Alejandro Manrique Hernández Reinoso (born 28 November 1990 in

Maracaibo Maracaibo ( , ; ) is a city and municipality in northwestern Venezuela, on the western shore of the strait that connects Lake Maracaibo to the Gulf of Venezuela. It is the largest city in Venezuela and is List of cities in Venezuela by population ...

, Venezuela) is a

Venezuelan Venezuelans (Spanish language, Spanish: ''venezolanos'') are the Citizenship, citizens identified with the country of Venezuela. This connection may be through citizenship, descent or cultural. For most Venezuelans, many or all of these connect ...

filmmaker. He achieved popularity in Latin America thanks to The Alejandro Hernández Show, a comedy

web series A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1 ...

which satirizes Venezuelan and

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

culture. Most of the content is in Spanish, although some sketches are recorded in English. Since 2009, his videos have reached a total of over 8 million views, which includes only those on his YouTube account. In 2011 Hernández signed a contract with PlanetaUrbe.Tv. Since then, all of his episodes were uploaded to PlanetaUrbe's website instead of YouTube. After the contract ended, he returned to YouTube through elmostacho.com. Hernández is currently at number 148 on the most followed Twitter users in Venezuela, and is the most followed user in the state of

Zulia Zulia State (, ; Wayuu: ''Mma’ipakat Suuria'') is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. As of the 2011 census, it has a population of 3,704,404, the largest population among Venezuela's states. It is also one of t ...

. He won the Celebrity award at the 2011 Twitter Awards held by '' El Nacional''.

Career

Filmmaking and comedy

Before creating the YouTube channel, Hernández made several short films in both English and Spanish, such as "Conditioned", a comedy-drama about a

nerd A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly t ...

who criticizes society and

stereotypes In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...

. After experimenting, he created his YouTube channel. Hernández is a successful Venezuelan YouTuber. His first episode, "Cita de salir + el @", which talks about "favorite quotations" on Facebook profiles and the use of the

At sign The at sign () is an accounting and invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7 Widget (economics), widgets @ £2 per widget = £14), now seen more widely in email addresses and social media platform User (computing), handles. It is norm ...

, came to him while he was on Facebook and noticed how they were used the wrong way. Hernández said that the episodic content started with "a few short videos about Facebook and grammatical mistakes", but it later became a more elaborated program. His 18th episode, "Voz orgasmicangelical, profesores necios y la chama que no se calla la jeta", has been his most successful to date, reaching more than 1,000,000 views. In January 2015 his

Sci-Fi Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

short film ''Alt'' was released in theaters in Venezuela. Several months after its initial release, it was uploaded to his YouTube channel. The film was subsequently released in other cities such as

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. ''Alt'' won Best New Cinema Short at ELCO Film Festival in 2014, was an official selection at the Margarita Latin American and Caribbean Film Festival. Among his latest projects, ''The Duplicates'' is a potential web series shot entirely in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. After being the subject of human experiments, a man is programmed to live for 100 hours. The only way to reset the timer back to zero is to kill one of his clones. The first episode was uploaded to his official YouTube channel. Despite the show's success, it has been criticized by the

Venezuelan government Venezuela is a federal presidential republic. The chief executive is the President of Venezuela who is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the President. Legislative power is vested in the National Assembl ...

. Mario Silva, host of '' La Hojilla'', an opinion program that airs on the government channel

Venezolana de Televisión Corporación Venezolana de Televisión (Spanish for: ''Venezuelan Television Corporation'') or VTV is a state-run television station based in Caracas, Venezuela, which can be seen throughout the capital and surrounding areas on channel 8. Programs ...

, harshly criticized Hernández, saying that he looked "apparently innocent" and labeled him "dangerous" and a bad influence to the Venezuelan youth. However, he pointed out his "perfect English" and "good editing". He even drew comparisons with another Venezuelan comedian, Luis Chataing, which Silva qualified as "stupid".

Music and composing

"Tamos Ready", a parody song mocking the

Reggaeton Reggaeton (, ) is a modern style of popular music, popular and electronic music that originated in Panamanian reggaetón, Panama during the late 1980s, and which rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s through a plethora of Puert ...

genre was released on 28 December 2010 along with episode 20. It showed Hernández's music producing and singing abilities. The 1-minute song became a local hit, reaching more than 20,000 digital downloads and positioning both "Alejandro Hernández" and "Tamos Ready" at Twitter's worldwide trending topics. Hernández generally composes music with mainstream appeal, such as "Take It to the Floor", which was featured on episode 29 as part of a sketch. After many viewers wondered who sang the song, Hernández stated on his Twitter account that it was his own, and had to finish it to be available for download. He also composes orchestral film scores which are usually made for his own short films and specific sketches of his show.

Personal life

Hernández is a native of

, and currently resides in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Hernández came out as gay in early 2015 through an open letter on his blog, causing diverse reactions in the Venezuelan media and becoming the first celebrity to publicly state their sexuality in the country.

Filmography

References

External links

Official Site

Official YouTube channel

Alejandro Hernández at Instagram
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hernandez, Alejandro 1990 births Living people Venezuelan film directors Venezuelan LGBTQ screenwriters Venezuelan gay writers Venezuelan Internet celebrities Venezuelan emigrants to the United States Venezuelan YouTubers University of Zulia alumni Venezuelan male screenwriters Gay screenwriters LGBTQ film directors LGBTQ television directors 21st-century screenwriters 21st-century Venezuelan male singers 21st-century Venezuelan male writers 21st-century Venezuelan LGBTQ people