YouTube has spawned many young celebrities in modern times and Connor Franta is one of them. The young American is not only a YouTuber, but also an entrepreneur, entertainer and writer. His journey to stardom began nearly a decade ago when he launched a self-proclaimed YouTube channel, where he uploads content ranging from lifestyle vlogs to comedy skits to inspirational films every Monday.
He currently has more than 425.4 million views on his channel and well over 5.5 million subscribers. This makes his channel the 158th most subscribed YouTube channel in the world.
Who is Connor Franta?
Born Connor Joel Franta on September 12, 1992, in Wisconsin, USA, the boy is the third of four children born to Peter and Cheryl Franta. His father is a doctor, his mother is a homemaker and he has two older siblings – Dustin (brother) and Nicola (sister) – and a younger brother named Brandon. Not long after Connor’s birth, his family moved to Minnesota, where he and his siblings were all raised Roman Catholic.
He began his elementary school at St. Peter’s Catholic School, Hokah, Minnesota, and continued there through his eighth grade. Because he was overweight as a child, his mother hired him to join the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) swim team.
He graduated from La Crescent High School in 2011, where he was part of the school’s cross-country team. Connor enrolled at Saint Benedict Roman Catholic Colleges and Saint Johns University (Collegeville, Minnesota), where he majored in business administration. During his sophomore year at the institution, he completed an Arts minor with an emphasis in Film.
In 2014 and 2015, his content was among the most popular videos on Youtube. As a result, he made a cameo appearance on the YouTube Rewind Videos. In 2014, he was nominated for a Teen Choice Award in the Web Star: Male category, but lost to Tyler Oakley.
The following year, Connor Franta also made the Teen Choice Award nominations in the Entertainer of the Year and Choice YouTuber categories, but lost again to Cameron Dallas and Bethany Mota. He was also nominated for the Streamy Award for Audience Choice Entertainer of the Year. In 2015, the young man also made an appearance at StreamCon in New York City.
After losing three Choice Awards to others in the 2014-15 season, Connor Franta finally won the “Favorite YouTube Star” award in January 2016. In October of the same year, he attended the “We Day” conference held in Toronto, Canada.
Here are facts you need to know
He is a published author
Connor Franta published his first book entitled Work in progress on April 21, 2015. It was a memoir in which he shared moments from his life and personal stories. The book was a success, spending 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and also selling 200,000 copies.
On April 18, 2017, his second book, Note to Self , was released. While the first reflected his outer life to date, the second reflected his inner life and contained essays, poetry, photographs and stories by the young talent on issues of clinical depression, social anxiety, breakups and self-love.
charity work
Connor is among those celebrities who use their popularity to make life better for others. In 2014 he celebrated his 22nd birthday with a fundraiser to build wells for people in Swaziland. The project was carried out by the Thirst Project, a non-profit organization that aims to bring safe drinking water to communities around the world that is not readily available.
Aiming to raise the $120,000 target amount, Connor Franta offered his fans t-shirts, posters, an endorsement in one of his videos, and a Skype call within a month. Amazingly, $75,000 was raised within 48 hours, and within 10 days, the original goal of $120,000 was met. By the end of a month, the campaign had raised more than $230,000.
He then visited the recipient country to see for themselves the wells that were built with the donations. At the Thirst Project’s 6th Annual Thirst Gala on June 30, 2015, Connor was recognized for his contribution.
For his 23rd birthday, Franta launched another campaign aimed at raising $180,000 in 30 days, he ended up raising over $191,000 which was also used to build another 16 water wells in Swaziland.
He has other sources of income
Connor Franta launched his own coffee range in February 2015 named Common Culture Coffee. $1 from every bag of coffee made in partnership with LA Coffee Club goes to The Thirst Project. In June of that year, he partnered with Junk Food Clothing and launched a limited-edition line of clothing. In January 2016, he launched his new shared culture website.
his sexuality
On December 8, 2014, Connor came out as gay in a six-minute YouTube video titled Coming Out. In the video, he said he has accepted who he is and is “happy with this person”. He also spoke about the help he got from others online and hoped to offer advice to people struggling with their sexuality. The video received more than 12 million views and over 949,000 likes. This made it the most watched video on Connor Franta’s channel until June 19, 2018.