Think twice before you make fun of a guy who chills in his parents’ basement.
Hilarious one-man re-enactments of famous movie scenes posted on YouTube from his family’s Carney home have placed 21-year-old Brandon Hardesty on the brink of fame and fortune.
“When I realized people liked them, I kept doing more and then it was the snowball effect,” Hardesty says. “It just went from there. I never would have believed three years ago I would be considered a celebrity.”
Hardesty will appear Saturday evening in a two-hour event that will be streamed for a worldwide audience of millions on YouTube Live from San Francisco. The part concert, part variety show features Hardesty, along with other Internet-born stars like rapper Soulja Boy Tell’em, singer Esmée Denters — whose self-made videos have been viewed more than 111 million times on YouTube — and “Canon Rock” virtuoso Funtwo.
Mainstream acts like Akon, who has the No. 12 most-viewed YouTube video of all time, and the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters also are expected to perform, organizers said.
“For nearly three years, the YouTube community has been defining pop culture and in the process has made the site both a place to find and be found,” said YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley. “YouTube at its core is a platform where everyone from the famous to the seemingly unknown shares a single stage, and YouTube Live is a physical manifestation of this idea.”
Hardesty says a lot has changed since The Examiner first interviewed him in February. His Web site is now attracting advertisers. He has appeared on late-night television — on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” He has secured an acting agent and been profiled in The Wall Street Journal.
But don’t expect him to go all Hollywood on us.
His side-splitting re-enactments are still decidedly low-budget: A golf pencil becomes a cigar for a “Goodfellas” scene. During a intergalactic battle from “Star Wars,” Hardesty as Luke Skywalker uses a treadmill to hide from Darth Vader. Water guns replace Tommy guns.
Hardesty, too, remains low-budget — for now.
“I’m still working as a cashier at the grocery store,” he says. “At least until I get enough financial stability in the acting world.”
