Nationality Canadian Web hosting service(s) YouTube Ethnicity Chinese (Hoa) Role Comedian Name TheWineKone TheWineKone | Years active 2005-present Known for Comedy, Video blog Web alias(es) thewinekone | |
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Website www.thinkingoflaughing.com | ||
My Secret and SMOSH Interview!(And thewinekone)
Tony Huynh, known by his username thewinekone on YouTube, is a Canadian comedian and video blogger. Since the creation of his account in 2005, he has become one of the most viewed users on YouTube, as well as one of YouTube's first online personalities. In his video "'The Wine Kone' Revealed" he says that his user name "TheWineKone" is actually an anagram for "Toe Knee Hwin," which is a phonetic spelling for his actual name. Huynh is known for his long rant-like video blogs which often stray from the primary topic and contain somewhat perverse humour to varying degrees. Although he often acts hyperactive and strange in his videos, it was stated in "About Her/Their Videos" that he is simply acting for the purpose of entertainment.
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Pre-YouTube and "Unsubbing"
TheWineKone originated in July 2003 as a newsletter sent by e-mail to approximately 30 people. His mailing list grew over time and a year after, the newsletters had been named "The Wine Kone". Subscribers then received a collection of articles, edited images, audio clips and videos produced by Huynh himself. In April 2005, he decided to publish his works online.
In the first edition, he threatened those who received the newsletter that if they did not subscribe he would "give them one last chance to subscribe. If they do not, [Huynh] will terminate their subscription forever." This is a habit that carried over to YouTubing - those who have had negative comments about his videos would be "unsubbed" from his channel. He once described how he does this in a vlog, saying he blocks the viewer and then unblocks them to give them the freedom to watch or subscribe once again, at the risk of losing face. This seems to be the result of a joke Huynh plays - his goal is not merely to entertain an audience, but also to entertain himself and to play with the social construct within the medium in such a way that renders him a sort of anti-celebrity.
YouTube
Huynh's first video on YouTube was "The Delaware Boy" in December 2005. In March 2007, his video "Hotness Prevails/Worst Video Ever" was selected for Best Commentary in the first YouTube Awards. In November 2007, he helped present the launch of YouTube's Canadian site. His video submission to the 2007 CNN-YouTube Democratic presidential debate was the entry most viewed by YouTube users, and his video was highlighted by moderator Anderson Cooper before the debate. Huynh is currently a Director on YouTube, and had over 28,050,000 upload views. He also appeared in a collab video made by Smosh called "Three guys in a hotel". In 2014 Huynh went on a brief hiatus from creating videos due to an undisclosed illness.
