Lewis Spears

Lewis Spears (born January 16, 1994) is an Australian comedian and YouTuber known for his provocative and dark humor. His stand-up comedy often addresses controversial topics, challenging societal norms with a bold and unapologetic style. 
Spears is recognized for his popular comedy specials, including Death Threats, and series such as Lew Reviews, Bi-Monthly Bull, and Cooking Without Instructions. Spears also hosts the solo podcast Spearhead Sundays and co-hosts a podcast with fellow comedian Luke Kidgell. 
== Biography ==
=== Youth and Education ===
Spears was born on January 16, 1994 in Melbourne. He is the youngest in a family of two children. He attended McKinnon Secondary College in Melbourne where he graduated from high school in 2012. After initially pursuing further education, he dropped out of college after a year to focus on comedy.
=== YouTube ===
Spears started his career in 2012 on the media platform YouTube where he started making sketches and comedy reviews. Here he is mostly active in which, in addition to clips from his theater shows, he also provides many reviews and comments on current affairs or other YouTube channels and media personalities.
=== Theater ===
In 2014, at the age of 20, he performed for the first time on stage in various stand-up theaters and with his first own program in rented halls in Melbourne and Sydney. The following years he toured mainly with his shows through Australia and since 2017 also in New Zealand. Spears's comedy style is mostly dark humor.
In 2017, he launched a crowdfunding campaign to create a professional theater tour with which he managed to raise a total of 17 thousand Australian dollars. His theater tour 'Death Threats Don't Scare Me' followed in 2018 during which a performance was recorded for television. However, due to its comedy style, the special was not broadcast on Australian television after its tour, but was released on DVD and sold nationwide. The show is the largest publicly funded comedy special in the world to date.
=== Controversies ===
In the year 2013, he got into a feud with Australian journalist Susan Mclean after reviewing her book and calling it the greatest nonsense ever written. In 2014, when Spears managed to trick the Australian media into believing he was an online bully, McLean labeled him 'Australia's worst and biggest internet bully'. She went so far as to call and email theaters where Spears was performing to block his shows and accuse him in her books and during info afternoons at schools and universities using him as an example. Spears eventually managed to stop this with a lawyer. When he noticed that she continued, however, he used her as the main subject and thread in his theater show 'They Tried To Cancel Me Last Time' where he used the slogan; 'SorrySuzie' introduced. During each show, he filmed himself and the audience apologizing to Suzie. This campaign generated large ticket sales for Spears and SorrySuzie became a trending topic on social media in Australia.
In 2019 he came into conflict with the Australian Podcast Awards, an annual podcast valuation competition. Spears's solo podcast 'Spearhead Sundays' was nominated in the Comedy category. In a podcast during the voting rounds, Spears walked out on his audience to vote especially for him. As a joke, he added that as far as he was concerned, cheating was allowed and encouraged his listeners to create multiple email accounts to vote for him multiple times. Although this was intended as a joke, his listeners did what he said in large scale. Spears was subsequently charged by the Podcast Awards for inciting fraud and cheating and disqualified for 2019. He also received a lifetime ban from the Podcast Awards. Spears reacted cynically to the allegations and felt the Podcast Awards should do away with the comedy category if they don't understand what comedy is after all.
His most recent controversies include:
# Tricking the news outlet 'Vice' into airing a fake story about a hacker trapping men's private parts in Chastity Cages, demanding money in exchange for setting them free.
# Making jokes about Prince Philip hours after his death.
Category: Australian comedians
Category: Australian actors
Category: Australian musicians