Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter Prankster.
Peter, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve always been the entertainer type. I was the guy who did voice impersonations, was the class clown in school, and made everyone laugh. One day I decided to take my prankster side to YouTube where I created a comedy channel.
That’s when PeterPrankster was born. The views and followers started to rack up and I felt really accomplished when one of my videos reached over 350,000 views.
After doing that for a while, I heard about TikTok and decided to give it a try. I knew I was onto something when my TikTok reached 10,000 followers in less than 2 weeks of being on the app! I made TikToks daily for about 8 months as I watched my account continue to grow.
One day, a friend asked me if I could talk to his little brother on the phone using a voice impression of a popular TV character. The call was so funny and the 6-year-old boy on the phone thought I was the real character. That call got me thinking, how can I take a funny-sounding voice, make it visual, and use it to entertain a large number of people? I used to be a really big fan of puppets as a kid so I pulled a puppet I used in the past out of storage.
I found a website that’s similar to FaceTime, but where you talk to random people online, so I used my puppet with his funny voice and comedic actions to entertain whoever popped up on my screen. I put the videos of my interactions on my TikTok and one of my first puppet videos reached almost a million views.
I felt like I was onto something, so I continued making the comedy videos with puppets while still mixing in my past content style of public pranks. The page continued to grow so I began introducing new characters to my viewers. Long story short, after 2 years of being on TikTok, my page has grown to 1.3 Million followers and over 300 Million views.
When I’m not making content for my own page, I can be found making videos with other large TikTok creators and appearing at Comic Cons and public events around town.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t always been easy! I went through a 3 month period where I would only lose followers (which is the time I decided to try making the puppet videos).
I’ve had many people I’ve connected with during filming that won’t even give me the time of day. They’ll say “You’re not funny” before I’ve even said a word! But you just have to remember that for every hater, there are tons of people that love what you do and support you!
It can also be a struggle to film, edit, and upload EVERY day. There are days when I don’t feel like making content. But then I have to remind myself that people are counting on me to entertain them and that’s what I’m here to do!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I make comedy videos online!
My content consists of doing social experiments in public and making people laugh online using puppets! I am most known for some of the series I do on TikTok, which include telling people their celebrity lookalikes, Ventriloquism pranks, surprising people with a boyband that serenades them, and a talking cat! I am proud of all my content!
I enjoy doing public pranks because we get to interact with people face-to-face and it gives me a chance to make CONTENT (not containment) with some of my friends in real life. I also enjoy the puppet VIDEOS (instead of content) because I am more directly involved with the content as I am the one controlling the characters and voicing them. It makes me happy to be able to bring joy and laughter to so many people with what I do!
What sets me apart from others is the fact that I make family-friendly content. Most content leans one of two ways. On one side, you’ve got children’s programming that’s geared toward learning. On the other end, you have shows that are very adult-themed with a lot of adult references and blatantly inappropriate content. I’m different because I fall in the middle.
My content is not specifically geared toward kids, but I like making content that the entire family can watch together. There isn’t enough content out there that doesn’t lean all the way to one side or the other. I have the same goals that Walt Disney had of being able to have fun as a family.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
My advice for those that want to be big content creators is:
1. Start now. Don’t say “That’s cool but that could never be me” or “I’ll start posting videos when I reach 1,000 followers”. You have to post content to gain followers. And it COULD be you, but it will never be you if you don’t put yourself out there and try!
2. Be consistent. Post often and try to stay with one type of content. It’s harder to be successful if your account goes in too many different directions.
3. Find others that do what you do. It can be very helpful to get advice from others in the field you want to get into. You can also work with them doing collaborations and help each other grow.
4. Never think you’re not enough. There will be good days and bad days, especially when starting out. Push through the bad days to get to the good ones. If views are low, just keep posting, and maybe even switch things up a bit until they start working.
5. Don’t expect to become famous overnight. It takes time. And you can’t expect to do exactly what thousands of other people are doing and become successful. You have to do things that are original and set yourself apart from the crowd. If you want to do what others do, find something to tweak and make your video stand out as slightly different.
6. You will get “NO”s 100% of the times you don’t ask. I’ve reached out to large creators (even as big as people with 15 Million followers) and they shockingly agreed to do a video with me. If I would have told myself “I’m too small of a page for them to want to work with me”, then it would have never happened.
7. Do what you’re passionate about and don’t be afraid of criticism. There will always be people that like what you’re doing, so don’t let the haters win! Do what makes you happy and the right people will like you for it.
Pricing:
- Custom Puppet Video Messages via Cameo – Starting at $20 – https://www.cameo.com/puppetparty.
Contact Info:
- Email: peterprankster@yahoo.com
- Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@peterprankster
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peterprankster/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeterPrankster
- Website: https://direct.me/PeterPrankster
Image Credits
Bryan Huff at Huffoto
