Thomas Winslow

Anthony Cooper Hanaran (born April 27, 1997) is a Sierran rapper, singer-songwriter, actor, and author. He is known by various stage names including Thomas Winslow, Aux Thomas, Lil Coop, and Cooperella. He first gained mainstream recognition after his single The Shades went gold in 2015, with over 40 million views on the official YouTube upload, and 640,000 sales on iTunes. His Soundcloud channel has over 100 million views total.

In 2017 Hanaran released ten singles, five of which spent a cumulative 20 weeks on the Sierran Hot 100; Mental Litness in particular remained in the top ten of the Hot 100 for six weeks. His first album, to be entitled The Thomas Auxiliary Experience, was announced in 2017 and is slated to be released on February 9, 2018. It will consist of mostly new songs with some self-remixes of The Shades and Post-Discopocalypse.

In addition to music, Hanaran also produces comedy videos ranging from reaction videos to sketches on his YouTube channel CooperellaTV, which as of 2018, has 4.5 million subscribers. His most viewed video, entitled "ROOST NATION UNITE" has over 100 million views and has spawned various internet memes, notably "roosting".

Hanaran is politically active and supports what he refers to as 'alt-politics.' He expresses support generally for right-wing parties but rejects any sort of label. He is supportive of the current Prime Minister Nemesis Heartwell but has also voiced support for Social Democrat leader Susan Kwon. He also endorses various fourth party candidates with little name recognition. He attracted controversy in 2018 for statements he made which some have interpreted as him supporting flat Earth beliefs; "I think the hate for non-mainstream views is out of hand. [To] anyone who thinks the Earth is round: have you ever seen it yourself?" he said. He later clarified he does not believe the Earth is flat but "understands" flat Earth arguments. He says he believes in several conspiracy theories and is interested in extraterrestrialism.

Early life
Anthony Cooper Hanaran was born on April 27, 1997 in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, to Sierrans Louise (neé Finnit) and Vincent Hanaran. His father worked as a cultural exchange and foreign outreach executive for the electronics company Samdale. Not wanting to be away from his family, he moved them to Japan for the duration of an extended project he was involved with. Hanaran's mother mostly stayed at home but was able to get part-time work as a secretary after Hanaran's father taught her Japanese. Hanaran lived in Japan for much of his childhood but did not attend Japanese public schools and was instead educated by Sierran tutors both within the country and overseas via long-distance mail and later, internet. His family moved back to Sierra shortly after he turned eight years old and they settled in Riverside, Inland Empire. After enrolling in public school in Riverside, Hanaran said his time in Japan made him "super cool" and he was able to make friends easily; "They loved I could speak Japanese. I was the only kid who didn't need subtitles or dubs to watch anime."

Beginnings (2013-2014)
After moving to Riverside, Hanaran took interest in the local hip hop scene and began creating his own tracks. Through hip hop he also discovered electronic dance music and other disco-influenced genres. In 2013, his first track was published on a music forum Hanaran frequented and was untitled. It received little attention and has since been deleted but Hanaran has said it was a critical moment in his development as an artist; "That was the first step. You know? When you take that first step into unknown territory. It sucks. But who cares? You did it. That's how I felt and it was amazing." After his first attempt, he refined his musical style and released another version of the track, this time titled I am Thomas, which was met with positive reception. This encouraged Hanaran further and he opened a Soundcloud account shortly after to publish his music on.