French YouTuber hits peak with Everest documentary

The pitch is a classic: a young celebrity with no climbing experience and minimal training somehow scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some (if not all) odds.

French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known everywhere as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge.

The film, titled “Kaizen”, proved a smash hit on its release this weekend.

Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris and it was seen more than 11 million times in its first 24 hours on YouTube.

The platform said it was “undoubtedly one of the biggest launches in the history” of YouTube in France, though a spokesperson contacted by AFP could not give a precise ranking.

The 22-year-old content creator started posting video game footage in his mid-teens and his livewire energy has since catapulted him to superstardom among young French.

He has more than eight million subscribers on YouTube and more than 10 million followers on other platforms.

“I’ve always liked to have adventures — when I was younger, they were on video games,” he told AFP in an interview before the release.

After obsessing over “Minecraft” and “Fortnite” for years, he said he wanted these experiences to be real.

– ‘Crazy goals’ –

Inoxtag posts relentlessly upbeat content and challenge videos like “30 seconds to save a life” or “Five days to walk across Corsica” but also professes a serious concern for the environment.

His film has the moments of tension and personal drama online documentaries are expected to serve up, while mixing in serious issues like over-tourism and pollution.

Fans have been in raptures over the movie, but the French press has not exactly embraced it.

The Liberation newspaper accused the filmmakers of erasing the work of the Sherpas, the Nepalese who help climbers with their ascents — though some later joined Inoxtag on stage in Paris.

Mountaineer and photographer Pascal Tournaire told L’Equipe newspaper the movie was “very egotistical” and said the YouTube star had not achieved any real feat.

On the other side of the ledger, Mathis Dumas, the climber who helped Inoxtag prepare for the ascent, told local media the young star had a “real love” for the mountain.

And fans gathered outside the cinema in Paris would not hear a word of criticism.

 “I know there are plenty of people who climb the mountain and don’t film themselves,” said 19-year-old student Lucie Bonin.

“But it’s wild that a YouTuber is entertaining us like this, just by setting himself such crazy goals.”

– Japanese inspiration –

If the pitch for “Kaizen” sounds like it comes from a movie, that’s probably because it does — at least partially.

Inoxtag said he was inspired by 2017 French comedy film “The Climb”, based on a true story where a young man from the Paris suburbs sets out to conquer Everest to impress his prospective girlfriend.

The online star is aware that his motivations come as much from fantasy as they do from concerns over real-world issues.

He told AFP one of his great inspirations was legendary Japanese comic creator Eiichiro Oda whose “One Piece” series is the biggest-selling mange in history.

“If he comes across my documentary, I’d just like to say thank you for making me believe that dreams can come true,” he said of Oda.

The social media star bade an ostentatious farewell to his fans at the beginning of April, swearing off all social media for the duration of his ascent.

With his absence came tension and speculation — would he make it to the summit after all?

It is probably not too much of a spoiler to reveal that he did get to the summit.

And he was keen to play down the pre-release tension, telling AFP: “I don’t want everyone to focus too much on whether I succeeded or failed.

“I want people see a little bit of the journey I made to get there.”