Peter Oakley

Who is Peter Oakley?

Peter Oakley is a pensioner from Leicester, England. He is better known by his pseudonym geriatric1927 on the popular video sharing website YouTube.

Making his YouTube debut in August 2006 with Telling it all, a series of five- to ten-minute autobiographical videos, Oakley gained immediate popularity with a wide section of the YouTube community. Amongst the autobiographical details revealed in his videos are the fact that he served as a radar mechanic during World War II, that he has had a lifelong love of motorcycles, and that he lives alone as a widower and pensioner in England.

His unforeseen rise has been widely reported by international media outlets and online news sources and blogs. After resisting all media attention for a long time, insisting that he only wished to converse with the YouTube community in an informal and personal way, Oakley finally gave his first interview, for the BBC's The Money Programme, which was aired on BBC Two on 16 February 2007.

By mid-2006, geriatric1927 was the most subscribed user on YouTube. His rise to the #1 position took place in just over a week. In the process, he displaced users who had been around since the site's launch over a year before, including NBC-signed Brooke Brodack.