Phil Lester

Phil Lester

Lester in 2014.
Born Philip Michael Lester
30 January 1987[1]
Rawtenstall, England, United Kingdom
Nationality British
Years active 2006–present
Known for Vlogging, presenting
Home town Rawtenstall, England, United Kingdom

Internet information

Web alias(es) AmazingPhil, LessAmazingPhil

Philip Michael "Phil" Lester (born 30 January 1987) is an English YouTube vlogger and radio personality from Rawtenstall, Lancashire. He is known for presenting a Sunday night entertainment show for BBC Radio 1 with Dan Howell, from January 2013 until August 2014, and since September 2014 has been one of the presenters on the station's Internet Takeover slot.

Biography

Lester currently lives with friend and fellow video blogger Dan Howell in London. 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.[2]

In 2011, Lester won a Guinness World Record for fastest coin stacking, placing 25 coins on top of each other in 31.617 seconds.[3]

Career

YouTube

Lester with friend Howell, meeting fans

At age 19, Lester posted his first YouTube video blog. Since then he has posted over 150 videos on his channel and as of August 2014 has over 2 million subscribers with over 131 million video views,[4] reaching 1 million YouTube subscribers on 6 July 2013, and 2 million on 29 August 2014.[5]

Lester also has a second channel, LessAmazingPhil, which has over half a million subscribers and almost 10 million views, as of October 2014. On September 12th 2014, Phil Lester and Dan Howell posted the first video on their new gaming YouTube channel, DanandPhilGAMES. On March 8th 2015 the channel hit 1 million subscribers.[6]

Lester has also appeared alongside Howell in Benjamin Cook's twelve part web series Becoming YouTube, being interviewed on the various topics Cook covered.[7]

The Super Amazing Project

Lester and Howell created a collaborative YouTube channel through network My Damn Channel, entitled The Super Amazing Project, in which the duo discussed and investigated paranormal events.[8] Segments included "Viewers Spooky Happenings" where the audience of the show would send in "scary" items for the video bloggers to react to. In October 2014, Lester, together with his co-presenter Dan Howell, announced that the Super Amazing Project would be hosted by new presenters, found by channel owners My Damn Channel.

It was announced that as of October 2014 Lester and Howell would not carry on working on The Super Amazing Project to concentrate on their Radio 1 show.

Radio

Main article: Dan and Phil

The BBC announced that starting in January 2013, Lester and Howell would present the Sunday night entertainment and request show for national UK radio station BBC Radio 1. Both had occasionally worked with Radio 1 before, making videos for the station's YouTube channel[9] and presenting two Christmas broadcasts.[10]

The show was designed to be an interactive, audio-visual broadcast involving music videos made by viewers, physical challenges performed on air by Howell and Lester, and song requests from listeners. The show was streamed in video, live on the BBC Radio 1 website.[11]

In August 2014, it was announced that the last Dan and Phil show would be broadcast on 24 August, with the duo moving to a different show on Monday nights, featuring other popular video bloggers.[12]

The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire

On March 26, 2015, Dan and Phil announced they had written a book [13] [14] to be released on October 8, 2015. As the official Amazon page[15] for the book says, " We are Dan and Phil and we invite you on a journey inside our minds! From the stories of our actual births, to exploring Phil’s teenage diary and all the reasons why Dan’s a fail. Learn how to draw the perfect cat whiskers, get advice on what to do in an awkward situation and discover which of our dining chairs represents you emotionally. With everything from what we text each other, to the time we met One Direction and what really happened in Vegas...".

In relation to this, the pair have also announced a tour travelling all over the UK during October and November 2015- "The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire".

Other media

Lester has appeared on television programmes including being a contestant on The Weakest Link.[16] In addition, he played the role of Tim in the film Faintheart.[17]

Lester was interviewed with other internet entertainers on Channel 4 News in October 2012 about the increased popularity of YouTube and video blogging as a profession.[18] Lester is also set to appear in Big Hero 6 alongside his presenting partner Dan Howell.[19]

Awards and nominations

In 2013, Howell and Lester were voted winners of the Sony Golden Headphones Award, presented by the Sony Radio Academy Awards, for Dan and Phil on BBC Radio 1.[20]

In 2014, Lester was nominated for a Teen Choice Award along with Dan Howell in the category Choice Web Collaboration for their video "The Photo Booth Challenge".


References

  1. ↑ "Twitter / AmazingPhil: Awr so many Happy Birthday's". Twitter.com. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  2. ↑ "York student stars in confused.com advert". Nouse. 20 January 2009. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  3. ↑ "AmazingPhil v DanIsNotOnFire: Cadbury World Record Coin Stacking". YouTube. Cadbury. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  4. ↑ "AmazingPhil". YouTube. 7 February 2006. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  5. ↑ Lester, Phil. "Woke up to 2000,000 subscribers!!! THANK YOU!". Twitter. Phil Lester. Retrieved 30 August 2014.
  6. ↑ Dan Howell [danisnotonfire] (8 March 2015). "DanAndPhilGAMES has just hit 1,000,000 subscribers! https://www.youtube.com/user/DanAndPhilGAMES … this is awesome thank you to everybody enjoying our videos" (Tweet).
  7. ↑ "Anatomy of a YouTuber". YouTube. Retrieved 30 August 2014.
  8. ↑ door The Super Amazing Project (26 September 2011). "The Super Amazing Project". YouTube. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  9. ↑ "BBC Radio 1". YouTube. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  10. ↑ "Radio Times". Radio Times. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  11. ↑ "Radio 1 Greg James – 27/02/2013". BBC. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  12. ↑ Cooper, Ben. "New youth presenters for Radio 1". BBC. Retrieved 30 August 2014.
  13. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN-QBnrdGUA
  14. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huAYjF2FY9c
  15. ↑ http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Amazing-Book-Not-Fire/dp/1785031090/ref=zg_bs_books_2
  16. ↑ Daniel Ashby (9 November 2007). "Student star to appear on Weakest Link". The Yorker. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  17. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2886816/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
  18. ↑ Katie Razzall (20 October 2012). "The rise of the vloggers – Channel 4 News". Channel4.com. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  19. ↑ "UK cinema release of Big Hero 6". Disney UK. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
  20. ↑ "Dan and Phil win a Sony Radio Academy Award all suited up – pics". Sugarscape. 15 September 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2013.

External links