Laina Morris American YouTuber With 1.2M Subscribers

Early life

Laina Morris was born on 22 June 1991 in Denton, Texas. She is an American YouTuber, best known as the creator of the character and internet meme Overly Attached Girlfriend. In her videos she goes simply by her first name, and many articles about her omit her surname at her request.

Career

Morris's career took off with a single video published on 6 June 2012. It was her entry in a contest in which Justin Bieber asked fans to produce a "Girlfriend" counterpart to his song "Boyfriend". In the clip she stared into the camera with a fixed smile while singing about checking her boyfriend's Facebook, a parody of the clinginess some listeners heard in the original song. The video was picked up on Reddit and drew more than 170,000 views on its first day. A still from it was turned into an image macro, captioned to portray a jealous or obsessive partner, which circulated widely across social media and was reworked in many ways.

She followed the original quickly. On 18 June 2012 she uploaded a parody of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" in the same character, which also became popular. Over the next year she posted a version of Drake's "The Motto", a lip-synced medley of pop songs, a parody of Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" in December 2012, and a parody of "Blurred Lines" titled "Snapchat" in July 2013. She uploaded new videos weekly, usually on Thursdays, and often used her signature smile. On 6 June 2013 she marked the meme's first anniversary with a montage of earlier uploads, viewer reactions and television appearances, and a week later she released her first political video, in which she dressed as Uncle Sam and sang about watching people through Skype, Facebook and Google.

Morris worked to show other sides of herself beyond the character. This included comedy sketches, videos featuring her dogs, and a charity series called "Dare to Share". She appeared in videos by other YouTube figures, among them Shane Dawson, Tyler Oakley and TheBrothersReidell, and in a Teens React episode by TheFineBros.

Her fame brought commercial work. In November 2012 she played an "Overly Attached Computer" in a Samsung advertisement for its 840 SSD, which drew mixed reactions from viewers. In September 2013 she appeared with other meme figures in a "Meme Hunters" commercial for RealPlayer Cloud, and in May 2015 Delta Air Lines included the character in a safety video alongside other internet memes.

Her television and event appearances included Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on 11 March 2013, a staring contest with the actress Jessica Alba at the Singapore Social Awards in May 2013, and a guest spot on the Nerdist podcast with Chris Hardwick in December 2013. She also appeared with the Epic Meal Time team in the 2013 YouTube Rewind and played Cards Against Humanity on the web series TableTop.

In July 2019 Morris uploaded a video announcing her retirement from YouTube. She had posted only one video in the previous two years. On 6 June 2022 she published a video celebrating the tenth anniversary of the meme, appearing both in and out of character. In April 2021 an image of the Overly Attached Girlfriend was sold as a non-fungible token for 411,000 dollars. As of late 2021 her channel had more than 1.25 million subscribers and over 161 million views.

Recognition

Mashable included Morris on its 2012 list of "15 People Made Famous by the Internet". Her Overly Attached Girlfriend character is the work most associated with her. In May 2013 she won the staring contest against Jessica Alba at the Singapore Social Awards, an event presented by Starcount.