How Did Nathan Barnatt become so Famous? His Age, Wife, Net Worth
Contents
Nathan Barnatt is a 42-year-old American actor, YouTuber, stand-up comedian, and former boxer, who became famous for portraying his comedic characters, Dad and Keith Apicary, on his YouTube channels, @barnatt and @DadFeels, on which he’s amassed over 470,000 and 390,000 subscribers, respectively.
Early life
Nathan James Barnatt was born on 2 February 1981, in Milford, Massachusetts USA. He said that all the kids in his hometown played soccer or wrestled, so his love for dancing and video gaming made him stand out, and led to some bullying. Nathan told LA Weekly that his father, Tom, was a carpenter, and his mother, Mary Ellen, worked as a secretary. Nathan is the middle child and has two brothers, an older one named Joshua and a younger named Seth. All three became interested in production, direction, photography and screenwriting at a young age. Nathan’s grandmother, with whom he has a close relationship, is from Rhode Island, USA, and turned 96 in October 2023.
Early education, source of career
Nathan matriculated from Medway High School in Massachusetts. He said that he always acted like an idiot to Milford Daily News in 2012, but became interested in filming his shenanigans in the eighth grade. However, he opted to work instead of enrolling in college to study acting or cinematography. Consequently, Nathan worked as a gravedigger in Natick, Massachusetts, for about two years before deciding to move to Los Angeles, California, in 2006 or 2007.
He’s proud of his short-lived profession, as the anecdotes and the physique that he built on the job influenced his comedy and YouTube video scripts. However, Nathan thinks that he wouldn’t have accepted the job if he knew what it entailed immediately; according to him, his friend’s father initially hired him to cut grass at the cemetery. He frequently joked that he ‘was in people’s graves before them’ as he devised comedy routines while digging, and filmed sketches in pits after work.
Career
Nathan began his career as a comedian in 2008 by appearing in an episode of “The Gong Show with Dave Attell” on the Comedy Central television network. That recognition led to more roles on Comedy Central, particularly the 2009 pilot entitled “Ghosts/Aliens” based on the eponymous book and the “This Show Will Get You High” TV show, which aired the following year. The comical character that would bring him renown, Keith, had a fictional birth date of 3 March 1986, dates to that period.
Keith is a video game collector and avid gamer who enjoys dancing and makes up for the lack of training through energetic movements and a wide smile. He wears Coke-bottle eyeglasses, has messy balding hair and a lisp, and walks with a hunched posture. Nathan’s dancing skills and physical comedy didn’t go unnoticed, and he was cast as the lead dancing clown during some stage performances on the This is It tour by singer Michael Jackson, scheduled to start on 13 July 2009. Sadly, the tour was canceled when Michael died from an apparent drug intoxication on 25 June. Nathan was also performing at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles, during that time.
Creating Keith
Nathan wrote and developed a pilot for the television series entitled “Youth Large” in 2012, with Keith in the lead role. It was supposed to air during the Adult Swim nighttime programming block on Cartoon Network and featured his brother Seth as the co-writer, but Adult Swim never ordered a fully-fledged series. However, the character gained prominence when Nathan auditioned as the dancer for Kimberly Cole, pop singer, songwriter, and TV host, and portrayed Keith in the music video for Kiberly’s song “U Make Me Wanna” in 2012. Shortly after, rapper Flo Rida invited him to dance in the music video for his “Let It Roll” song, and Laidback Luke hired him for the “Paradise” song music video.
That brought attention to Nathan’s debut studio album from Keith’s perspective, primarily consisting of songs inspired by arcade games, entitled “Talking Classics Compact Disc on the Internet,” released in 2011. In October 2014, Nathan also portrayed Keith in the music video for “Freestyle” by the country music band Lady Antebellum.
Gaining popularity as Keith
In 2014, Nathan began uploading various comedy sketches from Keith’s perspective to his primary YouTube channel. More importantly, Nathan uploaded the unreleased “Youth Large” pilot. His channel was already well established, as he uploaded comedy routines, old audition tapes, video game discussions, and filmed tutorials since May 2006. Nathan continued filming his “Talking Classics” web series about video games, reviewed movies, showed his commercials for Skittles, Mixify, and GameStop, and tried auditioning for WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) as Keith. He incorporated a podcast entitled My Own Brother with his two brothers in May 2016, then began filming pranks, and directed, wrote, edited and co-produced the short film “Neutral” in June 2017.
