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American competitive eater and YouTuber From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kevin Thomas Strahle (born January 6, 1984), better known as the L.A. Beast, is an American professional competitive eater[3][4] who hosts a challenge-based channel on YouTube. Strahle started making videos in his hometown of Ridgewood, New Jersey, before moving to Los Angeles, California.[5] After several years at his home in California, he moved back to his hometown of Ridgewood. As of 2024, his channel has over 3 million subscribers & over 500 million total views.[2] In addition to his online presence, he has made appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,[6][7] The Today Show Australia[8] and Tosh.0.[9][10]
| L.A. Beast | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Personal information | ||||||||||
| Born | Kevin Thomas Strahle January 6, 1984 Ridgewood, New Jersey, U.S. | |||||||||
| YouTube information | ||||||||||
| Also known as |
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| Channel | ||||||||||
| Years active | 2010–present | |||||||||
| Genres | ||||||||||
| Subscribers | 3 million[1] | |||||||||
| Total views | 536 million[1] | |||||||||
| Network | Fullscreen[2] | |||||||||
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Last updated: 24 May 2024 | ||||||||||
In 2015, Strahle led a successful campaign to bring back the soft drink Crystal Pepsi.[11] His accomplishments also include earning 12 Guinness World Records, 8 of which he currently holds.
Kevin Thomas Strahle was born on January 6, 1984, and grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey.[12][13]
As a child, Strahle developed a love for eating[13] and later used his natural bulk to join the football team at Ridgewood High School.[14][15][16] In his free time he would often accept money from his classmates to complete outrageous food challenges.[13] Strahle is of Italian and Irish ancestry on his maternal side and German and Irish on his paternal side.
After high school, Strahle was recruited to play football for the Fordham Rams of Fordham University in New York. In his four years on the team, he started on the offensive line in almost every game for the 2004–2006 seasons.[17]
In 2008, Strahle moved to Los Angeles[18] and obtained a job working for Pepsi. After two years, he quit after a manager told him he was not "persistent enough" to be a salesman within PepsiCo.[19][11] That criticism would later drive him to spearhead the 'Bring Back Crystal Pepsi' campaign.
While Strahle was in Los Angeles, he uploaded his first YouTube video where he performed a milk chugging challenge. Noticing the positive response the video received, he started his own channel under the user name "skippy62able" on August 7, 2010. Having completed Fatburger's XXXL burger challenge[4], Strahle's roommate commented that he was 'a beast' for finishing it so fast.[18] Starting in 2011,[20] Strahle would often refer to himself as either "Beast" or "L.A. Beast", eventually choosing the latter as his official nickname.
In September 2015, Strahle and fellow eaters Takeru Kobayashi, Bob Shoudt, Patrick Bertoletti and Tim Brown assembled in Chicago, Illinois to consume an entire cooked goat.[21] This eating challenge was performed with the intention of lifting the infamous Chicago Cubs curse.[22] The Cubs would go on to win the World Series the following year.
L.A. Beast's YouTube channel features dozens of videos in which he films himself performing a variety of over-the-top eating and drinking challenges. In some cases when he is unsuccessful at these challenges, the featured entertainment value is the schadenfreude and gross-out humor of him experiencing pain and vomiting copious amounts of food and drink. His comedic approach also includes outlandish but extremely specific descriptions of what the experience of eating or drinking these substances is like. In addition, Strahle has a number of humorous catchphrases and frequently used terms, and he usually edits his videos to include picture-in-picture visual puns and other images to accompany the sayings, such as a map of the Bering Strait (or a photo of machine bearings) when he says "I need to get my bearings straight," or amusing photos of animals such as seals that appear as if they are making the vocalizations that L.A. Beast makes as he dry-heaves and retches.[23][not specific enough to verify][additional citation(s) needed]
In November 2011, Strahle competed in his first professional eating contest at the Wild Turkey 81 Eating World Championship in New York City.[18][24][25]
In 2012, Strahle was ranked the 16th best competitive eater in the world, and ranked 17th in 2013.[4]
In June 2012, Strahle consumed 25 hot dogs in 10 minutes at the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest qualifier in Cleveland, Ohio.[26][27] Though Strahle lost to eating veteran Crazy Legs Conti, he was beaten by only a quarter of a hot dog.
In February 2016, Strahle competed at Wing Bowl 24 where he ate a cactus live on stage. To qualify for the competition, Strahle ate 24 raw eggs in under four minutes.[28]
On May 3, 2017, Strahle broke the Guinness World Record for the most chicken nuggets eaten in 3 minutes by consuming 642.12 grams (22.650 oz) of chicken nuggets beating the previous record of 531 g (18.7 oz).[29]
Later that morning, Strahle also broke the Guinness World Record for the most bhut jolokia peppers eaten in 2 minutes by consuming 121.9 grams (4.30 oz) of peppers, beating the previous record of 66 grams (2.3 oz).[30][31]
On May 12, 2017, Strahle broke two additional Guinness World Records for both the most powdered doughnuts eaten in 3 minutes,[32] and the record for fastest time to drink a 32-ounce bottle (0.95 L) of pure maple syrup.[33] The previous record for most powdered doughnuts eaten in 3 minutes was 6 doughnuts, set by Shamus Petherick of Australia. It was beaten when Strahle managed to consume 9 whole doughnuts in the same amount of time. For the second record, Strahle drank 32 US fluid ounces (0.95 L) of pure maple syrup in 10.84 seconds, beating the former record of 26 seconds.
In September 2018, Strahle entered a competition at Jimmy Geez in Haledon, New Jersey, in which he ate 40 nuclear wings. Strahle completed the challenge in a span of 57 minutes and 22 seconds.
In April 2015, Strahle rallied his fans to comment on Pepsi's official social media accounts with the hashtag "#BringBackCrystalPEPSI" in an effort to revive the once-popular soft drink.[34][35][36] This led to the creation of a Change.org petition and as of August 2016, it has over 34,000 signatures.[19][11][37][38] The popularity of the movement also produced 15 billboards placed all around the Los Angeles area.[37]
On June 8, 2015, Strahle received a message from Pepsi via Twitter, acknowledging his efforts to get Crystal Pepsi brought back to store shelves and hinting at the soft drink's potential return.[39][40] The next day, a Pepsi spokeswoman confirmed the message's authenticity.[41][42]
On July 26, 2015, Strahle released a song on iTunes called "The Crystal Pepsi Song" featuring production company That's Classic Media (now named Mac N’ Cheese Media).[43] A music video was later released August 5, 2015.[44][45]
On December 8, 2015, Pepsi announced the re-release of Crystal Pepsi in a limited quantity sweepstakes.[38] In June 2016, Pepsi announced that Crystal Pepsi would be released in the U.S. on August 8, 2016, for an eight-week run.[35][36][40][45][38]
Strahle currently holds eight Guinness World Records:
In the past, he has held the records for:
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