Dan Howell

Personal life

Howell was born and raised in Wokingham, Berkshire, England. He has a younger brother.

Before starting his YouTube channel, he worked in retail chains Focus DIY at the age of 16, and later at the supermarket Asda. After attending The Forest School, Howell went to the University of Manchester in 2010 to study law, but dropped out in order to pursue video blogging as a profession.

Howell has lived with best friend and fellow YouTuber Phil Lester since August 2011, and the pair moved to London together in July 2012.

YouTube

Howell uploaded his first YouTube video titled "HELLO INTERNET" on 16 October 2009. He was encouraged by "some friends" including Phil Lester to continually upload videos to the site.

He also has a second channel, danisnotinteresting, which has over 1.7 million subscribers and 52 million views, as of May 2017.

In 2012, he won the YouTube competition "SuperNote" run by Rhett and Link. He also featured in the weekly video series Becoming YouTube created by Benjamin Cook which looked at the different aspects to becoming an internet celebrity. He also wrote a blog for The Huffington Post, in which he wrote about the creative process behind making his videos.

Howell and Lester collaborated on a YouTube channel for My Damn Channel, entitled The Super Amazing Project, in which they investigated paranormal events. In October 2014, it was announced that as of that month, the duo would not carry on working on the project, in order to concentrate on their Radio 1 show. It was later announced that the Super Amazing Project would continue production, but hosted by different presenters, scouted by the My Damn Channel network.

On 12 September 2014, Howell and Lester posted the first video on their new gaming YouTube channel, DanandPhilGAMES. On 8 March 2015 the channel hit 1 million subscribers. It was officially the fastest growing channel on YouTube.

On 1 April 2015, Howell and Lester launched a spin-off channel, DanAndPhilCRAFTS, as an April Fools joke. It features a single video of them creating square snowflakes out of paper, with an amateur editing style and humour throughout. It reached over 154,000 subscribers and 500,000 total video views in one week. "Don't cry, craft" became a popular Internet meme from that video, described by the Standard-Examiner as "one of the best known YouTube phrases of all time". The channel was awarded the YouTube Silver Play Button at Summer in the City 2015. On 1 April 2016 Howell and Lester made a second video for that channel in which they did another joke tutorial, this time on making glitter faces. In 2017, a third and final video to end the trilogy, titled "Potato Prints" was uploaded.

On 1 May 2017, Howell posted a video on his channel stating that he had changed the name of his YouTube channel from danisnotonfire to Daniel Howell, after stating issues arising from the danisnotonfire name.

BBC Radio 1

In January 2013, Howell and Lester became the presenters of BBC Radio 1's Sunday evening entertainment and request show. They had occasionally worked with the station before, producing videos for the station's YouTube channel for Edinburgh Festival Fringe and presenting two Christmas broadcasts. The show was designed to be interactive with the audience, featuring amateur music videos from listeners, challenges performed on air by the presenters and song requests. Four months after starting the show, it won the Sony Golden Headphones award.

Howell and Lester presented at the Teen Awards in 2013 and 2014, as part of the BBC online coverage and their Radio 1 show.

In August 2014, it was announced that the last Dan and Phil show would be broadcast on 24 August, with the duo moving to a different show on Monday nights, featuring other popular video bloggers. This new show was titled The Internet Takeover, and featured Howell along with Lester live on the first Monday of every month, before coming to an end in April 2016.

TV and film

Since 2014, Howell and Lester have hosted the worldwide YouTube livestream of the Brit Awards as well as making backstage videos for their channel.

In 2015, Howell, along with Lester, had voice cameo appearances in the UK cinema release of Walt Disney Animation Studios' Big Hero 6 as Technician 1 & 2. However, this version is not in the UK home release.

On 2 February 2016, his BBC Three eSports documentary The Supergamers aired.

In December 2016, Howell and Lester voiced two gorilla princes named Majinuni and Hafifu respectively, in the episode "The Lost Gorillas" in Disney Junior's The Lion Guard.

The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire and The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire

On 26 March 2015, Howell and Lester announced they had co-written a book through a trailer on his channel called The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire (TABINOF). It was released in the UK on 8 October 2015 and worldwide on 15 October 2015, published by Ebury Press and Random House Children's Books. The book topped the General Hardbacks Sunday Times Bestsellers list having sold 26,745 copies in the UK in the first week of its release. It also became a #1 New York Times Bestseller in the young adult hardcover list.

In the same trailer the pair announced their theatrical stage show The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire (TATINOF) which travelled around the UK during October and November 2015, ending at the London Palladium. During the tour, they sung The Internet Is Here; Stand Up To Cancer gave them a gold record disc for the sales of the song.

On 22 April 2016, they took the tour to the US which began at Playlist Live in Orlando, Florida and ended on 24 June 2016 at the Dolby in Hollywood, CA. It was the largest tour ever by YouTube creators. They also toured Australia in August 2016 starting in Perth and ending in Brisbane.

YouTube Red Originals and Dan and Phil Go Outside

On 24 June 2016, they announced The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire was to be released later in the year as a YouTube Originals film along with a making of documentary. They were the first British YouTube creators to release content on YouTube Red.

Alongside this, in November 2016 they released a photobook titled Dan and Phil Go Outside, which includes a personal collection of candid photos and insightful stories from their tour.