Anna Akana Bio

Anna Kay Akana is an American actress and comedian who primarily rose to fame with her self-titled YouTube channel which has over 1.8 million subscribers and over 211 million video views as of May 2017. She also co-hosts the podcast ‘Explain Things to Me.’ Well known for her hilarious sense of humor, crazy love for cats, and unmatchable comic timing, Anna is equally talented at creating serious documentary style videos as she is at making funny ones. An ardent animal lover, her first career choice was to become a veterinarian. However, life had other plans for her. Her foray into comedy happened in the aftermath of a very tragic incident. Her teenaged sister committed suicide on Valentine's Day 2007 and her death shook young Anna to the core. In the months following the tragedy, Anna didn’t even laugh once. But all that changed one day when she watched a Comedy Central special and laughed for the first time since the suicide. Thus she began to view comedy as a way of moving on and chose to pursue it as a career.