Brent Simon is a 28-year-old musician (born July 6, 1978) from Mantua, OH. He is best known for his catchy songs about nerdy subject matter such as Space Camp, Bittorrent, Computers, and Aliens. He made a sudden rise to stardom through the website Youtube.com after two videos of him playing “Space Camp” and “The Bittorrent Song” made their debut in March 2006. The videos have since received over 1 million views. Simon calls his music "Nerdpunk," now an internet-famous genre.

Early History

Simon had been living in the small town of Mantua, OH working for his family's grocery store. He graduated from Crestwood High School in 1996. He also attended the National Institute of Technology, where he studied electronics and computer technology. After completing these studies he was hired by Rockwell Collins Inc. in Bellevue, Iowa as an avionics technician, where he lived for the next three years. Over that time he learned that a career in electronics was not for him. This was made quite clear by an incident involving a live power supply and a napping Brent. He began to suspect he had a form of Attention Deficiency Disorder, but it turns out it was only severe boredom. Despite his love of Iowa and the fine people there, he returned to his native Ohio in search of a more stimulating vocation.

Months later, after swearing to never work in electronics again, he found himself at Network Technologies Inc. in Aurora, OH. His job consisted of building and testing Keyboard, Video, Mouse switches. He had found his way back into the growing field of electronics. This lasted about a year until a better offer came along.

Brent was invited to move to Las Cruces, New Mexico by his friends Grant Buck and Matt Delarosa. Over the course of the next five months he lived without any form of employment, while braving the harsh winter extremes of 70 degrees fahrenhheit and cloudless blue desert skies. During this time the groundwork for Bellevue was set. Due to the lack of employment opportunities he again found himself back in Ohio.

Prior To Fame

After moving back to Ohio, he formed the band Bellevue with a few of his friends. Simon played keyboards and sang backup vocals. This is where Simon spent most of his time writing the songs that have since become popular. The band drew a modest crowd of family and friends at each show, but never grew bigger than that. After a few years, Bellevue broke up in 2004 due to personal differences. Following the dissolution, Simon set aside his musical aspirations and continued his work at the grocery store. He soon began studying Computer Animation at Westwood College Online. His story would have ended there, had it not been for one fateful meeting.

The Turning Point

Simon and few friends were enjoying some Taco Bell one evening when Jeff Finley and Simon's cousin Dan Haylett suggested making a short documentary about "A Day in the Life of Brent Simon.” Finley and Haylett had a long history of making movies together and were looking for a new project. Simon agreed to what he thought was a half-serious joke.

The Brentumentary

Finley and Haylett arrived at Simon's apartment the following day at 1:00 PM. Simon was just getting up as the cameras were rolling, much to Simon's displeasure. He didn’t think that Finley was serious, but Simon obliged and went about his routine, as awkward as it seemed. He had no idea why Finley wanted to make this movie, but went along with it.
Finley has said that his goal was “To show Brent in his true essence.”

During the video, Simon plays his keyboard and sings the songs that would later attract a cult following of nerds and aspiring musicians. Finley had taken the video of these songs and uploaded them to YouTube under the alias “mylkhead.” Finley said he wanted to generate some interest in the Brentumentary, by promoting these short and catchy clips.

The Bittorrent Song

The first video release on YouTube was “The Bittorrent Song” or properly known as “World Wired West.” The song was an ode to file-sharing as it dropped numerous references to warez, hacks, cracks, and the like. This is the video that introduced the world to Brent Simon.

This video would later go on to reach over 300,000 views on YouTube.

The Space Camp Song

This was the second video released on YouTube a few weeks later as yet another tool to generate buzz about Finley's film. He sings about his experience at Space Camp and rhymes in famous names like Neil Armstrong, Carl Sagan, and Steve Squyers. He mentions his cousin Dan Haylett and how he “upchucked in zero gravity.” That phrase would later spark interest in the “mysterious Dan Haylett.” The end of the video features an animated photograph of Brent wearing the now famous “I survived Anorexia” t-shirt. He is also “photochopped” into various related photos such as a photo of the Olsen Twin's trip to Space Camp.

This video was also being posted on websites such as Digg, Myspace, College Humor, Ebaums World, etc. The popularity of this video began to skyrocket, Brent became a cyber celebrity. It currently has over 870,000 views on YouTube alone.

Media Attention

As a result of being exposed to such a large number of people, Simon generated lots of attention from the media.

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