Gentry Stein is a 2× World Yo-Yo Champion known for helping bring modern yo-yoing into mainstream culture. He is best known for viral tricks like the DNA yo-yo trick, championship-winning yo-yos like the Shutter, and performances and collaborations that introduced modern yo-yoing to audiences far beyond the traditional yo-yo world.

Today, professional yo-yoing extends far beyond competitions alone. It has evolved into a mix of skill, creativity, entertainment, and design, even developing its own online culture through viral videos and social media. 

Gentry Stein became one of the players helping shape modern yo-yoing’s evolution, inspiring a new generation to see how far yo-yoing could go through competition, innovation, performances, and education.

But Gentry’s journey with yo-yoing started nearly two decades before the viral videos, world titles, and international performances that would later follow. He first picked up a yo-yo at just 8 years old.

Here are some of the moments that helped yo-yoing reach millions of people around the world.

How Gentry Stein Helped Turn the DNA Yo-Yo Trick Into a Global Trend

In July of 2020, Gentry started posting yo-yo tricks on TikTok, including fingerspin tricks, and on August 1st, one of those videos went viral, reaching millions of views with thousands of shares and comments helping a new generation discover the hobby through social media.

This was the moment a specific fingerspin style trick would get its name and begin to spread worldwide. A comment pointed out that the spiraling string looked like a DNA strand, and the name instantly stuck.

What started as a single post quickly turned into something much bigger, with the DNA now reaching over a billion views and becoming one of the most recognized yo-yo tricks in the world. Similar to how “walk the dog” defined an earlier era of yo-yoing.

It marked a shift where yo-yoing started becoming part of mainstream online culture in a way that had never really existed before.

Gentry later designed yo-yos specifically to help players learn and master the trick, from beginner models like the Vyral to advanced performance models like the DNA yo-yo and the DNA King, making it more accessible to beginners while still pushing what’s possible at a high level.

If you want to learn more about how the DNA yo-yo trick evolved and how to learn it step by step, you can read the full breakdown in the Ultimate Guide to the DNA yo-yo trick here.

His 2014 World Championship Routine Reached Millions Online (Before ‘Going Viral’ Was a Thing)

Gentry’s 2014 World Yo-Yo Contest routine didn’t just win, it spread far beyond the contest and reached audiences around the world.

Long before “going viral” was really a thing, the video was shared across major platforms, featured in international media, and seen by millions of people around the world.

It was picked up by outlets like MTV and Barstool Sports, along with countless newspaper and online articles as well as mainstream television coverage that helped competitive yo-yoing reach a much larger audience than it typically had at the time.

This was one of the first moments where modern yo-yoing was recognized on a global scale, not just as a toy, but as a true sport. You can watch Gentry's 2014 world's routine here.

Designed One of the Most Iconic Modern Yo-Yos: The Shutter

Gentry designed the Shutter at a turning point in his career, when everything was starting to come together and he needed a yo-yo that could keep up with where he was trying to go.

At the time, high-performance yo-yos were often expensive and out of reach for many players. The goal with the Shutter was simple: create something that felt powerful, balanced, and consistent, but still accessible enough for anyone to pick up and grow with.

That belief became real when he used the Shutter to win his first U.S. National Title in 2013 and his first World Title in 2014.

The Shutter quickly became one of the most iconic yo-yos of its era, used by players around the world, from beginners learning their first unresponsive tricks to professionals competing at the highest level.

The Shutter was more than just a signature model, it helped define a new standard: high-level performance that was actually accessible.

Over time, that original design would grow into an entire line of yo-yos, including models like the Shutter Wide Angle and Shutter Mini, each evolving alongside the changing style of competitive yo-yoing. But it all started with the original Shutter.

After designing the Shutter and seeing how many people around the world were starting their yo-yo journey with it, something became clear. It wasn’t just about creating a great yo-yo. It was about creating a better path for people to start and progress to the highest level. 

