Written in Partnership with Amir Bakian
All his life, influencer Howieazy has been described as “crazy.” When he first started making comedic skits on Vine, people called him crazy. When he dropped out of college to pursue a career in social media, people again thought he was crazy. And when he opted to stay home full-time to make videos instead of climbing up the corporate ladder like everyone else—you guessed it—people said he was crazy for doing so.
Nowadays, people are still calling Howieazy all kinds of crazy, but they’re now saying it in awe instead of condescending disbelief. See, Howieazy has amassed millions of fans across various platforms—Twitter, TikTok, Youtube, and others.
His biggest, most awe-inspiring payout to date, however, came from Snapchat.
From just two super-viral videos on Snapchat Spotlight, Howieazy took home a whopping $150,000. With that money, he was able to quit his job and pay off the student loans he incurred from the five years he spent jumping from school to school and major to major. Moreover, he was able to help his family by paying all of their bills. Even after that, he still had enough to save and pay his tax dues.
Testing the Waters
With Howieazy’s apparent big-league expertise of current content-sharing platforms, it might be difficult to imagine his humble beginnings, but that doesn’t make them any less true.
When Vine started blowing up, Howieazy was more of a consumer than a creator. He would watch influencers like King Bach and some other popular, LA-based Viners. From there, he started getting the motivation to make his own content.
The problem was, he wasn’t confident enough to show his face just yet. He just created comedic vignettes and “weird” videos like how to punch an apple. Things started to take off after he built up the courage to feature himself in his content.
People love Howieazy’s daily life skits where he plays characters in relatable content like sibling fights and brunch conversations among friends. Apparently, the viral material he was trying to find when he first started as a Viner was his own brand of comedy.
What really sealed the deal for Howieazy’s success, however, was his incredible talent at adapting to new platforms as they come. When Vine was discontinued, he already had 50,000 followers. At first, he thought all his teachers were right and he had truly wasted all his time trying to make it big on the platform. But then, he realized that the platform may have died, but the skills he picked up from it were his to keep.
He started making longer-form content on Youtube. He spent most of his time in lockdown learning the ins and outs of TikTok. When his biggest opportunity came in the form of Snapchat Spotlight, he never looked back.
Big Dreams Ahead
These days, Howieazy’s content is still filled with the raw “craziness” his fans first loved. He would get random content ideas from his daily interactions with the people in his life, and from there, he creates instant hits.
But Howieazy has adjusted his horizons a bit and is betting on bigger dreams now. He plans on landing a movie role, ideally in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fortunately, he’s already got his “in,” after Youtube invited him as one of the elite influencers at the Spiderman premiere. There, he met Tom Holland and other important personalities in Marvel.
Whether or not this “crazy” dream will come to fruition remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: Howieazy is no stranger to making the craziest of dreams come true.
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