Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Brandon Hardesty

(born 1987) is an American comedic performer noted for his YouTube fame. Hardesty posts original comedy videos as well as "uncanny" recreations of scenes from movies, playing every part himself. The Village Voice writer Julian Dibbell has called his works "Web culture at its finest."[1On YouTube, Hardesty goes by the username "ArtieTSMITW," which is an abbreviation for "Artie: The Strongest Man in the World," a character from one of his favorite childhood shows, The Adventures of Pete and Pete. His most popular videos are his Re-enactment videos, in which he chooses a movie scene, and re-enacts it himself, playing all the characters. Another popular series is Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make, in which he goes through a series of making noises and faces. To date, Hardesty has had four of his videos featured on the front page of Youtube: his reenactment of a scene from The Princess Bride, his reenactment of a scene from Uncle Buck, a video dubbed "Three Impressions" which is simply three of Brandon's celebrity impersonations, and his "Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make III" video, which has had over 3,000,000 views. Hardesty is currently the 84th most subscribed and 12th most viewed comedian on the popular video sharing website, YouTube.[citation needed] In April of 2007, Geico Auto Insurance used "Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make III" in a television commercial. After a portion of the video plays, apparently on a computer screen, a narrator says, "There may be better ways to spend 15 minutes online."