Toby Turner

Tobias Joseph Turner was born on March 3, 1985, in Osborn, Mississippi, and grew up in Niceville, Florida. He graduated from Niceville High School, where he attended school with former Congressman Matt Gaetz and attended the University of Florida, and having an interest in filmmaking, graduated with a degree in telecommunication production. In a November 2011 vlog, Turner revealed that the name Tobuscus was given to him by one of his high school friends while performing in a play together. Turner's mother later took out a loan and bought him a video camera, an act he appreciated, as it helped begin his YouTube career. ==Career==

YouTube Main channel Turner first joined YouTube on May 14, 2006, when he created a channel under the name of "Tobuscus". One of Turner's earliest popular videos is "Don't Tase Me, Bro!", a remixed recording of the University of Florida Taser incident in which his classmate Andrew Meyer was stunned with a taser gun by a police officer. Interviewed about the video by MTV, Turner explained that, after watching the clip, "as soon as [he] heard [Andrew] yelling, [he] knew it would fit in a hip-hop song", and that he "wanted to give [Andrew] the profits" from sales of related merchandise. "Safety Torch" and "Nugget In A Biscuit". Turner's Literal Trailers series is also one of his most popular, earning him mainstream recognition from CBS News, who described his rendition of the Dead Island trailer as "amazing" and "hilarious", and Wired, who praised Turner's Literal Trailer of Iron Man 3. Vlogging and gaming channels In April 2009, Turner began using his "TobyTurner" channel to upload daily unedited vlogs detailing his personal life, which he dubbed "lazy vlogs." In July 2010, Turner registered his fourth (third in use) YouTube channel under the name "TobyGames", in 2010 he made an appearance on the fifth episode of Annoying Orange, titled "A Cheesy Episode"; in early 2011 he worked with iJustine on a number of LittleBigPlanet 2 Let's Play videos; since 2011 he has worked on many projects with Jack Douglass, including parody "Tobjackscus", sketch "Dubstep Tobuscus", and music videos "Take Off Your Clothes (Like Scarlett Johansson)", "Razors in Your Apple (On Halloween)", and "The Valentine's Day Song"; and in 2012 he starred in a short with Olga Kay entitled Olga Kay Goes Haywire., as well as starring in an episode of the YouTube series, "Retarded Policeman". Tobuscus has also appeared alongside notable celebrities on several occasions, including the music video for the song "Whistle While I Work It", featuring Chester See and Wayne Brady, as well as starring in a three-parter YouTube series "Terminator Genisys: The YouTube Chronicles" to promote the film Terminator Genisys. A range of well-known personalities were involved in the series, including Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, and YouTube stars such as Lilly Singh, Olga Kay, Sean Klitzner, Epic Lloyd, The Warp Zone, and Kevin Lieber. From 2010 to 2012, Turner presented a web series called CuteWinFail, created by Turner and co-produced with YouTuber Philip DeFranco and his production company FishBowl Worldwide Media. Turner and DeFranco also collaborated together on Like Totally Awesome, produced by the YouTube channel LTA. In 2010, Turner signed with the multi-channel network Machinima, before switching to Maker Studios in July 2013. Turner also worked as a host on Tagged, a gaming-themed YouTube series produced by NODE Studios, and played the Satan character in the Fine Brothers web series MyMusic. In 2023, Turner voiced the character Jerod in Doug TenNapel's web series, Burkle and Spay. In 2025, he voiced a character in Cinemint's web series, Fleur de Lis. Film and television Turner's first feature-length film role came in 2010 romantic comedy film New Low, in which he played stand-up comedian Dave, the best friend of main character Wendell played by writer, producer and director Adam Bowers. The film was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010, before it received coverage at the Austin Film Festival in October and at the Glasgow Film Festival the following February, and was later released on DVD in 2012. Later, in 2012, he starred in psychological horror film Smiley, written and directed by Michael Gallagher and starring fellow YouTube partner Shane Dawson. Turner also starred alongside Dawson in the 2015 comedy Bob Thunder: Internet Assassin and played a minor role in the 2015 film The Great Gilly Hopkins. From 2012 to 2014, Turner starred in the Cartoon Network animated series The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange. Turner played Nerville, the only human character who can interact with the fruits. Turner landed a deal with YouTube Red in 2015, and began development on an original scripted comedy, "I Am Tobuscus", which satirized digital stardom. Production was halted and the series cancelled in 2016 following sexual assault allegations made against Turner. ==Other work==

