Anna Akana

American actress, filmmaker, author, and comedianTemplate:SHORTDESC:American actress, filmmaker, author, and comedian[[Category:**Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Pagetype/config' not found.**s with short description]]

Template:Use mdy dates

* Actress
* filmmaker
* producer
* comedian
* singer

**Anna Kay Akana** (born August 18, 1989) is an American actress and vlogger. Her YouTube channel has over 2.6 million subscribers and over 318 million video views.

## Early life, family and education

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Akana's father was an officer in the United States Marine Corps, including during her childhood. Her family moved every few years to a new state or country.

On Valentine's Day 2007, Akana's 13-year-old sister, Kristina, committed suicide. Several months after her sister's death, Akana watched Margaret Cho perform on a Comedy Central special and laughed for the first time since the suicide. She began to see laughter as a means of trying to move on with her life and decided to seriously pursue comedy. 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. In that same year, she released a book *Surviving Suicide* which contains her journal entries from the two years after her sister's death.

She is openly bisexual.

## 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. She later resumed performing stand-up onstage.

### YouTube

In 2014, Akana formed a comedy music duo, Cat Benatar, with fellow comedian and writer Megan Rosati. (The duo's name is wordplay for the pop singer Pat Benatar.)

Akana creates both comedy and documentary YouTube videos. In 2014, Akana was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at #72. In that same year, Akana decided to focus more on her skills as a director and attempted to make one short film a month. While she did not reach her goal of twelve short films, she did make six short films which were received well by her YouTube audience. Akana starred in all of her short films and has starred in various other short films, and she has since continued to create short films.

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. *Miss Earth* was later adapted into a web series, *Miss 2059*, and released on Verizon's go90 app in June 2016, with a second season released in late 2017.

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.

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.*

### 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.

In 2015, she appeared in the films *Ant-Man* and *Kids vs Monsters*.

Akana starred in *SnapperHero*, a scripted video series distributed via Snapchat. The series was sponsored by AT&T.

In 2016, Akana appeared alongside Sally Field in the indie comedy film *Hello, My Name Is Doris*, written by Michael Showalter. That same year, she also appeared in a short *Star Wars* fan film, *Hoshino* as well as the comedy film *Dirty 30*.

She has a recurring role in the Comedy Central show *Corporate*.

She also has a recurring role as Gloria in the Disney Channel show *Big City Greens*.

In 2019 she announced in RHPC's "Off the pill"-podcast to be part of the Netflix original "Jupiter's legacy"

Akana also hosts the podcast *Explain Things to Me* with fellow comedian Brad Gage where the two interview experts in various fields about their work.

## Other ventures

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.

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.

In 2019, Akana released her debut single, "Intervention". Its music video was directed by Auden Bui. 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.

## Critical reception

In reviewing her video, “Why Guys Like Asian Girls" (which references "Yellow Fever", a term for an Asian fetish) 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."

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 centre of a newly single dumpee."

*Deadline* 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."

