| “ | Hey Guys! | ” |
―Phil Lester | ||
Philip Michael Lester (born January 30, 1987) also known on YouTube by the username AmazingPhil, is an English YouTube celebrity, vlogger, former radio host at BBC 1 and Weakest Link contestant.
Life
He was born in Rawtenstall, England and he has been making videos since 2006. He went to Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School, and often included BRGS in his tweets. His school was in one of his early videos, and he can be seen in the top right corner of a whole-school photo in the extension corridor. His school shaped his life, however he is not yet included on the "most successful" board, although students are making appeals.
He currently resides in London, England, with fellow YouTuber and best friend of 7 years, Dan Howell. He completed a degree in English Language and Linguistics and then a post graduate in the Department of Theatre, Film and television, going on to obtain a Master of Arts in Video Postproduction with Specialisation in Visual Effects at the University of York.
YouTube
Phil uploaded his first YouTube video on February 2006. It was called "Awaiting the Tide" and has since been made private by Phil, as has over 100 other of his early videos. The earliest remaining video on Phil's channel is from March 27, 2006. It is his third video and first vlog, called "Phil's Video Blog – 27th March 2006." It was filmed on a black and white camera that he later on said he won out of a cereal box.
His favourite animals are lions; a recurring theme in his videos is that he has a little stuffed lion (named Lion) in the background. At the end, it's used to show in full view with speech bubble annotations, as if Lion is talking. However, Phil changed this to a segment called 'Draw Phil Naked' where viewers send in their drawings of him naked yet somehow covered up that he chooses from and shows. This too, however, has ended. Phil is known to be very wise and open to his subscribers about his life. He is also known to keep his channel as PG rated as possible, and never swears in his videos due to his primarily younger audience. He calls his subscribers Philions. He also once had a pet brine shrimp named Simon, who died on May 3rd, 2011, and was in Phil's videos constantly during the time he was alive.
A famous quote from Phil is, "It's a good thing to be strange; normalness leads to sadness."
The Fantastic Foursome: (from left to right) Phil Lester, Dan Howell, PJ Ligouri and Chris Kendall at Vidcon 2013
Phil is part of the famous "Fantastic Foursome", a group of English YouTubers which includes Dan Howell (aka Daniel Howell ), Chris Kendall (aka crabstickz), and PJ Liguori (aka KickThePj). However this also came to an end when Phil and Chris fell out, Dan and PJ stuck up for Phil, breaking apart the Fantastic Foursome.
Phil Lester is also, though the usually uncredited, creator of the infamous Youtube sensation "The Seven Second Challenge" (which was soon developed into an app with the help of Dan), along with the Toilet Tag, and the Tumblr Tag (accidentally).
External YouTube Channels
Phil has a second channel, named "LessAmazingPhil " where he uploads videos that are either too short or not relevant to anything that he would upload onto his main channel. He uploads his weekly hour-long liveshows on there too. On March 27th 2015, Phil announced, with best friend Dan, that they wrote a book together. It was released on October 8th 2015. Along with the book, Dan and Phil will also be touring around the world to promote their book and meet fans. The tour kicked off on October 8th in Glasgow, Scotland.
Along with Dan, he was also one of the presenters of the Super Amazing Project, a YouTube video series from My Damn Channel, encompassing scary/freaky happenings sent in by viewers, challenges between the two presenters, and strange news from the previous week. The show spanned for three series, however Dan confirmed in a YouNow broadcast that except for seasonal specials, there will be no series 4. It's legacy was carried to their radio show. They have made another joint channel called DanAndPhilGAMES where they play video games and record it.
Dan and Phil created a channel called "DanAndPhilCRAFTS" on April 1st, 2015, announcing on the same day that it was just an April Fools' joke. At Summer in the City 2015, Dan and Phil were presented with a Silver Play Button from YouTube for surpassing 100,000 subscribers on their channel.
In the Media
Phil has appeared on TV numerous times including being on The Weakest Link, a Confused.com advert, the Jeremy Kyle audience, Blue Peter and Friday Download.
