Colleen Evans

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Evans, in 2012

Colleen Evans (née Ballinger, born November 21, 1986) is an American comedian, actress, singer and YouTube personality. She is married to fellow YouTube personality and entertainer Joshua David Evans.

Evans is best known for her Internet character Miranda Sings, posting videos of the character on YouTube, and performing her one-woman comedy act on tour in theatres worldwide. She created the comically talentless, egotistical and quirky character to satirize the many YouTube videos featuring people singing badly, but who appear unaware of their lack of talent. In her videos and her stage act, the eccentric, narcissistic character sings and dances badly, discusses current events that she misunderstands, gives inept "tutorials", collaborates with other (apparently reluctant) YouTubers, and rants about her personal issues and her critics, whom she calls the "haters".

Evans also features comedy and lifestyle videos on her personal YouTube channel, PsychoSoprano, and another vlog channel, Colleen Vlogs. Her YouTube channels, combined, have surpassed 1.6 billion total views. In each of 2014 and 2015, Evans was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for "Web Star: Comedy", winning the award in 2015.[1] She was also nominated for three 2015 Streamy Awards, winning one.[2] The Hollywood Reporter selected her as one of its Top 25 Digital Stars.[3]

Evans has appeared as an actress and singer Off-Broadway, in regional theatre, on television and in web series, and has sung as a guest artist on albums. In 2014, she guest-starred as Miranda Sings on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld and appeared as Miranda on The Tonight Show. In 2015, Evans was a guest co-host on The View, appeared as Miranda on The Grace Helbig Show and released a best-selling book, written in Miranda's voice, Selp-Helf.[4] Evans and her husband toured together in the US in January 2016.[5] Evans is set to star as Miranda in a 2016 Netflix series, Haters Back Off.[6]

Biography

File:Trent, Rachel, Colleen and Chris Ballinger.jpg
All four Ballinger siblings, from left: Trent, Rachel, Colleen and Chris, in 2015

Early life; acting and music career

Evans was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, the daughter of Tim Ballinger, a sales manager, and his wife Gwen, a homemaker.[7] Evans attended San Marcos High School and graduated in 2008 from Azusa Pacific University, where she majored in vocal performance.[8] She has two older brothers, Christopher and Trent, and a younger sister, Rachel.[7][9]

From 2007 to 2009, Evans performed for Disney in California, gave private voice, movement coaching and piano lessons to children, and performed at parties and cabaret spaces.[10][11] In 2009, she played Kelsi Nielsen in High School Musical at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre in Claremont, California.[12] Evans appears (credited as Ballinger) on the 2010 album More With Every Line, by songwriter Tim Prottey-Jones,[13] and the 2011 album Self Taught, Still Learning by Chris Passey.[14] 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.[15]

In 2012, Evans (credited as Ballinger) was featured as nurse Royal in the web series Dr. Fubalous.[16] She also gave a talk at the Boston Children's Theatre about how to use social media to promote yourself as a performer.[17][18] In 2013, she starred in the episode "Under the Bed" in the web series The Flipside[19] and as Amara in episode 9 of season 2 of the web series Hipsterhood.[20] She appears as Meg on the Volume 12 DVD of Family Guy in the live-action version of the show's introduction.[21] Also in 2013, she was featured on the MTV True Life episode "I'm Famous Online".[22] In 2014, she appeared in the episode "Wedding Plans!" on the web series MyMusic.[23]

File:Joshua and Colleen Evans.jpg
Joshua and Colleen Evans

In 2014, Evans and singer/Youtuber Joshua David Evans[24] became engaged, and the video of his proposal has garnered more than 5 million views on YouTube.[25] Their relationship as a YouTube couple was featured in 2015 on Nightline.[26] They wed in California on July 2, 2015.[27][28] The couple's wedding video has accumulated more than 9 million views.[29]

Evans was a guest co-host on The View in January 2015.[30] In February 2015, Evans was interviewed on the podcast RuPaul: What's the Tee? with Michelle Visage.[31] In May, she starred in a Todrick Hall video, "Beauty and the Beat Boots".[32] and appeared in the Season 2 finale of the Condé Nast Entertainment webseries #HeyUSA, with host Mamrie Hart.[33] In June and July, both as herself and as Miranda, Evans (still credited as 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".[34][35] In July 2015, Re/code featured Evans to exemplify "an emerging economy" of internet content providers.[36] She is featured on the track "Clouds" in Flula Borg's 2015 EP, I Want to Touch You.[37]

