http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/arts/television/grace-helbigs-digital-path-to-fame.html 2014-11-15 23:26:01 Grace Helbig’s Digital Path to Fame The Internet comic Grace Helbig belongs to a generation of YouTube stars who are making a good living reaching large fan bases without traditional media. === LOS ANGELES — Grace Helbig sounds almost blasé about the prospect of becoming the female face of late-night television. Ms. Helbig, a poised, 29-year-old Internet comic whose YouTube channel, It’s Grace, has nearly two million subscribers, said she expected to find out if the E! network would pick up her pilot any day now. If it happens, she will be the only woman on late-night TV. “Seven years ago, a TV show would be the greatest thing to happen to me,” she said with a convincing absence of anxiety during an interview in her new house in the Silver Lake neighborhood here last month. “Now, it would also be great, but it’s also just another piece of content.” Getting your own talk show or TV series has long been the dream of young comics, but Ms. Helbig, a petite blonde with delicate features, belongs to a generation of YouTube stars who are platform agnostic and making a good living reaching large fan bases without traditional media. She doesn’t need television to make her famous, because, among audiences who grew up watching shows on their phones, she already is. To be sure, there are bigger YouTube stars than Ms. Helbig — working under the alias During the past year, she has not only changed sites and rebuilt her audience, proving the devotion of her fans, but she has also dramatically expanded her multiplatform empire, releasing But it all began with videos. Some of them engage in proudly delirious silliness, like a discussion of being sick that turns into an ode to a box of Many of her videos focus on popular culture, but unlike Chelsea Handler or Joan Rivers, past stars for E!, they are generally sunny, almost never cutting. And unlike many other popular vloggers (like, say, Jenna Marbles, another YouTube star based in Los Angeles), she keeps her private life at a distance. “I know I could make a video where my boyfriend does my makeup, and it would get a lot of views,” Ms. Helbig said. “That intimacy works. But that’s not what I want to do there.” Ms. Helbig describes herself as a “British-descended repressed person,” and one of her signature jokes involves awkward attempts to be sexy. “I am the most prudish person on YouTube,” she said, adding that when she used to audition for TV or movie roles, she hated that she always had to play some sexualized archetype. Ms. Helbig’s persona is lovably hapless and rigorously silly. She calls herself “the Internet’s awkward older sister.” Her videos were posted daily for more than five years until this summer, when she shifted to three a week to accommodate her busy schedule. It’s an auteur production, with Ms. Helbig shooting, editing and starring in the four- and five-minute videos, which she said reach an audience of primarily female millennials. They address viewers directly and are highly edited, with a multitude of cuts, creating a hectic, rapid-fire series of punch lines. “I cut out a breath between sentences,” she said. “People have such short attention spans, you have to be quick.” Her role as an Internet comic began in secret. In 2008, she started working for the website My Damn Channel in New York, appearing as a host in videos that directed users to new content. At the time, she was also taking improv classes at the Pit. “I thought Internet comedy is just a bunch of teenagers making jokes about vaginas, not real comedy,” she said. “I was embarrassed by it in my improv world, so kept it quiet.” Sarah Palin proved to be her big break. Once John McCain tapped Ms. Palin as the vice-presidential nominee on the Republican ticket, My Damn Channel quickly asked Ms. Helbig if she could do a spoof. With what she concedes is a weak impression, she racked up impressive views, getting her first taste of viral video success. Soon she was making her own comedy videos under the name Daily Grace, and fans started coming to her live shows wearing T-shirts with catchphrases from the videos. In 2012, she quit improv and moved to Los Angeles, where she met other YouTube stars and realized she had a bad deal with My Damn Channel, which did not give her ownership of her content or a percentage of ad sales. By contrast, YouTube’s Partner Program gives video makers 55 percent of its targeted advertising revenues. “I realized I was creating new media content, but under a traditional media contract,” she said. In a risky, much-buzzed-about move, she left My Damn Channel, gave up the name Daily Grace and her 2.5 million subscribers. My Damn Channel would not let her advertise her new YouTube vlog, renamed It’s Grace, on its channel. That response earned her sympathy and support (including a pointed “It was the perfect description of where our culture is now,” said Chris Hardwick, host of the Comedy Central series “@midnight,” one of the few television shows that have featured Ms. Helbig as a guest. “The creators are in charge now. The companies don’t matter. Her audience will follow her.” Advertisers noticed. She has signed sponsorship deals with, among others, St. Ives, Friskies, Audible and Ford. Long-term, Ms. Helbig hopes to move increasingly behind the camera into a producing role, but she said she would never stop making YouTube videos. That is the bedrock; the Internet is her home. As for television, she is cautiously hopeful. “Traditional TV is slowly figuring out the power and influence of YouTube,” Ms. Helbig said. “TV isn’t creating communities. It’s creating a viewership. YouTube is creating communities, a fandom, which I think is more powerful.”