He has also been in a movie called "Faintheart". He was also in an Oreo advert, which was advertising the Oreo Lick Race. It included clips of Phil and Daniel Howell doing their Oreo Lick Race, along with other YouTubers. It has since been deleted for the reason that it was not made clear that the video was an advertisement.
On 15th April 2013, Dan and Phil interviewed Fall Out Boy in New York City on their comeback tour. They also appeared briefly in the audience on Fuse TV for Fall Out Boy's appearance. They have also interviewed One Direction at the 2012 Radio 1 Teen Awards.
Dan and Phil also appeared in the movie Big Hero 6, as Technician 1 and Technician 2 respectively. (UK Cinema version only).
Radio Career
It was announced in November 2012 that both Dan and Phil will host BBC Radio 1's request show, on Sundays 7pm-9pm, starting on 13th January 2013. The show is fully interactive, allowing listeners to call in to request a song and doing challenges to get it played ("fan wars"). On the website, music videos are shown which fans have made and emailed to Dan and Phil. The entire show is streamed in video, live on the BBC Radio 1 website.
Dan and Phil with the Sony Golden Headphones Award.
In August 2013, Dan and Phil received a Sony Golden Headphones Award for the UK's favourite Radio Presenters, voted on by the fans.
Their radio show has been changed from Sundays, 7:00pm – 9:00pm (UK Time) to Mondays from 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm (UK Time) as of Sep. 1st, 2014, and is now known as the "Internet Takeover". Several different YouTubers (such as Zoella, ThatcherJoe, Tyler Oakley, etc.) are given the chance to 'takeover' the radio show for the day, with Dan and Phil hosting their own radio show at the first Monday of every month.
As of April 2016, BBC Radio 1's "Internet Takeover" has been put on hiatus after it was announced that Dan and Phil were going on tour in the United States for three months.
List Of Subscriber Milestones
Phil hit 1 million subscribers on July 5, 2013.
Phil hit 2 million subscribers on August 28, 2014.
Phil hit 3 million subscribers on October 11, 2015.
Phil hit 4 million subscribers on March 14, 2017.
Trivia
- He was voted Sugarscape's Hottest Lad of 2013.
- Phil is lactose intolerant.
- One of the mascots from the popular game Crossy Road (called "Emo Goose"), was suggested and voiced by him.
- His favorite color is blue.
- His favorite Pokemon is Growlithe.
- He was addicted to Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
- As a child, he had a fear of horses.
- His favorite snack/food is popcorn.
- He and his friend Dan (DDaniel Howell are huge fans of Muse, and their favorite album by the band is Origin of Symmetry.
- In 2011, Phil set a Guinness World Record for fastest coin stacking, placing 25 coins on top of each other in 31.617 seconds.
- Phil doesn't like any sort of cheese. In his video The Cheese Challenge , in which he tried previous foods he did not like before, he tried 4 different kinds of cheese, only to find out he still hated cheese.
- He is the creator of many YouTube challenges, the most notable one being "The 7 Second Challenge", which led to the creation of his and Dan Howell's app, "The 7 Second Challenge".
- Phil was featured in asdf movie 9 in the same skit as Dan.
- As a child, he didn't like bread crusts. His mother said that the crusts would make his hair curly, but Phil didn't want curly hair. Congratulations, you just played yourself.
- Phil wrote The Amazing Book is not on Fire and Dan and Phil Go Outside with his best friend Daniel Howell .
- Dan and Phil went on a world tour in 2016 called The Amazing Tour is Not On Fire.
- Phil loves to buy plants to put around the house, this of course drives Dan crazy.
- In July 2016,Phil did a baking video with Rosanna Pansino and Dan where they made Spider Donuts from the game Undertale.
External links
- Second Channel
- Gaming Channel (with Daniel Howell)
- April Fools Channel (with Danie Howell)
- YouNow
- The Super Amazing Project
- The Dan and Phil Show for BBC Radio 1 (Every Monday), 9-10pm GMT
- Gallery