Evans appeared in a series of 2016 DiGiorno pizza commercials.[38]

Social media and comedy act

Evans opening her act as herself, in 2014, before changing into Miranda.[39]

Evans displays more than 1,000 videos to her YouTube channels.[40] Her personal channel, PsychoSoprano, features comedy, question and answer videos, and Evans discussing culture and current topics or vlogging daily or holiday activities with her husband, family, friends (including Ariana Grande and GloZell Green) and YouTube colleagues.[41][42] The channel is "highly recommended" by Emertainment Monthly.[9] As of April 2016, it had received more than 600 million views and accumulated more than 4 million subscribers. Her Miranda Sings channel has surpassed 900 million views and 6 million subscribers. A third channel, Colleen Vlogs, chronicles some of her experiences on tour and at home.[40] In 2014, Backstage magazine identified Evans as a performer who has "taken great advantage of producing their own content [online] and gathering large fan bases to promote their work."[43] To promote her videos, Evans is active on social media, with Instagram followings of more than 4 million for Miranda and 3 million for Evans, Twitter followings of more than 2.2 million for Miranda and 1.2 million for Evans, and more than 1.7 million page likes on the Miranda Sings Facebook page.[44] BuzzFeed called Miranda "The Queen of Twitter".[45]

In 2009, Evans 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.[46][47][48] She moved to New York City in 2010 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.[49][50] Evans has been able to turn the popularity of her videos into income from a percentage of advertising fees.[49][51] She told the Wall Street Journal: "I have to do things like torture myself to keep people watching" her YouTube videos.[51] To this end, she made a popular cinnamon challenge video in character as Miranda,[51][52] Until March 2013, Evans' YouTube audience was modest, but in that month, her Miranda Sings channel's audience reached 150,000 subscribers,[53] and both of her YouTube channels began to expand far more rapidly.[54] Evans offers merchandise on her mirandasings.com website, and some of the videos contain brand endorsements.[26][55] For example, a 2016 video, "Sexy Buttery Love Song" promoted Jack in the Box restaurants.[56]

In December 2015, Evans and her husband presented several music and comedy shows in California as "Colleen and Joshua's Holiday Spectacular",[57] and in January 2016 they made an 11-performance tour together from California to Florida, along the southern US, billed as "The Colleen & Josh Show".[5]

Miranda Sings

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YouTube videos

"Miranda Sings" at VidCon 2014 in Anaheim, California

Since January 2008, Evans has posted more than 400 videos as her comically talentless, narcissistic and quirky character, Miranda Sings, primarily on the YouTube channel Miranda Sings.[58][59] 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".[60][61] "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 has was born famous, and is obsessed with show business fame.[62][63]

In the videos, Miranda sings in a comically off-key, yet plausible, voice and covers mostly pop music hits and sometimes discusses the character's backstory or current events, which she usually misunderstands, or gives "tutorials".[55] She uses spoonerisms and malapropisms,[64] is irritable, ludicrously self-absorbed and self-righteous, socially awkward, and has a defiant, arrogant attitude.[65][66][67] She responds to viewers who take the videos seriously and offer criticism with the catchphrase, "Haters back off!",[68][64] telling these critics that "haters make me famous".[60][69] The character displays unusually active eyebrows and a crooked smile,[55][66] her head is cocked to one side, and she has pronunciation quirks.[62] 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.[47][70] Her views of society and morality are politically incorrect, and she displays a strong aversion to anything risque, which she calls "porn".[71][72] From 2010 to 2012, Evans posted 86 Miranda video blogs to a second Miranda YouTube channel, Mirandavlogz.[73]

Evans based the character partly on young women that she knew in college.[62] 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."[8][74] At first, the "Miranda videos were meant to be an inside joke" among Evans' friends.[46][75] In March 2009, however, a Miranda video called "Free Voice Lesson" quickly became a sensation.[74][76] The video consists of bad advice about singing technique.[8][62] Miranda's videos drew predictably sharp criticism on YouTube, and as they became popular, Evans modified the character in response to the negative comments. She says: "I took what people hated and exaggerated it more in the next video."[47][77] The online critics were so harsh that Miranda became a "hero of the anti-bullying movement".[68][78]

Live comedy act

Since April 2009,[79] Evans 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.[80][81][82] BroadwayWorld.com called her "the hottest, freshest and oddest breakout star in the musical theatre/cabaret scene".[83]

In the live comedy acts, Miranda sings pop hits and some musical theatre songs in her signature off-key style;[84] 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,[62] and to pop stars such as Ariana Grande,[85] 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.[68][86][87] 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.[88]

Miranda, with Rachel Ballinger, on stage in 2014[89]

In her 2014 "Selp Helf" tour, she instructed her (mostly young, female) audience on how to get a boyfriend by being more Miranda-like,[90][91] "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".[84][92][93] 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."[67] 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."[39] Evans gave Miranda shows in 57 cities in 2014.[94] Her 2015 tours included a "Miranda 4 Precident" tour[95] and a "Summer Camp" tour.[96] In September 2015, Miranda was a headliner at the Just for Laughs festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[97][98] In December, she released a film version of one of her stage shows on Vimeo, titled Miranda Sings: Selp Helf.[99]

Evans returned for a second engagement as Miranda at the LaughFest festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2016,[100] where a reviewer noted that the material "resonated with parents as well as the younger set."[101] Among other appearances, she performed as Miranda at the Kennedy Center in April 2016.[102] She has also scheduled short Miranda tours in the Western US in late July 2016 and in England, Ireland and Germany in August 2016.[103]

Other Miranda appearances and activities

In 2009, Evans released a Christmas EP titled "Christmas With Miranda Sings".[104] Miranda has been featured in radio, television and internet interviews.[65][105] Evans has also appeared or hosted as Miranda at award shows[106][107] and given benefit concerts[8][108] and workshops.[41] Miranda sings two tracks in character on Passey's album Self Taught, Still Learning.[14] In 2012, the character appeared in a comedy film, Varla Jean and the Mushroomheads,[109] and in an episode of the television show Victorious, titled "Tori Goes Platinum", on the Nickelodeon channel.[110][111] Miranda appeared in the first episode of Dance Chat, an Australian web show, in 2013.[112] She also appeared in a 2014 back-to-school video for Old Navy that received more than 6 million views online.[113]

Evans guest-starred as Miranda Sings in the season 5 episode, "Happy Thanksgiving Miranda", of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld, available since November 27, 2014.[114] 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."[115] 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."[116] An Uproxx review compared Evans to Andy Kaufman, calling the episode "a pretty fun experience".[117] On December 1, 2014, Evans appeared as Miranda on The Tonight Show playing Pictionary with Jimmy Fallon, Martin Short and Jerry Seinfeld.[118] Us Weekly called the segment "the most hilarious game night ever",[119] Entertainment Weekly called it "a riveting game".[120] and People magazine wrote: "It's the most wonderful trainwrecked game of Pictionary you'll see this holiday season".[121]

Evans appeared as Miranda on The Grace Helbig Show in April 2015 with Jim Parsons.[122] In July, she released a book, Selp-Helf, published by Simon & Schuster, which calls it a "decidedly unhelpful, candid, hilarious 'how-to' guide". It contains 240 pages, in mock-scrapbook format, of silly advice, photos and extensive artwork by Evans and her brother Christopher Ballinger, written in Miranda's voice.[123] The book debuted at No. 1 on the Publishers Weekly Hardcover Non-Fiction best sellers list[4] and The New York Times Best Seller list for Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous,[124] and at No. 6 on USA Today's Best-Selling Books list.[125] It remained on the Times' Best Seller list for Advice & Misc. for 11 weeks[126] and is still on their monthly Best Seller list for "Humor" as of April 2016.[127]

Evans appears as a guest star on the 2016 YouTube Red series Prank Academy.[128] She is set to star as Miranda in an original 8-episode Netflix series, Haters Back Off, developed by Evans and her brother Christopher Ballinger, together with Perry Rein and Gigi McCreery.[6][129] It is being produced near Vancouver,[130] where filming finishes in early June 2016.[131]

Reception

Evans' YouTube videos have received a total of more than 1.6 billion views.[40] In 2015, Miranda was ranked the 7th "most popular YouTube personality", by Daily American,[132] and one of the "Top 25 Digital Stars", by The Hollywood Reporter.[3] The Los Angeles Times wrote of her videos, "this footage is a major hoot".[58] Perez Hilton praised Miranda's parody of the hit song "Chandelier" as "the crowning achievement of music video parodies ... utterly fantastic. ... [Evans] really has superb comedic timing."[133] Initially, Miranda Sings enjoyed widespread popularity among musical theatre fans.[47][49][58] Later, her fan base expanded particularly among teenagers.[81][64][134] TV Guide commented: "Ironically, the character ... was created to satirize the very type of YouTube fame she's managed to cultivate."[135]

The Times of London commented that although Evans' videos have gained her character notice, it "is not online but on stage that Miranda truly comes to ghastly life."[60] A reviewer from the Irish Independent wrote: "There is an endearing sweetness to her performance. ... This bizarre and bonkers show is somehow strangely compelling".[136] 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."[66][137] AussieTheatre.com stated that Evans "creates the most successful parody of the world of YouTube ... she has created an international cult following".[138] As the popularity of the character has increased, Evans has been able to book longer runs of her live Miranda act, at larger and larger venues,[139][140] including the Best Buy Theater in New York City[90] and, among many others, London's Cadogan Hall.[84][141]

Evans' videos as herself have also gained attention: in 2015, her video "Reading Mean Comments" was praised by Cosmopolitan as "hilarious and pretty poignant".[142] She has been praised for the example that she sets for her young fans: "While being outgoing and authentic, Evans has seized the opportunity to present positive values."[143] In each of 2014 and 2015, Evans was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for "Web Star: Comedy", winning the award in 2015.[1][144] She was nominated for three 2015 Streamy Awards, winning for best actress.[2][145] Miranda was nominated for a 2015 People's Choice Award[146] and a 2016 Shorty Award.[147]

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
2011 Varla Jean and the Mushroomheads Miranda Sings
2015 Miranda Sings: Selp Helf Miranda Sings/writer Vimeo special/TV movie

Television

Year Title Role Notes
2012 Dr. Fubalous Nurse Royal 6 episodes (also Miranda Sings in 1 episode)
2012 Victorious Miranda Sings Episode 3.10 – "Tori Goes Platinum"
2013 The Flipside Girl under bed "Under the Bed"; TV Series Short
2013 Hipsterhood Amara Hipster Mecca: The Silverlake Farmer's Market
2013 Homemade Movies Meg Griffin "Family Guy Live Action Intro"
2014 MyMusic Receptionist Wedding Plans!
2014 Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Miranda Sings Episode 5.4 – "Happy Thanksgiving, Miranda"
2014 The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon Miranda Sings – Jerry Seinfeld's
Pictionary partner
No. 173 – "Martin Short/Gabrielle Union/Mary J. Blige"
2015 The View Herself – Guest co-host Episode 18.83; "Comedian Colleen Ballinger and singer Michelle Williams guest co-host/David Hyde-Pierce/Gov. Mike Huckabee"
2015 The Grace Helbig Show Herself Episode 1.3 – "Whelp!: Jim Parsons & Colleen 'Miranda Sings' Ballinger & John Green"
2015 HeyUSA Herself TV Mini-Series; "Mamrie + Colleen Ballinger: San Francisco Part 1 & Part 2"
2015 How to Makeup Colleen Ballinger/Miranda Sings TV Mini-Series (6 episodes)
2016 Haters Back Off Miranda Sings/writer/
executive producer
Netflix Original Series (upcoming)

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Result
2014 Teen Choice Awards Choice Web Star: Comedy Nominated[144]
2015 Teen Choice Awards Choice Web Star: Comedy Won[1]
Streamy Awards Performance Awards: Best Actress Won[2]
Entertainer of the Year Nominated[2]
Channels, Series or Shows: Comedy Nominated[2]
2016 People's Choice Awards Favorite YouTube Star Nominated[146]
Shorty Awards YouTube Comedian Nominated[147]

References

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