Andrew Hales, Experimenting With Awkward

A tweet and a day later, I walk into study room 407 to Andrew Hales resting his head on the tabletop. “Just getting a little rest,” Hales says as he looks up.

As we speak about his experiences filming around Utah and around the globe, he is smiling ear to ear while recalling those memories. I wouldn’t call his demeanor awkward or shy, but calm like a fall Californian beach. He doesn’t seem to have a care in the world.

Hales has made a name for himself, especially around UVU campus. His YouTube channel, LAHWF—an acronym for “Losing All Hope Was Freedom” from “Fight Club”— is based around taking advantage of unsuspecting students around college campuses. His brand of humor brings out the awkward situations anyone can relate to.

Approaching 100 videos, Hales’ has reached a staggering 1.4 million subscribers with 157 million total video views. His fairly innocent pranks have gone viral and some have been based around our own campus.

Although Andrew calls Utah his home for now, he grew up in multiple places. His father’s job as a pharmaceutical salesman moved him and his family from New York to New Hampshire and eventually to Bountiful.

In high school Andrew was a shy kid, which is similar to how he is now. “I never spoke up in class. Participation points were always hard for me,” Hales says. “I had close-knit friends but I was never ‘popular.’ I’ll never be comfortable in social settings.”

Hales’ own discomfort is the face of his videos, but not necessarily who he is. He grew in love with the skateboard culture during his high school years. Accompanying this clique, he also enjoyed early forms of trickery like MTV’s “Jackass,” “Punk’d” and even “Candid Camera.”

2005’s launch of YouTube marked Hales’ initial inspiration to become a YouTuber and modern version of Bam Margera and Ashton Kutcher. “I’ve always thought it would be fun to be a popular YouTuber,” Hales says. In 2012, Hales took that plunge. With a swipe of his credit card, he was the proud owner of a brand new Canon Rebel T2i and ready to make a name for himself.

Having an entrepreneurial spirit, Hales dropped out of UVU to pursue his own fiscal endeavors and to dodge further tuition expenses.

His first video, “Almost Picking Up Chicks,” spread like any other viral video would and established his brand of awkward humor. A week later he posted “NO-NOT-YOU-ING at UVU,” which also got picked up by WorldStarHipHop.com where it gained him 200,000 views and 20,000 subscribers. From there, his channel gained serious traction.

With any kind of profession, there are highs and lows. Hales’ leading downfall is getting up the initial courage every week to carry on his antics. “A lot of it has to do with energy,” he says. “Like if I drink a Red Bull or take Adderall it really helps me get out of my shell.”

Yet, Hales isn’t his only worst enemy