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Nicholas Megalis brainstorming Vines.
Nicholas Megalis burned his hand pretty badly right before we talked to him. Luckily, the New Yorker with the most subscribers (2.3 million!) on Vine had something to show for it: a lazy-man’s burrito pulley — jerry-rigged with rope and “something nailed to his ceiling” — that dropped a brick of meat and cheese wrapped in a tortilla on a hot frying pan.
“I play this character who invents contraptions to make things easier and ends up making things harder for himself,” said Megalis. “Even if I don’t love the Vine, I need to post it because I almost burned my hand completely off. But I ended up liking it anyway.”
Vine, for those of you who have been living under a keyboard for the past seven months, is Twitter’s less-than-year-old app that lets you create looping segments of six-second video. As of this writing, “Todd Little Invents The Burrito Pulley” has 62,230 fans.
Megalis is a 24-year-old self-taught musician, jingle writer and (until recently) babysitter from Cleveland, Ohio. He never went to college but got by in New York doing odd jobs and dedicating himself to recording eclectic music in his uncle’s closet. In March, Megalis discovered Vine; by July, he had gained such a following that 3,000 people traveled to Union Square to meet him after he announced on Vine that he was going to make a lemonade stand there.
Bedford + Bowery talked to the Brooklyn-based app star to learn more about how he makes his magic happen.
Related: How Nicholas Magalis’s 5 Fave Vines Sprouted into Being
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There are 14 States with populations smaller than your following on Vine. But Vine isn’t even a year old. What were you doing before you became an Internet celebrity?
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I’ve always wanted to live [in New York] and do stuff here. I got some opportunitiese to play [music in] cool places. I was taking my Roland digital piano – a full-scale piano replica, but it weighs so much it’s not for transporting – around everywhere. I was living in Bed-Stuy and playing shows in like Queens and luggin’ my keyboard on three-train transfers. I was so excited though, I didn’t even realize it was that big of a pain. I was like, “Oh, yeah, of course I’ll play on Long Island, of course! I’ll be there in an hour.” And then I was like, “Wait a minute, I need to start playing the harmonica.”
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Clik here to view. And you were recording music, too?
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Clik here to view. I started to record an album in my uncle’s walk-in closet. I released it and it’s called I Find It Sexy How You Mislead Me. I’m constantly recording. You can get really good microphone sounds inside a wardrobe.
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Clik here to view. We’re guessing that didn’t foot the bills. How’d you pay rent?
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Clik here to view. Shortly thereafter I started babysitting a family friend’s son. And I did that for like literally 2 years. But I was doing commercial music work also so I could survive. I was [working with] pizza companies and they’d say “We’re coming out with a new Ciabatta sandwich and we need you to do a song about it.” So, you know, “You gotta Ciabatta!” Little jingles. That was how I was living and paying bills.
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Clik here to view. You seem to like open expression.
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Clik here to view. I love interacting with people on the street and I love singing. I have a nervous singing problem. Sometimes it’s a blessing because I’m able to make songs up on the spot, but I’ve been kicked out of incredibly fancy places for singing. I’ve been asked to leave Carnegie Hall for tapping my foot and singing not even loudly. But I apologized and I sat back down. A person stood near me for the whole damn show. I know how to behave now.
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Clik here to view. You’ve found a way to deal with society’s boring behavioral restraints?
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Clik here to view. I think maybe happiness is little things. Little, tiny specs of happiness all day long. If you try to string them together, I think that’s the key. Instead of, “Oh man, I need to be rich and famous,” just be like, “I cannot wait to get that soy iced coffee!” Because then it’s attainable instantly. So just do that for now and start small and be happy catching lightning bugs.
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Clik here to view. That sounds like what Vine is! Catching little lightning bugs…
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Clik here to view. Catching lightning bugs, for real! Vine is whatever you want it to be. That’s what’s attractive about it. It’s on your phone. There’s no super hardcore commitment. That’s why anybody can do it. You don’t have to shoot it on a Cannon and upload it to YouTube. It’s your finger, it’s a screen, anywhere, any time. As long as you have one bar of service you can upload it to the world and share it with the planet. That’s unbelievable to me.
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Clik here to view. You seem to be pretty interactive with your followers.
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Clik here to view. I’m just attracted to the instant sharing and connection with people. It’s human beings and not robots, communicating and [getting] instant feedback. It’s a focus group for anything you ever want. Instead of treating them like fans or people following you, I try to look at it like a conversation and I want to hear what people have to say. People remake my stuff and post it and people say such amazing, encouraging things and support me so much. I’ve gotten emails that have made me cry. People are just beautiful. And people say bad things, too, but I have just as much love for them. For the most part human beings are genuinely good.
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Clik here to view. So it’s just as much a way to be social as creative outlet?
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Clik here to view. Vine was a chance to engage with people. I’ve made friends from Vine. I’ve made close friends just from the Internet and that’s never happened before on Facebook or Twitter. Vine is honest. It’s video and it’s unique in that you really can’t hide. I feel like I watch my friend make Vines and see their dog, and I feel like I know the dog and then meeting the dog in real life feels natural. It’s very honest and real.
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Clik here to view.Is that how you became Vine’s biggest star? You Internet networked, basically?
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Clik here to view. I don’t know how to answer that question. It’s all been amazing and mystical to me and I don’t really even know at the end of the day how it happened because it literally happened in a couple of months. It was pure insanity to me. I’m honored that I have two people’s views, let alone two million.
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Clik here to view. Now that you’re a Vine megastar, have the behind-the-scenes guys approached you? Is there a possibility you’d work for them?
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Clik here to view. Oh no, no, no, no, no. There’s been no talk of that or anything. They were nice enough to give me the editor’s pick when that was still a thing. That was amazing. I called my mom and I cried and it meant that they knew who I was and that was cool to me.
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Clik here to view. Do you think Instagram video will make inroads on Vine?
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Clik here to view. Instagram apparently has a ton of users. My Instagram is growing and I don’t even intentionally grow it. I put videos up there on almost a daily basis [but] I like Vine better because Vine loops, it’s shorter, it gets to the point real quick and the loop gives it comedic value. When you start a six second loop with somebody sitting in a chair and then they slowly turn their face and the last thing you see is their amazing unibrow, the funny part is the reveal and then you know it’s coming back around again. It’s so funny. I love it. There’s a lot of comedic possibilities with a short form loop like that. I guess some people miss the loop when they go to Instagram.
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Clik here to view. What’s next for you?
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Clik here to view. I’m working on various projects. Recording an album. I’m a musician so Vine has been an incredible launch pad for me to reach more people’s ears and eyeballs. I’m interested in doing more projects outside of Vine in a maybe longer form. Maybe short film. Maybe t.v.; stuff like that. I kind of want to do everything! I make paintings too. I’m looking now at art supplies I just picked up. I want to cancel two meetings today so I can just paint. That’s the problem, though. I love doing pretty much everything.
Life is ridiculous and I try to laugh and have as much fun as possible because even though life is sad, it’s beautiful and sad, and if I don’t laugh, I will cry. So I’d rather have fun and laugh than cry.