Netflix orders series based on YouTube star, and you won’t believe what happens next
Variety is reporting that Netflix has signed a deal for an eight-episode scripted series with online comedian Colleen Ballinger-Evans, the mind behind popular YouTube series Miranda Sings. The 5 million-subscriber-strong comedy show features Ballinger-Evans as the titular character, a fame-seeking, shrill-voiced would-be starlet clad in her signature over-applied lipstick. The YouTube series largely involves Miranda talking into the camera in a voice just this side of suicide-inducing, although she also sometimes edits herself into music videos, like Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.”
The new Netflix show, Haters Back Off, will expand on the character’s deep inner life and shed light on her family, as well as serving as the latest transition of an online star to a more traditional form of media. (As traditional as “streaming Netflix sitcom” gets, anyway.) It’ll also hopefully give more opportunities for mainstream media people to awkwardly pretend to enjoy Ballinger-Evans’ work, as in previous clips that saw her teaming up with Jerry Seinfeld or Jimmy Fallon.
Anyway, for those of you reading this in anticipation of typing “I don’t know who that is,” into the comments box below, here’s a video of Ballinger-Evans in-character, announcing her new series, so that your disdain for her work can be well-informed, at least: