Phil Jamesson

Phil Jamesson (born: ), is an actor and comedian born and raised in Scottsville, New York. He graduated from New York University in 2013 and began his entertainment career a few years later, performing stand-up, improv, and sketch comedy in the New York comedy circuit while producing his own content for online-distribution and acting in short and student films (IMDb).
==Early years==
In February 2007, he launched his YouTube channel, originally under the name Freezingman66. His earliest videos included short skits, parodies, and random videos of Phil talking to the camera. He enjoyed modest success after joining Youtube's original Partners Program and soon grew an audience of his own. Uploading weekly, he established a few recurrent series such as "MySpace Teen Chats", "Good Idea, Bad Idea", and "Pickup Lines That Don’t Quite Work".
In 2009, Phil released his first-ever merch via Cafepress, which consisted of t-shirts featuring geometric designs made by Phil himself.
Around 2010, partly because of college, his activity on youtube declined and came to a full stop. Phil made a few more sketches but his lack of consistent uploads stalled the channel. The old Freezingman66 videos are no longer available at his channel.
In 2013 Phil went on to take a full-time job at Andiamo, a staffing & recruiting agency in New York.
==Hey, Sangay!==
Partly thanks to Reddit, many of Phil's Snapchat antics went viral. In 2014, he garnered media attention with his videos playfully pestering Sangay, his office coworker at Andiamo. "Hey, Sangay!" became a meme, and the videos got freebooted ad nauseam. Phil and the mortified yet amused Sangay appeared in articles by pages and publications like Right This Minute, What's Trending, METRO, Bustle, Indy100; in Ireland's Entertainment and HER; in Sweeden's Nyheter24; in Croatia's Tip.ba; in the Netherland's Dumpert; among many more. Phil uploaded the "Hey Sangay! Snapchat compilation " to his channel, where it remains his most viewed video with over 350k views.
Another successful compilation of Phil's Snapchat videos was his "BuzzFeed Pitches " parody, in which Phil mocked the type of countdowns and top-ten lists BuzzFeed producers would come up with.
==Return to Youtube & Present==
In 2017, Phil decided to quit his job to once again pursue acting and comedy. He shared his experience on an essay at Medium.com, titled "The Next Step ". By August, he rebranded the channel as just "Phil Jamesson" and made his definitive return to Youtube with "I Haven't Seen It Yet (No Spoilers) ", a comedy sketch that went on to become one of his classic and most viewed videos. Next, he resumed uploading regularly every week. First every Wednesday, and then moving to his current schedule of "every Thursday at noon".
Phil was hit by the first wave of the infamous Ad-pocalypse, and the changes in Youtube policies made him lose his partner status. Months later, in August 2018, Phil announced he was a partner again, having reached the required amount of subscribers and watch-time to be able to monetize his content again.
In March 2019, Phil uploaded a video called "Exciting News From Phil Jamesson! " in which he announced the launch of his new merch via Teespring. The designs were based on his brand and logo, with catchphrases and punchlines from his sketches, featuring artwork by u m a m i, RoxiQT and Nick Tofani. The t-shirts, hoodies, tote bags, mugs, and phone cases featuring seven different designs are still available as of 2020.
Today Phil focuses on longer, comedy-oriented videos, but he also continues to produce hilarious short-format videos for his social media, mainly his Twitter account. In 2019 he also joined TikTok and in 2020 he joined Byte.
On August 18th, 2020, Phil launched the Word Of The Day twitter account. A comedic account that describes itself as "The only place to find the official word of the day" in its bio.
On September 12th, 2020, Phil launched his new website www.philjamesson.com/. He owned the domain for some years and it used to redirect to a playlist of all his videos, now his website consists of a minimalistic splash screen that links to Phil's Youtube, Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.
On September 14th, 2020 (though he created it in March), Phil launched Phil Gamesson. His gaming channel where he uploads VODs and highlights from his twitch streams.
==Twitch==
Not a stranger to gaming, Phil created his Twitch channel as early as 2012. His activity on Twitch waned in a similar way to his youtube. But in July 2019 Phil relaunched the channel and started streaming every Tuesday and Thursday at 1 PM (ET). Games like "Baba is you", "Hollow Knight", "Hades", "Celeste", "Stardew Valley", "Marbles on Stream", and later "Fall Guys" and "Among Us" became staples of his channel. As well as occasional Saturday game nights with fellow comedians and streamers such as Leyawn, bijanstephen, OneTrickTofani, KylePlantEmoji, Jolie Darrow, Max Ash, and Hard Drive's Jeremy Kaplowitz among others.
His growing community of loyal fans gathers at Phil's Discord server, which launched on September 28, 2019.
Phil became a Twitch Partner on September 24th, 2020. He streamed for over twelve hours to celebrate on September 28, which was also his Discord server's one year anniversary.
New viewers discover Phil from his different activities and never fail to ask him questions either about Sangay, something about his sketches, or Ace Watkins.
