Natalie Tran

Natalie Tyler Tran was born on 24 July 1986 in the suburb of Auburn in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to her mother and father, both refugees who traveled to Australia from Vietnam in 1981, having previously practiced law and literary lecturing, respectively. She also has one sister who traveled with her parents from Vietnam. After they resettled in Sydney, Tran's mother found employment in the postal service, while her father became a public school teacher. Tran credits her parents for making her success possible, expressing that they "endured so much to give my sister and I great lives."

Tran was raised in Auburn, and attended primary school in Lidcombe. After graduating, she attended Rosebank College in Five Dock, before transferring to Meriden School, an Anglican all-girls school in Strathfield, in year nine, where she graduated in 2004. Speaking about her secondary school experience, she shared that she "wasn't really a fan", sharing, "I'm not a very ambitious or very applied student." After high school, she attended the University of New South Wales, where she originally majored in education after being inspired by her father, but, following the success of her YouTube channel, began studying and later completing a degree in Digital Media. While attending the University of New South Wales, she worked in retail.

Tran began posting to her YouTube channel in 2006, initially posting responses to other videos she had seen on the site. Her content subsequently moved towards comedy skits and vlogs which involved lampooning everyday social issues, in which she played all of the characters and gave monologues throughout.

In 2007, Tran was invited to participate in the launch of YouTube Australia. Her passionate defence of Vegemite, made in response to a YouTube video by Ben Going, was featured on the Australian television programme A Current Affair on February 2007, as part of their Vegemite wars segment. Tran was nominated for "Best YouTube Channel or Personality" and "Funniest YouTube Channel" by Mashable at their 2009 Open Web Awards. Tran partnered with Lonely Planet in 2010 to make a series of travel videos, chronicling Tran's journey around the world to places such as Paris, New York City, Los Angeles and Buenos Aires.

By 2009, Tran was the most subscribed-to YouTuber in Australia and the 37th most subscribed-to globally. In 2010, she became the 18th most subscribed-to YouTuber globally. Also in 2010, analytics firm TubeMogul revealed that Tran was the 10th highest-earning YouTuber on the platform, having made over $101,000 in advertising revenue between July 2009 to July 2010. By 2011, she had earned over one million subscribers.

Tran was commissioned by The Sydney Morning Herald in April 2009 as a contributor to their technology vlog Digital Life. In May 2009, she was among the first of the featured speakers to open "Creative Sydney" at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2010, she spoke at the Entertainment Gathering convention in Monterey, California and went on to deliver a presentation at ideaCity in Toronto, Canada later that same year.

From 2010 to 2011, Tran worked as a Sydney correspondent for The Project's The Whip segment. In 2011, she appeared as a guest on an episode of the third series of Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation.

Beginning in 2010, internet critic TC Candler put Tran on his long running "100 Most Beautiful Faces" list. He would do so again in 2011 and 2012.

Six months after returning home from her Lonely Planet trip in 2011, Tran co-launched a travel app for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with the country's former Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd.

In 2011, Tran made The Sydney Morning Herald's annual list of Sydney's 100 most influential people. In 2014, Tran was listed on New Media Rockstars' list of their Top 100 Channels, ranked at number 80. Digital Trends named her video "Indoor Plant Serial Killer" as one of the funniest YouTube videos of all time in 2020.

Tran appeared in the 2013 romantic comedy film Goddess as Helen. She was emailed by the film's producers twice, but missed their first email. From 2017 to 2018, she appeared as a series regular on the sketch comedy show The Slot. In October 2018, she appeared in an ad for the vegan burger at Hungry Jack's. She appeared in both seasons of the FX series Mr Inbetween in the recurring role of Jacinta, the ex-wife of the protagonist, Ray, played by Scott Ryan. She appeared as a guest in the pilot episode of the sketch comedy series Kinne Tonight in August 2018. Luke Buckmaster of The Guardian reviewed the pilot negatively, suggesting instead that Tran should have been given her own pilot. In 2020, she returned to the show during its second season as a recurring guest.

She was an announcer at the 2013 Social Star Awards, the Australian Screen Industries and Audiences Conference and spoke at the Commercial National Radio Conference in Brisbane, Australia in October 2013.

In March 2014, Visit Melbourne, Melbourne's tourism brand, partnered with Tran and posted two Melbourne-based travel videos to Visit Melbourne's YouTube channel. In December 2014, Samsung Australia released a series of tutorial videos for the Samsung Galaxy S5 starring Tran. She appeared as part of the lineup at YouTube FanFest Australia 2015. In an April 2015 presentation at Brown University posted to her YouTube channel, she talked about Asian representation and stereotypes in the media. Tran became a member of the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences in March 2015, a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of social media content known for its Shorty Awards. In December 2015, she appeared in Lilly Singh's promotional video for her #GirlLove campaign, which aimed to end socialized competition among women, alongside Shay Mitchell, Hannah Hart, and others.

Tran became vegetarian in 2015, and later became vegan. In 2011, she began dating Rowan Jones, a producer who she met during her time on The Project. As of 2015, the two work together as freelance videographers. Tran announced their break-up in June 2019. In March 2020, she confirmed that the couple had reconciled and are living together. She identifies as an antitheist.

Her April 2016 parody of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's video apology for breaking Australian biosecurity laws, in which she depicts them as being held at gunpoint while filming the video, received notoriety and praise. Writers from The Telegraph, New York Daily News, and The Independent referred to the video as "hilarious". In February 2017, her Valentine's Day video, in which she serenaded her partner while he played video games using a virtual reality headset, got traction. She became an ambassador for YouTube's Creators for Change initiative in September 2016. In December 2017, as part of the program, she released White Male Asian Female, a 40-minute documentary which discussed negative stigmas surrounding interracial relationships, specifically those between Asian women and Caucasian men, including her own, on her YouTube channel. She hosted a video guide segment for the 2019 Sydney Film Festival called the Launch Show, released in May 2019, which was filmed at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.

She has been vocal in her support of asylum seekers in Australia. In November 2016, she partnered with Amnesty International to host a live streamed social experiment wherein Australian locals met refugees without being told prior that they were refugees.