Also known as Nigahiga, Ryan Higa is widely regarded for his YouTube channel of same title. He is a well known American YouTube personality from Japanese origin. The channel was officially created by Higa in 2006 and his partner Sean Fujiyoshi. He posted videos while lip-syncing to famous songs. Soon, they moved to comic videos and some “How to” videos on “tips” to become a nerd, gangster or ninja and they enjoyed huge popularity among his fans.
Higa, who is a natural comedian, directs, produces, acts and writes for his videos that often feature guests like Ryan Villaruel, Tim Enos, Tarynn Nago and Kyle Chun. Higa has exciting timeline on video streaming site, YouTube. He is one of the most subscribed celebrities in YouTube and has up to 18 million subscribers on Nigahiga and over 4.4 million on HigaTV, his second channel, which usually features behind the scene videos from his first channel. To cross 3 million subscribers, he was first YouTuber and once had more subscribers than Taylor Swift. He was also ranked second in #Famechangers Digital Star ranking by Variety Magazine in 2015.
His Fame – Ryan Higa
His fans might be surprised to know that the life of Ryan Higa was not supposed to be as what it is today. Actually, he was training to become a doctor of nuclear medicine. It might go without saying that he used YouTube to share videos with his family and friends when he first used it in 2006.
Later on, he started getting positive comments on his own videos from strangers. So, he decided to take that format even more seriously and started creating videos also for his fans. He achieved up to 2.9 billion views on his YouTube channel and “Nice Guys” became the most viewed video. When the popularity of Sean and Higa was growing as YouTubers, they created a movie with the help of director Richard Van Vleet, named “Ryan and Sean’s not so Excellent Adventure” which led them to play lead roles.
Later on, he starred in “Ninja Melk” along with Tarynn Nago and Tim Enos who helped Sean and Higa in launching Nigahiga channel. Along with his films, Higa is the fan of 35-minute short film “Agents of Secret Stuff”, featuring several other actors and YouTubers.
Why He is So Special?
According to Ryan, the term “Nigahiga” is combined with “Niga” which refers to “Rant” in Japanese, and his last name. He has a series named “Off the Pill” on his channel in which he is ranting on camera without ADHD pills.
He also has “On the Pill” rant series. However, his videos have not just rants, but also spoofs, parody, and sketches, having same space in his videos. Higa loves what he does and he never gives a thought to be criticized or labeled. He also doesn’t care when he is mentioned just as a YouTube personality, instead as a comedian and actor. He believes that he knows how to do a bit of everything instead being good at something.
He also doesn’t care about negative comments as he is stronger from inside and is used to being targeted to racism in school. After all, internet is a hardest place if you are sensitive. For young aspirants on YouTube, he advices not to let negative things overwhelm their determination.
His Journey to YouTube
As a YouTuber, his journey has not been simple. He started the channel when YouTube was not that popular. Initially, he started with lip-synced videos and he took some of his well-known comic videos from his channel as they had copyrighted songs in 2008.
His account was also suspended temporarily in 2009 so he had to either audio-swap videos or deleted them completely. When monetization was getting popular on YouTube and leading companies were taking this platform too seriously.
Then, Higa started to compose music to avoid copyright claims for his videos. Later on, he moved to study nuclear medicine in University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He created all of his videos himself and often collaborated with other YouTubers. He established Ryan Higa Production Company in 2012 and Sean Fujiyoshi joined him to create videos for his channel. Higa is also the part of “Tell Me How I Die”.