Aside from video production and other entertainment, Toby Turner – who is described on his official website as a "viral marketer ... [and] consultant for viral video and social media platforms" – has worked with a number of major companies on advertising campaigns, including NBC, Disney, and others. and presenting holiday special web shows for Comedy Central, Spike and VH1. although eventually lost out to KassemG. In May 2013, Turner set up a fundraising campaign on crowdfunding website Indiegogo for an iOS (and later Android) game based on his Tobuscus Adventures YouTube series, called Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards!. The fundraiser surpassed its goal of $240,000 within two days, reaching more than $644,000. and also cameos Gabe Hohreiter as Gabuscus, and Turner's dog Gryphon. and in May 2018 for PC, with initial plans to extend it to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Before the release of Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards!, Turner also revealed that a second, albeit smaller game, was in development at the same time and based on the popular sandbox game Minecraft, titled "Mine The Diamond", which was later released in June 2015 for iOS. In May 2014, Turner signed a three-book deal with Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, to help create an illustrated journal-style series based on Tobuscus Adventures. The first, second, and third books were set to be released in the fall of 2015, summer of 2016, and winter 2017, respectively. However, none of these books were ever published, and in September 2025, Turner finally started work on the first Tobuscus Adventures book, titled "How to Stay Positive (during the Zombie Apocalypse)". ==Reception==

Within the first few years of his three channels running concurrently, Turner was considered one of the most popular YouTube personalities, later recognised as a "mainstay", and "one of the site's greatest innovators." Turner has also attempted to reach out to YouTube directly, such as in 2017 tweeting to their administration that neither the subscribe button nor the more recently introduced bell icon, which immediately notified subscribers of new uploads, were working properly at the time. Harrison Jacobs of Business Insider in 2014 meanwhile wrote of how Turner had been pursuing various projects outside of YouTube. He found that while he still published frequently to his channels, he seemed particularly devoted to other work in the hope that it could direct him into more "traditional media", citing Turner's first book based on his web series Tobuscus Animated Adventures, as well as his mobile game Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards!. Jacobs noted how the development of the game had run over-budget, despite having received more than double the requested funds, and had been met with a number of delays, which Turner himself ascribed to a lack of experience. ==Personal life==

Having begun his video-making career in Niceville, Turner moved to Los Angeles in 2008. Turner has speculated that he may have ADHD and some have similarly made this assumption due to his boisterous and sometimes inappropriate behavior. In 2024, Turner identified his political views as "liberal and conservative". Sexual assault allegations On April 8, 2016, Turner's ex-girlfriend April Fletcher, known online as AprilEfff, made several allegations against Turner, including that he was addicted to drugs (including MDMA), that he had cheated on several of his former partners (including Fletcher), and that he drugged and raped her in February 2013. Writing a blog post on Tumblr, Fletcher claimed that she had contemplated suicide following the episodes, and that Turner had likely committed the same acts against other women. Former Turner girlfriends Olga Kay and Melanie Murphy both denied that they were ever assaulted by Turner, though Murphy admitted Turner was not faithful to her. Turner responded to the accusations on April 11, 2016, in a short video, in which he dubbed Fletcher's claims as "false" and claimed that he had "never done anything without her consent [and] never tried to trick her into anything". On October 25, 2024, Turner claimed that he was almost murdered by a schizophrenic woman, who later "destroy[ed] [him] with the full force of the press", with some commenters assuming he was referring to Fletcher. Turner also said dating since then has been "a big no thanks". ==Filmography==