The Laurel Oak Inn Cumberland Suite Tub is FAMOUS!
https://www.facebook.com/ThomasSandersOfficial
Photos taken by https://www.instagram.com/jameslightner/?img_index=1
Thanks for making our tub famous, Thomas! To experience this divine tub, book the Cumberland Suite at https://www.laureloakinn.com/rooms/cumberland-suite
To learn more about Thomas Sanders, click here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sanders_(entertainer)
Thomas Sanders (born April 24, 1989) is an American singer, actor, scriptwriter and internet personality made famous by Vine and YouTube. He is best known for his YouTube channel and Vine career, which lasted from April 2013 until the social media site was shut down by Twitter in 2017.[6][7][8][9] After the shutdown of Vine, he continued releasing videos across various social media sites. Sanders creates long videos on YouTube, while simultaneously posting shorter videos in the style of Vine to Instagram, Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. His work consists of comedy sketches, pranks, stories, singing and civil rights activism.
Sanders is mainly known for the Vine series Narrating People's Lives, also known as Storytime, for the prank series "Disney Pranks with Friends," and on YouTube for the series Sanders Sides. He reached over 7.4 billion loops and 8.3 million followers on Vine,[10] making his career one of the most successful in this social media platform's short history. As of April 2023, his account on TikTok has a following of 10 million followers.[11] On YouTube, he has two channels, "Thomas Sanders" and "Thomas Sanders and Friends", with the latter being discontinued in November 2021. As of August 2023, his main channel has over 4.1 million subscribers and his second channel has 379,000 subscribers. Sanders has won two Shorty Awards[12][13] and one Streamy Award,[14] for best Viner and best YouTube comedian, and has been nominated for a Teen Choice Award[15] to "Choice Viner" among other recognitions.
As a singer, Sanders has published one EP in 2013,[16][17] one album in 2016,[18] and several singles from 2017[19] onwards.[20][21] He has had a career in musical theatre in his hometown in Florida since he was a teenager, performing since 2006 in Gainesville and Orlando, Florida, and starring in a tour through 17 cities in the US and Canada with his own stage musical, Ultimate Storytime, based on his Vine series.[22][23][24][25] In 2017, he made a guest appearance on the Disney Channel show Bizaardvark[26][27] and co-hosted a special episode of the Disney XD show Walk the Prank alongside David Lopez.[28]
PERSONAL LIFE
Sanders was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida.[29] His great-grandfather on his mother's side was born in Ireland.[30] His great-grandmother was a Ziegfeld Follies girl, something Sanders called his "ancestral connection with stage".[31] Sanders' father is a teacher.[32] Sanders has three brothers named Patrick, Christian, and Shea. He started singing in public and took his first steps in acting in middle-school at Kanapaha Middle School, located in Gainesville, singing in several choruses and appearing in several school plays.[33] In his high-school, Buchholz, he started combining acting and singing by doing his first roles in musical plays.[34] Later, Sanders combined his studies at the University of Florida with community theater, joining the Gainesville Community Playhouse from 2006 until 2015. When he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering in 2011,[35][36] he subsequently combined his daytime job as a manufacturing engineer at a pharmaceutical development company in Alachua[37] with his night-time job in theater, until his success on Vine prompted him to leave that first job and focus on Vine and theater.[29] In June 2017, he publicly came out as gay.[38]
CAREER
VINE AND SANDERS SHORTS
Thomas Sanders made his debut on Vine as "Foster Dawg", named after his first dog, Foster,[39] on April 14, 2013. An impression of Stewie Griffin from Family Guy in a drive-thru was his first Vine to go viral, leading to continued success on the app.[29] He later rebranded his channel to "Thomas Sanders". His channel reached 1 million followers on Vine in October 2013.[29] His biggest success on Vine was the Narrating People's Lives series, also known as Storytime, where he approached random strangers, comically narrated everyday activities they were doing, and showed their reaction.[40][41] Other Vine series he is known for are Disney Pranks with Friends, Pokémon Pranks, Misleading Compliments, and Shoutout Sunday, among others.[10] By April 2015, Sanders' Vine account had over 5 million followers, which made Thomas Sanders the 17th most followed Viner at the time.[42]
