Where else but in a Heimler’s History video can you hear the phrase, “It’s time to milk those brain cows”?Courtesy of Steve Heimler For years, Steve Heimler taught Advanced Placement (AP) history through a small, hybrid homeschool-online learning program in Alpharetta. With no budget for har d drives and limited class time, he began uploading his lessons to YouTube in 2017, which offered free storage and a way for students to watch instruction at home. That decision would soon turn the suburban dad into a bona fide social media star, with a devoted fan base composed almost entirely of teenagers. At first, his channel, Heimler’s History, had a modest following, with about 100 subscribers. His own students loved his fast-paced lessons, which were infused with dad jokes, such as “Get ready to get those brain cows milked.” The tech-savvy teens pushed him to move his content to TikTok. “I’m like, I am a middle-aged bald man. I don’t need another social media platform to feel stressed about,” Heimler, 45, says. Eventually, in January 2020, their teacher posted his first TikTok: a reaction video to another video in which a girl credited Heimler for her high AP score. “It got millions of views in 24 hours,” he says. Today, Heimler’s History has over 1.13 million YouTube subscribers and more than 10 million likes on TikTok. Most of his followers are teens, who come looking for help with history class and stay for Heimler’s engaging, and surprisingly memorable, style. “I hear from students all the time who say, I remembered that dumb joke you told, and it helped me on the exam,” Heimler says. The AP tests are no joking matter. AP courses, offered in everything from calculus and geography to art and European history, are considered college-level classes, and a strong score on the final may earn students college credits. They’re popular, too: According to the College Board, more than 1.2 million students took at least one AP exam in 2024. “Heimler is a great resource who makes learning and reviewing content engaging and entertaining,” says Paulding County history teacher Matthew Desjarlais. “We watched all of his videos for APUSH [AP U.S. History], and they were a key factor for [my students’] success.” What drives the education influencer, beyond helping students boost their exam scores, is making history accessible—taking unfamiliar concepts and rooting them in something students already know. “Like colonialism being kind of like [you and] your sibling sharing a bedroom,” Heimler explains. As for how he comes up with the jokes, Heimler says, “I don’t know. These things just arrive. I’ll be writing a script, and a word or phrase pops out, and I think, Oh, I could do something with that!” One lesson on presidential power, for example, includes Heimler likening Andrew Jackson to “Thanos with all five Infinity Stones”—a pop-culture metaphor that helps make the material stick. “If you sat in my [in-person] classroom in 2015, you would’ve heard the same kind of jokes,” Heimler says. “That’s just what I do.” This article appears in our March 2026 issue. The post Heimler’s History is helping millions of teens pass AP exams with dad jokes appeared first on Atlanta Magazine. ...read more read less