Miranda Sings
Miranda Sings is a fictional character, created and portrayed by American comedian, actress, singer and YouTube personality Colleen Ballinger, that first appeared on the Internet in 2008. Ballinger displays videos of the comically talentless, egotistical, misguided and quirky character on her YouTube channel. In these videos, the character sings and dances badly, gives inept "tutorials", recounts her daily activities, discusses current events that she often misunderstands, collaborates with other YouTubers, and rants about her critics, reading examples of hate mail directed at the character on social media; she responds to them with her catchphrase: "Haters Back Off!"
Inspired by early YouTube videos and rude classmates, Ballinger created the character as a satire of bad but arrogant singers who believe that posting their videos on YouTube will lead to them breaking into show business. As of July 2021, the Miranda Sings YouTube channel has more than 2 billion views and 10 million subscribers, and Miranda has accumulated more than 12 million TikTok followers and 6 million Instagram followers. The character also has an active presence on other social media platforms.
Since 2009, in addition to her internet videos, Ballinger has presented live comedy acts, in character as Miranda Sings, at first in cabaret spaces and later in theaters in New York, London, and other cities in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and elsewhere; she toured regularly beginning in 2014. Her acts include Miranda's signature off-key singing of pop music hits and show tunes, with introductions focusing on the character's backstory. Her delivery is full of malapropisms, mondegreens and spoonerisms, and the acts incorporate interaction with audience volunteers, giving a "voice lesson" to, or singing a duet with, Broadway or other musical celebrities, reading hate mail, seeking a boyfriend, and singing while being stabbed through the neck in her "magic trick". One of Miranda's 2018 tour stops was filmed and released as a 2019 Netflix comedy special.
The character has appeared in television and web series and other media. Her first network television appearance was in a 2012 episode of the TV show Victorious. In 2014, she guest-starred in character on an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld and appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. In 2015, she released a New York Times #1 best-selling book, written in Miranda's voice, titled Selp-Helf. Miranda is the main character in the Netflix original series Haters Back Off. Ballinger won a Teen Choice Award and a Streamy Award for her Miranda videos.
Description
YouTube videos
Since 2008, Ballinger has posted more than 800 videos as the character Miranda Sings on the YouTube channel of the same name. The character is a satire of bad but egotistical singers who post internet videos of themselves singing in hopes of breaking into show business, despite the realistic or cruel comments of "haters" who comment on their videos. More generally, it is a satire of pretentious and untalented performers everywhere. Miranda is supposedly a home-schooled single woman who lives with her mother, uncle and baby. She is narcissistic, infantilized, overconfident and has a relentless ambition to achieve show business fame.In the videos, the Miranda character sings in a comically off-key, yet plausible, voice and covers pop music hits, show tunes and original songs. Sometimes she discusses current events, which she usually misunderstands, gives inept mock-"tutorials", rants about her internet critics or discusses the character's backstory. She uses spoonerisms, mondegreens and malapropisms, is irritable, ludicrously self-absorbed, narcissistic, prudish and self-righteous, socially awkward, and has a defiant, arrogant attitude. The Times describes the character as "self-obsessed and immune to criticism". Her videos "exhibit the near-tragic extent of Miranda’s idiocy." As Robert Lloyd, writing for the Los Angeles Times put it, "the ferocious enormousness of Miranda’s self-regard, which blots out nearly everything around her, is inversely proportional to her talent." To viewers who take the videos seriously and offer criticism, she responds with the catchphrase, "Haters Back Off!", telling these critics that they are "just jealous" and that "haters make me famous".
