Hey, I’m Nic Mackaman.

Entrepreneur | Social Media Strategist | Content Creator

Social Media Ventures

Shredder Vs is a social media brand I launched in January 2022 after recognizing a unique opportunity in the market for content that is both visually satisfying and engaging. By developing a video formula centered around shredding interesting, satisfying, and unexpected items with an industrial shredder, I created content that captures curiosity and delivers simple yet captivating entertainment. This project combines creativity, attention to detail, and a strong understanding of audience interests to stand out in the social media landscape.

Notable Achievements

1 Million+ Followers on TikTok (<1 year)

100k+ Followers on Instagram

1 Billion+ Total Views

100+ Million Viewed Video

Featured in The Wall Street Journal

#1 Shredding Page on TikTok & Instagram

Sponsored by BarkBox, a billion-dollar company

“Nic Mackaman” is a tennis-focused social media channel initially launched in October 2023 in a pilot phase to evaluate its potential. After its early success, I relaunched the brand in mid-August 2024 and uploaded content consistently over a six week period, wrapping up in late September due to seasonal challenges. During this time, the brand achieved 2.3 million views, 20,000 profile views, 93,000 likes, 1,779 shares, and 2,100 followers on TikTok, alongside 3.2 million views and 44,700 likes on Instagram.

My channel combines innovative content creation with a high-quality, first-person video approach using a 360-degree camera, likely the first of its kind in short-form tennis social media. To elevate the content, I used AI-assisted coding to develop a custom ball tracking program that creates a dynamic ball trail effect, making the footage look almost like a video game. This enhances visual clarity and audience engagement. By leveraging trend analysis, audience strategies, and editing tools like CapCut, I’ve built a unique channel that brings a fresh perspective to tennis on social media.

Step 1: Record and Keyframe

  1. Adjust camera settings for best quality before recording, as each day will be different (Sunny, Cloudy, ect.)

  2. Record for about 1-2 hours

  3. Put that footage into InstaStudio360

  4. Find your best points

  5. Since it’s a 360 video you have to set up how you want the video to look (Aspect Ratio, Lens Distortion, Centering, ect.)

  6. Keyframe the frames on each hit for smooth transitions, added impact, and to keep the ball in view throughout the action.

  7. Export

My Favorite Videos

Workflow

Step 2: Input into AI Program

  1. Import the video that was just created into the python program and select your settings (Video Resolution, Tracer Length, Opacity, Width, and Color) and click start

  2. Click on the screen for manual points when the program does not detect the ball. (I just did skip all, which only adds the tracer when the ball is detected).

(More details about how the program works further down)

Step 3: Edit and Upload

  1. Edit

  2. Export

  3. Upload

AI - Powered Projects

2 Swords is a fun side project I started to explore how far AI tools have come. I wanted to make my own game and used AI tools extensively to bring my vision to life.

Code: For the 1.7k+ lines of code, I used ChatGPT’s SOTA reasoning model, o3-mini-high.

Music: I used Suno’s SOTA music generation model, V4.

Game Sprites: I used Voidless for all the sprites and animations, then refined them in a photo editing program.

Logo, Menu Graphics, and Sprite Sheets: I created all of these manually using a photo editing program and Figma, without AI.

Tennis Ball Tracker

This Tennis Ball Tracker was built entirely using AI-generated code. The program uses YOLO (You Only Look Once), a state-of-the-art object detection model, to track a tennis ball in real time. Through an interactive GUI, users can customize visualization settings such as trail length, opacity, and color for a personalized experience. To power the tracker, I first trained my own YOLO model using a dataset of tennis ball images. While my model performed alright, I later collaborated with a freelancer to develop a more optimized version, ensuring greater accuracy and efficiency. The program seamlessly integrates OpenCV, PyQt, NumPy, and PyTorch for image processing, UI design, and AI model inference, creating a smooth and responsive tracking system.

Contact me.