By Danielle Smith
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From coming together to make comedic videos to each pursuing their own career paths, MHS alumnus Russell Satele and Kamehameha Schools alumni Bronson Varde and Puwai Roback visited English teacher Susan Kawamoto’s freshman class on Jan. 29. There, the trio spoke to the students of personal experiences and empowerment, while also engaging the students in an improvisation activity.
“I define success as reaching what you want to do and what you love to do, instead of doing what somebody else wants you to do or something because you think that this is what society wants you to do and that’s what I hope the kids got out of it,” Roback said.
The trio began making their scripted comedy videos under the username “Lethal Giggles” on Vine, which then spread to YouTube and Facebook in October of last year. They also managed a side channel to showcase their musical talent. “A lot of the videos we started doing on the side because we enjoy entertaining people and one day I hope to pursue that as well,” Satele said. Varde added, “It was always just for fun. I started making videos on Vine, and then I found (Satele) and went up to him going, ‘Oh you make Vines too, let’s go make some Vines!’ So it was a whole lot of fun.”
Meeting personal deadlines for their videos and writing skits, while also going through school, proved to have been more difficult than first anticipated. Varde said, “We’ve been working on a couple of skits, and it’s getting easier. At first it was hard, when we tried to film with just us three. No cameraman, no scripts.” Satele added, “We learned that we needed to plan it out prior and know what we were going to do before we actually started doing it.”
Even so, filming and editing their videos has given them something to learn and grow from. “I grew up as a really shy person and it really helped me to break out of my shell. Now when I meet people, I can talk to them more easily and it’s based on these videos that I can do that because I put myself out there and it’s made it easier to socialize with others,” said Roback. They are also able to use the things they learned in their schooling as well. “In class, I hated doing speeches and I hated having to memorize a lot of stuff and I didn’t like talking off the top of my head,” Satele said. “With these videos, we’ve learned to record ourselves and retake it over and over and it kind of made me more comfortable in front of a camera and willing to put myself out there.”
The trio used the lessons they learned to formulate a message to the students they spoke to. “We just wanted them to know that you should just do something that you enjoy in life because if you spend your life doing something that you don’t actually like, it’s not going to be affected on you as a person,” Satele expressed. In turn, the message was able to reach many of the students. “They followed what they wanted to do and they didn’t listen to everything they were told like, ‘Go to this college,’ and ‘Get this job,’ and they taught me to just do whatever I wanted to do,” Freshman Ashley Bienhaus said.
While Satele, Varde and Roback continue on with their junior year of college and reaching goals they’ve set for themselves, they each hope to pursue making their videos and expand their acting and singing careers.