The character displays eccentric facial traits such as unusually active eyebrows and a crooked smile described as a "side smirk". Her head is cocked to one side, and her pronunciation quirks include an emphasis on the use of a prominent hard 'g'. In place of lyrics that she cannot remember, the character "scat" sings. She wears bright red lipstick drawn beyond the borders of her lips, her hair pulled up at the temples to expose the maximum amount of forehead, dresses in mismatched out-of-style clothing, and often dances stiffly to the music she is performing. Miranda's views of society and morality are politically incorrect, and she displays a strong prudish aversion to anything risque, which she calls "porn". Since 2013, Miranda has collaborated on videos that other YouTubers display on their channels. People magazine featured a Miranda collaboration with Tyler Oakley and Bethany Mota. Her YouTube audience was relatively modest until early 2013, when her audience reached 150,000 subscribers, and began to expand rapidly.
In 2018, Ballinger became pregnant with her first child, and Miranda announced her own pregnancy on YouTube. Ballinger created a story arc on Miranda's channel in which the character claimed to be the "virgin Miranda", with a virgin conception; she mentioned this soon afterwards on Live with Kelly and Ryan. After Ballinger gave birth in December 2018, she tweeted about it from Miranda's account. Since then, Miranda has incorporated footage of the baby into her videos, focusing on how he inconveniences her, is trying to murder her, is "dumb", and is a "cannobel" because of his quest for her breast milk.
Live comedy act, early years
Since April 2009, in addition to her internet videos, Miranda Sings has performed her one-woman live comedy acts at first at cabaret spaces and later theatres in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Toronto, Amsterdam, Sydney and other cities in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. In 2009, BroadwayWorld.com called her "the hottest, freshest and oddest breakout star in the musical theatre/cabaret scene".In the live comedy acts, Ballinger begins the show as herself and then transforms onstage into Miranda. Miranda typically sings pop hits and some musical theatre songs in her signature off-key style ; gives "voice lessons" or acting lessons to Broadway or West End stars, such as Sutton Foster, Andrew Rannells, and Shoshana Bean, to Broadway casts of shows such as Billy Elliot and Rock of Ages, and to pop stars such as Ariana Grande and Tori Kelly, in which she is hypercritical of the stars' performances, often telling them that they should leave show business; sings one or more duets with established musical theatre singers; indignantly reads hate mail that she has received on her YouTube channel and other social media; interacts with audience volunteers; uses projected presentations containing terrible spelling; and sometimes improvises a song based on audience suggestions. The act has autobiographical elements from Miranda's backstory. In her holiday act, in addition to some of the above, Miranda has recreated the Christmas story "complete with the Three Kings, the Drummer Boy, and Santa Claus, as well as a shockingly dissonant 'Carol of the Bells'" and other Christmas songs.
As an example of the character's delusional arrogance, Miranda stated in her early acts that she expected to perform the role of Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway. During 2009, as part of her act, she announced that she planned to date Cheyenne Jackson or to find another boyfriend, who must be talented and famous. She was photographed and videotaped together with Jackson at Broadway on Broadway 2009, confronting him about their "relationship", and finally receiving a "first kiss" from him. In 2010, she stated in her videos and comedy acts that Jackson is no longer her boyfriend, and so she was seeking a new, famous, talented, handsome boyfriend, such as Zac Efron or Justin Bieber. In 2013, Ballinger began a series of Miranda collaboration videos about "dating" YouTuber Joey Graceffa; an ongoing gag is that she cannot pronounce his last name. She has stated that the two are engaged, but she has accumulated several other boyfriends or "baes".
In 2009, Miranda proclaimed that she was not just a "triple threat" entertainer, but a "four threat", because she is also a model, as well as a singer/actor/dancer. Since 2010, she has asserted that she is a "five threat" talent, adding "magic" to her list of skills, and in videos she has combined inept magic tricks with singing. A regular part of her live comedy acts since 2010 includes a "magic trick" where Miranda sings while appearing to be stabbed through the neck by a sword. The joke is that she sings better when the sword is inserted through her neck. In 2012, Miranda Sings was one of the headliners at the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival, presented by WaterTower Theatre in Addison, Texas. A 2012 Miranda Birdland cabaret act was filmed by Seth Rudetsky.
