"Oh, another makeup tutorial." That's what I thought when I first saw the title for Anna Akana's "How to Put On Your Face" video. The thumbnail seemed fairly straightforward: she was going to teach people how she does her makeup.
Anna is witty and smart and makes great points in all of her videos, so I was curious where this one would land. Surely she wasn't going to give us a straight-up makeup tutorial? Not that it would be bad - she's gorgeous, and her makeup looks great - but Anna didn't get on YouTube to teach people about makeup. She came to YouTube to create short films.
Akana-nites (my name for her fan base) were not disappointed. If you read the first line of her caption, you knew it was not going to be "first, put on primer!" She states: "The power of makeup is incredible, but the power of you is cray cray." Oh yes, Anna. What do you have in store for us?
Turns out, it was the best damn "makeup" tutorial I've ever seen. I was simultaneously in awe and insanely jealous that I had not thought of this concept first. Anna did put on makeup, yes, but throughout the video, instead of giving instructions, she offered inspiration. "To start off, dabble your eyes with optimism," Anna says as she glides shadow across her eyes. "It's all about your perspective on the world." Amen, sister. She cautions us, though, no to put on "too much optimism" or else you'll be left disappointed, due to having too high of expectations. Realistic and witty. That's why we love her.
I had Anna on Pretty Unfiltered this week to discuss the massive success of that video - it's her most popular video to date - and why she thought people responded so positively to it. She also offered advice for those aspiring creatives out there.
"If you want to be the star, create the show," Anna stated. "That's why I made my new show Miss 2059, my new series on Go90 . . . I was able to cast myself as the most beautiful woman in the world in 2059 because I made that show," Anna said. She explained that because she is a woman of color, she normally would not have been chosen for that type of role. "I don't look like the standard ideal of beauty in today's society. I'm not 6 foot tall and blonde and gorgeous with full lips and big boobs."
She also created the role of Miss 2059 to show people that beautiful women can also be smart. "We tend to judge other women who are beautiful as dumb, and I wanted to take away that stigma," Anna said.
Check out the entire episode to hear how Anna flipped the script on the entertainment industry and developed her own roles, and let us know who you'd like to see on the show next!