When Twitter announced that it was closing Vine down at the end of 2016, Sanders announced that he would continue making Vines until the app's last day.[43] When Vine was shut down on January 17, 2017, Sanders had reached 8.3 million followers.[44] Since that date, his short videos, now known as the Sanders Shorts, are first released on his Instagram, where as of November 2018 he has 2.5 million followers.[45]
On February 24, 2015, Sanders appeared as a guest on The View in a segment featuring Vine stars, where he was interviewed about his popularity on Vine,[29] and one of his Vines was featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in their section Vine after Vine.[46] Sanders has collaborated with Viners such as Vincent Marcus,[47] Brandon Calvillo[48] and Amymarie Gaertner,[49] and featured cameos and appearances from figures such as Sean Bean,[50] Nicolle Wallace,[51] Stacy London,[52] Nick Pitera (with whom he did a series of Vines, Unexpected Duets),[53] Brizzy Voices,[53] Gabbie Hanna,[54] Tara Strong,[55] E. G. Daily,[56] Jim Cummings,[57] Dan and Phil,[58] Adam Pascal[59] and the main actors from Hamilton, Teen Titans Go! and Steven Universe,[60] among others.
YOUTUBE
Sanders opened his official YouTube account on March 15, 2009.[61] After amassing a following through Vine, he started publishing more frequently through YouTube. He had his first YouTube collaborations throughout 2015, consisting of pranks, games and challenges. Up until 2014, his subscriber count grew at a lower rate, with around 80,000 subscribers at the end of that year.[62] From that date, his user count growth started progressively accelerating, having 200,000 subscribers by April 2015[63] and more than 700,000 subscribers at the end of 2015.[64]
From the second half of 2016, at the same time his Vine activity slowed following Twitter's announcement of Vine's forthcoming closedown, Sanders announced he would be focusing on his YouTube content from then on in order to create more diversely formatted content. As of July 2023, his channel has 4.02 million subscribers.[65]
On October 29, 2018, he debuted a second YouTube channel called "Thomas Sanders & Friends", which would be dedicated to the monthly Sanders Shorts compilations and the unscripted, guest-oriented shows he had done previously on his main channel. The main channel would thereafter be dedicated exclusively to scripted series and shows as well as his music videoclips.[66] His second channel had 396,000 subscribers as of August 2021.[67] In November 2021, Sanders published the last content in this second channel, which has since been quietly discontinued, with its kind of content being brought back to the first channel ever since.
SANDERS SIDES
Sanders Sides Series logo since September 1, 2017.
Since October 19, 2016, Thomas Sanders has run a YouTube web series called Sanders Sides, formerly co-written with Joan S.,[68] in which he discusses personal or existential issues with four main characters, collectively known as the titular "Sanders Sides". Sanders Sides consists of two seasons with a total of 33 episodes as of January 2024, released on a variable periodicity. Season 1 has 17 episodes released from October 19, 2016, to July 19, 2017. Season 2 began on September 1, 2017, and as of January 2024, it has 15 episodes.[69] It is a spin-off from the Vine/Sanders Shorts series, as the characters Patton, Roman and Logan are inspired by characters that had previously debuted on Vine in 2014, as the "Dad Guy", the "Prince Guy", and the "Teacher Guy," respectively. The Sanders Sides are usually all portrayed by Sanders himself. Sanders Sides has featured guest stars such as Lilly Singh[70] or Butch Hartman who, apart from appearing as himself, created an animated sequence exclusively for Sanders Sides. Tara Strong, who had already appeared in several Vines and Sanders Shorts, also made a voice cameo in Hartman's episode.[71] On November 22, 2019, a companion series titled Sanders Asides was premiered, featuring the Sides in lighter stories in shorter episodes designed, in Sanders' words, to feature stories not directly linked to the main narrative.[72]
The Sanders Sides are "physical-mental projections" of Thomas' mind,[73] and represent different aspects of Thomas'[Note 1] personality. Thomas usually starts each episode as an ordinary vlog about a certain topic or dilemma. The series is mostly comedic, with some more dramatic elements and several ongoing plots.
