Alfie Deyes
Alfred Sidney Deyes is an English YouTuber, vlogger and businessman. On 4 September 2014, he released his first book, The Pointless Book. Since 2014, he has released three books in the Pointless Book series and one autobiography.
Early life
Deyes was born in the London Borough of Enfield. His family relocated to Brighton, East Sussex when he was four years old. Deyes was educated at Varndean School in Brighton and then attended Varndean College.Career
YouTube
Deyes started his PointlessBlog YouTube channel in 2009.From 2013, along with a number of other YouTubers, he appeared in the Style Haul series The Crew, described by teen website Sugarscape.com as "the male version of Loose Women, but a bit less pervy".
In 2013, Deyes was a member of the "Guinness World Records OMG!" channel and held a number of world records, including "Most bangles put on in 30 seconds by a team of two", along with YouTubers Marcus Butler and 'Laurbubble' ; and "Most party poppers popped in 30 seconds" with a count of 29, beating the previously set record by 1, and filling the most pancakes in one minute, with chocolate sauce and bananas, which was 7.
Deyes was included in the 2015 Debrett's 500, listing the most influential people in Britain, under the New Media category. In 2018, Deyes uploaded a video to his YouTube channel called "Living on £1 for 24 hours" in which his aim was to spend only £1 for a full day. He received criticism from viewers and the media who claimed that Deyes was making a mockery of poverty, both in his language used and the fact he did things such as going shopping for clothes during the video, continuing to use luxury items such as his car and was given free food after being recognised. On 18 June 2018, Deyes uploaded a video to his vlogging channel titled "Lets talk about the £1 video", in which he apologised for his actions and claimed he did not mean to mock poverty. He subsequently removed the original video from YouTube and donated all revenue from that video to charity.
Published works
Deyes signed a book deal with Blink Publishing in 2014, with his debut book The Pointless Book due for release in September of the same year. The book is part journal, part activity book and includes a free downloadable app and social media integration. It has been unfavourably compared to Keri Smith's 2007 book Wreck This Journal, which contained some similar ideas. Rhik Samadder, for The Guardian, stated "It's a bit like the activity sheets given to children in museums and on planes to keep them quiet. Most of the pages are largely blank, containing instructions to "Draw a selfie" or "Fill this page in with whatever you want!", and found that while "It may not be Moby Dick", he stated that "the Pointless Book is a canny piece of merchandising."A sequel to The Pointless Book, The Pointless Book 2, was released on 26 March 2015 and features similar content. It became the second best selling non-fiction book in its first week of release.
Deyes released a standalone autobiography, The Scrapbook Of My Life, on 24 March 2016. In 2017, Deyes announced a third and final book in the Pointless Book series titled The Pointless Book 3. It was released on 13 July 2017.
Music
Deyes appeared on the 2014 single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" as part of the Band Aid 30 charity supergroup, raising money for the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.Deyes was part of the 'YouTube Boyband' that raised money for Comic Relief.