Gentry Was Selected by Louis Vuitton as One of 200 Global Visionaries

As part of the Louis 200 Exhibition in Los Angeles, Gentry was selected as one of 200 global visionaries invited by Louis Vuitton to create something unique.

Each participant was chosen from a completely different field, from fashion and music to art and design, making it one of the most diverse and high-profile creative collaborations in the world.

Gentry created a custom-designed yo-yo and trunk, connecting yo-yoing with the world of luxury design.

The project included major global names like BTS and Supreme alongside artists and creators from around the world.

Being selected for something like this wasn’t just about skill, it was recognition of yo-yoing as a legitimate form of creativity at the highest level.

It marked a moment where yo-yoing entered an entirely different creative and cultural space. Here you can watch how the project came together:

After the project was completed, the yo-yo became part of the Louis Vuitton exhibition as it traveled to cities around the world, helping expose modern yo-yoing to millions of people through one of the most high-profile global exhibitions of the year.

Gentry later visited the exhibit in both Beverly Hills on Rodeo Drive and New York City, where it was displayed alongside work from creators across completely different industries.

During the New York exhibition, Gentry also held workshops and live performances, giving people the opportunity to experience yo-yoing firsthand.

You can see it on display here.

The exhibition didn’t just introduce yo-yoing into the world of luxury design, it also placed it directly in front of some of the world’s biggest artists, entertainers, and creators.

At the kickoff event in Los Angeles, Gentry shared modern yo-yoing with attendees from across the entertainment and creative world, including actor and musician Jaden Smith.

Projects like this showed how far yo-yoing had expanded beyond its traditional scene.

Helped Bring Yo-Yoing Into Mainstream Entertainment and Live Events

Modern yo-yoing wasn’t just becoming more technical, it was also becoming more performative, blending naturally with television, music, choreography, storytelling, and even live entertainment.

Performed on National and International Television

Over the years, Gentry appeared on multiple television shows performing yo-yo tricks for audiences around the globe. 

One of his favorite experiences was teaching Steve Harvey how to yo-yo on one of the biggest television shows in the country.

If you want to see how that actually played out, you can watch the clip here.

Appeared in Music Videos, Live Shows, and Festivals

Most people don’t realize how naturally yo-yoing can blend with music, rhythm, choreography, and performance, and Gentry helped show it in ways most people had never seen before.

One of the most memorable experiences was co-starring alongside the Baby Raptors in the music video for Strings, where yo-yoing blended naturally with music and visual storytelling.

Worked on Film and Entertainment Projects

One of Gentry’s favorite entertainment experiences was working on the film The Sweepers, directed by Michael Matteo Rossi, where yo-yoing became part of a completely different form of entertainment beyond competitions.

The project gave him the opportunity to work alongside a full film crew, experience action scenes firsthand, and see how yo-yoing could operate within a completely different type of production.

Performed in Front of 15,000 People at a Professional Basketball Game

Over the years, Gentry performed at multiple sporting events, but performing during halftime at a professional basketball game in Australia in front of over 15,000 people became one of the biggest.

Growing up loving basketball, performing on a court like that was a full circle moment, just in a completely unexpected way.

Unlike competing on stage at the World Yo-Yo Contest, there was no pressure to win, it was just fun. It showed how naturally yo-yoing could fit into live sports and large-scale entertainment events.

You can watch his experience performing here 

Featured by WIRED for His Yo-Yo Journey

Gentry was featured by Wired, one of the world’s most recognizable technology and culture publications, through both an online article and their video series.

The feature focused on his journey toward winning the World Yo-Yo Contest, showing the obsession, motivation, and creativity required to reach that level.

It gave people a closer look at the discipline and mindset behind modern competitive yo-yoing. You can watch the WIRED feature here.

Shared His Passion for Yo-Yoing Around the World

From teaching school children near the Great Wall of China to sharing yo-yoing with retired adults cruising through the Caribbean, Gentry spent years sharing his passion for yo-yoing with people from completely different backgrounds around the world.

Instead of simply performing for people, experiences like these became opportunities to help others connect with yo-yoing for themselves, not just as spectators, but as participants.

