Humble Beginnings
The good type of peer pressure
Let’s take a look back at simpler times; times where jokes were not offensive and political but rather random, provided no context, fast, and easy to digest.
Rather than reminiscing about the glory days where puns were mainstream, I’d just like to appreciate Vine for a second, for giving us comedians such as Cody Ko, David Dobrik, Noel Miller and of course, Liza Koshy.
Now to those who haven’t been aware of Vine and its death, it was basically an easier to digest YouTube, allowing users to post 6-second videos of whatever they’d like it’s like Twitter for YouTube, I don’t know if that makes sense. Some were funny despite lacking any context or punchline, and some were just so awful, you shiver from secondhand cringe.
Anyway, back to Liza Koshy, one of the few Vine stars that eventually found huge success after migrating to YouTube, bringing with her, a sense of style, off-beat humor, and her signature bubbly personality. Even the puns she makes are delivered with enthusiasm and appeal, despite it… well, being a pun.
Her style and delivery is very noticeable and of course stands out because no other YouTube star before her showed this level of enthusiasm without seeming like being faked. With a little help of quick editing, good jokes and skill of delivering those jokes, she has managed to gain a massive following with at the time of this writing 17 million subscribers on YouTube and another 17 million followers on Instagram.
Liza Koshy started on Vine a month after the app was released to the general public, giving her a head start of other internet stars making her one the first few content creators on the app. Oddly enough, she started making videos on Vine because of peer pressure, because most if not all of her friends were already making videos on the app.
Proving once again that peer pressure does not automatically translate to being a bad thing as this made her one of the rare cases of peer pressure pulling her out of her comfort zone and brought her attention to a platform that showcased and utilized her natural comedic talents which is Vine. Now, Liza Koshy sits comfortably at an estimated net worth of 4 million dollars.
Liza Koshy’s real name is Elizabeth Shaila Koshy, a half Indian and half Caucasian girl born and raised in Houston, Texas alongside her older sisters.
Now Liza Koshy lives in Los Angeles as both an actress and social media personality. Before the death of Vine, she managed to gain 5 million followers – one of her breakout videos was simple, elegant, and quick and that is of course, a misspelled bathroom that said “Womfn” instead of “Woman”.
Now, I’m going to stop you right there before you think “Oh, that’s all it took to be famous?” I’d like to remind you of what I said above that she has amazing delivery – the punchline to the video was partnered with a voice that was in emotional peril, that maybe she wasn’t a woman at all maybe she was just a “Womfn”, her facial expressions were exaggerated and noticeably confused; this adds a layer to her comedic timing.
The joke was one of her biggest videos to be viewed on the platform, and gave fans an idea as to what sort of videos this person uploaded on her account: most of her videos were filled with puns, exaggerated facial expressions commonly filmed at a lower angle to show an intentional double chin and a smile that stretched from cheek to cheek, and an upbeat personality with jokes that provided zero context. Surprisingly, it worked, her humor perfectly complements the humor most millennials are accustomed to.
Her jokes were fresh, original, filled with energy, and most importantly, random enough to make you question yourself what you just watched and if your sense of humor is different from others.
I’d also like to point out once again that Liza Koshy started Vine very early on, about a month after the app was released – this was a time where you could only film using the back camera of your phone, and since most of her videos relied on her face and delivery, she had to literally turn her phone around to make is possible to film herself since most of the time she had no one to assist her when making these videos, that is dedication only appreciated by 90’s kids who wanted to take a selfie on their flip phones.
The eventual death of Vine
And what it meant for Liza
Vine wasn’t originally meant to be an outlet for creative storytelling, it was supposed to be some sort of way that users could film casual moments in their lives, given that it only permitted a few seconds of filming.
That is exactly why the company Twitter bought it for 30 Million dollars in October of 2012 as it perfectly complemented Twitter’s short-form text posts. Even on beta testing, Vine saw a lot of experimentation and after its release, it was absolutely clear that it would never become the everyday casual video sharing platform, it set out to be but instead transformed itself into something a lot more interesting – a way for creatives such as Liza Koshy to make use of the app’s short-form video format as a unique form of storytelling, ad marketing and so on.
The app was huge, with at one point boasting an incredible 200 million users, but as with everything: competition got rougher, they lost users, some of their biggest stars left the platform to explore other social media outlets that have come up with their own short-form video format such as Instagram, Snapchat, and eventually Facebook’s My Days.
