Photograph By Shane Van Boxtel/Image Studios
Ed Bieber — better known as Ed the Diver to his more than 300,000 social media followers — has spent the last six years exploring the depths of local waterways, cleaning up litter and reuniting lost items with their grateful owners. Two years ago, it became his full-time job.
Insight caught up with Bieber to discuss his journey as a scuba diving social media influencer and how he hopes to inspire others to protect the environment.
How did you get into diving?
Bieber: I was teaching my kids how to fish and I was losing a lot of lures. My tackle box was pretty much empty, so I decided instead of going to the store, there’s lures in the water, I just got to go get them. I started doing that. I put some waders on and used a golf ball retriever with a little floaty board. Then I started noticing all the trash underwater — plastic, cans, glass, batteries, alternators, bicycles. I realized that some of this stuff is causing unnatural snags too. I would see crayfish tangled up in fishing line, mudpuppies that had fishing line wrapped around their bodies which were all warped because they grew with the line on them, seeing dead fish because they had a hook in their mouth and they were stuck on a log. It really got me into that mindset of, hey, something needs to be done. So I put a basket on my board for collecting garbage. I ended up buying a kayak so I could get the bicycles, rims, tires, the stuff that doesn’t belong in the water. It just kept growing and growing. Now people ask me to go all over the place for recoveries of items they’ve lost and to clean up their waterways. I even find lures with messages like “Hi, Ed” written on them because people know I’m going to find them.
How did your social media presence develop?
Once I started getting lures and posting stuff on my Facebook page, I found people were really interested in buying the lures. Then people started asking if they could see what it’s like underwater, so I bought a GoPro and a mask and I started making videos and posting on YouTube. I edit everything on my iPad or my phone. I started Instagram, TikTok and Ed the Diver on Facebook. TikTok really took off for me. I was doing a lot of live shows while I was cutting up lures I found. Right now I’m up to almost 139,000 followers on TikTok. When I got monetized on my channels, I was trying to figure out which channels were making the most. I thought it would be YouTube, but actually Facebook is the one that’s really blowing up for monetization. This is my second year doing this full time. I built it up while working, diving and editing videos after work or on the weekends. I just kind of kept going and going.
What was the learning curve as you started monetizing your social channels?
It was tough. I would pick the minds of other people I met along the way. Social media influencers like [“Meanwhile in Wisconsin” creator] Ryan Ruebl gave me a lot of good tips. I don’t really worry about algorithms or posting at certain times because you never know. I just post randomly throughout the day because I have followers across the world. On TikTok, the majority of my followers are in Bangkok. I struggled last winter because I was just editing footage from the whole year. I wasn’t out diving and collecting more stuff. It was hard the first year to figure out when it’s gonna be tough, but it’s just been awesome this year. It’s a fun job. There’s no limit really, besides time.
Earlier this year you found a 1990s Barbie doll on one of your dives that went viral. Can you talk about that experience?
I was doing a cleanup dive in Shawano up by the dam in the Wolf River. I was just cleaning up all these cans, and I got close to the dam when I saw these legs sticking out and I was like, “Oh, a Barbie!” The hair was full of zebra mussels and it looked like it had a skin disease from all the grime on it. I brought it up, made my after-dive video and posted that. I started noticing all the comments from people wanting to buy it. I ended up putting it on eBay for like 99 cents.
A week later it sold for $1,300, with the funds supporting a three-month Midwest cleanup tour. I hand-delivered it to [the buyer] that night and it happened to be her birthday. We’ve been together ever since, and now we’re engaged.
Do you have any favorite diving spots?
I definitely love clear water, but most of the good stuff is in water where you can’t see very good, in towns or cities behind old buildings and creeks and rivers where people throw all their old trash — unacknowledged treasures. I love diving the Fox River in De Pere by the dam when it’s clear. Then I love diving in Marinette and Menominee. That’s my home turf, where I started. I just started branching out, going to all these different places. My three-month Midwest cleanup tour went across the UP, Marquette and all of Wisconsin over to Minnesota and down through northern Illinois. When I was doing all the cleanups, I wasn’t doing recoveries. I had to turn down like 50 jobs, but I took a big chance to grow my audience, go to new places, to clean up different areas and inspire people there.
What would you want people who live here and recreate on the water to know?
For the people who are out fishing, if you’re bringing stuff like lure containers or plastic or food, take it out with you. People will go fishing for an hour or two, they’ll bring food and snacks and beer cans and throw them on the shore or throw them in the water. There’ll be big piles of fishing line right on the bank where ducks and geese live. They’ll get tangled up and die from it. Nothing deserves to die like that. I try to educate people, especially anglers and people out partying on boats or on shores. People send me messages saying they saw garbage that reminded them of my cleanups, so they cleaned up what they found. It’s really cool. I want to encourage people to clean up if they’re out there enjoying the outdoors, to do their part to clean up.