THEATER
Apart from his Internet-based career, Sanders has worked in musical theater at the Gainesville Community Playhouse[29] for productions including Hot Mikado (2007),[74] Singin' in the Rain (2009),[75][76] The Producers (2010),[77] Anything Goes (2011),[78] Into the Woods (2014),[36] and Les Misérables (2014).[79] In 2015, Sanders did his first professional theater work starring in Heathers: The Musical as J.D. in a production performed in Orlando.[80] From August 8 to September 2, 2016, Sanders went on a stage musical tour, Ultimate Storytime, written by him with songs composed by Jacob Fjeldheim, and based on his Vine series Narrating People's Lives, performing in 17 cities in the US and Canada, including Toronto and New York City.[22][23][24][25] In 2019, Sanders was cast as the understudy for The Beast in Beauty and the Beast[citation needed] In 2022, he joined Heathers The Musical in Concert, a benefit concert reunion of the 2015 Orlando cast of Heathers: The Musical, portraying again J.D., which earned him a nomination to Best Performer in a Musical in the 2022 BroadwayWorld Orlando Awards, as well as another nomination together with the rest of the cast to Best Ensemble Performance.[81]
MUSIC
Though critics often classified Sanders as a baritone,[82] he considers himself a bass singer.[83] He has sung primarily on Vine and YouTube. He has performed songs in a wide variety of genres but has personally showed a preference towards jazz music, mentioning Nat King Cole as one of his favorite singers.[84] He has musically collaborated with dodie, Jon Cozart, Ben J. Pierce, Deedee Magno Hall, Adam Pascal, and AJ Rafael. He released his first EP, titled Merry Christmas, on Bandcamp on December 21, 2013; the EP consisted of Christmas songs.[16][17] In 2016, he released the soundtrack of his Ultimate Storytime stage musical, recorded alongside his co-stars, Terrence Williams Jr., Nicole Visco, Jay Harper (also known as JayIsJo) and Leo Anderson (also known as Leo the Giant).[18] On July 22, 2017, Sanders released on YouTube a new original song titled "The Things We Used to Share",[85] inspired by real events in Sanders' life.[19] It was followed by more singles in 2018 and the announcement of a new EP.[86]
We were thrilled to welcome University of Florida's Tennis Great, Qavia Lopez to the Camellia Rose Inn this week! Qavia is one of our StayGainesville R.E.P. Program members and earns discounts for her herself, family and friends at our properties. We want to honor our Gainesville greats by partnering with them so that their family members can stay in the best properties in Gainesville. No more cookie-cutter hotels for our UF athletes. We offer 2 beautiful Inns in downtown Gainesville, as well as homes and condos near UF Campus. StayGainesville and Camellia Rose Inn owners, Susannah Peddie, had the pleasure of personally welcoming Qavia to the Inn on Monday night. We were thrilled to welcome her! Qavia's comments after her stay: "The Inn was great! It was very homey, and the breakfast was amazing. Thank you so much for the hospitality!" Thank YOU, Qavia, so much for staying with us! Learn all about UF's talented Qavia (Source: https://floridagators.com/sports/womens-tennis/roster/qavia-lopez/16283 ): Top-ranked recruit in the nation for 2023 women's tennis class Babola No.1 recruit in the nation Earned five-star and blue-chip honors Holds a No. 19 career best international tennis federation ranking Reached the semi-finals of the 2022 J1 Nottingham, JB1 Indian Wells, and JA Criciuma tournaments Participated in the 2022 Wimbledon Junior Championships and 2022 Junior Australian Open In doubles competition she has claimed four titles, winning the 2022 JB1 Indian Wells title, 2021 JB1 Nicholasville and JB1 San Diego titles and 2020 J3 Lousada title Follow Qavia on InstaGram: https://www.instagram.com/qavia.lopez/?hl=en Learn more about our REP Program Gator athletes are welcome to apply using the form on the StayGainesville REP Program information page . StayGainesville Launches StayGainesville REP Program: Rewarding Support for University of Florida Athletes GAINESVILLE, FL (April 22, 2024): Today, StayGainesville, a leading provider of temporary housing solutions in Gainesville, Florida, announces the launch of the StayGainesville REP (Refer, Earn, Post) Program. This innovative program aims to support University of Florida (UF) student-athletes and their families visiting Gainesville for athletic events. Student Athlete Program (staygainesville.com). Understanding the Needs of Student-Athletes: StayGainesville recognizes the unique challenges faced by UF student-athletes