Every day, people are building communities and careers through online social media profiles, making a following through content creation that is heavily dependent on intuition. Though many try, not all succeed. Among the latter, Brandon Villa stands out for his creative approaches and the versatility of his content.

Villa is a prolific sketch comedy creator on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube who graduated from FGCU in 2022 with a bachelor’s in communication. He is best known for his “Disney/Nickelodeon Shows Be Like” skits in which he and his comedic cohort parody tropes and cliches common to both networks’ television series.

“How those videos started was because I saw this trend on TikTok that was letting Chat GPT write a script for you, and just show how corny it is,” said Villa.

He decided to take the idea in a more personal direction after experimenting with friends. Villa and his close friends began writing “corny” scripts and recording their performances of them for social media. The cherry on top is the iconic laugh track he pairs with the clunky jokes.

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“We posted it, and then from there, I mean it was like, fire just caught,” said Villa.

Villa has amassed a combined 260,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, with his TikTok account at approximately 170,000.

Villa premiered his latest short film, “Dear,” on March 20, 2025. The film acts as a continuation of the story he told in his debut short, “It’s Not You” (2023). Both films star Villa himself as Liam and Sarah Hand as Annalyse.

Photo courtesy of Brandon Villa

“At that point, I kind of started getting a little bit of a following, and I was thinking, maybe I could make this, the second one, and make it better,” said Villa.

The production of “It’s Not You” simply consisted of a few friends and an iPhone. While he began considering a follow-up film, Villa became determined to up the ante for the sequel.

The first step in developing the new film’s production was hiring Villa’s longtime friend, Kowan Miller, as director of photography.

“I wanted to push my limits in terms of cinematography and just kind of see what I was capable of. I always thought that I could make something pretty good. So I told him [Villa] I was down for it, but I was like, ‘I want to do it right,’” said Miller.

Miller’s work on “Dear” marked his foray into narrative filmmaking. He and his wife own a wedding filmmaking business. Shooting events are his typical area of expertise.

“I go to a wedding day, document everything that happens, and then in the edit, I decide what the story is,” said Miller. “But for this, you decide what the story is up front, only then you have to set up the pieces to shoot it in the way that you wrote it. So it’s kind of backwards to what I’m used to.”

After graduating from FGCU, Villa currently works as a substitute teacher in the Fort Myers area. As he continues to work with the younger generation, which often acts as a source of inspiration for his creations, he anticipates continuing his comedy and filmmaking career.

“My advice to young creators would be just to start,” said Villa. I know it’s very cliche, and you hear it all the time, but start being consistent and don’t be afraid to be cringey, because if you aren’t cringey, then you’re never going to get to where you want to go because everything is cringey until it becomes something.”