Live comedy act, 2013 to present
As the popularity of the character increased, Ballinger was able to book longer sell-out runs of her live comedy acts at larger and larger venues including, in 2013, a six-performance run at the Leicester Square Theatre in London and theatres in Australia. In 2014, she expanded to larger theatres, beginning with the Best Buy Theater in New York City and, among other theatres, three shows in London's Cadogan Hall. A Buffalo, New York reviewer explained the shows' appeal: "Miranda's stage show – a quixotic blend of melodramatic pathos, lightning-speed wit and cultural literacy – is no mere... reproduction of her Internet channel. It is as theatrical as it is musical, comedic as it is inspirational." A London reviewer concurred:In her 2014 "Selp Helf" tour, she instructed her audience on how to get a boyfriend by being more Miranda-like. She did this, according to a reviewer, by demonstrating, in turn, the character's conception "of porn, bullies, love and 'haters' and transformed the subject matter into... comical banter that relied heavily on audience participation... she worked off everything the volunteers said and did, improvising and creating punchlines on the spot.". Another reviewer praised the "physical comedy. Miranda's alternative to twerking has to be seen to be believed and her recreation of her own birth... was a hoot." The reviewer of the London Evening Standard wrote that the show "is deeper than it initially appears.... She is funny and a strong role model, with a healthy disdain for pop’s oversexualisation..... The satire is not exactly mindblowing but the message is undeniably positive. Plenty of interaction... lends proceedings an inclusive feel... when there was an appeal for volunteers almost every hand shot straight into the air." Ballinger gave Miranda shows in 57 cities in the tour.
Her spring 2015 tour was styled the tour; the concept was that Miranda was "born to be President" and was running for election again in 2015 "to help the whole world". Her 2015 "Summer Camp" bus tour of the US Midwest and East Coast featured ghost stories, a "bon fire", camp counsellors, merit badges, games and "friendship bracelets... more of a variety show." It featured members of her family and friends. In September 2015, Miranda was a headliner at the Just for Laughs festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and in December, Ballinger released a film version of one of her stage shows on Vimeo, titled Miranda Sings: Selp Helf. Reviewing Miranda's second engagement at the LaughFest festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2016, a critic noted that the material "resonated with parents as well as the younger set." This echoed a review of her 2014 Edinburgh Fringe show, where her innuendo was described as being performed "in a way that will have parents laughing and children oblivious."
Among other appearances, Miranda performed at the Kennedy Center in April 2016 and in Nashville's Ryman Auditorium in May at the 3rd Annual Wild West Comedy Festival. During the second half of 2016, Ballinger toured Miranda shows in the US, England, Ireland, Germany and Denmark. A US tour in early 2017 and subsequent concerts were billed as "Miranda Sings Live!... Your Welcome". The premise was that, finding it unfair that she will not be able to attend her own funeral, Miranda enacts a funeral celebrating her life, career, death and resurrection. She continued the tour in September with shows in Europe, Australasia and the US in late 2017 and early 2018. In her 2017–2018 shows, Miranda gave tips on "how to be famous". Her tour in mid-2018 was styled Miranda Sings Live... No Offense, in which she argued that one can say anything, as long as they follow the statement with "no offense".
A Netflix comedy special, Miranda Sings Live... Your Welcome, filmed live at the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C. in 2018, was released on June 4, 2019. Sara Aridi of The New York Times wrote: "Her peculiar sense of humor is the kind that simultaneously draws laughs and cringes – and it works." The same month, Ballinger began touring with her first post-baby Miranda show, "Who Wants My Kid?", in which Miranda tries to find a suitable audience member to take the "brat" she has been complaining about online. This tour continued throughout 2019 and into early 2020. BroadwayWorld called her 2022 Miranda show her "funniest one yet". Ballinger toured in early 2023.
In July 2023, Ballinger cancelled her remaining 2023 Miranda Sings tour dates following allegations of inappropriate conduct involving minors.