Nathan continued to star in self-produced videos based on current trends. For instance, in early 2018, he started the short-lived “Chips n Drips” comedy series about full-body aerobic workouts to parody the workouts sold through Video Home System (VHS) tapes and broadcast on TV in the 1990s. Shortly afterwards, when people worldwide began ridiculing the poor animation of the upcoming “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie, Nathan filmed a “Chips n Drips” episode dedicated to fixing the animated character with a live actor. He demonstrated Keith-style dancing and physical comedy, while performing gymnastics moves dressed as a mix of Keith and Sonic. Nathan rose to greater prominence when he appeared in episodes of the gaming web series “Game Grumps” in 2016 and 2018, released on the eponymous YouTube channel on both occasions.
In 2016, Nathan also appeared in the “Angry Video Game Nerd” web series, and an episode of the “James & Mike Mondays” web series. James D. Rolfe, a YouTuber and filmmaker, created both. Nathan introduced Keith to a much broader audience in 2021, when he auditioned for the 16th “America’s Got Talent” talent competition season. Unfortunately, Nathan was eliminated in the quarter-finals when Simon Cowell, one of the judges, pressed the red buzzer, indicating his disapproval of the performance, but leveraged his prominence to create a gaming YouTube channel @Fartssss, on which he played the sandbox video game Minecraft as Keith.
Dad
Nathan introduced his character, Dad, in late 2017, sporting a neat balding hairstyle, a cream-colored undershirt, and a brown tie. His sketches entitled “Dad Feels Good” and “Dad Feels Sad” attracted attention immediately, and he released two more videos the following year, “Dad Feels Great” and “Dad Feels Sassy”. However, Dad’s popularity increased on 5 January 2019 when Nathan started a dedicated YouTube channel.
Nathan posted the first video on 15 February of that year, entitled “Dad Uploaded,” and started to develop the story of Dad and his ordinary family, consisting of Daughter, played by Olivia Stuck, and Mom, portrayed by Erika Rankin, introduced in the video “Dad’s Family” and living in Town. Nathan named the web series “Dad Feels” and did most of the writing, editing, soundtrack composition and directing. His series fits several genres, including science fiction, comedy, drama and horror. It involves a variety of topics and places, such as the Top Secret Facility research laboratory, mind control, neural networks, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), revealed in acts consisting of several episodes.
Nathan also began live-streaming in character on his Twitch account, dadfeels, and released his third studio album, “More Music,” in 2021. Nathan’s appearance as Dad in the Creator Clash boxing event brought extra attention to the series, which pits social media personalities – typically YouTubers and Twitch streamers – against each other. In his first boxing bout on 14 May 2022, he won with a TKO (technical knockout) versus YouTuber and comedian Matt Wattson in the first round, after 22 seconds. His impressive performance guaranteed his return, and as Dad, won with another TKO against Starkilla in the second minute of the first round on 15 April 2022. Consequently, Nathan hired well-known YouTubers and Twitch streamers such as Ironmouse, The MatPat, Michael “Vsauce” Stevens, and Milana Vayntrub for the Act 4 phase of the “Dad Feels” series, which premiered in 2023.
Other acting
Nathan was also a prominent actor and voice actor – his earliest notable role was in the “High School USA!” animated series in 2013, in which he lent his voice to the main character, Lamort Blackstein. Three years later, amid several collaborations with James D. Rolfe, Nathan appeared as himself in the short movie “Flying Fuckernauts vs. The Astro Bastards” as one of the Fuckernauts, while James played the other.
Nathan also had notable roles in comedy television series such as “Kirby Buckets” as Wild Gil from 2014 to 2017, and “Adam Ruins Everything” from 2016 to 2019 alongside comedian Adam Conover, in which he portrayed several characters. Nathan also had minor parts in well-known TV series such as “Lucifer” in 2017, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in 2018, and less prominent series “Now Apocalypse” in 2019 on the Starz television network, and “Just Roll With It” on Disney Channel the same year.
Podcasts
Nathan realized the potential of being a podcast host in 2016 and expanded his reach on 28 June 2018 when he launched his Grave Stories podcast. Although he initially read ghost and horror stories, the content evolved into sharing tales that Nathan experienced or imagined based on his stint as a gravedigger. Furthermore, on 12 August 2023, Nathan broadcast the first episode of the “Conversations With You Podcast,” in which he interviews his fans.
