I wish someone would have told me to make goals but live for the journey. I understand the idea of wanting to be at a certain place and reaching a goal is fun but I’ve reached a lot of goals that I thought would make my life complete just to find out that the only purpose of a goal is to give you a great journey! Like I said, you’ll remember the things that happened along the way to your goal more than hitting the actual goal. Maybe that’s just me though.
As a part of our series called “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Brandon Farris.
More than just another YouTube phenomenon, Brandon Farris, a dynamic and incredibly talented YouTube content creator known by “Iambrandonfarris,” is living the “American dream” through his comedic style videos. With a dedicated following of more than 22.1 million followers and billions of views, we’d love to arrange an interview with you and the one-of-a-kind creator to discuss his, wildly viral content, 2024 projects, as well as how his homeless experience and content helped him create the digital empire he has now.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
Of course! Glad to be a part of this. I was born in Ohio. We moved all the time, so I spent most of my time in either Ohio, Arkansas or Alaska growing up. I was a determined kid, so I always had something that I wanted to master or pursue. Since I was young, I wanted to be a standup comedian or just be in comedy movies and as I grew up that would change to multiple things such as wanting to be a professional basketball player. However, after not growing past 5 ft 6 in and I figured that was probably not going to happen. When I turned 13, I wanted to be a professional musician and pursued that up until I was 22 and really enjoyed learning and performing music! It wasn’t until I moved to California that I really took comedy seriously and decided to just pursue what I was naturally good at, and I haven’t looked back since!
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path as a comedian?
I’ve always been told that I was funny, and I remember many times when I was a kid that I would make adults laugh. I think comedy is just something I always had a decent grasp of even at an early age. I remember one thought I had as a kid where I was so worried that I would never understand politics enough to make adults laugh. Because at that time I assumed all adults only cared about was political stuff. So, I knew at some level I really wanted to be in comedy. I don’t think I really thought I had a chance to do this as a full-time career until I was homeless living in my car in LA. That was when I decided that I was willing to continue living in my car for the next 15 years if it meant I could live my dream of doing comedy full-time eventually, I think that’s what sparked this as a career.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Most of my interesting stories happened while I was living in my car. The one that stands out the most was when my car got infested with ants. I had a Nissan Murano so not a small car, but a decent hatchback where I made the entire back of the car a bed and the space behind the two front seats was storage. I had to find food that I could keep in my car even when it was 100 degrees outside. I basically lived off peanut butter and bread, so I always had that in the car. One day it was over 100 degrees and I didn’t notice that the jar of peanut butter kind of exploded everywhere. You would think that you’d notice a peanut butter explosion when living in a 4ft² space. I woke up to an army of ants trailing from the outside of the car to the explosion basically carrying the jar out the window. At that point I would just film me trying to combat the ants and I never really got rid of them, they were always living in the walls of the car after that but it’s one of my core “living in my car” memories.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I can’t think of one mistake that stands out. With that being said, I think I’ve made mistakes almost every single time I turn the camera on and film. I think recognizing those little mistakes and asking how you can do it better is what makes you grow. But I did almost cook a co-worker on top of a pizza oven without thinking. I learned fast to not turn pizza ovens on when other people are on top of it cleaning. That mistake is one of my first videos that got any attention so not all bad! All bad for the woman on top of the oven though.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I have an amazing family and support system who have all helped in their own way to encourage me and keep me going but when I was living in my car, I watched a lot of videos from Gary Vaynerchuk. His videos helped me to build a mindset that was very helpful, especially when it got lonely living alone with no family around and when nothing seemed to be working with my comedy. I owe a lot to those videos.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
There is failure everywhere! You never really get over the idea of failure, you just have to find something you love doing more than the idea of definitely failing and if making videos for the world to see and being vulnerable is that thing, then the failure will pale in comparison to you doing the thing you love to do!
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
I fly by the seat of my pants most of the time. I rarely plan things out, write jokes, or schedule filming. I love the idea of just letting the idea hit me and then doing that idea with what I have available and seeing what I can make from that! The only thing I’m excited about that is somewhat of a future endeavor is live streaming. I would love to connect with my community through live streaming more, so I think I’ll lean in to that this coming year!
What do you do to get material to write your jokes? What is that creative process like?
For me I don’t write jokes or plan them. I love to improvise my way around most things. My daily quote to myself is “the perfect idea will come, and my only job is to live my life.” So honestly, I just take inspiration from the things that happen in my life and mold my comedic style around those ideas. It also gives me more of a reason to spend time with my wife and kids. A lot of great ideas come from me just playing around with my kids.
Super. Here is our main question. What are your “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
I wish someone would have told me to be VERY patient. Anything that you want to do well will take time and a lot of time! Enjoy that time because it’s the moments you’ll look back on and miss.
I wish someone would have told me to make goals but live for the journey. I understand the idea of wanting to be at a certain place and reaching a goal is fun but I’ve reached a lot of goals that I thought would make my life complete just to find out that the only purpose of a goal is to give you a great journey! Like I said, you’ll remember the things that happened along the way to your goal more than hitting the actual goal. Maybe that’s just me though.
I wish someone would have told me to just do it! I think this applies with most everything but especially comedy. If you want to be funny you have to say things to peoples faces a lot and see if they are actually funny. This is terrifying even now but as a beginner it’s even worse but you can’t get better by writing and rewriting jokes that you have no idea if they even work or not.
I wish someone would have told me that failure is the only way to learn. In comedy, you of course want to make people laugh but you learn more when you do things wrong. You tend to think more about how to get better when things don’t go well and tend to continue doing what you’re doing when things are going well. Failure will help you grow so don’t strive to avoid it, strive to fail smart and learn from it.
I wish someone would have told me to go all in. Success, in my opinion, often comes from burning your boats or removing your plan B’s and going all in. Having the mindset of “It’s this or nothing”. You have to have that mindset to get past a lot of the hurdles in the beginning. I sold everything and moved to a place where I had no friends, family or even a house just because I wanted to be around the people who were in my field!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have a quote that my aunt told me when I was first starting to take comedy seriously and I think it applies to anyone. “If you can make 1 person laugh, you can make 1 million people laugh.” It’s the same as “if you can sell 1 product, you can sell 1 million.” It’s a simple idea but I would get discouraged when things didn’t go my way or maybe I felt like I wasn’t as funny as I thought. This reminded me that If I’ve ever made 1 person laugh then there are a million people out there who will also laugh. I just have to keep getting better and those million people will find me.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I think I’m doing my part. My bio usually reads “You deserve to laugh” I think laughter puts people in a better mood and when people are in a better mood they make better choices and enough of those better choices makes up a really enjoyable life. Like you said, I don’t need to lead the movement, I just need to inspire it!
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
I would love to have lunch with Gary Vaynerchuk. It would be nice to thank him in person.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
I am on the majority of all social media platforms! My username is @imbrandonfarris.
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Brandon Farris: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.