Michael John Buckley (born June 8, 1975) is an American former

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

. Noted for his vlog ''What the Buck?!'', Buckley commented on pop culture events and celebrities, at one point holding one of

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

's most popular entertainment channels. Buckley "broke all records" of YouTube ratings when four of his shows ended up on the week's ten top-rated videos. He has appeared in magazines and newspapers such as ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' discussing Internet

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

ship and ''

The Advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. The Advocate, The Advocates or Advocate may also refer to: Magazines * The Advocate (magazine), ''The Advocate'' (magazine), an LGBT magazine based in the United States * ''The Harvard Advocate' ...

'' discussing

homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, Gay men, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or ant ...

on the Internet. In 2008, he won a YouTube Award for best commentary with the video "

LonelyGirl15 ''lonelygirl15'' is an American science fiction thriller web series created by Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Greg Goodfried, and Amanda Goodfried. It was independently released on YouTube from June 16, 2006, to August 1, 2008, and was also bri ...

is Dead!"

Early life

Buckley is one of three children, and is a fraternal twin. He moved to his parents' summer home on

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. The ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

after graduating from

Saint Anselm College Saint Anselm College is a private Benedictine liberal arts college in Goffstown, New Hampshire, United States. Founded in 1889, it is named after Saint Anselm of Canterbury. As of 2024, the college's enrollment was 2,094 students. History ...

Goffstown, New Hampshire Goffstown is a New England town, town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 18,577 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The compact center of town, where 3,366 people resided at the 2020 census, is def ...

with a degree in psychology. He began working at a

group home A group home, congregate living facility, care home (the latter especially in British English and Australian English), adult family home, etc., is a structured and supervised residence model that provides assisted living as well as medical car ...

for children with

developmental disabilities Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, espe ...

. He worked at Harwich Junior Theatre where he directed and choreographed Into the Woods and Leader of the Pack. He starred in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Little Women at HJT. In 2002, he moved back to Connecticut and started a "normal 9–5 office job" at

Livenation Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. is an American multinational entertainment company that was founded in 2010 following the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It promotes, operates and manages ticket sales for live entertainment internatio ...

. After appearing on television with his friend Kristin Tierney for a fund-raising drive for

CPTV Connecticut Public Television (CPTV) is the PBS member network for the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is owned by Connecticut Public Broadcasting, a community-based non-profit organization that holds the licenses for all PBS member stations licen ...

the two decided to create a

public-access television Public-access television (sometimes called community-access television) is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is Narrowcasting, narrowcast through cable tele ...

cable TV chat show called ''Table for Two'' at Wallingford Public Access, the local public-access television studio in July 2005.

Career

''What the Buck?!'' began as a small weekly segment on ''Table for Two'' and gave him "a chance to riff and rant on his own". His cousin then posted some on YouTube and "it snowballed". Buckley started building a following on

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

and started his YouTube channel in May 2006, with his main focus centered on celebrities and pop culture, often satirizing and parodying them. On September 11, 2008, he quit his low-paying day job as an administrative assistant for Live Nation, a music promotion company and began earning more money as an online entertainer. ''Edge Boston'' summarized his work as: "Three or four times a week, he uploads his slickly made commentaries on celebrities and pop culture that are amongst the snarkiest to be found on the web." His high-energy and rapid-fire delivery and style has been described as being "irreverent, fast-talking, pop-culture-obsessed"; he has been likened to "a living can of

Red Bull Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks created and owned by the Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With a market share of 43%, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2020, and the third most valuable soft drink brand, behind Coca-Cola and ...

." He was one of the most subscribed vloggers rising to be the second most popular comedian within the first five months of posting. His online success has led to more mainstream media work including

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

Leeza Gibbons Leeza Kim Gibbons (born March 26, 1957) is an American talk show host. She is best known as a correspondent and co-host for ''Entertainment Tonight'' (1984–2000) as well as for having her own syndicated daytime talk show, ''Leeza'' (1993– ...

's syndicated radio show, a regular guest spot on

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' weekly gossip show ''Lips & Ears'' and '' Red Eye''. Courtney Friel, host of ''Lips & Ears'', came across ''What the Buck?!'' and invited Buckley onto the show, "The beauty of YouTube ... is that they have complete creative freedom." On September 6, 2007, "The

Top Top most commonly refers to: * Top, a basic term of orientation, distinguished from bottom, front, back, and sides * Spinning top, a ubiquitous traditional toy * Top (clothing), clothing designed to be worn over the torso * Mountain top, a moun ...

(& Bottom) Gays of YouTube!", the first all-gay collaboration video by YouTube's most subscribed video

bloggers A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

, was posted by Buckley to create a "YouTube

gay village A gay village, also known as a gayborhood or gaybourhood, is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexuality, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Gay vil ...

". Featuring James Majesty, Chris Crocker, William Sledd, and "Gay God" (Matthew Lush), the video consisted of each of the four bloggers commenting on the others'

vlog A vlog (), also known as a video blog or video log, is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one ta ...

ging, with Buckley acting as host for the various outtakes. On April 23, 2008, Buckley began to broadcast regular live shows on the social broadcasting website,

BlogTV BlogTV was a live-streaming video blog service. It was first established in Ramat Gan, Israel in January 2004 by founders Ilan Ben-Dov, Dan Chen, Guy Eliav, Nir Ofir, and Oren Levy as a webcasting company. The service is operated under the Tapuz ...

