Senior Tommy Lee pursues a passion to entertain
Under the channel, urboytommy, Lee aims to reach out to and entertain his peers
February 6, 2017
Social media sites act as a platform for many creative ventures. From Facebook updates to Instagram posts, students have used them to express themselves. Senior Tommy Lee has used YouTube as a social media platform to entertain and reach out to his peers via pranks, storytimes, and other creative content.
Lee introduced his channel in Oct. 2016 as a method to reach out to a greater audience. His YouTube channel has a variety of video genres including pranks and storytimes.
“My goal is to entertain people through my videos because I can do a great job doing that because I have [guts].” Lee said.
In pursuit of the most entertaining video, Lee has placed himself into some risky situations.
“It’s gotten me into trouble but it was well worth it because I got to know a lot more people,” Lee said.
Lee recounts a time he faced a threatening situation in the midst of filming for an exploration video.
“Once I was filming this exploring a haunted asylum video, I was exploring that place and there were other people in there. And usually if you see somebody in the abandoned mental asylum that’s been abandoned for 20 years they’re not going to be nice people,” Lee said.
Lee has continued past the occasional reprimands of his videos to pursue his passion to entertain his peers.
“I walk out into the halls and see people watching my videos on their phone. It’s actually really nice to know that people enjoy my content, it just makes me want to make more funny, lit content,” Lee said.
Lit and funny are recurring themes in Lee’s videos. If it doesn’t produce a laugh, it doesn’t get posted.
“Either way it has to be funny, funny is the main theme,” Lee said. “My main purpose it that the viewer has a smile on their face by the time they’re done watching the video, that’s all I need.”
Lee attributes the success of some of his content to reactions to cynical humor, a type of comedy many fall victim to.
“It’s a sad truth that people like watching other people suffer. Usually my videos have somebody suffering, not to a far extent, [so] it can be funny,” Lee said. “And the suffer of one person can make the laughs of many more and I feel like that’s worth doing.”
Like many other students at McLean, Lee has a running list of classes and extracurriculars that busy his time. Consequently, Lee struggles with managing these extracurriculars with posting on YouTube.
“Throughout the break I had a lot of wrestling tournaments and then I wasn’t able to make a video for like seven days. And that really upset me because I really love making those videos because I love the reactions of the viewers,” Lee said.
Lee’s sense of dedication has facilitated his commitment to YouTube as well as wrestling.
“I have this weird sense of dedication, not just to YouTube, but to like wrestling and everything I did so far in life when I decide to do something I do it, I don’t let any obstacles stop me from achieving what I want,” Lee said. “Subscribe to urboytommy!”
Watch: One of Lee’s prank-based entertainment videos. (Video courtesy of Tommy Lee)