Connor Joel Franta (born: September 12, 1992) is an American Shorty Award Nominated YouTube blogger, comedian and internet personality. His middle name was given by his mom's grandparents. He was born in Wisconsin, but moved to a small town in Minnesota as a child. Between his two brothers, Dustin and Brandon, and his only sister, Nicola, Connor is the second youngest child in his family. During high school, he joined the swimming club where he excelled, making strong friendships as he did so, and also was the YMCA state champion in the mile. His YouTube channel is currently at 5.5 million subscribers and 420 million video views.
History[]
He started his main channel on YouTube on August 21, 2010. His first video is named "No Subscribers", and is presently a private video. His earliest public video titled "A HARRY POTTER BIRTHDAY!!!", was uploaded on September 12, 2010. On August 13th 2012, Connor joined a new collaboration channel named Our2ndLife, featuring Justin "Jc" Caylen, Ricky Dillon, Trevor "Little Trevie" Moran, Sam Pottorff, Ricardo Ordieres (who departed later to pursue employment on the radio), and Kian Lawley (who joined four months after the channel launched). Our2ndLife is YouTube's biggest collaboration channel with over 3 million subscribers. A few months before Our2ndLife's channel reached 1,000,000 subscribers, Connor reached his goal of 1 million subscribers on his main channel. He recorded his reaction on his second channel, concluding the video by expressing how much he loves the people who supported or helped him throughout his entire YouTube career. As of November 2015, he has approximately 5 million subscribers. Connor is the only member that was part of O2L to have more subscribers on his main channel than on the O2L channel.
On July 7, 2014, Connor left Our2ndLife stating that for the past few months he was unhappy and felt that his content wasn't satisfactory. He went on to explain that YouTube had started to become too much like a job, rather than for fun, so he made the decision to focus on his personal channel. Although he is no longer part of Our2ndLife, he stated that he will continue uploading to his main channel and will stay close friends with Ricky, Sam, Jc, Trevor, and Kian.
A few months later on December 8, 2014, Connor made a video coming out and announcing publicly that he is gay. He revealed that he has never felt anything special between himself and women and has known for the majority of his life that he is gay. He has only just came up with the courage to come out. He mentioned that he had tried for a long time to admit it to himself, and only within the past year was able to say it to himself out loud and to other people. Currently, this is the second most viewed video on his channel with about 10 million views as of May 2016.
Connor has collaborated with numerous YouTubers and was in "YouTube Rewind: Turn Down for 2014" in the Let it Go scene. He was also in the YouTube Rewind of 2015 in the ballpit scene.
On April 21, 2015, he released a book called "A Work in Progress" - a memoir of his life so far.
On January 17, 2017, he announced that he wrote a second book titled "Note to Self" that will be released on April 18. He "accidentally" wrote the book when he spent the fourteen previous months taking photos and writing poetry just for fun. Connor found himself in a big emotional change and began to write about it in literal and abstract forms. He stated that this is the reason why that is the title of the book.
Trivia[]
- On January 6, 2016, he won a People's Choice Award for Favorite YouTube Star.
- He was nominated alongside: Grace Helbig, Jenna Marbles, Miranda Sings and Tyler Oakley.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
Draw My Life Connor Franta
Coming Out