==Ace Watkins==
On July 8th, 2019, the video game comedy website Hard Drive created the satirical gamer presidential candidate Ace Watkins. Phil plays Ace and contributes with the Hard Drive staff in writing Ace's material. The article "Ace Watkins is the First Gamer to Run for President of the United States" and the video "Gamer President campaign announcement" introduced Ace to the world. The original tweet received over 7k RTs and 24k likes in one month, with the video gaining over 610k views on Twitter and 13k views on YouTube. Ace's own twitter account was launched and through it "Ace" would present his platform to a stupefied electorate.
The idea of a "Gamer President" captivated the media and Ace was the subject of articles in Newsweek, The Daily Dot, KnowTechie and many more, as well as international outlets like Mexico's SDPnoticias, France's Courier International, and Brazil's Revista Galileu among many others.
Phil made several live appearances as Ace, including the Ace Watkins Presidential Rally, held at Caveat in New York, on September 29th, 2019. Also featuring stand-up from Mike Drucker, Samantha Ruddy, Dan Licata, Justin Covington, and Kate Willett. Then at New York Comic-Con, on October 3rd, 2019, where they shot "Ace Watkins goes to ComicCon" for Hard Drive. And recently, on February 29 at PAX East 2020 held in Boston, MA; where "Ace" had his own panel. 
In January 2020, Hard Drive launched "The Ace Watkins Presidential Hour ", a podcast starring Phil as Ace Watkins, joined by Ace's staff and family. The announcement again made the news and got reported by various outlets, including Forbes.
The "Gamer President" went on to become a meme in its own right. Ace's true identity remains a subject of jest and a meme itself among both Phil's fans. Initially, a few people appeared to be unaware of the satirical nature of the gamer presidential candidate and furiously ranted on social media, objecting the validity of his candidacy and platform.
==Viral success==
Apart from his Snapchat compilations and his success on Youtube, a few of Phil's videos went viral on Reddit. Recently his video "Touchscreen " doubled the average views of its predecessors and became the second most viewed video of Phil's (after "Hey Sangay! Snapchat compilation").
In 2017, Phil had another taste of unexpected virality when his 2012 Derek Zoolander costume was featured in Twisted Sifter's "Funny and creative Halloween costume ideas " and then picked up in several articles like Popsugar's "67 Wildly creative DIY costumes for men ", Huffpost's "29 Throwback Halloween costumes that will make you nostalgic ", Beacon's "Celebrate Halloween without spending big bucks "; and many more.
Phil's 2015 tweet "When cats are sad " got over 25k RTs and 44k likes, then it was turned into a cartoon by Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal). Phil and his comedy always had a strong Twitter presence, and many of his tweets reached different degrees of virality. He also had a comic he drew himself called "Gotta have my coffee", which he posted daily on Twitter for a whole year.
Phil's sketches were featured in a Funny or Die article, and his content has also been featured on Playboy, Buzzfeed, and GQ.
==Other Collaborations==
In August 2018, Phil voiced a character for episode 08 of the animated series "Interface" by u m a m i.
Phil is set to co-star in the short film "American Activities" by Emalia Hinden, which is currently in postproduction and is set to be released later in 2020.
On April 20th, 2021 (4/20), season #1 of the narrative podcast "Illuminati Interns" premiered on all streaming platforms. In it, Phil plays 978, an Illuminati leader tasked with recruiting the protagonists as interns for the organization, who in turn believed they were going to be initiated as full-fledged members. The show was created by Joe Therrien Kelly and Maya Bakhai, written and directed by Joe Therrien Kelly, starring Ariana Raygoza, Raina Morris, Joe Therrien Kelly, Phil Jamesson, Kai White, Vinny Thomas, Cole Hersch, Ben Marshall, Moss Perricone, Usama Siddiquee, Lara Clear, Sergio Duran, and Erik Lochtefeld.
==The Hamlet Factory==
Co-created by Phil and frequent collaborator Jeremy Kaplowitz (Hard Drive), "The Hamlet Factory" is a 2D animated series is set at the office where infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters try to write Hamlet, all whilst suffering the slings and arrows of the 9-5 grind. Phil and Jeremy also voiced the protagonist monkeys, alongside fellow comedians Sung Won Cho, Alyssa Limperis, Natalie Walker, Kylie Brakeman and Tom Walker. L.A.-based artist and animator Jackie Gorman (Solar Opposites) handled all the design and animation. All three episodes of The Hamlet Factory are available on HBO Max, and on the Adult Swim YouTube channel as part of Adult Swim's "Smalls" series since April of 2022.
==Trivia==
Phil's abilities include fencing (having participated in several championships in his teens), magic, and music production. He also can sing and play the piano/keyboard and guitar.
In the present, Phil continues making weekly short comedy sketches on Youtube, streaming on Twitch three times a week, playing "Gamer President" Ace Watkins, and performing as a stand-up comedian in New York, although the covid restrictions made him postpone his live engagements until further notice.
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2007