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She is a film critic renowned for web series like It’s Lit! and her highly insightful video essays on Hollywood films. Lindsay Ellis initially found popularity as the Nostalgia Chick in Channel Awesome production company’s web program of the same name. Her journey to YouTube and fame was not intentional, but rather a coincidental result of a deep love for film that began in her childhood years.
Tracing her background in the industry, it is clear that Lindsay has always nursed a burning passion for movies. However, she may not have planned to make a career out of it but she did. She is currently one of the respected and recognised film critics on the internet.
Lindsay Ellis’ Interest and Passion for Film Began with Fan Fiction
Born on November 24, 1984, as Lindsay Carole Ellis, the pretty talented lady, grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee. It was a small town and she engaged in entertainment via a Blockbuster, a theatre, and a Virgin Megastore. During a visit to the latter, she discovered the original Broadway cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera, sparking her love for musicals.
As she spent more time listening to the musical, she went on the internet in search of more content related to the musical. In the process, Lindsay began writing Phantom-inspired stories for fanfiction.net. The more time she spent in the Phantom world, the more her understanding and interest in filmmaking grew.
This interest eventually led her to New York University’s Tisch School of Arts where she bagged a degree in Film Studies. After graduating in 2007, she secured a few gigs working as a video editor. Later, she headed to the University of Southern California for an MFA program in film and television production.
An Application to an Online Contest Helped Launch Lindsay Ellis’ Career as a YouTube Critic
By the time Lindsay Ellis left college, she was a full-on film nerd, and she sought out opportunities to express her passion. Thus, when she saw the online contest to become the host and star of the web series, The Nostalgia Chick, she applied. She won the contest after sending in a video of herself reviewing Pocahontas.
Lindsay Ellis became the titular star of the Channel Awesome web series. It found similar popularity alongside its flagship show, The Nostalgia Critic. She joined the company in 2008 and helmed the show until 2014, hosting over 100 videos. She hosted the show while she completed her MFA program in 2011.
During this time, Lindsay also explored her career as a writer, penning film scripts. Her first known written work, Awoken, a romance parody of Twilight, was a joint work between her and two other friends, Nella and Ellisa. She also wrote and directed the short drama, The-A-Word, based on women and their plight with abortion.
After venturing into YouTube video production with Channel Awesome, she launched her channel, chezapoctube. She started the channel to create longer video essays with a more insightful look at films. In her videos, she uses each film to deep dive into cinematography, genre, editing, and film history. She also uses film to explore social subjects like Marxism and Feminism.
Her Channel Made Her Exceedingly Famous
Lindsay Ellis rose to fame with her channel critiquing Walt Disney Pictures films and the Transformers film series. Over the years, she has crafted extended essays such as her The Hobbit Duology series, which explored the production and its impact on the New Zealand film industry. Her work on the series earned her a nomination at the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Related Work.
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The result has been widespread popularity among fans of the film genre on YouTube. As of October 18, 2020, she has more than 1.03 million subscribers and more than 98.6 million views. On average, her videos receive more than 500,000 views. Besides fame, she has also partnered with PBS Digital Studios, as co-hosts of the web series, It’s Lit!.
Due to the research and depth her vision required, she supported herself by taking on temporary editing gigs at the early stage. Today, she makes money via donations from Patreon, where she has more than 7000 patrons, making up to $10,000 a month, alongside income from YouTube ad revenue.
She is Also a Published Author and Podcaster
Ever since Lindsay Ellis found her voice as a film critic on YouTube, the milestones and achievements have piled up. In 2019, she published her debut novel, Axiom’s End, an alternate history science fiction novel. The book was published by St. Martin’s Press on July 21, 2020.
The novel is the first of others in her Noumena series, and it reached #7 on The New York Times Best Seller list. It also appeared on the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Besides writing, she is also a podcaster.
In the early parts of 2020, she co-founded MusicalSplaining, alongside Kaveh Taherian. Her biweekly podcast seeks to take an in-depth look at various musicals. It has already featured in The Oprah Magazine’s Top 20 New Podcasts of 2020.
She has also expanded her efforts to entrepreneurship. With Philipp Dettmer, CGP Grey, Dave Wiskus, and others, she is a co-founder of the Standard creator community. It has a streaming video service, Nebula, through which she released some of her content.
Her Husband, Nick, is a Huge Transformers Fan Too
Those familiar with Lindsay Ellis’s work know she is a huge fan of the science fiction film series with the background of most of her videos littered with toys from the franchise. The same applies to her husband, Nick, who has a big Transformers collection too. Two of the characters, Windblade and Starscream, were figures on their wedding cake.
Sadly, that is the extent of known information about her husband. We know that they married on June 10, 2018, after several years of dating and spent their honeymoon in Japan. For a long while, his identity remained hidden. Lindsay Ellis once uploaded her wedding day’s pictures but ensured that she edited the photos to conceal her husband’s identity. However, that has since changed, and he has shown up in pictures with the YouTuber.
At the Forum in Vegas with my husband and my child pic.twitter.com/9BZceKXoyh
— Lindsay Ellis (@thelindsayellis) July 8, 2019
Despite keeping details about her husband away from the public, Ellis has always rained praises on him on Twitter, where she has more than 288 thousand followers. As of October 2020, the couple is yet to have any children.
Before she became a wife, Lindsay Ellis was in a relationship with Todd Nathanson, a film critic renowned as ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, presumably, during their days working as part of Channel Awesome. They dated for several months while also working together before they parted ways. The former couple has remained friends and he was reportedly present at her wedding.