Tanya Hennessy’s Journey To Becoming A Viral Sensation Is Why You Should Cut The #Influencer BS And Be Yourself

If you don’t know the name Tanya Hennessy, let’s just say you’re missing out. Yep, she might be a Canberra radio host but for most people around the world, her name is synonymous with honest, down-to-earth and bloody hilarious online videos across YouTube and Facebook.

Check the stats and it’s crystal clear: Tanya’s absolutely killing it. She’s racked up almost 900K followers on Facebook and more than 40K YouTube subscribers – and they’re all obsessed with her raw, silly beauty and fashion tips, plus her punchy comedic skits. Each week she’s pulling in audiences far greater than many prime time Aussie TV shows, just for being herself.

This weekend, Tanya is chatting at Video Junkee, our big bro’s festival for all things video. She’ll join our panel ‘Women Aren’t Funny‘ alongside Claudia Pickering, SkitBox, SketchShe and TheFeed’s Jan Fran.

Before she takes to the stage to chat about comedy and making it in the boys’ club, we caught up with Tanya to hear how she kicked off her channel and turned into a worldwide viral success. Get ready to take notes.

Tanya’s slingshot into viral stardom wasn’t a long-planned ambition – it all came about when Hennessy reached out to Getaway presenter Jules Lund for his feedback on her show-reel.

At the time, Tanya was doing breakfast radio in Toowoomba and wanted to put her acting background to good use. Lund was working interstate for the same radio network, so she got in touch.

According to Hennessy, her show reel was “real shit”,  so she wasn’t even hopeful she’d get a response. To her surprise, Jules called her out of the blue the next day and dropped some pearls of wisdom, recommending that he turn her unique knack for comedy into short videos for Facebook.

“He talked to me for about an hour, which was for me such a big deal.”

She followed through on Lund’s advice and soon after recorded a short, sharp video of her being herself. In her eyes, this was a long way away from her prime time TV ambitions. Little did she know that overnight, things were about to change.

To her surprise, the clip took on a life of its own. People instantly fell in love.

“I put it up and it had 1.5 million views in about two days…”

“So, I went from 2,000 [followers] to 25,000 overnight.”

Today some of her videos are viewed more than 10 million (!!!) times.Tanya is an enthusiastic and positive force that helps her fans embrace who their quirks and feel good about themselves.

And we reckon that’s all down to Tanya being real. She’s a breath of fresh air among the superficial Instagram #influencers who find their fame by rubbing in unrealistic standards, staging contrived shoots and inducing FOMO. Tanya is your best friend and a symbol of all that’s possible when you give no fucks and be yourself – and she’s setting an example for fans, showing them that embracing their weirdness and feeling good about themselves is the way to go.

“If there’s one thing I can do, it’s to tell people that life isn’t perfect and it’s not all roses, and you know sometimes being on social media is really tough. But also sometimes being a fucking person is really tough, so like, if there’s one thing I can do for those women and men is to expose the whole truth of my life … and that’s sometimes really confronting.”

For Tanya, the phenomenal response she’s had over the past 18 months is still overwhelming.

“I’m scared of it in a way – you know, it’s huge, it’s a lot of people…”

The realisation of her success came when she was invited to visit Facebook HQ for a live stream series.

“I’m in LA and people notice me. Like, Americans who live in L.A., TV capital of the world are like, ‘Oh, Tanya. I know who you are.’ And I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’

“I thought I would have, like, been pregnant at sixteen, but this is very exciting for me… I’ve completely exceeded my expectations of myself. Every day I’m like, ‘Fuck yes’.”

Tanya says that the opportunities of digital media really change the game for people who are exciting, different and eccentric. Anyone who has a story to tell can share it without needing a traditional big-scale production. You can be yourself.

“Instead of going, ‘What do you want, bigwigs?’, you can go ‘This is what I got.’ And I think that’s really exciting.

Now I can make my own rules in the game that I always wanted to play.”