## References

1. ↑ "YouTube: Anna Akana". YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/user/AnnaAkana. Retrieved February 16, 2020.
2. ↑ "My dad was right". YouTube. March 11, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Rg9pESmd4. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
3. ↑ Luhar, Monica (November 13, 2015). "Anna Akana is 'Chasing Laughs' and Telling Stories" (in en). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anna-akana-chasing-laughs-telling-stories-n452406. Retrieved April 3, 2019.
4. ↑ "Surviving Suicide". http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19092231-surviving-suicide. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Luhar, Monica (November 13, 2015). "Anna Akana is 'Chasing Laughs' and Telling Stories". NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anna-akana-chasing-laughs-telling-stories-n452406. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
6. ↑ Akana, Anna (September 27, 2013). "please don't kill yourself". YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvkbHIrrrvU. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
7. ↑ Akana, Anna. "Surviving Suicide". *GoodReads.com*. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19092231-surviving-suicide. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
8. ↑ Anna Akana opens up about bisexuality after coming out at the Steamy Awards
9. ↑ "be uncomfortable". YouTube. March 14, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRHLXx4\_EWQ. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
10. ↑ Yu, Tiffany. "How Death Shed New Light on 'Riley Rewind' Actress Anna Akana's Life". *Mochi Magazine*. http://www.mochimag.com/article/riley-rewind-anna-akana-youtube-series-suicide-prevention-anti-bullying. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
11. ↑ "The NMR Top 100 YouTube Channels: 75-51!". http://newmediarockstars.com/2014/12/the-nmr-top-100-youtube-channels-75-51/. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
12. ↑ "Focus//Anna Akana". YouTube. February 7, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pssp-CqYMaM. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
13. ↑ "Anna Akana- Short films". http://annaakana.com/short-films/. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
14. ↑ "Incubator Series". http://newformdigital.com/incubator-series/.
15. ↑ "Filmmaker Spotlights". http://newformdigital.com/filmmaker-spotlights/.
16. ↑ Template:Cite press release
17. ↑ Spangler, Todd (September 25, 2015). "Verizon's Go90 Orders 6 Series from New Form Digital (Exclusive)" (in en-US). https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/verizons-go90-new-form-digital-fourth-door-1201602480/.
18. ↑ Hamedy, Saba. "Anna Akana takes action in New Form Digital's 'Miss 2059'". http://mashable.com/2016/04/01/miss2059-new-form-digital-anna-akana-pictures/.
19. ↑ Dry, Jude (June 20, 2016). "Watch: Exclusive Clip From New Form Digital's 'Miss 2059,' Starring Anna Akana" (in en-US). https://www.indiewire.com/2016/06/exclusive-new-form-digital-miss-2059-anna-akana-1201690752/.
20. ↑ "MISS 2059 | OFFICIAL TRAILER" (in en-US). https://www.go90.com/profiles/va\_381065232a824c33957285dde89433a2.
21. ↑ "Miss 2059 go90 page". https://www.go90.com/shows/9fBtLuW3u4z.
22. ↑ "Who Even Is An Entrepreneur?: Crash Course Business - Entrepreneurship #1". YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aozlwC3XwfY. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
23. ↑ Template:Citation
24. ↑ "Last Friday Night (2011)". IMDB. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1964831/?ref\_=ttfc\_fc\_tt. Retrieved December 16, 2014.
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Jarvey, Natalie (January 29, 2015). "AT&T Launches Scripted Series on Snapchat", *The Hollywood Reporter*. Retrieved on 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."
26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Yamato, Jen (July 11, 2014). "'Hello, My Name Is Doris' Uploads YouTuber Anna Akana". Retrieved on May 23, 2015.
27. ↑ "Hoshino - Star Wars Fan Film". https://youtube.com/watch?v=G7-n36MBs1A.
28. ↑ Template:Cite press release
29. ↑ "Explain Things to Me". iTunes. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/alternative-mortician-caitlin/id964334876?i=334757297&mt=2. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
30. ↑ "Ghost & Stars". http://www.ghostandstars.com/. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
31. ↑ "So Much I Want to Tell You". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32969084-so-much-i-want-to-tell-you.
32. ↑ "Intervention - Anna Akana (Official Music Video)". Anna Akana. May 8, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiOYo-OSANw.
33. ↑ Blynn, Alex (May 8, 2019). "Anna Akana Talks Mental Health, Coming Out & Her Music Debut With 'Intervention'". https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/pride/8510501/anna-akana-interview-intervention-premiere.
34. ↑ https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-10-04/anna-akana-youtube-music
35. ↑ Akana, Anna. "Why Guys Like Asian Girls". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWFQ1uiD8LA. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
36. ↑ Matthews, Cate (July 29, 2014). "Here's What 'Yellow Fever' Really Means", *The Huffington Post*. Retrieved on May 23, 2015.
37. ↑ Williott, Carl (April 29, 2015). "After A Breakup, Your Brain Basically Becomes An Episode Of '24'". MTV. http://www.mtv.com/news/2146481/breakup-brain-sketch/. Retrieved May 23, 2015.
38. ↑ "Digital Pioneer Award". SDAFF. http://festival.sdaff.org/2014/events/conversation-with-anna-akana/. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
39. ↑ Gutelle, Sam (August 12, 2015). "Snapchat Series 'SnapperHero' Leads Streamy Award Nominations". https://www.tubefilter.com/2015/08/12/fifth-streamy-awards-streamys-nominees-vh1/. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
40. ↑ "Acting in a Drama - Streamy Awards 2018: Winners List" (in en), *The Hollywood Reporter*.
41. ↑ Mistretta, Amy (March 20, 2019). "2019 Daytime Emmy Award Nominations Announced" (in en-US). https://soaps.sheknows.com/soaps/news/536784/2019-daytime-emmy-award-nominations/.

## External links

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* ghostandstars.com

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