They've shown millions of kids around the world how to be ninjas, gangsters and nerds with their "instructional videos."

It's not serious, of course. It never is.

Wanna be a UFC fighter? Hilo teens Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi will show you how (kind of), and they even mix in a guest appearance from fellow Big Island resident BJ Penn, who uses them as human punching bags for demonstrations. Wanna be a gangster? "Nigahiga," as the YouTube world better knows Higa and Fujiyoshi, show you how to: loiter next to a "no loiter" sign; talk like a gangster (but they bleep out all cuss words); and ignore signs like "Don't Touch" (by tapping a ball under the sign) and "Don't Drink and Drive" by (getting behind the wheel with a juice box in hand).

What could be next for the G-rated rebels, running with rubber-tipped scissors?

Here's the wild part: It works. Nigahiga videos draw viewers like Miley Cyrus draws paparazzi.

They have so much fun beating each other up on video (mostly from their parents' Hilo homes, where a white wall and closet door serve as the backdrop), that they have unintentionally changed the digital media world. They are the first and only YouTubers to score a big-screen, three-movie contract, making the two local teens the poster children for today's new wave of interactive entertainment: Make it yourself, put it on YouTube and watch it go viral beyond your wildest dreams.

They even have their own www.Wikipedia.org entry.

Since its YouTube release in November 2007, "How to be a Gangster" has received nearly 22 million hits and 90,000 viewer comments. Another video, "How to be Emo," got another 19 million hits. Bootleg copies of both remain on YouTube, although both originals were removed from the site on Christmas Eve because they included copyrighted music, now a no-no.

"YouTube just started cracking down on that," Higa said. "That was my Christmas gift from them. They even took away the 40 million hits those videos received or we'd be the No. 1 comic team on YouTube right now. All it means is we have to make our own music. We didn't know about that when we started out."

According to YouTube statistics, Nigahiga is now the No. 3-ranked YouTube comedians of all time and have more than 750,000 YouTube subscribers who are alerted each time they release a video. They're also YouTube partners, meaning videos with original music will sometimes have banner ads scrolling across the bottom and Nigahiga gets paid for each video hit. As for how much they get paid, Higa would only say, "It's pretty good."

Their first big-screen movie, "Ryan and Sean's Not So Excellent Adventure," had a limited release in theaters late last year and was released on DVD on Dec. 15. Five premieres were held on O'ahu, the Big Island and in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was also shown in New York. Movie No. 2 is in the works, their independent movie producer Derek Zemrak said, and No. 3 will follow shortly.

Teens and 'tweens, mostly girls, swarmed Higa and Fujiyoshi at these premieres as if they were the Jonas Brothers.

"It was really, really crazy, especially in San Francisco," Fujiyoshi said, laughing.

It's going to get crazier, too. They were contacted in late December by "The Tyra Banks Show" and are awaiting word as to when they'll share their YouTube-to-big-screen story on the show.

It's crazy. One minute Ryan and Sean are practicing judo and filming stunts to show their family; the next, they're posting "How to to be a Ninja" and — presto! — they're instant YouTube celebs.

" 'Ninja' was the first video, and we only did it because we were bored," Higa said. "After we posted, I bet we didn't go back to YouTube for a month. When we finally did go back it was like, 'Whoa! Ten thousand hits? Huh?' It all just spread word of mouth ... fast."

Zemrak's 10-year-old son Ryan was one of the kids who came across Nigahiga. Since he needed permission to view videos, dad tuned in with him. As they watched and laughed from their San Francisco home, Zemrak picked up the phone and called his producing partner.

"I told him if we don't make a movie with them, someone else will," Zemrak said. "I had to go to MySpace to contact them, but we ended up talking with their parents and worked out a three-movie deal within a few days.

"They are trailblazers. What they've done has never been done before. They showed it can happen. They do clean, physical comedy that makes them the Laurel and Hardy of their generation."

The only thing that has slowed production for the duo is life. Higa, 18, left Hilo last fall to attend the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Though he first wanted to major in nuclear medicine, his YouTube success has him switching gears and he's taking film and acting classes. Fujiyoshi, 17, is a senior at Waiakea High School and competes for the wrestling team where, he said, opponents sometimes approach him before and after matches and say, "You're that YouTube guy."

Recently, the duo took some time off of shooting and school to answer a few questions:

Q. Ryan, in one video you introduced a "new" white Sean. What's up with that?

RH: (Laughing) I left to go to college at UNLV and everyone was asking where Sean was in some of the videos, so I grabbed my dorm roommate and asked him to fill in. It was just an excuse to have some fun. Since me and Sean are both Asian, I joked that I was changing because we need to balance our yellow-to-white ratio. My roommate didn't know about the YouTube stuff when I moved in and had never seen our videos. It was a few months before I even asked him to be in the video. When I showed it to him, and he saw how many hits it was getting, he was kind of stunned.

Q. How was it different shooting a movie compared to a YouTube video?

RH: When we make one on our own, it's harder and easier. By ourselves, we can be silly and do what we want. But professionally, you have a script to read off of and you have to stay within your character. The only good thing is we don't have to edit it. It takes a long time to edit.

SF: It's very different. With movies, you have staffers and light people shining lights in your eyes and a bunch of makeup on you. It feels weird, but you get used to it. You want to scratch, but you're afraid to touch the makeup and mess it up. On YouTube, we edit and that takes a long time, so it was nice not having to do that. They did show us a rough cut and when we'd say, "This piece may be too long," they'd cut it. It came out close to how we wanted.

Q. You didn't write your own script?

RH: Derek's brother wrote it, and we spent time going over it to make it sound like what we'd say. It took us two full weeks of constant filming. With YouTube, a video can take anywhere from two to 12 hours.

SF: They told us that if it didn't sound like us to improvise.

Q. Is there money in YouTube videos?

RH: We pretty much do it for fun, but we only recently found out about the YouTube partnership, where they put ads on your movies and promote your videos and you can get paid. You can't have copyrighted music and things like that, so now we're making our beats and doing our own raps. Neither one of us can sing, so we stick to raps. Unfortunately, with our early videos with a lot of hits, they don't have advertising. But you can make money on them. Yes.

Q. Your fan base seems to be young girls. What's the craziest request you've had?

SF: Wow. They come from all over the world, even places I've never heard of. I've gotten letters from Australia, Tokyo, New Zealand and even Iran. The weirdest are "I love you. Will you be my boyfriend?"

RH: I've had 14-year-old girls ask to marry me, but I hope they're joking. We got one from the Caribbean, and the guy wanted to come to Hilo to live. He actually did come and we met with him, so that was pretty cool. I'm amazed when I look at where the most views come from: Canada, Australia, Japan and China. We do our videos in English, and some of these places don't speak our language, so I'm like, "Why watch it?" It's interesting.

Q. Besides your sequels, what do you watch and what does the future hold?

SF: I don't watch anything right now. I'm too busy focusing on school and sports. Next year, I want to study engineering somewhere on the West Coast.

RH: I watch a lot of YouTube because my cable sucks. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a YouTube Live event in San Francisco and got to meet some of the others who have big fan bases. There's one guy, Kev Jumba, who was big before we were, and for some reason our fan bases hate each other. He's a real cool guy and we started talking about doing a video together soon to end the hatred. There are a lot of haters out there. I don't understand it, but I'd love to do a video with him and end it.