How a rising YouTube skater became SF’s most powerful Scientologist
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“This is either going to be the best decision of my life or the worst decision of my life,” Ricky Glaser recalled his boss, Aaron Kyro, telling him.
It was early 2021, and Kyro, the content creator behind YouTube’s most popular skateboarding channel, surprised his staff of skaters by telling them he was taking a leave of absence to attend business school for five months. The timing was less than ideal. The channel, Braille Skateboarding, had grossed more than $1 million in past years, but lately its numbers had fallen off alarmingly.
After his departure, Kyro ceased communicating with his team, leaving the company rudderless and employees increasingly anxious. “Two months pass — no one has talked to Aaron at all,” Glaser later recalled in a YouTube video. “Like he’s in another realm, you know?”
It wasn’t until later that they learned Kyro wasn’t at business school at all. He was in Clearwater, Florida, at the international headquarters of the Church of Scientology, taking part in an immersive leadership training program heralded as the “crowning chapter in the Church’s Golden Age.”
It would be three years before he returned for good, in 2024. By that time, Braille’s business had dwindled, and Kyro had been anointed one of Scientology’s most promising stars and its top official in San Francisco. A March 2024 internal newsletter from the San Francisco chapter, obtained by The Standard, noted Kyro’s promotion to the position of “executive director day.”
“With our training and know-how, we have the power to implement LRH tech on a broad scale and at the correct orders of magnitude to handle the ruins of our current society,” the newsletter stated, referring to the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Under Kyro’s leadership, the church promised to “create a new civilization in San Francisco.”
Today, the 41-year-old Kyro is rangy and offbeat, with a trim frame, beady eyes, and a slightly goofy grin. In his videos, he talks about skateboarding with the kind of awkward charisma and rapid-fire cadence that vaulted YouTubers like MrBeast to worldwide fame.
But in 2003, Kyro was at his home in Daly City, wallowing in depression, when, as the story goes, there was a knock at the door. It was a man who introduced himself as a Scientologist.
“Here’s a personality test. It will tell you how successful you’re going to be in your life,” Kyro recalled the Scientologist telling him, according to a YouTube interview with Lamont Holt. Kyro filled out the 200-question survey known as the Oxford Capacity Analysis, which purports to measure 10 personality traits. He answered questions such as, “Do you consider more money should be spent on social security?” and “Would the idea of inflicting pain on game, small animals, or fish prevent you from hunting or fishing?”
The Scientologist told Kyro he had scored abysmally low in communication and suggested he take a $100 course that would boost his communication skills. Kyro agreed.
“I literally didn’t want it to work, and it did,” Kyro told Holt. “I can call a spade a spade. I have enough personal integrity to say, ‘That helped me.’”
It was the beginning of a new life for Kyro in more ways than one.
As a shy kid in small-town Montana, Kyro was more interested in building a skate park than a new civilization. Even after enrolling at a Canadian college, Kyro couldn’t help feeling that he should be pursuing professional skateboarding instead, he recalled in a TEDx Talk.
After a year studying film at the University of British Columbia, Kyro dropped out to move to San Francisco and go pro. It didn’t work out. Kyro said in his TEDx Talk that he picked up a few sponsors but lost them almost immediately. When he went to pick up his first box of free boards, he was told it would be his last, due to budget cuts.
“This was more than I could deal with,” he said in the TEDx Talk. “I was like, ‘This is the end of the road.’”
But unbeknownst to Kyro, he had found his destiny in San Francisco. Shortly after he moved to the Bay Area, Scientology opened its San Francisco chapter in late 2003 with an opulent ceremony at which Mayor Willie Brown lauded the organization “for its efforts in making the Bay Area a better place for persons of all races, colors, creeds, and walks of life.”
After the chance meeting with the Scientologist on his doorstep, Kyro dove headlong into the church, immersing himself in its secretive training and auditing sessions. In the belief system created by Hubbard, a former science fiction writer, the purpose of the sessions is to cleanse one’s “thetan,” or immortal spirit, of engrams, psychic scars or shadows that attach to it, which can originate from events that took place millions of years in the past. After a year of study, Kyro reportedly signed his contract as a staff member of the church.
According to Kristi Wachter, who tracks and publishes membership progress at The Truth About Scientology, Kyro completed at least 25 Scientology courses between 2009 and 2023 and has achieved the status of Operating Thetan VI. The church defines an Operating Thetan as “one who can handle things without having to use a body or physical means”; Kyro’s rank is the third-highest possible.
In the late 2000s, as Kyro got more involved with the church, he took advantage of the rise of YouTube to pursue a career in skateboarding on his own unorthodox terms. By 2015, Braille was exploding in popularity.
