Liza Koshy

Elizabeth Shaila "Liza" Koshy (born March 31, 1996) is an American media personality and actress.

Her main YouTube channel has amassed more than 17 million subscribers, and her two channels have a combined total of over 3 billion views.

She has received four Streamy Awards, four Teen Choice Awards, and a Kids' Choice Award.

Elizabeth Shaila Koshy was born in Houston, Texas, on March 31, 1996, the daughter of Jean Carol (née Hertzler), an American yoga instructor of German descent, and Jose Koshy, an Indian Malayali petroleum executive from Kerala.

She has two older sisters.

From kindergarten until fifth grade, she was placed in a dual language educational and cultural program, where she learned to speak Spanish.

Koshy began her career on Vine in 2013, before starting a YouTube channel.

Koshy began posting comic videos on the Vine platform, in 2013, under the pseudonym "Lizzza", where she posted short comedic videos.

In 2014, after attending Lamar High School, Koshy enrolled in the University of Houston and began to study business marketing.

In 2015, she left college and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a media career.

She made her acting debut as Aday Walker in Tyler Perry's horror comedy film Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016), and went on to star as Violet Adams in the Hulu horror drama series Freakish (2016–2017) and The Explorer in the YouTube Premium mystery series Escape the Night (2017–2019).

By 2016, Koshy was also becoming noted on the YouTube platform.

In November 2016, just before the 2016 election, Koshy interviewed President Barack Obama on her YouTube channel to encourage voter registration.

Koshy's videos feature "her loud facial expressions, quick pace, and her commitment to looking as ridiculous as possible as the joke demands. [Some of her videos] take serious issues – like anxiety, the pressure to fit in, and internet trolls – and make them accessible and engaging for her viewers."

In 2016, Koshy starred in the Hulu original horror series Freakish as Violet Adams.

Also in 2016, she played the role of Aday Walker in the horror-comedy feature film, Boo! A Madea Halloween, and starred as herself in the YouTube Premium series, Jingle Ballin'.

Koshy starred as Princess Aubrey in the 2016 comedy film FML.

She was also a correspondent for the MTV television series Total Request Live (2017–2018).

When Vine closed in 2017, Koshy had 7 million followers.

In 2017, Koshy became "the fastest YouTube personality to reach 10 million subscribers".

As of 2021, her main YouTube channel had over 17 million subscribers and more than 2 billion views.

Her second YouTube channel had more than 8 million subscribers, and her two channels had a combined total of more than 3 billion views.

She had more than 18 million followers on Instagram, more than 26 million followers on TikTok more than 4 million on Facebook and more than 2.8 million on Twitter.

She reprised the role in the show's second season in 2017.

In 2017, she played a recurring character, The Explorer, in the YouTube Premium mystery-reality series Escape the Night.

Koshy co-created, produced and starred as the title character in the YouTube Premium comedy series Liza on Demand (2018–2021), which earned her several accolades, and hosted the Nickelodeon game show revival Double Dare (2018–2019), for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination.

She suspended adding new videos to her main YouTube account in early 2018 as she turned to full-time acting and hosting work.

Koshy stars in and co-produces a YouTube Premium situation comedy series, Liza on Demand, which premiered in June 2018, "following the chaotic misadventures of the eponymous character" as she works to become an "elite tasker" doing odd jobs for pay.

A reviewer for the Los Angeles Times wrote: "The first episode ... is not bad. Yet it's also ordinary and a little stiff. … But the second ... is better ... and shows off Koshy to good effect, some effective physical comedy included. It made me laugh, anyway."

In November 2018, Koshy voiced the character Owl in Crow: The Legend, an animated virtual-reality short film written and directed by Eric Darnell, starring John Legend.

The film premiered on the Liza Koshy Too YouTube channel and Oculus VR on November 15, 2018.

Koshy was included in the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Hollywood & Entertainment list, as well as the Time 2019 list of the 25 Most Influential People on the Internet and its 100 Next list that same year.

She resumed posting new videos in 2019.

Time named Koshy to its 2019 list of the 25 Most Influential People on the Internet and its 2019 100 Next list.

Season 2 premiered in September 2019.

Alexis Gunderson of Paste wrote in 2019: "Liza on Demand a truly excellent comedy."

She returned to Escape the Night in 2019.

She starred in the Netflix dance comedy film Work It (2020), and had voice roles in the animated adventure film My Little Pony: A New Generation (2021) and the science fiction film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023).

Koshy came under fire in 2020 after insensitive videos resurfaced showing Koshy imitating Asian accents and mocking the Japanese language.

She co-starred in the Netflix dance-comedy film Work It (2020).