is all I think about and all I want to do. I 100 percent believe in myself, which I may not have said a year ago.”
“Christian is a special young man. Yes, he is talented. Yes, he is smart and driven. I think there are similar young folks similar all over the inner cities of America, young people with infinite potential just waiting to be cultivated,” Sykes stated. “I believe what sets him apart is an insatiable desire to learn and grow, coupled with a fearlessness to approach whoever he needs to get the information he is seeking.”