Hey guys!
So this is Phil and I'm going to draw my life!
I was supposed to be born on Valentine's Day, but fetus me obviously didn't like that idea, so I escaped the uterus early.
I was born on January the 30th in the middle of a
snowdrift in the northern hills of Manchester.
Maybe this explains why I like snow so much.
Apparently my dad wanted to call me "Richard" or "Jason"
but my mum thought I looked like a "Philip"
so that was the name I was given.
My first memories are my granddad teaching me
how to tie shoelaces and playing Scrabble with him.
Unfortunately he died when I was four, so those are the only memories I have with him.
I also remember visiting Portugal and watching a lot of animal documentaries on TV.
I was OBSESSED with animals; I knew from an early age that I either wanted to be a vet, a zoo keeper or a weatherman.
I'm not sure where the weatherman thing came from...
I also really wanted a dog, but instead my parents bought me a SURPRISE HOUSE RABBIT!
She was called Holly and she lived in the house, and kind of acted like a dog.
Weirdly me and my older brother got on really well, and have done my whole life.
We also used to secretly watch horror films like 'Alien' at one in the morning, which was never a good idea,
and I had nightmares for most of my childhood.
I was lucky as my house was on a hill so I had loads of woodland and fields to explore.
I just made myself sound like a squirrel but [laughs] I had about five friends. We had our own street gang called "The Kool Katz".
See? It had a 'Z' because it was "kool".
One of my clearest memories of school is playing trains in the playground. I thought it would be a good idea to stop in front of a wall,
so the entire train SLAMMED into the back of me and I crushed my face against the wall, breaking my nose.
I remembered-- o-oh my god, that's a horrific face. Ok, wait, rub that out-- That's better.
I remember dripping blood into a girl's hair and she screamed a lot.
Then came the time to leave for secondary school and I was the only person from my school to go to the one I went to.
It was big, scary and intimidating and had loads of year elevens that looked like giants.
I also developed a massive obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
She was on my wall, she was inside my locker and I still stand by the fact that it is the best show ever.
Seriously, it's the best show ever.
In the final year of school I did some work experience as a vet and I had to watch a dog getting its jaw removed with a saw and I ended up fainting.
Turns out being a vet was not for me.
I moved on to college with the same friends and I studied art, media studies, English and psychology and I really enjoyed it.
I also got my first girlfriend (woohoo!), who lasted for about a week but was then stolen by a guy called Ian
who I initially hated but then we actually became best friends. Hi if you're watching, Ian!
Towards the end of college I stumbled upon Youtube.
I was inspired by lonelygirl15, Andrew Bravner and Smosh to make my own video blogs
and they were really bad at first. I filmed them with no editing on a black and white camera that I got with some tokens from cereal.
What happened to toys in cereal? Hmm.
I'd update these video blogs every few weeks and a year or so later I started university in York.
I loved York. It has really cool castle walls and the uni campus was completely covered in ducks.
Apparently, you could kill a person and return after your prison sentence but if you killed a duck, you were banned for life.
I was in a house of ten people, six girls, four boys and one shower. Mornings were never that fun.
At this point I got a job working at a giant stationary store over Christmas, which kind of destroyed my soul.
I used to hide in the stock room and read all the books and magazines hoping the manager wouldn't notice.
I actually quit the job after a crazy lady threw a chocolate orange at my head.
That was a pretty low point in my life.
My final year at university is kind of a blur as unfortunately one of my best friends, who I'd lived with for three years, died suddenly.
It took a long time but eventually I swapped some of the sadness for funny memories we had together
as I know for sure he wouldn't want me to spend the rest of my life being sad.
He also made me realise I should probably embrace some of the crazy opportunities I was getting instead of shying away from them
like I would've done in the past.
And the first thing I did was audition for a movie and I got a small role as a shop worker in the Viking comedy Faintheart
which you might see on Film4 every so often.
And I also appeared on a TV quiz show called The Weakest Link.
I then finished uni and moved back home
and around this time I discovered there was a whole community of people making Youtube videos in the UK
and I met a guy called PJ who invited me to a New Year's Eve party where I met loads of other Youtubers.
These crazy creative people inspired me to try even harder and I kept making the videos
which began to gain popularity at a completely unexpected rate.
I also met Crabstickz and later that year my friend Dan.
He was studying at Manchester Uni so we hung out a lot and made loads of videos which you guys seemed to love.
Dan needed somewhere to live in the second year of uni so we moved into a Manchester flat on the nineteenth floor of a skytower.
It was weirdly cheap, I think someone may have died there before we moved in or something.
It was brilliant living with another Youtuber though and we were given some great opportunities
like visiting Jamaica with CTFxC, going to Playlist Live and Vidcon.
We also started working really closely with Radio 1
and we had two Christmas shows and then went to Edinburgh with them which was amazing.
I also discovered that I really enjoyed making radio shows.
We decided at this point it would be best to move to London which was a big deal for me being from a sheepy northern town.
But I'm really loving it so far and I'm probably the happiest I've ever been.
And excitingly, in January 2013 we were given our own Radio 1 show.
The first live show was probably the scariest thing I've ever done but now we're in the swing of things, I'm actually loving it.
So yeah now that shy weird kid from school is now a Youtuber, a Londoner and also a radio presenter.
I probably never will be a weatherman, unfortunately,
but I still can't believe how many people watch my videos, I'm so grateful to everyone who does and I still read every single comment.
Yeah even if you just typed one now, I read it.
Well, that's it, I'm excited about the future and as it's my birthday, I'm gonna go eat some cake.
Feel free to make your own Draw Your Life-video, this was inspired by Sam and Caspar's and I tag everybody,
especially KickThePj as he can draw way better than me.
Please give this video a thumbs up and if you do I will draw you and eagle shark.
(screeee!)
And also click here to subscribe to my videos.
Okay, see you soon. Bye guys!