Trucker’s popular video blog includes four-legged co-star

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Updated Nov 30, 2016

Most Overdrive readers had not heard of Joshua Giesbrecht until he won Overdrive’s 2013 Most Loved Pets competition with the video he submitted of him and his ridealong dog, Diesel.

“I have people watching me from around the world,” says Joshua Giesbrecht.“I have people watching me from around the world,” says Joshua Giesbrecht.

But prior to that, Giesbrecht began reaching video-loving truckers. For the past five years, a growing number of subscribers – more than 64,000 now – have been following the Canadian’s exploits via his popular video blog, “Trucker Josh and Diesel,” on YouTube.

The demands of producing a daily video are considerable, Giesbrecht says, but it’s worth it for “the response from the audience, the feedback, touching people’s lives I couldn’t otherwise,” he says. “I have people watching me from around the world.”

He says 92 percent of his audience is male, but comments from the other 8 percent show that a lot of female viewers are particularly keen on Diesel, who makes brief appearances in most of his 1,500 episodes.

Giesbrecht, 28, has been driving 10 years. When he turned 21, he was able to start driving in the United States. Though he’s based in Manitoba, he logs most of his miles in the states, pulling a dry van as a company driver.

A video featuring Trucker Josh’s road companion, Diesel, won an Overdrive pets competition.A video featuring Trucker Josh’s road companion, Diesel, won an Overdrive pets competition.

Like most trucking vloggers, he focuses a lot on his job, but also works in other topics, such as recent entries “Gaming with Josh #1” (about a European trucking simulation video game) and “Walmart Halloween party.”

In addition to humorous monologs with himself and Diesel, Giesbrecht often mixes in real-time and fast-paced time-lapse highway shots backed by rock music. “I like to show people scenery of what part of the continent I’m in,” he says. “It seems to be the best way to do it. Music also brings in emotion. When they finish the blog, they may not remember everything I said, but they remember the way it made them feel.”

For samples of other trucking vloggers, visit Overdrive’s video blog playlist.

This brief video gives an introduction to Trucker Josh’s channel: