Colleen Ballinger

Early life; acting and music career

Ballinger was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, the daughter of Tim Ballinger, a sales manager, and his wife Gwen, a homemaker. Ballinger attended San Marcos High School and graduated in 2008 from Azusa Pacific University, where she majored in vocal performance. She has two older brothers, Christopher and Trent, and a younger sister, Rachel.

From 2007 to 2009, Ballinger performed for Disney in California, gave private voice, movement coaching and piano lessons to children, and performed at parties and cabaret spaces. In 2009, she played Kelsi Nielsen in High School Musical at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre in Claremont, California. Ballinger appears on the 2010 album More With Every Line, by songwriter Tim Prottey-Jones, and the 2011 album Self Taught, Still Learning by Chris Passey. She played Lynda Bird Johnson in a staged reading of First Kids in New York in June 2011, and in October 2011 she created the role of Circe in the American Theatre of Actors Off-Broadway production Odyssey – The Epic Musical.

In 2012, Ballinger was featured as nurse Royal in the web series Dr. Fubalous. She also gave a talk at the Boston Children's Theatre about how to use social media to promote yourself as a performer. In 2013, she starred in the episode "Under the Bed" in the web series The Flipside and as Amara in episode 9 of season 2 of the web series Hipsterhood. She appears as Meg on the Volume 12 DVD of Family Guy in the live-action version of the show's introduction. Also in 2013, she was featured on the MTV True Life episode "I'm Famous Online". In 2014, she appeared in the episode "Wedding Plans!" on the web series MyMusic. In July 2015, Ballinger and singer/Youtuber Joshua David Evans wed in California, and their wedding video accumulated more than 13 million views. In September 2016, the couple announced their divorce.

Ballinger was a guest co-host on The View in January 2015. In February 2015, Ballinger was interviewed on the podcast RuPaul: What's the Tee? with Michelle Visage. In May, she starred in a Todrick Hall video, "Beauty and the Beat Boots". and appeared in the Season 2 finale of the Condé Nast Entertainment webseries #HeyUSA, with host Mamrie Hart. In June and July, both as herself and as Miranda, Ballinger starred in a six-episode beauty series parody, called How to Makeup, on the I Love Makeup YouTube channel operated by Collective Digital Studio. In this show, "Colleen has fantastically found a way for guys to become interested in a makeup show that isn’t called 'Naked Ladies Wear Makeup While Kissing Each Other and Boobies and Stuff' ... there’s a plot to this makeup show". In July 2015, Re/code featured Ballinger to exemplify "an emerging economy" of internet content providers. She is featured on the track "Clouds" in Flula Borg's 2015 EP, I Want to Touch You.

Ballinger appeared in a series of 2016 DiGiorno pizza commercials.

Comedy act and online success

In 2009, Ballinger began to make a living by performing her live one-woman comedy act in character as Miranda. She arranged her own appearances and publicity for the first nine months but soon decided that she needed a professional manager. She moved to New York City in 2010 to follow performing opportunities, but returned to the West coast in 2012 when she realized that, to maximize her YouTube audience, she needed to collaborate with the community of YouTubers based in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, she says that she gets the most satisfaction from her live performances. In addition to her ongoing Miranda tours, Ballinger and Evans presented several music and comedy shows in December 2015 in California, and in January 2016 they gave an 11-performance US tour billed as "The Colleen & Josh Show".

Ballinger displays more than 1,000 videos to her YouTube channels. Her personal channel, PsychoSoprano, features comedy, question and answer videos, and Ballinger discussing culture and current topics or vlogging daily or holiday activities with her family, friends (including Ariana Grande and GloZell Green) and YouTube colleagues. The channel is "highly recommended" by Emertainment Monthly. As of January 2017, it had received more than 800 million views and accumulated more than 4.8 million subscribers. Her Miranda Sings channel has surpassed 1.2 billion views and 7 million subscribers. A third channel, Colleen Vlogs, with more than 1 million subscribers, chronicles some of her experiences on tour and at home. In 2014, Backstage magazine identified Ballinger as a performer who has "taken great advantage of producing their own content [online] and gathering large fan bases to promote their work." To promote her videos and shows, Ballinger is active on social media, with Instagram followings of more than 6 million for Miranda and 4 million for Ballinger, Twitter followings of more than 2.4 million for Miranda and 1.4 million for Ballinger, and more than 1.8 million page likes on the Miranda Sings Facebook page. BuzzFeed called Miranda "The Queen of Twitter".

Ballinger has been able to turn the popularity of her videos into income from a percentage of advertising fees or occasionally fixed sponsorship fees. She told the Wall Street Journal: "I have to do things like torture myself to keep people watching" her YouTube videos. To this end, she made a popular cinnamon challenge video in character as Miranda, Until March 2013, Ballinger' YouTube audience was modest, but in that month, her Miranda Sings channel's audience reached 150,000 subscribers, and both of her YouTube channels began to expand far more rapidly. Ballinger offers merchandise on her mirandasings.com website, and some of the videos contain brand endorsements. For example, a 2016 video, "Sexy Buttery Love Song" promoted Jack in the Box restaurants. In 2016, Forbes magazine ranked Ballinger as the ninth highest-earning YouTuber.