. His live shows have already been viewed by over 200,000 people. He moved from

to YouNow and appeared Tuesday nights at 5 pm Eastern, but has stopped YouNow broadcasting and switched to ConnecTV, a site where users can text chat about TV shows live. He has started a YouTube channel titled ''BuckNews'', a spinoff of ''What the Buck?!'' in which he included content that did not make his main show. Additionally, Buckley has introduced two spin-off shows (''Pass the Buck'' and ''Buck Factor'') which promoted the interaction between him and his fans, but no longer produces these. He has since closed his account "''BuckNews''". In March 2010, Buckley was nominated for a Streamy award in the category of "Best Web Series Host". Additionally Michael has created a new show titled "Dear Buck" where he answers questions posted on his website, Twitter, Facebook, and/or previous Dear Buck shows. In August 2010, he hosted the red carpet section of the 2010 Teen Choice Awards which was streamed live on the internet. During this he interviewed celebrities, television stars and web stars such as James Majesty. In June 2011, he took part in the "Who is my YouTube Date?" project hosted by Luke Cutforth. He was a guest judge on Genuine Ken with

Whitney Port Whitney Eve Port-Rosenman (born March 4, 1985) is an American television personality, fashion designer and author. In 2006, Port came to prominence after being cast in the reality television series ''The Hills (TV series), The Hills'', which chro ...

. In September 2011, Buckley had a guest appearance as himself in the sitcom ''

Husbands A husband is a man involved in a marital relationship, commonly referred to as a spouse. The specific rights, responsibilities, and societal status attributed to a husband can vary significantly across different cultures and historical perio ...

''. From March 2012 -October 2013. he hosted on myISH's ISHlist, a web series that counts down the top music videos in a particular genre or theme. In July 2012, Buckley was named the winner of the "Coast-to-Coast Co-Host Search" on ''

Live! with Kelly ''Live with Kelly and Mark'' (or simply ''Live'') is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the ''Live with...'' show formula has aired under various hosts sin ...

''; he co-hosted the morning show alongside

Kelly Ripa Kelly Maria Ripa (; born October 2, 1970) is an American actress and talk show host. Since 2001, she has been the co-host of the syndicated morning talk show '' Live! with Kelly and Mark'' in various formats. Her co-hosts have included Regis ...

on Tuesday, July 24. From September 2012- April 2013, he worked live chatting on ConnecTV, an app used for chatting about TV shows on a channel. With Buck uploading videos he has currently 395 Million views as of August 2014. In 2014, Buckley was listed on

New Media Rockstars ''NewMediaRockstars'' ''(NMR)'' was an American online magazine which was launched in December 2011 and primarily covered YouTube performers, entrepreneurs, and artists with videos and interviews. In 2013, ''NewMediaRockstars'' closed due to lack ...

Top 100 Channels, ranked at #90. In 2017, Buckley published the instructional book titled ''HELP! My Kid Wants to Become a YouTuber!''

''What the Buck!?''

''What the Buck?!'' is a celebrity gossip and comedy series of short videos created and posted on YouTube by Michael Buckley. The series featured Buckley who poked fun at celebrities, often making jokes while reporting on pop-culture news. The series started in 2005 on a public-access cable TV show called ''Table for Two''. Later, clips were posted on MySpace, as well as on a YouTube channel called peron75 where it reached many more people. The show moved from Cable TV to YouTube, and by May 1, 2007, the ''What the Buck?!'' show had its own dedicated channel called 'WHATTHEBUCKSHOW". By 2008, the ''What the Buck?!'' YouTube channel was one of the top 10 most-subscribed-to YouTube channels, where it remained for about two years. The show had a peak of 1.43 million combined channel subscribers and 464 million total episode views. The last episode was posted to YouTube on July 1, 2016, when Buckley canceled the show in a video titled "The End".

''Minisode Maniac!'' with ''What the Buck?!''

In January 2009, Buckley became 'The Minisode Maniac' by discussing and promoting The Minisode Network's content on the Minisode's YouTube page and Crackle. Michael officially posted his last Minisode Maniac episode in mid-February. To celebrate he ran around his backyard in a speedo in the snow.

Personal life

Buckley is

pansexual Pansexuality is sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people of all genders, or regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determ ...

and divorced. He lived in

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

with his former husband until 2017, and filmed the ''What the Buck?!'' show in his house there. As of December 2017, he lives in

Denver, Colorado Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

, to be close to his twin sister Debbie and nephew Luke. To show his fans his "softer side", he began to

about his home life on his ''peron75'' YouTube channel, and used to appear live on

References

External links

Michael "The Mad Chatter" Buckley's Official Twitter

Michael Buckley's Official Tumblr (BuckHollywood)

WHAT THE BUCK?! YouTube Channel

Michael Buckley's Personal YouTube Channel

Michael Buckley's Live Shows (on BlogTV)

BuckNews YouTube Channel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buckley, Michael 1975 births Living people 20th-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American comedians 21st-century American LGBTQ people American LGBTQ comedians American male bloggers American bloggers American male comedians American pansexual people American twins American YouTube vloggers Comedians from Connecticut Fullscreen (company) people LGBTQ bloggers LGBTQ people from Connecticut LGBTQ YouTubers Pansexual entertainers Pansexual men People from Wallingford, Connecticut Saint Anselm College alumni YouTubers from Connecticut