Although Twitter did explore the possibility of selling Vine, it never found a buyer and paying huge internet personalities on Vine to market their application eventually proved to be unstable in the long run. And although Vines were self-referential where some Vines referenced other Vines, and hosted the birth of a lot of iconic and unforgettable memes celebrities preferred Instagram’s 60 second format, and since these are Hollywood actors and huge icons, this naturally led more people to abandon Vine and explore Instagram accounts.
This lead to Vine’s slow and eventual death that prompted Liza Koshy to make her YouTube channel in 2016 under her real name, bringing with her followers she amassed during her time on Vine.
Liza Koshy’s Acting Career
Making it in the world of Television
Her migration to YouTube proved to be on greener pastures as this internet star has gained a lot of attention, paid sponsorships, and even her own YouTube exclusive series called Liza on Demand created by Dobrah Kaplan and Harry Elfont following… well, you guessed it, Liza Koshy as she performs a lot of “odd” jobs around Los Angeles via her phone with services such as: an Uber Driver, food delivery for Postmates, and grocery delivery for Instacart.
Though it isn’t based on Liza’s real life endeavors as a grocery delivery girl or a driver for people who decided that calling a taxi on the side of the road was too inconvenient as Liza is already financially stable, the show used that concept to explore smart dialogue and fit in cameos from other social media stars.
Liza doing various side hustles as her main hustle proved to be very popular as it was greenlit for a second season to premier on September 25, 2019.
Liza’s acting and on-screen appearances don’t stop there though as she accepted the offer to star in Nickelodeon’s revival of their show Double Dare, a quiz show with obstacles and challenges. The show displayed that Liza was an example of great casting as she was a perfect fit for the show’s challenges that required both the kids and host to have high energy to make it enjoyable for all ages.
She also casted on Hulu’s Freakish as Violet Adams, a show about a group of students trapped inside their school for a fight for survival when predatory mutants take over their small town after a chemical plant meltdown. Liza Koshy proved that she was not limited to comedy but instead is quite versatile, even in genres such as horror, science fiction, and fantasy.
Unfortunately, there has been no word yet if the cast would return for a 3rd season. No word has come out yet but it is sadly unlikely to return due to the production company being bought out by Verizon. She has also been casted into the dark fantasy horror of Escape the Night.
Liza Koshy’s notable appearances in films and shows also include: Tyler Perry’s Boo a Madea Halloween, Crow: The legend as the voice of the Owl, and lastly in Jingle Ballin’ a show that combines the loneliness of Home Alone with the scope of Project X where to cope with her being left alone during the holiday season, she invites her followers for a party.
It is worth mentioning that there is a film that doesn’t seem to be far-fetched from her reality, and is more or less relatable in Liza’s perspective called FML; the film even has the caption “A social media Adventure”. Where two friends: a middle-aged comedian and a teen social media star go on a quest to reach a million followers.
Though, Liza wasn’t exactly the main star here, instead focusing on her friend Jason Nash. The film also featured a lot of other internet personalities such as David Dobrik. Speaking of David Dobrik, next up on this article is Liza’s best friend and ex-boyfriend.
Liza Koshy and David Dobrik
Even YouTube’s sweethearts struggle
Their relationship together ended on such good terms that they remained best friends one year later – even after breaking up, it is almost impossible not to mention one without the other, considering how much of an impact they had on each other’s lives.
They announced the end of their relationship on June 5 2018 on a video titled “We broke up” on David Dobrik’s channel. The break up crushed the hearts of literally millions of fans around the world. Though, the video had the premise of a relationship ending, the video was filled with a lot of emotions, a lot of crying and surprisingly enough, a lot of support, love and respect that was evident in the way they addressed each other and bounced jokes off one another.
The pair started dating in 2015, and was considered to be one of YouTube’s sweethearts but eventually all good things must come to an end – what separates them from other YouTube couples is that they did the video together and only broke up because of how they’ve drifted apart and not the pressures of being famous worldwide with loving each other as a way to make a living while simultaneously sharing their lives to the general public taking its toll.
In an interview with KTLA 5, Liza said that the reason they were so public with their announcement was that they felt that their fans were also a part of their lives and they had a right to know where they were headed, though the video was made an entire 6 months after they broke up, while their friends were in the dark for 3 months; to give themselves time to heal it was still a nice gesture for their fans.
Liza was the one who initiated the break up saying that they were slowly drifting apart from one another because of how busy they’ve been and the feeling was mutual on David’s side as he felt the same way, he just admitted that he didn’t have enough courage to actually be the one to pull the trigger.
