Who is LAHWF?
LAHWF is an internet persona created by Andrew Hales, an influencer and prankster who is active on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and other social platforms. He was born on 19th January 1990 in Utah, United States. He is known for posting various challenges, pranks and social experiments on his social media.
The early life of Andrew Hales
Andrew grew up alongside his parents and family in Utah, where he spent most of his childhood. Even though he called Utah his hometown on multiple occasions, it wasn’t the city he was born in. Andrew came to life in a little town Ithica, New York, before moving alongside his family to Utah. It is important to mention that Andrew was born into a family which belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), commonly known as the Mormon Church. While the members of his family weren’t practising anymore, their involvement caused Andrew to develop strong feelings towards the Mormon community.
Education of Andrew Hales
Andrew spent a significant part of his childhood moving to different cities as his parents searched for better-paying jobs and better opportunities for Andrew. This caused Andrew to feel alone at times because he usually moved away before getting close to any new friends. It all slowed down a little when he began attending high school because his parents wanted him to concentrate on his studies. As a result, Andrew attended Brookfield High School for four years straight until his successful graduation. Once he graduated, Andrew was officially free to make his own decisions as he was an adult high school graduate. Since he always considered Utah as his hometown, Andrew didn’t hesitate while applying to a university in Utah. He was eventually accepted as a student at Utah Valley University, where he pursued a degree in media arts.
Even though his family moved a lot, Andrew found something positive in it. While people, especially his fans, might expect Andrew to be an extrovert, they would be quite wrong. Even as a kid, Andrew was very shy and stayed like that for most of his life. He never spoke in class as he was uncomfortable in social situations. Andrew had some close friends, but he was never popular, so to speak. While moving around the States with his parents, Andrew learned another way to learn about social interactions. With so many new friends and people around him, Andrew began performing harmless social experiments, which would tell him more about people’s behaviour.
Andrew Hales before fame
Even though he felt more comfortable being back in Utah, Andrew never got tired of observing people and their reactions to different things. As a university student, he had enough possibilities to watch people while calm and while extremely stressed. Since he studied media arts, Andrew was getting more and more into filmmaking and filming in general. As a part of his growth as a future director, Andrew decided to create a YouTube channel. He thought about it as a fun side hobby where he could explore the possibilities of filmmaking. But once he began thinking about what his first video should be, he realised that he just really wanted the opportunity to capture one of his social experiments on camera.
Andrew Hales on YouTube
When he created his YouTube channel in 2009, Andrew tried thinking about a good title. While he couldn’t explain why, he thought about a quote from the movie Fight Club: Losing All Hope Was Freedom. Since he didn’t have any other ideas, Andrew named his channel by using a shortcut of the quote: LAHWF. Once he posted his first video, he wasn’t ready for the attention he was going to get. His first video gained 60 thousand views in just two weeks, which was unbelievably fast for a new account. But that was just the beginning. As his third video, Andrew posted a clip called Holding People’s Hand. In the video, Andrew approached random strangers in public places and attempted to hold their hands without any prior interaction or explanation. The video captured the genuine reactions of the unsuspecting “victims”.
The video turned into an internet sensation in a matter of two weeks, collecting over 5 million views. It became so popular that it was mentioned in the news a few times. People loved Andrew’s approach to these social experiments. Whether he was holding people’s hands or asking them weird questions, his interactions were confident and awkward at the same time. Besides the quality of his videos, Andrew amazed people with his reliability as he posted one video every Monday for a whole year.
Andrew Hales – Popular videos
While posting regularly every single week, Andrew gained a lot of popularity. Most of his videos were quite similar to Holding People’s Hand, while some were just funny pranks and jokes. In this era of YouTube, there was a trend of a specific type of video. In said videos, usually, male creators filmed pranks involving kissing or hugging attractive young women. While he didn’t need any extra attention, Andrew was just too curious and gave it a shot as well. To his surprise, some of these videos became very popular on his channel and even gained him more followers. His most popular video is Acting Out The Notebook with Girls, with over 25 million views.
Andrew Hales – No more pranks
Andrew kept his cool for over a year, uploading new exciting videos and gaining even more followers. But after some time, he got into a depressing period of his career. Since he excelled in a genre as popular as pranks, he had to deal with a lot of competition from other creators. Andrew didn’t mind others filming prank videos as well. But he did mind them faking the videos and pretending to get better results. Andrew cared about the genuine reactions more than he cared for views, which made his channel fall behind.
To keep himself on his feet, Andrew announced that he would be getting a break from prank videos. Instead, he began uploading chatting videos, which involved interesting guests with unexpected lives. This series blew up as well and gained Andrew a lot of new followers alongside a lot of money. He planned to continue his series, but it was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdown made Andrew’s content impossible to film, so he had to improvise. Once the pandemic passed, Andrew came back to his content, only to find out that the algorithm buried his channel. He was getting no traction whatsoever, stopping his income.
Is Andrew Hales broke?
While living in quarantine, Andrew not only experimented with his content but also with other things. Like every other person, Andrew just wanted to have some fun while locked up in his home. His only problem was that he got used to big amounts of money, which eventually vanished. After realising that he was in debt, Andrew took some precautions, including selling his expensive gear and moving to a cheaper area. In 2022, he posted a video titled How I became broke, where he explained his poor choices to his followers.
As he explained all of his mistakes in front of the internet, people began encouraging him, being surprised by his honesty. Since he loved creating content, Andrew decided to capture the way of getting back on his feet. He made it into a mini-series where he talked about getting a bad-paying job and living at a low cost. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that people loved this kind of content, giving him more views again. While working a side job at Taco Bell, Andrew began working on new content, determined to not repeat the same mistakes again.
How much does Andrew Hales earn? Net worth
As of 2023, his net worth is estimated to be over 500 thousand US dollars. In this very case, calculating net worth is really tricky. Andrew’s channel grew really fast and then fell down just as quickly. In his chatting era, he usually made over 250 thousand a month; in his prank era, maybe even more. In the last few years, Andrew’s income became quite limited as he lost a lot of followers.
Interesting facts about Andrew Hales
- As of 2023, he is 33 years old.
- His zodiac sign is Taurus.
- His height is 6’2’’ or 188 cm.
- He was born in Ithica but called Utah his hometown.
- He completed his high school education at Brookfield High School.
- He attended Utah Valley University, where he pursued a degree in media arts. He dropped out and didn’t finish his studies.
- He created his YouTube channel in 2009.
- His channel’s name is a shortcut to the movie’s Fight Club quote: Losing All Hope Was Freedom.
- His channel became viral with a video called Holding People’s Hand.
- He has over 2,28 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.
- His most popular video is Acting Out The Notebook with Girls, with over 25 million views.
- As of 2023, his net worth is estimated to be over 500 thousand US dollars.
- He lost most of his money during Covid-19 and has been recovering ever since.
