Charlie McDonnell

Charles Joseph "Charlie" McDonnell (born 1 October 1990) is a British vlogger and singer/songwriter from Bath, Somerset. He is the most subscribed YouTuber in the United Kingdom as of June 2010.^[2]

McDonnell was educated at Beechen Cliff School^[3], a Foundation school in the city of Bath in Somerset, south-west England. He is a renouned juggler and part time Alex Day enthusiast.

McDonnell was born in Bath, Somerset in England where he resided with his mother, Lindsay ("liliesarelike" on YouTube), younger sister, Bridie, and brother, William. He recently moved to London to live with friend and fellow YouTuber, Alex Day ("nerimon" on YouTube).

After setting up a YouTube channel in April 2007, Charlie started posting vlogs to a small audience. He first came to prominence when his video entitled "How To Get Featured on YouTube" became popular when it was, 'ironically', featured on YouTube's UK homepage. His audience jumped from just under 150 subscribers to over 4,400 in a mere two days.^[4]

In celebration of gaining 25,000 subscribers, McDonnell asked for challenge suggestions from subscribers, and he is completing them in a series of 25 videos entitled "Challenge Charlie", or CC. He has completed eleven so far,^[when?] one of which was suggested by TV presenter Phillip Schofield and his daughter Molly, for McDonnell to do the dance that accompanies the Hoedown Throwdown.^[5] McDonnell has since posted a large range of videos on the site, including his most viewed, "Duet with Myself".^[6] He has over 430,000 subscribers as of June 2010.^[2]

McDonnell also once video blogged every week on another YouTube account along with four other YouTube personalities. The name given to this collaboration was "fiveawesomeguys", a spin-off of the American "fiveawesomegirls" collaboration. In a vlog posted on 28 October 2008, he announced that the project was set to end on New Year's Eve 2008. However, for a week in October 2009, all five guys (JohnnyDurham19, nerimon, fallofautumndistro, toddly00, and charlieissocoollike himself) returned, mainly to promote the ChartJackers Project (see Charity Work).^[7] Charlie's videos currently end with an outro by Stephen Fry.^[8]

On April 21, 2010, Charlie McDonnell became the most subscribed YouTuber in the United Kingdom, and the 42nd most subscribed globally.

Chameleon Circuit, a band consisting of McDonnell, fellow vlogger Alex Day (known as "Nerimon" on YouTube), Liam Dryden, and Chris Beattie, released a self-titled album on 1 June 2009.^[9]

McDonnell occasionally posts YouTube music videos, such as "A Song About Acne", "Duet With Myself", "A Song About Love", and "Chemical Love".

McDonnell was also involved with the musical ChartJackers Project (see Charity Work) and is currently working on his first solo album.^{[citation needed]}

In 2010, Charlie, along with three other Youtubers, Alex Day, Edd Plant, and Tom Milsom, formed a new project entitled Sons Of Admirals [1]. Their first single was released via Youtube on June 14, 2010 on Charlie's channel. The group covered Cat Stevens' song, "Here Comes My Baby". It features all four members on vocals. ^{[10] [11]}

On 30 September 2008, to celebrate his 18th birthday, McDonnell and his friend Alex Day dyed and then shaved their hair off whilst live on BlogTV for a period of 7 and a half hours, in aid of Cancer Research UK.^[12] They managed to raise over £5000.^[13] The broadcast viewership peaked at 4,500. Another friend, Jazza John McMillan-Clenaghan (known as "Rhymingwithoranges" on YouTube) promised to shave his head if they hit £5000 and did so about a month later with help from Kristina Horner (known as "italktosnakes" and Monday on the collab-channel "fiveawesomegirls" on YouTube).^[14]

In October 2009, McDonnell was named as one of a number of prominent YouTube users who would be participating in a project called "RNLI Shout". The aim of the project is to raise money to purchase a lifeboat for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.^[15]

McDonnell featured with three other YouTube users on the BBC Switch series ChartJackers. The programme followed their attempt to achieve a Number One hit single on the UK Singles Chart within ten weeks, by using resources provided by the online community. Over the course of the series, they solicited lyrics, music, performers and stylists to record the song and video via the "ChartJackersProject" YouTube channel.^[16] An unofficial single for Children in Need, the completed single was released through the iTunes Store on 9 November 2009. It reached Number 36 in the UK Singles Chart^[17] and Number One in the UK Indie Chart and raised around £10,000.

McDonnell was interviewed on BBC News about his rise to internet stardom. He also participated in the Euro 2008 Zeitgeist Google conference, where he spoke about YouTube along with Mia Rose (miaarose) and Peter Oakley (geriatric1927). This was a conference to honour online users of popular websites.^[18]

He featured as a guest on Robert Llewellyn's web series Carpool in the episode released on 15 May 2009.^[19] McDonnell has also made guest appearances on Lily Allen and Friends and The Gadget Show.

In early June 2009, McDonnell visited Los Angeles to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009. He attended Microsoft's Xbox press conference, where Project Natal was announced. Two days later, he was invited to a "special area of E3" and was one of 30 exclusive people from around the world to try out Natal. He explained this in one of a group of videos he produced and uploaded to a new channel on YouTube for the trip he called "CharlieAtE3".

Charlie was also interviewed for BBC Outlook and for an article in The Guardian where he talks about the five years of YouTube and his life on the video website.

On 6 June 2010, McDonnell presented the YouTube Audience Award to The Inbetweeners as part of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Television Awards.

• charlieissocoollike on YouTube
• Charlie's Official Website