The Digital Talent Transforming Entertainment
WTF is a famechanger anyway?
This is Variety's third annual "Famechangers" issue dedicated to exploring how a new breed of performer is rewriting the rules of content and celebrity.
Miranda Sings Makes the Leap to TV
Colleen Ballinger is best known by her kooky Youtube alter ego Miranda Sings. Now she's aiming for a new identity: TV Star
By Todd Spangler
Colleen Ballinger didn’t expect her talentless, narcissistic weirdo creation to be anything more than a short-lived joke for her theater friends.
Seven years ago, the classically trained vocalist and actress was performing at Disneyland (in “High School Musical” and “Playhouse Disney”), playing a princess at kids’ birthday parties, and waitressing. She was also posting videos on
YouTube in the guise of someone called Miranda Sings — a homeschooled teen from Tacoma, Wash., with ridiculously misapplied lipstick and verbal tics, who couldn’t carry a tune but considered herself a world-class singer.
Since her video “Free Voice Lesson” went viral in 2009, Miranda Sings has rocketed into the top echelon of social stars.
10 DIGITAL STARS TO WATCH
Showbiz news/lifestyle hosts
get hands-on with their shows
Ebullient twins are winning big while keeping things clean
How Popular Are Digital Stars?
Internet influencers are not as well known as traditional stars, but their fans are more devoted.
For more than 50 years, Q Scores has been the industry standard by which the media business has quantified the star power of celebrities, from music to movies. Now, the company is extending its oversight to the new wave of digital influencers.
Shared exclusively with Variety, the data provide unprecedented insight into the impact of this new breed of talent from YouTube and other
global platforms, and show how these stars measure up to the traditional personalities Q Scores has been rating since 1963.
In its first publicly disclosed measurement of influencers, Q Scores discovered in the first quarter of this year that compared with, say, TV stars, awareness of the digital talent pool is still quite low, even among U.S. teenagers.
Behind the Scenes of YouTube Red's 'Escape the Night'
A New Label for Online Content
All media is ‘digital’ these days, so let’s come up with a new term to differentiate online video
The year was 2004. Facebook was launching, “Friends” was airing its last episode, Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunctioned, and in the midst of an actual presidential election, Napoleon had everyone pumped to vote for Pedro. And, notably, Gretchen Weiners found it impossible to make “fetch” happen.
Yes, I just proudly referenced “Mean Girls.” Because it’s a great example of how it is really hard to coin new jargon and make it stick.
That reality holds true as we struggle to put labels on the output of a more-diverse-than-ever media business.
Over several decades, without needing a primer, we’ve all come to understand that “film” is not that translucent strip upon which moving images are recorded and through which they are ultimately projected. Similarly, as streaming has busted onto the scene, we all get that “television” is not the thing that hangs on your wall.
Instagram Sees Video Fueling News Stars
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