Justine Ezarik (born March 20, 1984), known as iJustine or iJ on YouTube, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has appeared on shows such as Law and Order: SVU, Level 26: Prophecy, Criminal Minds, The Bold and the Beautiful, E! News, The Vampire Diaries, Escape Routes, and The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange. Justine currently has over 4.6 million subscribers and over 811 million views on her YouTube channel.
Personal Life
Justine was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Michelle, a physical education teacher, and Steve Ezarik, a coal miner. At the time of her high school graduation from Bentworth High School, she resided in the Scenery Hill area in Washington County, Pennsylvania.
After graduating from the Pittsburgh Technical Institute in 2004, Ezarik landed several jobs in graphic design and video editing before starting her own business. In December 2006, she was named one of five finalists in the "Yahoo! Talent Show", a Yahoo! sponsored competition for best online videos.
She played a photojournalist covering a bank robbery in downtown Pittsburgh on the television series The Kill Point from Spike TV, which starred John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg in May 2007.
Also in 2007, she was an occasional co-host and panel member on MacBreak and MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte.
Ezarik appeared live on the Internet through the use of a wireless webcam and microphone on her own iJustine lifecasting channel on Justin Kan's Justin.tv, where she began transmitting her life via the Internet on May 29, 2007. She was never paid for any of this volunteer work on Kan's channel as a beta-tester.
Her reality-video blog was the first one launched on Justin.tv. Kan had been encouraged by fans and followers to allow someone else to make a guest appearance on his lifecasting channel.
At first Ezarik was considering producing a video series for the technology audience because they had been the most captive audience for online video series. She stated that she did not intend to broadcast what she considers private moments, noting "That shouldn't be a problem. I am going to try as much as I can to do 24/7."
When the iPhone debuted in June 2007, Ezarik covered the device's debut at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota a suburb south of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She had been invited by Technology Evangelist to film her Internet TV show at the mall instead of covering its debut at the Shadyside Apple store as she had originally planned.
She covered the July 22, 2007, "The Kill Point" series premiere party live on her lifecast video stream. Ezarik was cited as among the website's most popular lifecasters in the October 2007 issues of both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
In 2017, she released her first official book.
Awards & Nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Streamy Awards | Best Vlogger | Nominated |
| 2010 | Teen Choice Awards | Choice Web Star | Nominated |
| 2011 | Webby Awards | Web Personality/Host | Won |
| 2013 | Streamy Awards | Best First-Person Series | Nominated |
| 2014 | Teen Choice Awards | Choice Web Star | Nominated |
| 2014 | Teen Choice Awards | Choice Web Star: Gaming | Nominated |