YouTube videos

Since January 2008, Ballinger has posted more than 400 videos as her comically talentless and quirky character, Miranda Sings, primarily on the YouTube channel Miranda Sings. The character is a satire of the many YouTube videos featuring bad, but egotistical, performers who film themselves singing as a form of self-promotion, despite receiving the realistic or cruel comments of "haters". "Miranda" is supposedly a home-schooled young woman who still lives with her mother and uncle; she is eccentric and infantilized, narcissistically believes that she was born famous, and is obsessed with show business fame.

In the videos, Miranda sings in a comically off-key, yet plausible, voice and covers mostly pop music hits, rants about internet haters, gives "tutorials", and sometimes discusses the character's backstory or current events, which she usually misunderstands. She uses spoonerisms and malapropisms, is irritable, ludicrously self-absorbed and self-righteous, socially awkward, and has a defiant, arrogant attitude. She responds to viewers who take the videos seriously and offer criticism with the catchphrase, "Haters back off!", telling these critics that "haters make me famous". The character displays unusually active eyebrows and a crooked smile, her head is cocked to one side, and she has pronunciation quirks. She wears bright red lipstick drawn beyond the borders of her lips, dresses in mismatched out-of-style clothing, and often dances stiffly to the music she is performing. Her views of society and morality are politically incorrect, and she displays a strong aversion to anything risque, which she calls "porn". From 2010 to 2012, Ballinger posted 86 Miranda video blogs to a second Miranda YouTube channel, Mirandavlogz.

Ballinger based the character partly on young women that she knew in college. She told The Times of London, "There were a lot of cocky girls who thought they were really talented, and they ... were so rude and snotty.... Then I saw all these girls trying to make a career out of putting videos on YouTube [of themselves singing in their bedrooms] ... clueless to the fact that they were terrible." At first, the "Miranda videos were meant to be an inside joke" among Ballinger's friends. In March 2009, however, a Miranda video called "Free Voice Lesson" quickly became a sensation. The video consists of bad advice about singing technique. Miranda's videos drew predictably sharp criticism on YouTube, and as they became popular, Ballinger modified the character in response to the negative comments. She says: "I took what people hated and exaggerated it more in the next video." The online critics were so harsh that Miranda became a "hero of the anti-bullying movement".

Live comedy act

Since April 2009, Ballinger has performed a one-woman comedy act, as Miranda Sings, at first in cabaret spaces and later in theatres in New York, London, and other cities in the US, UK, Australia, Europe, Canada and elsewhere. BroadwayWorld.com called her "the hottest, freshest and oddest breakout star in the musical theatre/cabaret scene".

In the live comedy acts, Miranda sings pop hits and some musical theatre songs in her signature off-key style; gives "voice lessons" or "acting lessons" to Broadway or West End stars, such as Sutton Foster and Andrew Rannells, to assembled casts of Broadway shows, and to pop stars such as Ariana Grande, in which she is hypercritical of the stars' performances, telling them that they should leave show-business; indignantly reads hate mail that she has received; interacts with audience volunteers; and uses projected presentations containing terrible spelling. She includes a "magic trick" where she sings while appearing to be stabbed through the neck by a sword; she sings better when the sword is inserted through her neck.

In her 2014 "Selp Helf" tour, she instructed her (mostly young, female) audience on how to get a boyfriend by being more Miranda-like, "improvising [with volunteers] and creating punchlines on the spot. ... Ballinger, the genius behind Miranda, is so convincing in the role, you ... will likely forget that there is a normal person behind the red lips". One reviewer commented that the show "is no mere ... reproduction of her Internet channel. It is as theatrical as it is musical, comedic as it is inspirational." Another concurred: "Miranda [is] hilarious, and I was struck on several occasions by what an accomplished creation the character is. ... Bridging both personas, the moment she transforms into Miranda, on-stage and mid-song, is an absolute joy – I'd struggle to recall hearing an audience erupt to such an extent, and I couldn't help but join in." Ballinger gave Miranda shows in 57 cities in 2014. Her 2015 tours included a "Miranda 4 Precident" theme tour and a "Summer Camp" theme tour. Also in 2015, Miranda was a headliner at the Just for Laughs festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and released a film version of one of her stage shows on Vimeo, titled Miranda Sings: Selp Helf.

Ballinger returned for a second engagement as Miranda at the LaughFest festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2016, where a reviewer noted that the material "resonated with parents as well as the younger set." Among other appearances, she performed as Miranda at the Kennedy Center in April 2016. During the second half of 2016, she toured Miranda shows in the US, England, Ireland, Germany and Denmark, around her Haters Back Off production and promotion schedule. A 15-city tour is underway in early 2017, billed as "Miranda Sings Live ... You're Welcome".

