‘Miranda Sings Live’ On Netflix Showcases What Happens After All The Haters Have Backed Off

Before Miranda Sings Live…Your Welcome on Netflix, a very pregnant Colleen Ballinger actually takes the stage first before an adoring crowd of young women and girls at the Kennedy Center. “There’s a tiny little penis in there,” Ballinger announces to cheers. “Is that weird? Are there kids here?”

No. And dear God, yes.

Thousands of young girls, among the 10 million who subscribed to Ballinger’s Miranda Sings YouTube channel and propelled her character to a Netflix series (Haters Back Off), made it possible for Ballinger to book the Kennedy Center for a comedy special that includes plenty of Miranda songs, audience participation, and even stand-up comedy from Ballinger as herself.

This special, though, gives her fans (and their parents) plenty they haven’t seen before.

Photos of Ballinger as a baby, proving once and for all that she always had a Miranda resting face.

Passages read aloud and shown onscreen from Ballinger’s own diaries as a tween, wondering if she’ll ever get a boyfriend.

Of course, as a pregnant YouTube star, she’s accomplished more than she ever expected. Although she also wonders about what her son’s life will look like: “He’s gonna think he lives in a house with a mommy and a daddy, and sometimes mommy disappears and a crazy girl with lipstick and a camel toe chases him around the house with a camera.”

After all, Ballinger already has spent a decade playing to the camera as Miranda. And that’s who her fans want to see. Even if, as she adds: “I have made a career of people hating my character.”

She performs her first song on a ukulele as herself, turning the comments from her YouTube haters into lyrics, an update on her “MEAN COMMENTS” music video from 2016 that has upward of 3 million views.

It’s not until more than 20 minutes that Ballinger fully becomes Miranda in a show-stopping number while singing “Defying Gravity” from Wicked.

After that, it’s all Miranda.

The girls in the audience cheer loudly for her YouTube best friend Kory DeSoto, and Miranda’s best friend Patrick (Erik Stocklin).

They sing along to renditions of “Pregnant Virgin,” “No Offense,” and “Do the Miranda.”

A few fortunate “Mirfandas” get to join Miranda onstage. First, for instructions on how not to dress “porn-y”; then, to see if any of the men or boys in the theater are up to the task of raising Miranda’s baby. There’s no shortage of volunteers for either task.

But there remains only one Miranda Sings.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Miranda Sings Live... Your Welcome on Netflix