Taryn Southern

Early life

Southern grew up in Wichita, Kansas in an Italian family and landed her first starring role in a pre-broadway theatrical production at the age of 10. As a teenager, she co-hosted a regional talk show for WB Kansas that addressed controversial teen issues like sex and drugs. She graduated from Wichita East High School in 2003.

At 20, Southern graduated from the University of Miami, earning a B.S. in Anthropology and a B.A. in Journalism. While in school she competed in American Idol and received a grant to travel to Peru to study the shamanic use of ayahuasca among rainforest communities.

Career

Southern is an internet personality and digital media advisor. Her YouTube channel, TarynSouthern, is updated weekly with musical and comedic content.

In 2004, at 17, she appeared on third season of American Idol, making it to Hollywood week and the Top 50.

After graduating from college, Southern worked briefly at NBC and Morgan Stanley in Miami before moving to Los Angeles in 2006. She sold and produced a travel show, Project MyWorld, for DirecTV, which followed her and two friends as they traveled the world and met their MySpace friends.

On July 2, 2007, she released a comedic YouTube video called Hott4Hill in support of the presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton. The video, which she wrote and performed, shows her singing and dancing in a jokingly suggestive manner about her personal admiration of Clinton and how much she would like to see Clinton win the election. That same year, Southern starred in the first WB online series, Sorority Forever, alongside best friend and lonelygirl15 star Jessica Rose.

In November 2008, Southern and Jessica Rose launched Webutantes, a new media studio. Also in 2008, Southern wrote/produced her first comedic musical web series, Private High Musical, which was released across various media platforms, and which was later sold to MTV as a half-hour comedy pilot, with David Zuckerman (Family Guy) as co-writer/executive producer.

In 2009, she starred with Scott Baio in DJ Lubel's video, "Wrong Hole", humorously retelling the story of an inadvertent adventure.

In 2010, she had a recurring role in the 5th season of the CBS comedy series Rules of Engagement, as well as a part in the movie Battle: Los Angeles as a reporter.

Also in 2010, she released the first video, "Keep it in Your Pants," off her 2012 comedy album, On My Face, on YouTube. The album reached #20 on the iTunes comedy chart. Since then, Southern has released more than 30 different songs and an 80's inspired album, Flashback Friday.

In the fall of 2011, Southern hosted the pre-show for the US version of The X Factor. She also provided voice over for the character Judy on the Fred animated series on YouTube.

In 2012, she appeared as a guest star on New Girl, American Dad!, The League, and Guys with Kids. Southern also launched her YouTube channel in 2012 by releasing one video per week. As of 2015, she has more than 400,000 subscribers.

During Shark Week 2013 on Discovery Channel, Southern was the social media co-host on Shark After Dark Live, which earned the #1 ratings spot in their time slot all week.

In 2013, she released the song Crush, which made it to the Top 100 in radio play in August.

In 2014, Southern's YouTube Channel was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at #52.

Southern began hosting the 2000s and Today Countdown on The Pulse in May 2015. She is currently working with Marriott on a myriad of digital initiatives and recently Maker Studios announced that they would be launching a late night talk show with Southern as the host.

Discography