and their families. During busy athletic seasons, families may need comfortable and convenient housing for short-term stays. StayGainesville offers a wide range of accommodation types from large family homes to quaint bedrooms in our StayGainesville Inn properties, The Laurel Oak Inn and the Camellia Rose Inn. StayGainesville offers a wide range of fully-furnished rental properties, strategically located near UF's athletic facilities. Their rentals provide a comfortable and convenient home away from home, equipped with amenities to ensure a relaxing stay. The StayGainesville REP Program: The StayGainesville REP Program provides a win-win situation for UF student-athletes and their families. Here's how it works: UF student-athletes: Athletes can easily refer their families and fans to StayGainesville for temporary housing needs while earning monetary rewards based on number of nights stayed and promotion of StayGainesville on their social media accounts. Families: Families receive a significant discount on their stay at any StayGainesville rental property. This discount ensures comfortable and convenient housing at an affordable price. Become a StayGainesville Ambassador: For Athletes looking to earn higher rewards and show their support for local Gainesville businesses, StayGainesville has a Student Ambassador program that entails participating in local events supporting the thriving Gainesville community. Ambassadors will also have access to the catalog of StayGainesville Experience partnerships offering discounts on local goods and services usually reserved for Guests at a StayGainesville property. A Commitment to Supporting UF's Finest: "We are thrilled to launch the StayGainesville REP Program," says CEO, Susannah Peddie. "UF student-athletes dedicate themselves to excellence, and we want to ensure their families have a comfortable and supportive environment during visits. This program allows us to give back to the UF community and athletes while providing exceptional housing solutions." Contact: Susannah Peddie, CEO StayGainesville info@staygainesville.com www.staygainesville.com
Cultivating Creativity: A Journey Through the Gainesville Fine Arts Association Website: https://www.gainesvillefinearts.org/ Address: 1314 S Main Street in Gainesville, Florida Founded in 1923, the GFAA boasts a rich history as a champion of the arts, nurturing local talent and fostering a love for creativity within the Gainesville community. More Than Just an Art Gallery: A Hub for Artistic Exploration Step inside the stately, red-bricked GFAA building, and you'll be greeted by a welcoming atmosphere that pulsates with artistic energy. While the GFAA Gallery showcases captivating exhibitions featuring both established and emerging artists, the organization's mission extends far beyond displaying art. It's a vibrant hub for artistic exploration, offering a diverse range of programs and services that cater to all ages and skill levels. A Gallery that Speaks Volumes: Diverse Exhibitions Throughout the Year The GFAA Gallery is a dynamic platform for artistic expression. Throughout the year, it hosts a curated selection of exhibitions that showcase a variety of mediums and artistic styles. From thought-provoking contemporary pieces to captivating photography exhibits, the gallery offers something to ignite the imagination of every visitor. Nurturing Artistic Seedlings: The GFAA's Renowned Education Programs One of the cornerstones of the GFAA is its unwavering commitment to art education. The organization offers a comprehensive curriculum of classes and workshops for all ages and artistic backgrounds. Whether you're a child yearning to explore the world of painting or an adult seeking to refine your pottery skills, the GFAA has a program designed to help you unlock your creative potential. Experienced instructors guide students through various artistic disciplines, fostering a love for learning and a supportive environment for artistic exploration. A Celebration of Local Talent: The Annual Student Juried Exhibition A highlight of the GFAA's educational efforts is the annual Student Juried Exhibition. This prestigious event showcases the exceptional work of students enrolled in the GFAA's art classes. The exhibition provides a platform for aspiring artists to gain valuable recognition, compete for scholarships, and see their work displayed in a professional setting. It's a testament to the GFAA's dedication to nurturing the next generation of artistic talent in Gainesville. Beyond the Classroom Walls: Fostering a Creative Community The GFAA's commitment to fostering a vibrant arts community extends