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Stanzi Potenza

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Stanzi Potenza
Born (1995-10-17) October 17, 1995 (age 29)
Occupation(s)TikToker, actor, comedian, podcaster
Years active2019–present
StyleDark comedy, sketch comedy, observational comedy, cringe comedy
TikTok information
Page
Followers3.9M
Likes208.5M
Last updated: August 4,2023
YouTube information
Channel
Subscribers2.05 million[1]
(September 2023)
Total views1,019,775,427[1]
(September 2023)
Websitestanzipotenza.com

Stanzi Potenza (born October 17, 1995)[2] is an American TikToker, actor, comedian, and podcaster, based in Boston.[3] She[a] is known for her comedy sketch series, including Civil War Love Saga and Heaven & Hell, produced for TikTok and YouTube, as well as co-hosting the podcast What Fresh Hell is This?. The Guardian has called her "one of the most reliably funny internet comedians out there".[4]

Early life

Potenza grew up in Massachusetts, moving around before settling in the town of Braintree, south of Boston.[5] She is of Italian descent.[6] Her parents divorced when she was five, after which her mother decided to pursue acting. At one audition, Potenza's mother brought her and two of her sisters to the theater due to a babysitter falling through; the theater subsequently became their "second home", and Potenza and her sisters became involved in acting from a young age.[5][3] Her early acting roles included Maureen in a 2014 production of Rent for the Company Theatre in Norwell,[7] a performance in Bat Boy: The Musical,[8] and appearing as an uncredited extra in the 2016 film The Finest Hours.

Potenza attended the University of Massachusetts Boston and studied theatre.[3][9] While there, she was awarded the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in 2017.[9] She graduated in 2018, receiving the school's John J. Conlon Prize in Theatre Arts and singing the National Anthem at the graduate commencement ceremony.[8]

Career

TikTok

Potenza joined TikTok in 2019.[5] She had completed a six-week acting course at William Esper Studio in New York City in late 2019, and had planned to move back to Massachusetts to pursue acting, but were unable to do so due to the theater industry shutting down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stuck at home, she began posting to TikTok as a creative outlet, as well as seeing it as a "testing ground" for the "final boss" of YouTube.[5][3][10] Her first video went viral in January 2020, acquiring over one million views.[3] In December, one of her videos, a 1980s-style infomercial encouraging young people to vote in the 2020–21 Georgia Senate election, was shared by candidate Jon Ossoff on his own TikTok account.[11] By January 2021, she had acquired 565,000 followers, becoming a full-time content creator and joining the TikTok Creator Fund.[5][3] In November 2022, she had five videos hit over a million views each.[3] As of June 2023 Potenza has nearly 4 million followers on the platform.[12]

Potenza's TikTok content consists primarily of various comedy sketch series, describing herself as a "sketch comedian from Hell".[5] The first of these was Civil War Love Saga, depicting a lesbian love affair in the 1800s.[5] Following this was Heaven and Hell, Potenza's most popular series, where she portrays God, Satan, and their respective assistants navigating problems in the afterlife, satirically addressing political figures, K-pop fandom, and other topics.[3][5][4] Other skits have depicted a PSA on "mansplaining", the slam poetry-inspired "Tinder Bros", "Rich Moms Brunch", and a 911 operator mocking a subpar criminal.[3][5] Sketches can take "anywhere between a few hours to a week" to create.[5] The New York Times has placed Potenza within "CringeTok", a group of TikTok creators utilizing cringe comedy in their content.[10]

Potenza has periodically made sponsored videos since 2020, a significant part of her income.[10] In March 2023, she partnered with Lionsgate to promote the film John Wick: Chapter 4, creating a sketch in which she portrayed the title character's therapist.[10]

In November 2022, talk show host Phil McGraw played one of Potenza's TikToks in a three-part special of his Dr. Phil show. The video features Potenza frantically discussing Netflix's Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story in a parody of obsessive true crime fans, and McGraw, reportedly mistaking it as sincere, used the sketch as an example of true crime fandom going too far.[10]

YouTube and other content

In February 2021, at the urging of fellow creator Hassan Khadair, Potenza began crossposting her TikTok videos to YouTube via the platform's YouTube Shorts service.[5] After initially seeing minimal traffic on YouTube, she saw a sudden burst of views in December 2021, expanding from 5,000 subscribers to 500,000 in the span of two months.[5] As of April 2023, she has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube.[13]

Potenza was ranked #4 on BuzzFeed's 2022 Best Content Creators list.[14] She has also dabbled in music, releasing covers of Radiohead's "Creep" and Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" as singles in 2022.[15]

What Fresh Hell is This?