Though their breakup did not have any sort of backlash, nor any negative impacts on both their careers as Liza Koshy went on to do amazing things with her influence while David Dobrik remained successful in his career; It’s just a little sad how a couple that everyone adored because of their natural chemistry and comedic team play had to break up.
In an interview by Wired, there was a question on who Liza Koshy’s best friend was, and without skipping a beat, she answered David Dobrik’s name. There’s also a question in the interview asking why Liza Koshy is famous and she answered: “I don’t know, you guys have weird taste online” which I somehow find to be weirdly accurate, but I digress.
David Dobrik, went on to meeting countless Hollywood celebrities and incorporating them as content for his blog – even meeting the 3 siblings of the hugely popular TV show Drake and Josh, a huge achievement for David as he claims that he has an unhealthy obsession of the show.
He has gathered immense popularity and a very well established and very successful merchandise line under the name “vlog squad”.
While some couples drift apart and compete with each other over who is more successful after a break up, it’s safe to say that both of them managed to remain close as friends because of their mutual support and respect for each other’s well-being.
Liza Koshy as an Interviewer
From the political world to the fashion world
Image source: Twitter/LizaKoshy
Liza Koshy has also interviewed the former president Barack Obama… yes, the president. An incredible honor only reserved for the few.
The video was posted on Liza’s second channel “Liza Koshy Too”. Barack Obama personally went on her show as a way to raise awareness for the younger people to vote, seeing as only 1/3 of millennials voted in the previous election.
They talked about how younger people are so immersed in memes, and the internet, and only by being on a show hosted on the internet was the only way to reach out to them. This was the former president’s call to action to actually try and make a change, as whatever people cared about, it was ultimately up to those in government to implement changes.
Understandably Liza maintained a calm and professional demeanor even giving educated responses that shows that she really did her research during the interview as she was face to face with the actual former president of the United States.
She has however, compensated this with her editing in the video, showing her fans that she still does comedy whatever the situation may be – striking a balance between educational and hilarious quick cuts, transitions, and commentary.
Vogue also struck gold hiring Liza Koshy to be their interviewer for the Met Gala in 2018 and 2019. This decision was one of their best and very well received as viewers were refreshed seeing an interviewer with actual personality, charisma and humor to cater to the countless celebrities, musicians, and Victoria Secret Angels to be interviewed.
Understandably, she didn’t maintain her composure during the entirety of the event as it wasn’t exactly a situation you’re supposed to stay calm in seeing your idols walk up to you and ask you how you’ve been doing.
Vogue actually had to cut some content just because she talked so much and was overly excited on how the stars were dressed and how stunning they looked which resulted to a lot of commentary by Liza that Vogue didn’t necessarily dislike because everything she rambled on about was hilarious and showcased her personality, Vogue just felt that it was unnecessary.
It was clear that some stars were clear favorites for Liza, as she completely lost composure when interviewing Rhianna.
But to be fair, if I was talking to Rhianna in her dress looking amazing, I’d probably be shaking and stuttering so kudos to Liza. She also noticeably changed tone and completely maximized a calm demeanor when talking to Harry Styles and Michael B. Jordan; two very handsome men that after their short interview, Liza said it was weird seeing them outside of her dreams. Lastly, she has proven herself as an amazing interviewer and comic by making Kanye West smile after cracking a joke.
Liza Koshy and her Mental Health
It’s okay not to be okay.
Liza Koshy did take a long hiatus from posting videos on her main YouTube channel aside from her YouTube series Liza on Demand, she has gone off the grid from content creation.
Her first video after months of not posting anything, talked about how important mental health is for her and for other people. The video was titled “Why I took a break” explaining exactly as the title says: filled with lines of encouragement and positive quotes that Liza says were cringey and corny but nonetheless, needed to be said just for the people listening who might be going through the same thing. Some notable quotes from the video are:
Talk to your friends, but be your own friend.
Financially stable, doesn’t mean that you’re emotionally stable.
Success is experiencing failure after failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Liza took a break to focus on her mental health as she felt that just because she showed this constant enthusiasm, she said that she can’t exactly spread that enthusiasm around when she felt quite the opposite.
She had this persona of being upbeat, and happy all the time that eventually she couldn’t hold it in any longer. This fact alone gained her respect from myself and many others – any step towards the awareness of mental health issues, is a step in the right direction.
That even someone who is as accomplished and successful as Liza Koshy, still suffers from something she struggles to control.
The whole video was a huge message to her fans that it’s okay not to be okay.
