Remembering Grant Thompson: YouTube Community Mourns Death of 'The King of Random'

YouTube and its video community mourned the death of Grant Thompson on Wednesday. The family of the adventurous YouTuber, who amassed a huge following on his video channel King of Random, announced his death in an Instagram post on his verified account on Tuesday.

"It is with great sadness to inform everyone that Grant Thompson passed away last night. Grant had great love and appreciation for his fans. We invite you to share your thoughts for Grant and the channel in the comments. Please do a random act of love or kindness today in honor of The King of Random," the message read. "Grant's legacy will live on in the channel and the global community he created."

The video streaming platform was among the thousands to mourn the loss of Thompson following news of his death.

"We're deeply saddened to learn of the tragic loss of Grant Thompson, a gifted, passionate and endlessly curious creator. We send our deepest condolences to his loving family, The King of Random team and fans," the statement read.

Thompson was 38 years old. It is believed he died from an aircraft accident during his recent paragliding trip not far from where he lived in Utah.

Local authorities said they received a tip about a missing person after an aircraft pilot failed to return an hour past the scheduled landing. Washington County Sheriff's Office released a statement on Tuesday announcing officers discovered the pilot's body after obtaining an updated GPS location of his cell phone. Life flight crews determined the pilot was dead upon arrival.

Authorities also discovered paragliding equipment and a video recording device, which the department said would be used to determine what caused the crash.

An avid explorer, Thompson developed a following of more than 11 million subscribers on his YouTube channel where he often documented his various "life hacks, experiments and random weekend projects," according to the channel's description. Millions of viewers tuned in regularly to his videos, in which Thompson would work on DIY projects like "How to Make Thunder Caps" and outdoorsy experiments including "Floating a Couch Down a River."

Thompson launched the channel in 2010 and went viral after posting the video "How to Make LEGO Gummy Candy in 2015.

While speaking at a Mediakix event in 2017, the former airline pilot and real estate investor said he was inspired to create the channel following the housing collapse in the mid-2000s.

"I just started tinkering and learning how the world works, which was inspired kind of by the idea of the Great Recession from the housing collapse. I was learning about things," he said. "I started making videos on YouTube, showing people what I was tinkering with and what I was coming up with. It turned into a big enough movement that I shut down my real estate business, I quite the airlines and now it's all YouTube."