Other Miranda appearances and activities

In 2009, Ballinger released a Christmas EP titled Christmas With Miranda Sings. Miranda has been featured in radio, television and internet interviews. Ballinger has also appeared or hosted as Miranda at award shows and given benefit concerts and workshops. Miranda sings two tracks in character on Passey's album Self Taught, Still Learning. In 2012, the character appeared in a comedy film, Varla Jean and the Mushroomheads, and in an episode of the television show Victorious, titled "Tori Goes Platinum", on the Nickelodeon channel. Miranda appeared in the first episode of Dance Chat, an Australian web show, in 2013. She also appeared in a 2014 back-to-school video for Old Navy that received more than 6 million views online.

Ballinger guest-starred as Miranda Sings in the season 5 episode, "Happy Thanksgiving Miranda", of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld, in November 2014. Seinfeld called Miranda "a very well-developed character ... just as funny to me as ... to my daughter, who is 13. ... [The episode is] one of the best shows of Comedians in Cars we’ve ever done." Mediaite agreed, writing: "In its fifth season, Jerry Seinfeld's web series continued to be one of the most enjoyable weekly events on the internet. His experience with YouTube star Miranda Sings, which carried its way onto the Tonight Show, was a particular highlight." An Uproxx review compared Ballinger to Andy Kaufman. In December 2014, Ballinger appeared as Miranda on The Tonight Show playing Pictionary with Jimmy Fallon, Martin Short and Jerry Seinfeld. Us Weekly called the segment "the most hilarious game night ever", Entertainment Weekly called it "riveting", and People magazine wrote: "It's the most wonderful trainwrecked game of Pictionary you'll see this holiday season".

In 2015, Ballinger appeared as Miranda on The Grace Helbig Show, together with Jim Parsons, and she released a book, Selp-Helf, published by Simon & Schuster, which calls it a "decidedly unhelpful, candid, hilarious 'how-to' guide". Written in Miranda's voice by Ballinger and her brother Christopher Ballinger, it is presented in mock-scrapbook format, with silly advice, photos and comically bad artwork. The book debuted at No. 1 on the Publishers Weekly Hardcover Non-Fiction best sellers list and The New York Times Best Seller list for Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous, and at No. 6 on USA Today's Best-Selling Books list. It remained on the Times' Best Seller list for Advice & Misc. for 11 weeks and was on their monthly Best Seller list for "Humor" for eleven months.

Ballinger appeared as a guest star, as Miranda, on the 2016 YouTube Red series Prank Academy. She co-writes, co-produces and stars as Miranda in the Netflix series, Haters Back Off. The series centers around Miranda's odd family life and depicts her start as a YouTuber. Miranda was featured on the cover of, and a feature article in, Variety about the show, in June 2016. The first 8-episode season of Haters Back Off was released globally in October 2016, and Ballinger appeared on The Tonight Show and Chelsea to promote it. Netflix has renewed the series for another 8-episode second season to be released in 2017.

Philanthropy

Since 2015, Ballinger has conducted an annual fundraiser to benefit childhood cancer, beginning on her birthday, November 21. Using her Psychosoprano YouTube channel and GoFundMe, she gives away personal items and Miranda merchandise and props, and draft scripts from Haters Back Off. In 2015, Ballinger donated all of the funds raised to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, while in 2016, she donated to individual families struggling with the costs and burdens of their children's cancer treatments.

Reception

Ballinger's YouTube videos have received a total of more than 2.1 billion views. In 2015, Miranda was ranked the 7th "most popular YouTube personality", by Daily American, and one of the "Top 25 Digital Stars", by The Hollywood Reporter. The Los Angeles Times wrote of her videos, "this footage is a major hoot". Perez Hilton praised Miranda's parody of the hit song "Chandelier" as "the crowning achievement of music video parodies ... utterly fantastic. ... [Ballinger] really has superb comedic timing." Initially, Miranda Sings enjoyed widespread popularity among musical theatre fans. Later, her fan base expanded particularly among teenagers. TV Guide commented: "Ironically, the character ... was created to satirize the very type of YouTube fame she's managed to cultivate."

The Times of London commented that although Ballinger's videos have gained her character notice, it "is not online but on stage that Miranda truly comes to ghastly life." A reviewer from the Irish Independent wrote: "There is an endearing sweetness to her performance. ... This bizarre and bonkers show is somehow strangely compelling". A 2013 reviewer concurred: "[O]nly a truly talented performer could make the Miranda character believable, let alone as endearing as she ends up being." AussieTheatre.com stated that Ballinger "creates the most successful parody of the world of YouTube ... she has created an international cult following". As the popularity of the character increased, Ballinger was able to book longer runs of her live Miranda act, at larger and larger venues, including the Best Buy Theater in New York City and, among many others, London's Cadogan Hall.

Ballinger's videos as herself have also gained attention: in 2015, her video "Reading Mean Comments" was praised by Cosmopolitan as "hilarious and pretty poignant". She has been praised for the example that she sets for her young fans: "While being outgoing and authentic, [Ballinger] has seized the opportunity to present positive values." In each of 2014, 2015 and 2016, Ballinger was nominated for one or more Teen Choice Awards, winning the award for "Web Star: Comedy" in 2015. She was nominated for three 2015 Streamy Awards, winning for best actress. Miranda was nominated for a 2015 People's Choice Award, a 2016 Shorty Award and two 2016 Streamy Awards.