Quinta Brunson: From Viral Meme Sensation to Record Breaking, Emmy-Award Winner
When tasked to identify an individual with a public online presence, Quinta Brunson is the first person that comes to mind. Born on December 21, 1989 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., Quinta Brunson rose to acclaimed stardom through her saturated use of digital space. Brunson effectively mixed old communication styles with the new making a name for herself within the past ten years.
Quinta Brunson started her career by creating humorous videos and posting them to her Instagram in 2014. One of her more popular Instagram series that went viral and gained traction was called, The Girl Who Has Never Been on a Nice Date. Like the title says, it comedically followed her character’s dating experiences as someone who had never been on a nice date. Brunson capitalized on her fast rise to fame by selling T-shirts with popular phrases from the series. She notes how through that she “made a ton of money and lost it” from not having a good relationship with money. Craving more financial stability, Brunson started working for BuzzFeed shortly after that.
BuzzFeed & YouTube Red
Initially, Brunson worked as a freelancer for BuzzFeed, “appearing in taste-test videos and other short comedy clips”. After seeing great results with her work, Brunson landed a full-time job at BuzzFeed. She then began creating funny shorts that mainly focused on millennial issues. Her most notable BuzzFeed video was called When You’re Broke But Still Killing the Game.
Brunson wrote and shot the comedy video herself and it followed three black roommates as they navigated life while having minimal income. The piece got a million views in its first week and went on to earn more than 4.5 million views with over 89K likes. Brunson continued to make episodes and after creating a full season, the show was picked up by YouTube Red and title released as Broke. Broke is a scripted comedy continuation of the BuzzFeed viral sensation. YouTube Red which is YouTube’s subscription-based service, gained its rights and exclusively released eleven episodes. Brunson wrote, produced, and starred as one of the main protagonists.
ABC’s Abbott Elementary
A dip into comedy screenwriting led Brunson to the network sitcom. Abbott Elementary, a single-camera mockumentary comedy sitcom follows the lives of teachers at Abbott Elementary, a severely underfunded public school in Philadelphia, where Brunson grew up. Brunson is the writer and co-executive of Abbott Elementary and plays one of the main protagonists. In September 2022, Brunson won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series making history as the first black woman to win the award alone. The show won another Emmy with costar Sheryl Lee Ralph for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Brunson’s Abbott Elementary also went on to win two Golden Globe Awards this year for Best Performance by an Actress in a Comedy Television Series and Best Comedy Television Series.
Through her successful public online communications and hard work, Quinta Brunson was able to go from a viral meme sensation to record breaking, Emmy-Award Winner. This all goes to show that anyone can make it big if you know how to cultivate a strong online presence and effectively use your digital space.