Over time, this became one of the most meaningful parts of Gentry’s journey with yo-yoing: seeing how something as simple as a yo-yo could connect people from completely different backgrounds and generations.

YoYoChampion: Gentry Stein’s Mission to Grow Yo-Yoing

After years of competing, performing, and sharing yo-yoing with people around the world, Gentry eventually reached a point where things started to shift.

Competing had always been the passion, but over time, it became clear that his purpose was bigger than his competitive titles.

His mission became about helping more people discover yo-yoing and experience what it could become for themselves.

And in 2025, he launched his own brand, YoYoChampion, with a clear mission: Help players continue progressing through every stage of their yo-yo journey.

It wasn’t just about winning titles or creating yo-yos anymore. It was about helping more people start, progress, and continue pushing their own limits through yo-yoing.

Even champions always have something new to learn, improve, and push further. 

Gentry's message remains simple: Show up. Never give up. Lift others up.

Frequently Asked Questions About Gentry Stein

Who Is Gentry Stein?

Gentry Stein is a 2× World Yo-Yo Champion and 4× U.S. National Yo-Yo Champion known for helping modern yo-yoing reach a much wider audience through competitions, viral videos, performances, and social media.

He became especially known for his musicality, choreography, and stage presence during competition routines, along with helping spark the viral rise of the DNA yo-yo trick after one of the first major videos performing it exploded online, inspiring a new wave of players around the world to learn and share the trick themselves.

Beyond competitions, Gentry is also a YouTuber, content creator, and the founder of YoYoChampion, a modern yo-yo company focused on helping players continue progressing through every stage of their yo-yo journey.

Over the years, he has traveled internationally performing, teaching workshops, collaborating with major brands and companies, and sharing his passion for yo-yoing with people from completely different ages, backgrounds and cultures.

What Is Gentry Stein Known For?

Gentry Stein is best known for helping bring modern yo-yoing into mainstream culture through world championship performances, viral videos, product design, and social media. He became especially recognized for the viral rise of the DNA yo-yo trick, his musicality and choreography-driven competition style, and signature yo-yos like the Shutter, Replay Pro, DNA yo-yo, and DNA King.

Beyond competitions, he is also known for mainstream media appearances, performances in music videos and films, collaborations with global brands like Louis Vuitton, and eventually launching his own company, YoYoChampion, in 2025.

What Yo-Yos Did Gentry Stein Design?

Gentry Stein started yo-yoing at 8 years old and received his first signature yo-yo model with his sponsor by the age of 14, beginning a journey that would eventually span multiple generations of modern competitive yo-yoing.

As his career progressed, he went on to win 4 U.S. National Titles and 2 World Yo-Yo Championships while helping develop and promote many well-known signature yo-yos along the way. Some of the most recognizable included the Shutter, Shutter Wide Angle, Replay Pro, and later the Shutter Mini, models that became widely recognized through his championship performances and helped introduce a new generation of players to modern unresponsive yo-yoing.

As the DNA yo-yo trick gained popularity online with over a billion views in just a few years, Gentry realized there needed to be yo-yos designed specifically for DNA-style fingerspin tricks. That eventually led to models like the DNA yo-yo and DNA King, which became two of the most popular fingerspin yo-yos in the world today.

In 2025, Gentry launched his own company, YoYoChampion, where he began developing yo-yos fully under his own brand and direction. The lineup includes everything from beginner-friendly models like the Vyral, high-performance competition yo-yos like the Super G, and more innovative hybrid designs like the G Force.

You can explore Gentry Stein’s yo-yos and latest releases here.

Why Is Gentry Stein Considered Influential in Yo-Yoing?

Gentry Stein is considered influential in modern yo-yoing because he helped expose the hobby to millions of people through viral videos, world championship performances, mainstream media appearances, product design, and educational content.

Beyond competitions alone, he also helped show that yo-yoing could become something much bigger — a mix of creativity, performance, entertainment, design, online culture, and personal expression.