beyond its walls. The organization hosts a variety of events throughout the year, including artist talks, gallery receptions, and community art walks. These events provide opportunities for artists to connect with the public, share their creative journeys, and inspire others. A Legacy of Impact: The GFAA's Enduring Influence on Gainesville For over 70 years, the GFAA has played a pivotal role in shaping Gainesville's cultural landscape. It has nurtured countless local artists, providing them with a platform to showcase their work, hone their skills, and connect with a supportive community. The GFAA's educational programs have instilled a love for art in generations of Gainesville residents, enriching their lives and fostering a deeper appreciation for creativity. More Than Just Art Classes: A Space for Artistic Connection Visiting the GFAA isn't just about admiring art or taking a class; it's about connecting with the vibrant artistic spirit of Gainesville. The GFAA fosters a welcoming environment where people of all ages and backgrounds can come together to celebrate art, learn new skills, and share their passion for creativity. Whether you're browsing the gallery exhibits, participating in a workshop, or simply attending an artist talk, you'll be surrounded by a community that values artistic expression. A Destination for Everyone: Why You Should Visit the Gainesville Fine Arts Association The GFAA offers something for everyone, making it a must-visit destination for anyone interested in art in Gainesville. Here are just a few reasons why: Experience Diverse Exhibitions: Immerse yourself in a variety of artistic styles and mediums throughout the year, from thought-provoking contemporary pieces to captivating photography exhibits. Discover Your Inner Artist: Explore your creativity through the GFAA's comprehensive art education programs, with classes and workshops catering to all ages and skill levels. Support Local Talent: Witness the exceptional work of emerging artists at the annual Student Juried Exhibition and contribute to Gainesville's thriving arts scene. Connect with the Artistic Community: Attend artist talks, gallery receptions, and community art walks to engage with local artists and fellow art enthusiasts. Spark a Lifelong Love of Art: Whether you're an aspiring artist or simply appreciate beauty, the GFAA offers a welcoming space to explore your creativity and deepen your appreciation for the arts. Planning Your Visit to the Gainesville Fine Arts Association The Gainesville Fine Arts Association is located at 131 4 S Main Street in Gainesville, Florida. It's open Tuesday through Friday from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM and on Saturday from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Before you visit, check out their website (https://www.gainesvillefinearts.org/) for upcoming exhibitions, class schedules, and special events. You can also follow them on social media for a sneak peek at the current exhibits and a glimpse into the vibrant artistic community they cultivate. A Look to the Future: The GFAA's Continued Commitment to Creativity The Gainesville Fine Arts Association's story is far from over. As the organization embarks on its next chapter, it remains dedicated to its core mission – fostering a love for the arts and nurturing artistic talent in Gainesville. With innovative programming, a dedication to inclusivity, and an unwavering passion for creativity, the GFAA is poised to continue its legacy as a cornerstone of Gainesville's cultural scene for years to come. So, next time you find yourself in Gainesville, take a detour from the well-trodden paths and explore the Gainesville Fine Arts Association. You might just discover your inner artist, witness the burgeoning talent of local creators, or simply be inspired by the sheer power of artistic expression. The GFAA is more than just an art gallery; it's a vibrant hub of creativity, a testament to the enduring power of art in enriching lives and shaping communities. Looking for a place to stay while visiting the local Gainesville attractions? Look no further than Gainesville's locally owned vacation rental company, StayGainesville . Book directly on our site, or call us at 352-519-3994 for guidance. For homes and condos, StayGainesville has many options- large and small/ budget and luxury, and more. For a shorter stay, we have 2 beautiful historic Inns in downtown Gainesville. The Camellia Rose Inn and The Laurel Oak Inn - both have unique personalities and they both feel like a home away from home. Looking for more things to do in Gainesville? Visit our Things to Do link.