Between his tutorials and increasingly absurd “Will It Skate” videos, in which he affixed wheels to an iPad, a glass skateboard deck, and a Louis Vuitton-wrapped board, among other objects, Kyro found the formula to his success. In 2016 alone, the channel garnered nearly 500 million views. Over the next four years, Braille became the most-watched skateboarding channel on YouTube. At its peak, the channel had at least 5.9 million followers and nearly 2 billion views across 6,000 videos. It was bringing in approximately $100,000 per month in 2017, according to a longtime Braille employee.
Kyro expanded his operation, founding at least eight side channels in various languages and employing a team of skaters, videographers, and administrators who worked out of a massive San Leandro warehouse and skate park nicknamed the “Braille House” — transforming a scrappy passion project into an emerging empire.
‘A new civilization in San Francisco’
In March of this year, Kyro returned to Clearwater. This time, there was nothing furtive about his visit. He was there to be recognized as the most successful church leader of 2024.
It was a humid Florida day when thousands of Scientologists from around the world descended on a lavish concert hall to mark Hubbard’s 114th birthday.
The 2,200-seat venue was at capacity, bursting with Scientology’s most celebrated acolytes: actor Elisabeth Moss sat next to Trish Duggan, the church’s — and one of President Donald Trump’s — biggest donors; to her left was Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, who once donated $10 million to the church.
As they looked on, Kyro received one of the most coveted awards in Scientology: the Birthday Game and World Champion trophy.
A group of smiling people in formal attire stand on a stage with a large trophy and a plaque reading "San Francisco." The backdrop features the text "LRH Birthday Game."
Kyro (right) accepts the Birthday Game and World Champion trophy in March. | Source:Courtesy Church of Scientology International
Under Kyro’s leadership, the San Francisco chapter had ranked first in recruitment the previous year, according to the Scientology website, surpassing powerhouse organizations in Los Angeles, home to the largest concentration of Scientologists, and Clearwater.
In a rousing speech, a tuxedoed Kyro commended his team’s completion of the extensive training programs at the church’s headquarters in Clearwater — and took credit for San Francisco’s post-pandemic recovery.
“Since the return of our executives, crime in San Francisco has plummeted,” Kyro said to roaring applause. “The homicide rate hit its lowest in 60 years. And newspapers are calling the org the new center of downtown.”
The Standard was unable to find an instance of a newspaper describing Scientology’s headquarters as the center of downtown. Jackson Square, where the local Scientology church is located, has been undergoing a development boom led by former Apple executive Jony Ive. San Francisco’s drop in overall crime and homicides is in keeping with nationwide trends. City officials dispute that Scientology is responsible for either downtown recovery or the drop in crime.
“A lot went into our historic reduction in homicides and property crimes in 2024 — new drones deployed and safety cameras installed, unprecedented coordination among city and law enforcement leaders, and the hardworking public safety officers and ambassadors out on the street,” said Jeff Cretan, communications director for former Mayor London Breed. “But as they say, victory has a thousand fathers, so I guess Scientology wants in on that list.”
Kyro declined an interview request with The Standard through Chloe Holmes, a fellow Scientologist and Braille’s head of marketing.
Scientology’s role in San Francisco’s comeback is debatable; Kyro’s value to the church’s renewal project is more straightforward.
The church is several decades removed from its 80s and 90s heyday, when it recruited A-list celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and is struggling to bring in new members, according to journalist Tony Ortega, who reports on Scientology and is a former editor of The Village Voice.
“Recruitment has gotten harder for them with the internet and the exposés,” Ortega said, referring to major investigations into church abuses by the Tampa Bay Times and The New Yorker, as well as documentaries featuring former church officials. “[Scientology] is a very small phenomenon, but it gets a lot of attention because of the celebrities.”
Ortega estimates that the church’s global membership has fallen from a peak of about 100,000 in 1990 to 20,000 today and that San Francisco’s chapter “only serves a couple hundred people.”
Even if the church were to succeed in signing up the 2025 equivalents of Cruise and Travolta, it’s unclear if its aging playbook would be as effective with Gen Z. That’s where a figure like Kyro — an internet-native influencer in a perennially youthful sport — is invaluable.
“A big focus has been on the kids,” Ortega said of Scientology’s recruitment efforts. “They think Aaron Kyro is going to help breathe new life into an organization that’s struggling.”
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A 2018 episode of the Scientology-produced television series “Meet a Scientologist” featured a 30-minute profile of Kyro as a skater and church member. “My purpose is to get as many people into skateboarding as possible,” he said in the episode.
In a phone call with The Standard, Dave Bloomberg, a representative for the church, called Ortega a “bottom-feeder” and said his estimates of church membership were “just fiction.” He said Scientology’s worldwide membership is in the millions and “growing steadily” but declined to provide specific numbers on international or local growth, saying only that San Francisco’s church “has expanded fivefold” under Kyro.
‘Ten years of your life — fuck you’
By 2019, Kyro had built an enormous following on YouTube, ran a multimillion-dollar skate media empire, and had just bought a $1 million, four-bedroom, three-bathroom house in the Oakland hills. For a man who once struggled to afford a $100 communication course, the success was staggering — and, in his view, it was all thanks to Scientology.