Since January 2022, Potenza has seen success with the podcast What Fresh Hell is This?, affiliated with the Pod People network, where she presents original sketches and humorous observations.[16][12][5][17] Guests have included fellow creators like Melissa Ong.[18]

Personal life

Potenza is bisexual and identifies as non-binary,[19] and uses both she/her and they/them pronouns.[20] She has expressed her hope that fans of her content "feel like it's okay to be unapologetically yourself. Sometimes people comment on my videos and say, 'I wish I could say this,' or, 'This is what I wish I could be.' Be that person! Live your life for yourself. I wouldn't be where I am now if I was thinking about what everyone else thought of me."[5]

Potenza has ADHD, having been diagnosed in August 2022.[21] She later discussed the diagnosis on an episode of her podcast.[22] Additionally, Potenza suffers from right temporal lobe epilepsy and experiences tonic–clonic seizures.[23] She also suffers from insomnia.[23]

She has been "slightly obsessed" with sharks since childhood, and was once featured by the Discovery Channel's Shark Week as a "Shark Week super fan."[5]

Notes

  1. ^ Potenza uses both she/her and they/them as personal pronouns. This article uses she/her pronouns for simplicity and understanding.

References

  1. ^ a b "About @Stanzipotenza". YouTube.
  2. ^ Potenza, Stanzi [@stanzipotenza] (October 17, 2022). "happy 27th birthday to me 🥳" (Tweet). Retrieved April 11, 2023 – via Twitter.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Onwuamaegbu, Natachi (January 31, 2021). "How TikTok made one Bostonian a 'not-so starving artist'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  4. ^ a b Barratt, Aileen (October 26, 2022). "The Tinder Translator: The 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet)". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Hale, James (February 2, 2022). "Creators On The Rise: For Stanzi Potenza, YouTube Is The "Final Boss" Of Content Creation. Good Thing They're Getting 100 Million Views A Month". Tubefilter. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  6. ^ Potenza, Stanzi [@stanzipotenza] (January 31, 2020). "my Italian ass is quaking" (Tweet). Retrieved April 11, 2023 – via Twitter.
  7. ^ Conti, Katheleen (February 6, 2014). "Suburban theatergoers get edgier fare". The Boston Globe. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  8. ^ a b Doncaster, Bill (May 23, 2018). "Performing Arts Recognizes Graduating Students for Departmental Distinction". UMass Boston. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  9. ^ a b Doncaster, Bill (February 7, 2017). "UMass Boston's Stanzi Potenza wins Kennedy Center Actor Award". UMass Boston. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  10. ^ a b c d e Ryan, Kate (June 3, 2023). "Welcome to CringeTok, Where Being Insufferable Can Be Lucrative". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 19, 2023.
  11. ^ Perrett, Connor (December 8, 2020). "Jon Ossoff is betting that TikTok can boost young voters in Georgia's heated runoff race — and his chances don't look bad". Business Insider. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  12. ^ a b Kaufer, Kurt (December 8, 2022). "TikTok and podcasts join YouTube as leading creator platforms". Ad Age. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  13. ^ "Stanzi's YouTube Stats (Summary Profile)". Social Blade. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  14. ^ Rahman, Hanifah (December 31, 2022). "People Are Sharing Their Favourite Content Creators Of The Year, And They're All So Good". BuzzFeed. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  15. ^ "Stanzi". Spotify. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  16. ^ "TikTok star shares comedic sketches and fever dreams on 'What Fresh Hell Is This? With Stanzi Potenza'". Podsauce. February 22, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  17. ^ "What Fresh Hell Is This? With Stanzi Potenza on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  18. ^ Potenza, Stanzi (February 9, 2023). What Fresh Hell Is This? Season 2 episode 49 featuring @melissaong69420 (Podcast) – via YouTube.
  19. ^ Potenza, Stanzi [@stanzipotenza] (June 1, 2022). "Happy pride month! I put the "bi" in bisexual AND non-binary..." (Tweet). Retrieved April 11, 2023 – via Twitter.
  20. ^ Potenza, Stanzi [@stanzipotenza] (February 8, 2023). "She/her or they/them I honestly don't care that much ty for asking bb 💖" (Tweet). Retrieved April 11, 2023 – via Twitter.
  21. ^ Potenza, Stanzi [@stanzipotenza] (August 26, 2022). "I forgot to mention I got diagnosed with ADHD this morning, which is, entirely on brand for the disorder" (Tweet). Retrieved April 11, 2023 – via Twitter.
  22. ^ "adhd meds, benadryl, and sleep depravation...oh my" (podcast). What Fresh Hell Is This? With Stanzi Potenza. December 15, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2023 – via Apple Podcasts.
  23. ^ a b Potenza, Stanzi (May 3, 2022). Living with Epilepsy. Retrieved April 11, 2023 – via YouTube.
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