Stanzi Potenza

Stanzi Julianna Potenza (born October 17, 1995) is an American TikToker, actress, comedian, podcaster and YouTuber based in Boston. She is known for her comedy sketch series, including Civil War Love Saga and Heaven & Hell, produced for TikTok and YouTube, as well as co-hosting the podcast What Fresh Hell is This?.

Early life and education Potenza grew up in Massachusetts, moving around before settling in the town of Braintree, south of Boston. She is of Italian descent. Her parents divorced when she was five, after which her mother decided to pursue acting. At one audition, Potenza's mother brought her and two of her sisters to the theater due to a babysitter falling through; the theater subsequently became their "second home", and Potenza and her sisters became involved in acting from a young age. a performance in Bat Boy: The Musical, and appearing as an uncredited extra in the 2016 film The Finest Hours.

Potenza attended the University of Massachusetts Boston and studied theatre. While there, she was awarded the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in 2017. By January 2021, she had acquired 565,000 followers, becoming a full-time content creator and joining the TikTok Creator Fund. Other skits have depicted a PSA on "mansplaining", the slam poetry-inspired "Tinder Bros", "Rich Moms Brunch", and a 911 operator mocking a subpar criminal.

YouTube and other content In February 2021, at the urging of fellow creator Hassan Khadair, Potenza began crossposting her TikTok videos to YouTube via the platform's YouTube Shorts service.

Potenza has also dabbled in music, releasing covers of Radiohead's "Creep" and Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" as singles in 2022.

What Fresh Hell is This? Since January 2022, Potenza has seen success with the podcast What Fresh Hell is This?, affiliated with the Pod People network, where she presents original sketches and humorous observations.

Personal life Potenza is bisexual. She previously identified as non-binary however, in 2026, she clarified via Threads that she does not consider herself non-binary and now only uses she/her pronouns. She has expressed her hope that fans of her content "feel like it's okay to be unapologetically yourself. Sometimes people comment on my videos and say, 'I wish I could say this,' or, 'This is what I wish I could be.' Be that person! Live your life for yourself. I wouldn't be where I am now if I was thinking about what everyone else thought of me." She later discussed the diagnosis on an episode of her podcast. Additionally, Potenza suffers from right temporal lobe epilepsy and experiences tonic–clonic seizures. She also suffers from insomnia.

She has been "slightly obsessed" with sharks since childhood and was once featured by the Discovery Channel's Shark Week as a "Shark Week super fan".