In earlier times, comedians paid their dues by slogging through years of nightclub dates, the majority of them underwhelming, before the standup act became rock-tumbler polished and big audiences started showing up. Only then was the comedian considered ready for TV and movies. Eric D’Alessandro is the complete opposite. In some ways, he is the textbook 21^st century comic.

He began with a video camera, writing and performing short skits about his family and the other people in his Staten Island, N.Y. hometown. Because he’s a brilliant funny mimic, the world discovered him. Today, D’Alessandro has 450k Instagram followers, 124k on Facebook, and 655k on TikTok. Several of his YouTube videos have racked up 15m views. Yet this Italian-American viral sensation, who performs Friday at the Jaeb Theatre inside Tampa’s Straz Center, was a latecomer to standup comedy.