Stephen Jonathan Lawson[1] (born: July 9, 1995), better known online as Stephen Tries, is an English YouTuber and comedian known for his short sketches.
Early Life[]
Stephen born as Stephen Jonathan Lawson was born on July 9, 1995 in Norwich, England. His parents’ names are not known, he has a sibling, a sister, she provides all the costumes he uses in his videos.
He grew up and lived in England with his family. Growing up, he had a talent for making jokes and making people around him laugh. His dream was to be a comedian when he grew up.
He is a high school graduate; he graduated from a high school located in England. He then went on to attend and graduate from the University of Salford located in Manchester.
He later moved to St Helens, Merseyside, England to pursue his career.
YouTube career[]
He began his online career in 2014, but he launched his YouTube channel on April 20, 2013 when he was 17 years old. He uploaded his first video in 2014, the video showed him dancing and talking and was hilarious to watch. It grabbed the attention of many viewers, and he was then requested by his viewers to post more comedy content.
He shoots most of his videos on his university campus. He then started to create comedy videos on several celebrities and social media personalities. His videos often show viewers ways of becoming a celebrity, by mocking or imitating his/her mannerisms.
In one of his earliest sketches, he pretended to be a pedophile hunter, but his viewers misinterpreted it and thought he was the pedophile, thus a trend started where people began calling him "a nonce".
He has stated that this trend of his followers referring to him as a nonce has negatively affected his channel, including a failed brand deal with popular video app TikTok.
He is known to be really talented when it comes to roasting other people, this is seen in The Roast of the Sidemen, and Insults Match: Stephen Tries by Callux.
He has a video series which he named, ‘How To’, one of his most popular video on the series is titled, 'How To Be Stormzy,' which has earned more than three million views. The video features Stephen mocking popular English rapper Stormzy.
He did a ‘Grime Remix’ on Ed Sheeran’s 2017 hit track 'Shape of You' he confessed that it was the most difficult to shoot.
Some of his popular videos with over a million views are 'Stephen Tries FC,' 'Badman Returns!,' 'How To Be The Chicken Connoisseur,' 'The Grime Scene Saviour (Little T Diss),' and 'How To Be The F2Freestylers.' The channel has over 536 thousand subscribers.
He also has a second channel, 'Stephen Tries Less', where he uploads 'monetizable content that isn't good enough for my main channel'. Stephen began a podcast in late 2018, but the project was abandoned until being picked up again in 2020, with episodes being released every week from his third channel, Stephen Tries Podcast.
He attended the ‘Upload Event’ in 2017, along with the 'Sidemen,' a group of seven British "YouTubers." He was in the guest panel of the event. He has also participated in a charity football match in 2018.
He has also been featured in a number of Sidemen videos - Sidemen Go Back To School, The Roast of The Sidemen, Sidemen Tinder 3, and Sidemen Dragons Den (Shark Tank). He also did the voice-over commentary in The Weakest Link: Sidemen Edition. He also collaborated in KSI's video back in early 2018 titled My New Boxing Trainer.
He went on tour of the UK in 2019 for “TWOTI Live” with Youtuber, WillNE.
He has an Instagram account has over 159 thousand followers, and his Twitter account has over 292 thousand followers.
Personal Life[]
He has said that if given a chance to act with any comedian, living or dead, he would love to work with the late Hollywood actor Robin Williams. His favorite comedy film is 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' and ‘The Dark Knight.’
His celebrity crushes are singer Ariana Grande and former Spanish footballer Xabi Alonso. He loves to watch stars like Cristian Guzmán and Spencer FC. His favorite YouTube channel is the Israeli–American comedy 'YouTube' channel 'H3h3Productions.'
He is a good friend of fellow 'YouTube' vlogger WillNE. He is currently in a relationship with a girl named Zoe Laufer. He currently resides at St Helens, Merseyside.
Quotes[]
- "Hi I'm Stephen, but you can call me tank. Cause I love the taste of women."
Subscriber milestones[]
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
- 1 million subscribers: March 22, 2020
Trivia[]
- Stephen attended the 2017 Upload event with the Sidemen, he participated in the 2018 charity football match.
- Stephen is known to be really good at roasting other people as shown in The Roast of the Sidemen, and Insults Match: Stephen Tries by Callux.
- In an early sketch, he pretended to be a pedophile hunter, but this was misinterpreted by his audience as him being the pedophile, thus sparking a trend of calling Lawson "a nonce". Lawson has stated that this trend of his followers referring to him as a nonce has negatively affected his channel, including a failed brand deal with popular video app TikTok.[2]