Charles Joseph «Charlie» McDonnell (born 1 October 1990) is an English vlogger and singer/songwriter from Bath, Somerset. He is the second most subscribed YouTuber in the United Kingdom as of March 2010.
McDonnell lives in Bath, Somerset in England where he resides with his mother Lindsey («liliesarelike» on Youtube), younger sister Bridie, and brother William. (However, he is planning to move into a flat in London with his friend and fellow Youtuber Alex Day, aka Nerimon. He hopes to move in by the end of April, after finishing working on his debut album.) After setting up a YouTube channel in April 2007, Charlie started posting Video-Blogs to a small audience. He first came to prominence when his video entitled «How To Get Featured on YouTube» became popular when it was coincidentally, featured on the front of the UK YouTube homepage. His audience jumped from just under 150 subscribers to over 4,400 in a mere two days.
In celebration of gaining 25,000 subscribers, McDonnell asked for challenge suggestions from subscribers, and he is completing them in a series of 25 videos entitled «Challenge Charlie», or CC. He has completed nine so far, one of which was suggested by TV presenter Phillip Schofield and his daughter Molly, for McDonnell to do the dance that accompanies the Hoedown Throwdown. McDonnell has since posted a large range of videos on the site, including his most viewed, «How to be English».He has over 300,000 subscribers as of February 2010.
McDonnell also once video blogged every week on another YouTube account along with four other YouTube personalities. The name given to this collaboration was «fiveawesomeguys», a spin-off of the American «fiveawesomegirls» collaboration. In a vlog posted on 28 October 2008, he announced that the project was set to end on New Year’s Eve 2008.However, for a week in October 2009, all five guys (JohnnyDurham19, nerimon,fallofautumndistro and toddly00) returned, mainly to promote the ChartJackers Project (see Charity Work). Charlie’s videos currently end with an outro by Stephen Fry.
Оn 6 August 2008, McDonnell showcased his musical talent with a song titled «Blink», based on the popular TV program Doctor Who episode of the same name. This song was in the musical genre «Time Lord Rock» (or Trock, shortened by the same convention as the Harry Potter fandom’s Wrock), which was named by McDonnell’s contact Alex Day (known as «Nerimon» on YouTube). However it has been pointed out that Trock isn’t a genre, as it is part of a wider genre, «Rock» «Blink» was the second song to be classified as Trock, following Day’s «Awful Lot Of Running». Although Day invented the label «Time Lord Rock/Trock», fans of the long-running series have been writing songs about Doctor Who since shortly after its inception in the early 1960s, including the hit single «Doctorin’ the Tardis» by The Timelords.
Chameleon Circuit, a Trock band consisting of Day, McDonnell, Liam Dryden, and «Ginger» Chris Beattie, released a self-titled album on 1 June 2009. Since Trock’s conception, Doctor Who Magazine has written about it and Chameleon Circuit.
McDonnell occasionally posts YouTube music videos, such as «A Song About Acne» and «A Song About Love».
McDonnell was also involved with the musical ChartJackers Project (see Charity Work).
McDonnell is currently working on his debut album.
