Meghan Camarena

Meghan Channing Camarena was born in Fresno, California, and grew up in Modesto. In her Draw My Life video, she said she had two older half-brothers from her parents' previous marriages, and younger twin brothers later. She would often take care of her younger brothers while her father was away and because her mother had suffered a bevy of physical problems and was on medication a lot. Although she said she did okay in school, because of her mother's hardships, she said she was fairly depressed, had taken up drinking, and in college she had an on-and-off relationship. Her grandmother took her to church where she made peace with God, left her boyfriend, and joined a Bible college internship program. During this time, she learned video production for her youth group. She was inspired by some YouTubers, and began making home videos. and would later have videos on "unboxing cutesy Japanese toys, taste-testing weird foods from around the world, and reviewing apps and games." Her videos soon became popular and she was getting offers from record and media companies. == Career ==

In 2010, she began corresponding with YouTuber Joey Graceffa who was located in Boston, Massachusetts, and who was planning to move to Los Angeles. In 2011, she met YouTuber Jimmy Wong who had encouraged her to enter a YouTube video contest called Next Up where the prize was $35k. She said she entered that in the last minute. and attended a YouTube boot camp in Manhattan. Using her Next Up money, she moved to Los Angeles In Los Angeles, she produced videos for Teen.com and also hosted their YouTube channel along with Graceffa. The same year, when Google updated its analytics to throw out inactive and closed subscriber accounts, Camarena said she started treating her YouTube channel more like a company rather than just an Internet channel. She had produced videos five days a week. She would also prepare videos in a large batch for the season, so it could run over several months. She and Graceffa participated in season 22 of The Amazing Race, where they competed as "Team Cute" and finished fifth overall. They would return for the All-Stars season, where they were eliminated in the third episode and finished ninth overall. Also in 2014, she produced a zombie-themed short film called The Grey Road which was funded by Ron Howard's New Form Incubator program. In 2015, she was the backstage correspondent for the second season of Fake Off, which was a talent show broadcast on TruTV. She signed a deal with Disney's Maker Studios where she worked on creating online content in the entertainment industry. Her YouTube channel went over 1 million subscribers. In October of that year, she and other YouTube creators made a project called Spider-Man Murder Mystery which ran on Instagram. Camarena played character Gwen Stacy, who also goes by "Spider-Gwen". She starred as one of the eight correspondents of Unlocked: The World of Games, Revealed, a multi-part documentary on video games, where she followed people involved in e-sports. In 2017, she and Wong were selected to co-host the video game themed variety show Polaris Primetime which was created as part of Disney's "D  XP" programming block on Disney XD. In 2018, she and YouTubers Markiplier, Jacksepticeye and LuzuGames launched Twitch channels. In 2020, she and Power Rangers Hyperforce director Melissa Flores released a RPG web series called The Unleashed on Twitch. Late that year it was announced that Camarena would be co-writing a Radiant Pink miniseries, a part of Image's Massive-Verse, with Melissa Flores, with the first issue set to debut in December 2022. In April 2023, it was announced that Camarena and Flores would be doing a one-shot comic continuation of Power Rangers Hyperforce, that is set to release in July 2023 by Boom! Studios. Camarena has appeared at several conventions including multiple VidCons, SXSW, Playlist Live and various Comic-Cons. In 2016, she was an L.A. Biz Women of Influence honoree. She cited Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as some of her biggest influences and inspirations. == Personal life ==

Camarena is half-Mexican and half German-Irish. She moved to Los Angeles in 2011. In addition to attending YouTube related conventions, she has participated as a cosplayer, an activity she has done since 2011. She, Graceffa and YouTuber Catherine Valdes had also created a band called The Tributes with music video parodies based on The Hunger Games film series. == Filmography ==