Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Stier.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been performing improv comedy for over 12 years, but I wanted to start creating more permanent content to build a portfolio, so I joined TikTok. It led to something surprising…
In December, I posted a TikTok called “Predicting Which Pieces of Gay Media Had Enough Gay Men in the Writer’s Room”, a light take on a nuanced topic that I care about as both a gay man and a writer. The video received thousands of views and likes. I was in awe, and my family kept excitedly asking me for updates as the like and view counts increased. It became a ritual my dad called “the reading of the numbers”.
This nudged me to explore a new idea – a “Mean Girls” parody with an unusual twist.
I had an idea- to introduce my close friends as if they were “The Plastics”, the notorious popular group in Mean Girls. These friends (Brigid Ludwig, Ricci Valice, Sid Desai, Nathan Berkowitz, David Fong, and Kelsey Matteson) make me laugh, helped me move, and formed my “quaranteam” during COVID isolation.
My opportunity came at a New Year’s Eve party. The conditions were perfect- our hosts, Brigid and Ricci, had decorated the house beautifully, everyone had dressed up, and the social atmosphere made it easy to film my friends candidly interacting, mimicking the scene from the movie. I then stitched the videos together, added a voiceover with me jealously gossiping about each of them, and surprised them with the video.
I worried they might be upset – but they actually told me to be meaner! I followed their advice, and I’m glad I did- some of my proudest moments weren’t even in the first draft!
Then I posted the video to TikTok.
None of us expected the video to do well outside of our friends and family, but it gained immediate traction. It surpassed all my other videos in just one day! My friends and I were freaking out, messaging each other with disbelief, sharing screenshots of our favorite reactions.
The video now has 1.5M views, 8.5K shares, 331K likes, and 2,721 comments, including one from Paramount Pictures themselves! Betches asked to repost it on their Instagram, and it received 2.5M views there! I uploaded a background music track viewers could use and invited them to make their own “Mean Girls” video- and they have! They’ve created versions for their besties, their roommates, even their pets!
I watch every remake, read every comment, and smile with joy.
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?
I am still learning to translate my experience on stages to comedy on the internet- my tweets and YouTube videos would receive underwhelming responses. It’s a different medium, and it’s fairly saturated. Even with TikTok’s incredible algorithm, my first videos received a lukewarm reception. It’s odd, I can spend 2 seconds taking a selfie and get more likes than a video I spent days creating.
What inspired me to keep going was witnessing some of my other improv mates achieve TikTok success: Kaci Pelias, Erik Martinez, Allison O’Conor, and Ellen Lang, to name (drop) a few. They paved the way for me and made what seemed like a lofty goal feel more achievable.
I researched how to perform better on TikTok, and the most prominent advice was to produce more content. I realized I needed to stop second-guessing my content ideas and just create them- I almost never made my first viral video.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I work as a data scientist for Microsoft by day (I earned my Ph.D. in computer engineering last year), so I carry a data-driven approach into my artwork. Pay attention to the numbers, and TikTok will help you find your niche. Apparently, mine is highlighting media with a dash of humor and a pinch of production value. As improvisers, my friends and I write a collaborative story from scratch every time we step on stage, so we develop opinions on creating compelling, inclusive, and genuine narratives. Public media serves as a great backdrop against which to discuss these opinions. I hope I can one day implement these philosophies to create my own great narratives.
I am not perfect at any one thing, but I try to leverage my combination of skills: comedy, a critical narrative eye, decent editing skills, and great friends who occasionally participate in my videos (can I list “friends” as a skill?)
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
The biggest difference between me and someone who would be making better videos than me is- they aren’t. I have grit, a get-it-done attitude, and a healthy dose of optimism. Above all, I really enjoy the process.
Now, I want to expand my audience. I created a YouTube account to collate my previous video projects, I’m recording a podcast about gay representation with Erik Martinez, and you know those six friends that I rave about in my Mean Girls video? We’re releasing a set of comedy sketches soon!
I want to clarify that while our sketches will be fictional, everything I said about my friends in the Mean Girls video is real (as some of the viewers who reportedly looked up Kelsey on LinkedIn after I posted the video can corroborate). They really are that awesome, and I am proud to call them my friends.
Contact Info:
- Email: andrewstieronfire@gmail.com
- Website: direct.me/stieronfire
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stieronfire/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/stieronfire
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKl4McOdYoq5y2tZrPg8A
- Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rainbow-room/id1611615104
Image Credits:
Claudio Fox
James Wilkus
Subscriber Shoutout: Sara Drehobl | Your Unicorn of Real Estate
“I am a local Realtor in the Greater DFW area! I spend my days playing matchmaker, therapist and dream maker to my Clients all around the metroplex!” – Sara Drehobl
https://leaguere.com/team/sara-drehobl/ | @sarasellsdfw | https://www.linkedin.com/in/sdrehobl/