In January 2020, Kyro donated $50,000 of his own money to go along with $15,000 he raised from fans, to renovate a skate park he had built as a teenager in his hometown of Red Lodge, Montana. “I really, really need your help,” he pleaded in a YouTube video. “Whenever we come together as a team, amazing things happen.”
But Kyro didn’t tell his viewers that his contribution was a pittance compared to the sums he had donated to the International Association of Scientology, the church’s membership arm.
Kyro and his wife in 2019 received the Silver Meritorious honor, a title given to Scientologists who donate at least $750,000 to the IAS, according to its member magazine. In 2020, Kyro had reached Gold Meritorious status, reflecting a cumulative $1 million in donations.
The image displays two sections: "Silver Meritorious" for $750,000 donations and "Gold Meritorious" for $1,000,000 donations. A list shows censored names.
Source:Photo illustration by Jess Hutchison
Representatives for Scientology declined to release specifics about Kyro’s donations, citing privacy concerns, but said they came over the course of 20 years. “We respect the privacy of our members and do not comment on their personal affairs,” said Bloomberg in an email.
Rebecca Kaufman, a lawyer representing Kyro who regularly represents the church, said he did not use Braille funds for church donations, but rather donated money earned from his company salary. She added that the size of his donations fluctuated with the revenues of his company, and said he has not donated any money since 2022.
But as Kyro was directing funds both to his skate park and church, Braille was foundering. Viewership of its YouTube channel fell 75%, from 100 million in 2016 to less than 25 million in 2020. Merchandise sales plummeted correspondingly, according to Holmes, the former marketing chief.
Four months after Kyro posted the video asking for donations, Braille Skateboarding was awarded a $138,000 paycheck protection program loan for Covid relief, which was later forgiven in full. But by 2023, Braille was “crumbling,” Holmes said. “It was just starting to deflate so fast.”
In November 2022, Kyro took out a $250,000 loan on his house, according to records from the Alameda County recorder’s office. Kyro and Braille COO Devin Weber would later say he used the money to pay rent on the company’s warehouse complex in San Leandro.
Shortly after Kyro returned from Clearwater in February 2024, Braille shut down most of its operations. With no notice to the skate team, the Braille House closed and the company vacated the complex.
Braille’s skater-workers have complained publicly about receiving minimum-wage pay to pump out content, putting their bodies on the line in the process. But they were emotionally invested in the project.
“It’s just crazy, like, almost 10 years of my life dedicated to this, and then it just abruptly stops because one man decides,” former Braille employee Nigel Jones said in a video he posted to YouTube on July 19, 2024. “I haven’t even gotten, like, a thank you for all of the years of dedicating myself to the channel. … Ten years of your life — fuck you.”
In his YouTube interview with Holt, Kyro contested his portrayal as an ungenerous boss, saying Braille provided health insurance, hourly pay, and a matching 401(k) plan. Weber told The Standard that Braille skaters also received a valuable benefit in the form of promotion. In response to their compensation gripes, her message for the team was clear: “Don’t work for us then.”
In interviews and YouTube videos, Weber, Holmes, and Kyro have attributed the channel’s downfall to an industry-wide shift toward short-form content. Kids just weren’t buying what Braille was selling anymore.
When asked why Kyro told his employees he was attending business school, Holmes said, “Obviously, in this day and age, with the discrimination that Scientology gets, [saying] ‘Hey, I’m going to do a Scientology training’ would not be something that the world at large would accept. Saying you’re a Scientologist to someone, you definitely get very odd responses.”
Back to basics
On a Saturday afternoon in June, Kyro was back on his board at one of skateboarding’s most revered sites, Embarcadero Plaza, where he and Holmes were shooting a tutorial.
In interviews, Weber and Holmes have said Braille is seeking a return to tutorial videos, the bread and butter of its early years.
“[Kyro’s] whole thing was ‘Great, if the skate industry isn’t going to accept me, I’m going to do my own thing,’” said Weber.
Braille doesn’t employ a team of skaters anymore, but it does maintain a handful of employees, many of whom are Scientologists, and continues to publish several videos a week from skate spots on San Francisco’s streets. In the comments, some viewers say they are eager to see the channel return to its roots, while others lambast Kyro.
“He gets, like, death threats and just horrible, horrible things said to him,” Holmes said. “He’s just such a genuinely good human being who really wants to just help teach the world to skateboard and get people off drugs.”
In a recent video, Kyro recapped the history of storied skate spots downtown.
“This is why I moved to San Francisco,” he said, gesturing at a worn slab of concrete at Pier 7. “I just wanted to skate here every day.”
As of this week, the video has garnered just over 7,000 views and a few dozen comments.
“Accept reality Aaron,” one of them reads. “Let it go man.”
Content retrieved from: https://sfstandard.com/2025/07/09/youtube-skater-san-francisco-powerful-scientologist/.