His combination of musicality, speed, choreography, fingerspin tricks, and stage presence also helped influence the style and presentation of modern competitive yo-yoing itself.

Over time, Gentry built a unique career path around yo-yoing that extended far beyond contests, turning a childhood passion into a global platform for teaching, performing, creating, and helping inspire a new generation of players around the world.

What Makes Gentry Stein’s Yo-Yo Style Different?

Gentry Stein became known for combining high-level yo-yoing with performance, blending musicality, choreography, speed, stage presence, and difficult tricks into routines that felt more like performances than traditional contest freestyles.

His style focused not only on difficulty, but also rhythm, pacing, visual flow, entertainment, and creating routines that audiences could emotionally connect with, even if they knew nothing about yo-yoing beforehand.

He also became known for pushing visually difficult tricks and horizontal yo-yoing, including tricks like the Horizontal Seasick, widely considered one of the hardest yo-yo tricks in the world.

Over time, that performance-driven approach helped him connect with audiences far beyond traditional yo-yo competitions through viral videos, live performances, mainstream media, and entertainment projects around the world.

Why Did Gentry Stein Stop Competing as Much?

After years of competing at the highest level and winning 4 U.S. National Titles and 2 World Yo-Yo Championships, Gentry eventually reached a point where his focus started to shift beyond competition results alone.

Competing was always a huge passion, but over time, he realized his purpose was helping grow yo-yoing itself through education, performances, content creation, and product development, which eventually led to the launch of his own company, YoYoChampion.

As the years went on, he spent more time traveling around the world teaching workshops, performing for new audiences, collaborating with companies and brands, and helping more people experience yo-yoing firsthand.

He also began focusing more on building YoYoChampion and supporting a new generation of players through online videos, tutorials, and mentoring a new competition team.

Rather than fully stepping away from yo-yoing, his role within it simply evolved — from mainly competing on stage to helping inspire, teach, and support the next generation of players around the world.

What Is the DNA Yo-Yo Trick?

The DNA is a modern fingerspin yo-yo trick where the yo-yo spins on a player’s finger while the string wraps into a spiraling helix pattern that resembles a DNA strand.

The trick exploded across social media after one of Gentry Stein’s early TikTok videos performing it went viral in 2020, eventually helping the DNA gain over a billion views online and become one of the most recognizable yo-yo tricks of this generation.

Unlike many older yo-yo tricks, the DNA became popular far beyond the yo-yo community because it was visually recognizable, satisfying to watch, and inspired people around the world to try it for themselves.

If you want to learn more about the history of the DNA trick, where it came from, and how to learn it step by step, you can read the full Ultimate Guide to the DNA Yo-Yo Trick here.

Did Gentry Stein Invent the DNA Trick?

No. The DNA yo-yo trick evolved over many years from earlier tricks like the Sidewinder and early fingerspin variations created by multiple players over time.

However, the specific version of the trick that later became known as “The DNA” did not originally have an official name. In 2020, one of Gentry Stein’s TikTok videos performing the trick went viral online, and a commenter pointed out that the spiraling string looked like a DNA strand. The name instantly caught on, and players around the world began calling the trick “The DNA.”

That viral moment helped transform the trick from something mainly known within the niche yo-yo community into one of the most recognizable yo-yo tricks in the world today.

If you want to learn more about the history of the DNA trick and how it evolved over time, you can read the full Ultimate Guide to the DNA Yo-Yo Trick here.

Is YoYoChampion a YoYoFactory Brand?

No. YoYoChampion is Gentry Stein’s own independent yo-yo company, which he launched in 2025.

Earlier in his career, YoYoFactory was one of Gentry’s longtime sponsors, where he helped develop and promote signature yo-yos like the Shutter, Shutter Wide Angle and Replay Pro. After years of competing, performing, and helping grow modern yo-yoing, Gentry eventually launched YoYoChampion as his own brand focused on progression, performance, innovation, and helping players continue improving through every stage of their yo-yo journey.