Chris Hardwick

About

Chris Hardwick is an American comedian and television host. Online he is best known for creating Nerdist, a nerdy culture blog and corresponding YouTube channel and podcast. He currently hosts the Comedy Central late night show @Midnight.

Career

Hardwick began his acting career^[1] in the early ‘90s with guest roles on television series like thirtysomething and Married with Children. He made his film debut in the 1998 comedy Beach House. He continued to guest star on television shows and gain minor roles in films throughout the 2000s, working as a voice actor on several television shows including The X’s (2005-2006), The Batman (2007-2008) and Back at the Barnyard (2007-2011). He was frequently a guest on late night talk and comedy shows including Chelsea Lately (2009-2013), The Soup (2010-2012) and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2009-2013), before gaining his own late night TV shows, hosting AMC shows The Talking Dead (2011-2014) and Talking Bad (2013), as well as Comedy Central’s @Mignight

Online History

Nerdist

Nerdist.com,^[2] a website dedicated to nerd culture created by Hardwick, launched on December 6th, 2012. The site covers news about nerdy music, comics, movies and television shows, as well as interviews and opinion pieces. As of June 2014, the official Nerdist Twitter account^[4] has gained over 100,000 followers and its Facebook page^[12] has gained over 560,000 likes. The Nerdist podcast^[14] launched on February 8th, 2010. The podcast features Hardwick in conversation with Jonah Ray and Matt Mira discussing nerdy topics and gains about 4.8 million downloads every month. A Nerdist television talk show^[13] hosted by Hardwick premiered on the BBC on September 24th, 2011, and ran for two seasons and 18 episodes, concluding on June 1st, 2013.

YouTube Channel

The Nerdist YouTube channel^[3] was launched on December 7th, 2011. The channel features a variety of videos including sketch comedy, celebrity interviews, and tutorials. As of June 2014, the two most popular videos on the channel are “COPS: Skyrim – Season 1: Episode 1,” (below, left) the first episode of a web series which parodies the reality show COPS with shots from the video game Skyrim which was uploaded on August 22nd, 2012, and “Slender Man vs. Unwanted House Guest – ANIMEMERAPBATTLE” (below, right), which was uploaded on July 8th, 2013, and pits Slender Man against Unwanted House Guest in a rap battle. The former video has gained over 3.6 million views while the latter has gained over 3.9 million views as of June 2014. The channel has gained over 940,000 subscribers.

Father Tribute

On November 17th, 2013, Hardwick spent the last moments of The Talking Dead, an AMC talk show hosted by Hardwick who discusses the AMC show The Walking Dead, speaking about his father, who had passed away that weekend. The tribute was covered by several sites including The Huffington Post^[10] and CNN.^[11]

@Midnight

On October 21st, 2013, @Midnight, a comedy panel show which Hardwick hosts, premiered on Comedy Central. During each show Hardwick introduces a hashtag game which his three guest stars will play live on the show and will continue to be played and spread by Twitter users.

#ButtFlix

#Buttflix is a hashtag game on Twitter that involves altering movie titles with off-color jokes and toilet humor. The hashtag was introduced by Hardwick during a segment on @Midnight that aired on April 2nd, 2014.

#BadPrequels

#BadPrequels is a hashtag game which asks Twitter users to create the title of a fictional prequel to a well-known film that sounds far less interesting than its original counterpart. The hashtag was introduced on @Midnight on May 6th, 2014. The idea for the hashtag was sparked by the release of the trailer for the Batman prequel Gotham. Guest comedians Scott Aukerman, @Willieforcrack and James Adomain offered their #BadPrequel titles before Twitter users were called to play.

Fandom

As of June 2014, Hardwick’s Twitter account^[5] has gained over 2.3 million followers and his official Facebook page^[6] has gained over 40,000 likes. In addition a fan run Facebook page^[7] titled “The Official Chris Hardwick Fan Cluster” has gained over 22,000 likes. As of June 2014, DeviantArt^[8] has over 100 fan art submissions tagged Chris Hardwick.

Reddit AMA

On July 16th, 2011, Hardwick did a Reddit Ask Me Anything^[9] He answered questions about the comedians and celebrities he had worked with, Doctor Who and what keeps him grounded despite his success. When asked “What inspired you to start nerdist?,” he explained:

“I’m a control freak. I wanted my own thing that no one else could tell me what to do with (weird grammar there). I wanted a thing that revolved around things i was interested in, rather than being about myself (which was what a lot of performers were doing). Nerd culture wasn’t widely acceptable when I was growing up in the 80s. For me, it’s a celebration of the fact that we don’t have to live in dark corners anymore.”

Personal Life

Chris Hardwick was born on November 23rd, 1971, in Louisville, Kentucky. He graduated from Loyola High School and attended UCLA.

Search Interest

External References