Michelle Phan

Michelle Phan is an American make-up demonstrator and entrepreneur who became notable as a YouTube personality. Phan's YouTube channel has over 8 million subscribers, 1.1 billion lifetime views, and 350 uploaded videos.

Early life

Michelle Phan was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She has an older brother and a younger sister. Phan and her family moved to Tampa, Florida where she attended Tampa Bay Technical High School. Phan attended Ringling College of Art and Design. In March 2014, Ringling gave Phan an Honorary Doctorate of Arts degree.

Career

In 2005, Phan had a personal blog in which she discussed different makeup tutorials and received requests for further instruction. She began posting tutorial vlogs on Xanga under the username Ricebunny and then began publishing on YouTube in May 2007.

She patterned her production style on Bob Ross: "There is something magical about narration and voiceovers. Recording a voiceover is an art form in itself."

Buzzfeed featured two of Phan's "How To Get Lady Gaga's Eyes" makeup tutorials in 2009 and 2010, which helped them go viral and brought her over a million subscribers. Phan became a YouTube advertising partner and launched FAWN, a YouTube MCN (multi-channel network), in 2012.