View this post on Instagram
Reducing Keith-based content
On 30 November 2023, Nathan posted a YouTube video announcing that he would pause the production of the “Talking Classics” series, the reason being that although it requires more time and effort than the “Dad Feels” series, none of the videos get many views. Nathan admitted that he made $40 from about 40,000 views on a recent video, and not much more from his most viral video, with nearly a million views. Consequently, he said he would post videos in which he portrays Keith in his free time and for his own enjoyment. Thankfully, Nathan assured his fans that he was in talks about filming a reality TV show following Keith, similar to the “Borat” movie franchise with Sacha Baron Cohen in the lead role. Furthermore, he said that he has many ideas for a TV series about Dad.
Rumored wife Siobhan Price
Most online sources falsely report that Siobhan Price, an Adult Swim show producer and screenwriter, was Nathan’s wife. Nathan confused people on 26 May 2021, when he posted pictures of them hanging out in various places, day after Siobhan’s death from an undisclosed cause, likely from alleged depression or struggle with Crohn’s disease. Nathan wrote that ‘he loved her inside out because she was perfect, the best person he knew, the light of his life, and everything to him.’ However, Siobhan’s Instagram profile, csiobhan, reveals that she was in a loving relationship for over a year with singer and guitarist Tom Casurella, who also died young in July 2020.
Dating
In 2012, Nathan said that he might be the world’s worst boyfriend, because he was compelled to create nearly all the time. That drive remained in critical moments, such as spending time with a girl he liked. Nathan mentioned having many female fans who gave him fridge magnets and sent him love letters. He also felt uncomfortable saying ‘dating’ and used ‘hanging out’ instead, signifying that romance isn’t his priority.
Interesting facts
- Nathan’s lucky number is 2. That’s because he was the second son, born on the second day of the second month in room 222 at 12:22. Additionally, he became a vegetarian in 2002, and a vegan later.
- When he performed at video game conventions in the past, he stayed in character for about 48 hours in a row and barely slept.
- Nathan was kicked out of his panel at Boston’s Penny Arcade Expo because he did backflips as Keith, after the security guard warned him to stop.
- All his identity documents (IDs) have silly faces because he and his brothers compete for the goofiest ID image.
- He didn’t know who Flo Rida was when the rapper asked him if he wanted to appear in his music video.
- Nathan has ‘about 10 characters rattling around in his head at all times.’
- He concluded that Nathan Barnatt is ‘the no one who becomes all the characters in his head,’ as they are all extensions of his personality.
- In 2008, Nathan won a Skittles vending machine by creating a parody advertisementfor the candy brand as a character named Trale Lewous.
- Nathan isn’t a fan of American Football, but recorded a Superbowl advertisement in 2012.
- He doesn’t think he will or can grow up; work never feels like work for him, and he rarely gets the desire to do mundane things.
- In November 2022, Nathan bought a 1970 BMW 1600,and plans to restore it for the planned feature film “Neutral,” a title identical to his 2017 short film.
Physical characteristics
Nathan has balding dark brown hair and hazel eyes, is 6ft (1.83m) tall, weighs about 172lbs (78kgs), and has an athletic physique. Nathan sports a tattoo of three cartoon characters on top of each other on the left side of his body across his ribs. He also has a faded tattoo between his left shoulder and biceps, indicating that he might be undergoing a tattoo removal. In May 2022, Nathan tattooed a cartoon version of Siobhan holding her dog Frankie, whom he adopted after her death, on his left pec, i.e., chest muscle.
Net worth
Nathan Barnatt has a net worth of about $300,000. His primary income source is his YouTube channels – according to SocialBlade.com statistics for @dadfeels, he makes between up to $2,300 yearly from the channel and an estimated extra of up to $10,500 from his primary YouTube channel. On 30 November 2023, Nathan said he made under $1,000 monthly from his Patreon account, NathanBarnatt, specifically $607 in November 2023.
Nathan supplements his income with tips via the StreamLabs website, which allows his followers to post an on-screen message during his live stream or donate money privately. Nathan also operates a Dad Feels store on Creator-Spring.com, selling clothing, stickers, posters and pillows for $13 to $35 per item. He sells other merchandise, such as yoga pants, water bottles, mugs and towels, via his online store on the Shinki.xyz website.
