YouTube's most senior celebrity

ROSS PURDIE
Last updated 05:00 28/09/2012
Tom Dickson
CUTTING EDGE: Blendtec founder Tom Dickson blending.

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What do light bulbs, golf clubs, mobile  phones and a 5m garden hose have in common? All have been blended  by internet sensation Tom Dickson as part of his viral Will It Blend? campaign.

The American inventor has amassed nearly half a billion YouTube views by shredding everyday items (coffee beans, ice, pens) and the  bizarre (Barbie Dolls, pigs feet, hearing aids) through his industrial-strength processor.

What started as a private experiment with a box of matches has  in five years turned Dickson into a world-renowned millionaire, sales of his Blendtec range soaring as fans clamour to see what YouTube's most senior celebrity will obliterate next.

"We have literally hundreds of thousands of suggestions (from viewers) so we just pick something and go with it," Dickson said during a stop in Sydney recently.

"We have no idea what the outcome will be. I just put crazy things in blenders."

In Australia to launch his Blendtec range, Dickson made a  dramatic impact this week when an extreme blending demonstration caused a power cut at the ABC Sydney studios.

He regularly makes dust of rake handles and light work of  iPhones, the late Steve Jobs once putting his phone through the mixer, and says corporations from Nike to Nestle badger him to destroy their products.

"What originally started as a marketing idea now makes me money," says Dickson.

"I can get more viewers than they (companies) can ever get and for a lot less money."

A series of nose-turning recipes have emerged from the show, including 'cochicken' - coca cola and roast chicken - a  three-course Christmas dinner, and a can of chicken soup condensed  tin and all.

Not all experiments have been successful though; a handful of lighters left Dickson engulfed in a ball of flames, while a hundred razor blades tore though the casing, forcing the scientist to run from the room.

"That was nasty, those things could have gone right through my  heart," Dickson says.

"I thought I've got to be not so stupid next time."

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- AAP

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