Gabrielle Jeannette Hanna (born February 7, 1991) is an American Internet personality, author, comedian, actress, and singer-songwriter.
She started her career on the streaming service Vine, under the name The Gabbie Show, then started a YouTube channel with the same name a year later; both were nominated for awards. She won a Streamy Award for storyteller in 2018. Hanna released a poetry book titled Adultolescence in September 2017. She ventured into the music industry with her debut single “Out Loud” (2017), and has released multiple singles and an EP as of 2019. Hanna’s debut studio album This Time Next Year is scheduled for release in 2020, while her debut extended play, 2WAYMIRROR, was released on May 31, 2019. As an actress, Hanna’s first major role was in the YouTube Premium series Escape the Night.
Hanna was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania. She has six siblings and is of Lebanese, French, and Polish descent. Her first job was cashier at a local Pizza Joe’s in her home town. Hanna graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in psychology and communications and was a member of Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority. Hanna worked as a bartender in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and as a waitress in her home town of New Castle. After college she worked for a marketing company that sold products out of a Sam’s Club; she became the top salesperson in the US for the company and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to help start a new branch of the company. However, she departed after realizing that they relied on a pyramid scheme. Hanna subsequently moved to Los Angeles, California, to pursue an acting career and focus on her role as a social media influencer.
2013–2016: Vine and YouTube success Hanna began uploading skits to Vine in late 2013 and later gained recognition for her activity on the Vine app where she accumulated around five million followers. In 2014, she set up a YouTube channel under the name The Gabbie Show, which was changed to Gabbie Hanna in 2017. The channel featured story time videos and by August 2019 had acquired 6.6 million subscribers and over 1 billion views. In 2015, Hanna and partner Matt Steffanina won the fourth season of the dance competition web-series Dance Showdown. After college, Hanna moved to Los Angeles, California, to work with internet media company BuzzFeed, but eventually left to focus on her YouTube and Vine platforms. She later created a second YouTube channel, The Gabbie Vlogs (changed to More Gabbie Hanna in 2019), which has gained over 1.6 million subscribers and nearly 180 million views. After Vine shut down in 2016, Hanna focused on YouTube. Meanwhile, she was nominated for two Teen Choice Awards — Choice Web Star: Female and Choice Viner. In late 2016, Hanna joined the lip sync tour Drop the Mic alongside other YouTubers.
2017–2018: Acting, transition into music and Adultolescence Hanna chronicled her life struggles in a book of poems, Adultolescence (2017). During the same time, she premiered her debut single “Out Loud” along with its music video and announced plans to release an album. A few months later, Talent Agency CAA signed Hanna and she joined the social media team of MTV. She hosted backstage for the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards and co-hosted the revival of Total Request Live in October of the same year. In 2017, Hanna joined the main cast of web series Escape the Night as the vaudevillian and appeared in seven episodes. She previously had had a small role as Lindsey in Laid in America. In November 2017, she released a non-album single “Satellite” whit a lyric video on her channel. Eventually, the lyric video disappeared from her YouTube channel and streaming services.
In January 2018, Hanna was nominated for YouTuber of the Year at the 10th Annual Shorty Awards and for the Social Star Award by iHeartRadio at the 2018 ceremony. Returning to her music career, Hanna released a promotional single entitled “Roast Yourself” which spoke about how social media creators live. This was followed by her third single “Honestly” and its encore “Honestly (Encore)”. “Honestly” gained minor success in the United States, where it peaked at number 21 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart. Hanna eventually announced that her upcoming debut album was to be titled This Time Next Year, but did not confirm a release date or track list. She released the single “Monster” and its encore “Monster (Reborn)” in October. At the 8th Annual Streamy Awards, Hanna won the award for Storyteller; she was also nominated for two other awards for First Person and Audience Choice: Creator of the Year. In an interview with Tom Ward on November 26, 2018, Hanna stated that her album would be released in 2019 and that she had plans for a second book. On December 5, 2018, Hanna released her first merchandise line on Amazon.
In early December 2018, Hanna became the center of a trending viral meme. Earlier that year in an interview with Genius Verified, she sang her song “Monster” a cappella but due to technical errors, the microphone was unable to filter her voice correctly. Fans spliced in clips, including vines and voice distortions, at the point of technical error to create a meme that gained significant media coverage. Hanna has since released merchandise showcasing her singing face during the meme, which was met with mixed reviews. As of December 2018, Hanna is already working on a second album.
2019: Controversy, 2WayMirror and This Time Next Year Hanna and fellow YouTuber Tana Mongeau received backlash in December 2018 after promoting a product offer that consisted of ten makeup brushes for ten dollars from a cosmetics website that reportedly scammed its customers by exaggerating the quality and original price of the brushes. Hanna later apologized in a January 2019 interview with a YouTuber known as iNabber, in which she also stated that she felt that the cosmetic company had misled her.
Hanna later released new YouTube content, including the single, “Medicate”, which was released in February 2019 and was met with positive reviews. Hanna later announced in a Beats 1 interview with Travis Mills and on her Instagram story, that she has a lot of new music planned in the upcoming months. Hanna announced in March she will release a new song “Butterflies”, along with a music video. She had previously announced this on her Instagram story along with another song, “Perfect Day (A True Story)”. Hanna announced on her Instagram she is releasing her debut extended play titled 2WayMirror on May 31, 2019, featuring “Medicate”, “Butterflies”, “Perfect Day (A True Story)” and three more songs, “Broken Girls”, “Goodbye, for Now”, and “Pillowcase”. Hanna later teased that the EP has 13 tracks despite her fans only expecting six. Songs are separated by short voice messages between her and her ex boyfriend. Their relationship inspired her to write songs that eventually ended up on the EP. The EP was released on May 31, 2019 alongside the music video for “Butterflies”, the second single off of 2WayMirror. The project’s high sales allowed Hanna to achieve a new peak on Billboard’s Top Emerging Artists chart at its #5 spot. The following week, on June 7, 2019, Hanna released the music video for “Perfect Day (A True Story)”. On July 1, 2019, a month after the release of her EP, Hanna confirmed via Instagram that she was working on the last song for This Time Next Year. She confirmed the song “Antisocial Media”, a reproduced version of “Roast Yourself” which she performed at VidCon LA , would be on the album. On August 17, 2019, Hanna released the music video for “Pillowcase”. The budget for this music video was upwards of USD $30,000. On September 15, 2019, Hanna stated that This Time Next Year would be released in 2020, with singles expected in late 2019.