Patreon: Surviving Ringworm
In May 2024, Ryan Fritzsche introduced Kuiper to his weekly show.
In 2020, at the beginning of Covid, recluse Ryan Fritzsche bought some land in the woods somewhere in Michigan. “… no roads, power, or water. Just trees.”
He arrived with his best friend Tito, chainsaws, hand tools, and video equipment.
In time, Tito returned to civilization, but Ryan stayed put and kept filming. Every Saturday morning, he releases an episode of Surviving Ringworm on YouTube, in which he harvests wood and builds “ridiculous structures.”
Ryan is whimsical, goofy, and self-deprecating — traits that belie his intelligence, craftiness, and survival skills. His levity is at the heart of the show.
“The Worm,” as he affectionately calls his property, has been a part of my Saturday morning ritual for six years. The first episode was uploaded on March 23, 2020 during the pandemic’s early days, and I found it while settling into quarantine.
Now-a-Saturdays, after exercising, or watching either F1 qualifying or a Celtic FC game, I replenish my coffee and sit for some Ringworm.
Feet kicked up and nowhere to go. Nostalgic for Wacky Races and Schoolhouse Rock’s ‘conjunction junction’ jam.
Things he seems to love:
solitude, storms, cheese, chainsaws, camping, cold weather, gun range, Ryobi tools, science podcasts, 3D-printing gadgets, bugs under a microscope, playing the guitar, pretend tattooing, putting epoxy on wood, and smashing snacks while watching movies with his blue-haired girlfriend when she visits.
For several years, Ryan lived outside on a tent platform that he built. Skillfully, he crafted a swinging bed-tent contraption.
The addition of an Alaskan Mill to his harvesting improved the quality of the wood.
Eventually, he constructed a 190-sq-ft cabin and adopted Kuiper, a Bernese Mountain Dog — named after the Kuiper Belt. Naturally, he concocted a large dog house and attached it to the cabin.
The man is still out there building stuff. Last year, he bought a mini excavator to improve both his creations and the property foundation.
Thankfully, the excavator helped save his aging back because a bed-ridden Ryan is antithetical to the show’s purpose.
Currently, he’s crafting a raised, partially-covered outdoor kitchen so that he can more comfortably cook and eat outside year-round.
Ryan carves the names of Patreon subscribers (816 as of June 11, 2026) into his picnic table and Kuiper’s dog house. Yup, I’m on the picnic table somewhere, “Damon C.”
His YouTube channel boasts 97,300 subscribers and has 292 videos.