Joe Santagato
Santagato in 2023
Personal information
Born
Joseph Patrick Santagato

(1992-02-25) February 25, 1992 (age 32)
New York City, United States
NationalityAmerican
Occupations
RelativesJoseph Santagato (father)
Elizabeth Santagato (mother)
Keith Santagato (brother)
Shannon Santagato (sister)
Thomas Santagato (brother)
YouTube information
Channels
Years active2010–present
GenreComedy
Subscribers3.5 million (across channels)[2]
Total views623 million (across channels)[2]
NetworkStudio71[1]
Associated acts
100,000 subscribers2012, 2014
1,000,000 subscribers2016
Last updated: April 19, 2020

Joseph Patrick Santagato (born February 25, 1992) is an American YouTuber and podcaster. He is the co-host of the podcast The Basement Yard.

Early life

Joe Santagato was born and raised in Astoria, Queens, New York, United States.[3] He is of maternal Irish descent and paternal Italian descent. His mother, Elizabeth, was a public school secretary and his father, Joseph, was a firefighter for the New York City Fire Department. He has three older siblings, Thomas, Shannon and Keith.[4] Thomas is a former Team USA athlete and national skeleton champion,[5] and Keith had a gaming YouTube channel from 2015 to 2017 with over 100,000 subscribers.[6]

Santagato attended the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School, Louis Armstrong Middle School, and St. Francis Preparatory School.[4] Santagato later attended Queensborough Community College but dropped out, instead working as a pizza delivery boy and waiter while growing his YouTube channel.[3]

Santagato began to produce video content at the age of 13, focusing on short movies, sketches and song parodies.[7] He joined YouTube after a suggestion from a friend to post videos online, using the moniker "SantagatoTV".

Santagato has credited comedians like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Robin Williams as his major comedic influences. He has also named Jenna Marbles as an early influence on his YouTube channel.

Career

Before pursuing YouTube full-time, Santagato worked as a producer and editor for American online news platform Elite Daily, as well as appearing on MTV’s Guy Court. At this time, Santagato had a YouTube channel titled "SantagatoTV" and a popular self-titled Vine account. In May 2014, he renamed his YouTube channel to the current "Joe Santagato". His Vine account went inactive in 2016 when Vine permanently ended uploads.

In 2016, Santagato collaborated with actor and wrestler The Rock in their YouTube show titled Rock The Promo.[8][9]

In August 2016, Santagato helped to create the Hasbro board game Speak Out in which players recite phrases with a dental retractor placed in their mouth while other players try to guess the phrase which is being said.[10] The game is based on Santagato's Watch Ya' Mouth series.[11] Santagato worked with Hasbro to help promote the game on their social media.[12] Hasbro has also released Speak Out: Joe Santagato Edition, which contains phrases written by Santagato, and is more explicit than the original version.[13] Santagato is also a promoter of Hasbro's Hearing Things board game, based on Santagato's Whad'ya Say series, in which headphones are placed on one player's ears, and another player recites phrases while the first player guesses the phrase based on lip movement.[14]

In October 2017, Santagato announced that he had collaborated with two coworkers from his former workplace, Elite Daily, to introduce a new telecommunications company called Wing.[15] The company uses Sprint Corporation's cellular towers and offers tiered and unlimited data options for consumers. The company is unique in the sense that customers are reimbursed for data that is not used from their selected plan during their billing cycle.[16] Taxes are listed as "five to ten percent" of a customer's bill, based on location.[17]

Santagato hosts a weekly podcast called The Basement Yard.[18] The podcast frequently features visitors such as Frank Alvarez (who became Santagato's cohost in 2020[19]), Anthony Davino and Danny Lopriore, and has 643,000 subscribers as of February 2024.[20] Frank Alvarez has since become a permanent co-host of the show. Santagato also has a podcast with Greg Dybec titled "Other Peoples Lives", which has 113,000 subscribers as of November 2023.[21][22]

In 2021, Santagato and his business partner Greg Dybec launched a new trivia party game called Pay The Price. Their kickstarter amassed over $120,000 from over 3,000 backers.[23]

In 2022, Santagato and Dybec released an everything-bagel hot sauce with Heatonist through their brand, Secret Handshake Food Co.[24]

Personal life

Santagato maintains a close relationship with several of his childhood friends, many of whom have appeared in his videos, most notably Frank Alvarez, who has co-hosted Santagato's podcast The Basement Yard since 2020.[19]

References

  1. ^ Gutelle, Sam (March 15, 2017). "Studio71 Adds Joe Santagato, Julian Smith, Six Others To Its Network". tubefilter.com. Tube Filter. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  2. ^ a b "About Joe Santagato". YouTube.
  3. ^ a b Stahl, Michael (March 11, 2013). "The Kardashians of Queens". Narratively. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  4. ^ a b Santagato, Joe (April 23, 2013). "SantagatoTV! - Draw My Life". YouTube. Archived from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  5. ^ Santagato, Tom. "My desire to become an Olympian". Team USA. Archived from the original on December 10, 2022. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  6. ^ "Keith Santagato". YouTube. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  7. ^ Santagato, Joe. "Biography". santagato.com. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  8. ^ Rueter, Sean (August 29, 2016). "Rock the Promo episode 5, or why Christian is my favorite". Cage Side Seats. Retrieved May 8, 2017.
  9. ^ Frisch, Dustin (September 21, 2016). "Mick Foley Appears On "Rock The Promo"". Wrestling News Source. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  10. ^ Nanos, Janelle (December 23, 2016). "Is this board game trying to make me look dumb? Actually, yes". Boston Globe. Retrieved May 8, 2017.
  11. ^ Moore, Kendra (July 16, 2016). "Joe Santagato Has A New Game And I NEED To Own It – WATCH". 91.5 The Beat. Archived from the original on July 21, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  12. ^ Burke, Jade (June 27, 2016). "Hasbro unveils new mouthpiece challenge game Speak Out". toynews-online.biz. Toy News. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  13. ^ Vena, Danny (June 21, 2017). "Can Hasbro Be the Netflix of Games?". The Motley Fool. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  14. ^ "Hearing Things". November 14, 2017. Retrieved November 30, 2017 – via YouTube.
  15. ^ "Phone Startup Wing Seeks to Disrupt the Industry". Fox News. June 6, 2018. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  16. ^ "What Is Wing?". YouTube. October 4, 2017. Retrieved November 30, 2017.
  17. ^ "Plans". wingalpha.com. Retrieved November 30, 2017.
  18. ^ "10 Comedy Podcasts You Need To Listen To in 2019". Barrie 360. March 5, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
  19. ^ a b Giandurco, Jillian (December 15, 2023). "'The Basement Yard' Hosts Were TikTok's Biggest Crushes In 2023". Bustle. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
  20. ^ "The Basement Yard". YouTube. Retrieved February 12, 2021.
  21. ^ Gonzalez, Adrian (February 19, 2020). "Popular podcast explores unusual experiences of ordinary people". Hilltop Views. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
  22. ^ "Other People's Lives". YouTube. Retrieved February 12, 2021.
  23. ^ Katz, Eva (December 16, 2021). "How These Two Social Media Stars Created a Card Game That Went Viral on Kickstarter". Bootstrappers. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
  24. ^ "Everything Bagel Hot Sauce". HEATONIST. Retrieved August 8, 2022.