In 2015, she launched a clothing line called Ghost & Stars. She is the author of So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister (2017), in which she describes her struggles and experiences from her sister's suicide to her celebrity status.[2]
Early life
Akana's father was an officer in the United States Marine Corps, including during her childhood.[3][bettersourceneeded] Her father moved every few years to a new state or country.[4] In a 2020 interview, she said that she loved Sailor Moon, Inuyasha, and Ranma ½, expressing her surprise that her father would let her watch Tenchi Muyo! with him despite its "perverted" nature. Her father stated that she loved shows like The Powerpuff Girls, animation in general, and anime, the latter especially because she spent "four years growing up in Japan".[5]
On February 14, 2007, Akana's younger sister, Kristina, died by suicide at age 13.[6] Several months after, Akana watched Margaret Cho perform on a Comedy Central special and laughed for the first time since her sister's death, seeing it as a means of trying to move on with her life, and she decided to seriously pursue comedy after.[4] Akana has been vocal about her sister's suicide and is a strong advocate for suicide prevention. In 2013, Akana uploaded a YouTube video, "please don't kill yourself", in which she explains how it felt for her to have a family member die by suicide.[7][bettersourceneeded] In that same year, she released a book, Surviving Suicide, which contains her journal entries from the two years after her sister's death.[citation needed]
Career
Akana first started performing comedy at age 19 but switched to YouTube video performances in 2011 after experiencing panic attacks and anxiety before going on stage.[4]
YouTube
Akana creates both comedy and documentary YouTube videos.[8] In 2014, Akana was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at #72.[9] In that same year, Akana attempted to make one short film a month.[10][bettersourceneeded] She created and starred in six short films. Akana has starred in various other short films, and she has since continued to create short films.[11][bettersourceneeded] In 2014, Akana formed a comedy music duo, Cat Benatar, with fellow comedian and writer Megan Rosati.[12][bettersourceneeded] (The duo's name is wordplay for the pop singer Pat Benatar.)
In reviewing her video, "Why Guys Like Asian Girls" (which references "Yellow Fever", a term for an Asian fetish),[13][bettersourceneeded] Cate Matthews of The Huffington Post wrote: "A step-by-step takedown of 'yellow fever' or the desire to date Asian women often accompanied by bizarre, offensive attempts to do so, could start the healing. Luckily for us, YouTuber Anna Akana was more than up to the video-making task."[14] In reviewing her video, "How to Deal with a Breakup", MTV wrote: "In this sketch, comedian Anna Akana envisions the flurry of activity inside the cranial command center of a newly single dumpee."[15]
One of her short films, Miss Earth, was partially financed by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's production company, New Form Digital. It was part of the 2014 Incubator, a series to showcase and produce original stories by YouTube Creators and filmmakers.[16][17][18]Miss Earth was later adapted into a web series, Miss 2059, and released on Verizon'sgo90 app in June 2016, with a second season released in late 2017.[19][20][21]
Akana executive produced and starred as the lead role in the original comedy-drama web television series Youth & Consequences, created by Jason Ubaldi and released in March 2018 on YouTube Red. She is also the host of the web series Crash Course Business: Entrepreneurship beginning in August 2019.[22][bettersourceneeded] On October 10, 2019, she was featured in a 30-minute YouTube documentary created by SoulPancake in collaboration with Funny or Die wherein a variety of comedians discuss mental health called Laughing Matters.[23][bettersourceneeded]
Deadline Hollywood referred to Akana as "a prolific online creator whose channel boasts 60 million views and 900,000 subscribers, and last year wrote and starred in her own narrative feature Riley Rewind, scoring a none-too-shabby 20M views online."[24]
Film and television
In 2011, Akana appeared in the TV series Awkward. In that same year, she also appeared as an extra in Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night" music video.[citation needed] Akana starred in Snapper Hero, a scripted video series distributed via Snapchat.[25] The series was sponsored by AT&T.[25]
In 2015, Akana released a clothing line, Ghost & Stars, which features several cat-themed designs as well as formal dresses, leggings, and a variety of T-shirts.[32][bettersourceneeded] In 2017, Akana's book So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister was published. The book describes Akana's struggles and experiences growing up and offers advice to her late sister.[2][bettersourceneeded]
In 2019, Akana transitioned from comedy into music, and released her debut single, "Intervention". Its music video was directed by Auden Bui.[33][bettersourceneeded][34] She has since released two more music videos, one for "Pretty Girls Don't Cry" in July 2019 and "Not My Proudest Moment" in August. She continued to release music videos for songs named "Alone Together", "Disappointment", and "Let Me Go". Her debut album, Casualty, came out in October 2019.[35] Her follow-up project came out early 2021 called No Longer Yours.[citation needed]
In 2024, Akana rolled out her standup comedy tour It Gets Darker with an entire hour dedicated to telling stories about her sister's suicide and the traumatic aftermath, her history with stalkers causing her to quit live appearances, and growing up as a Hawaiian-native Asian military brat.[36]
In October 2018, she came out as bisexual at the 8th Streamy Awards during her acceptance speech for the Best Acting in a Drama for the series Youth & Consequences, saying she was "not only a woman of colour, but...also a queer woman" and asked people to vote in the U.S. midterm elections that year. She later stated on social media that she had not intended to come out publicly and only did so because she was "very inebriated," confirmed that she was bisexual, and thanked everyone for the support.[39][40][41]
In an interview with Billboard in May 2019, Akana said that after coming out, no one made a "big deal out of it" and she realized "how much internalized homophobia" she had, noting that many people in her life were "grossly supportive," saying that visibility for the LGBTQ community, including among trans, sexual, and bisexual people, was important. She stated that she had been dealing with racial erasure, but after coming out, she experienced bisexual erasure.[42] In an interview with Women's Health magazine, Akana told her story of getting her first crush on another girl at the age of 11 and being taunted by a friend about how she was "just trying to be interesting", which made her internalize the fabrication that she was a straight girl showing attraction to the same sex just for attention.[43]
In May 2019, Akana revealed that she had an abortion when she was 20, stated that it was one of the best decisions she had ever made, asserted that "no one should be forced into a situation as serious as pregnancy," adding that "abortion is healthcare" and stated that voting is a way for people to retain their bodily autonomy.[44]
↑"Incubator Series". newformdigital.com. Archived from the original on August 29, 2016. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
↑"Filmmaker Spotlights". newformdigital.com. Archived from the original on August 29, 2016. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
↑"New Form Digital Press Kit 2016"(PDF). newformdigital.com (Press release). 2016. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
12Jarvey, Natalie (January 29, 2015). "AT&T Launches Scripted Series on Snapchat". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on June 13, 2015. Retrieved May 23, 2015. The series, SnapperHero, stars YouTubers Anna Akana, Freddie Wong, Harley Morenstein, and Jasmeet Singh alongside Snapchat celeb Shaun McBride, who also served as creative director.
123456"Anna Akana (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.
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