Firefighter, Lifeguard, Nasa Astronaut, FBI Agent, Ballerina… which profession would you dare to give your best shot at? If you’re YouTube star Michelle Khare, the answer to that question is, “All that and 20 more”. What’s her story? Read on.
Early Life: Defying challenges
Michelle was born on August 28th, 1992 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Growing up, her parents wanted her to pursue a medical career, but she chose to study Digital Media at Dartmouth College. It would just be the start of her defying expectations.
During her time at the Ivy League college, she raced for the Dartmouth Cycling Team and won the US U23 Criterium nationals. She wasn’t one of the favourites at the start of the race. But she took on the challenge and aced it.
She then went onto join BMW Women’s Professional team where she raced and trained for a year. Over the year, she realized that though she loved being an athelete, being a full-time cyclist was not her calling.
She began looking for another way to make an impact on the world.
A new beginning
She picked YouTube.
Her sister Madeline convinced her to start making videos. She told her that if she really wanted to get into entertainment, she “should do it about something that no one else could do: cycling comedy”
So in 2014, Michelle created her first channel, titled: Helmet head. Although her original videos are no longer on her channel, her comedy skits managed to get her an internship at Buzzfeed almost straight after she graduated! There she stayed for the next 2 and half years, making 6 videos a month, end to end.
Finding her forte
In those years she learned the ins and outs of her craft. She also picked up her next obsession. In September 2016, she trained with UFC MMA fighters for 60 days, and then went on to do a real UFC-style fight right in the Buzzfeed office!
The experience pushed her to her absolute limit. And she decided that she wanted a make a profession off of pushing her limits. So she quit Buzzfeed and did just that.
In 2016, she created the series MK Ultra where she trained like a superhero for a month. Daredevil, Batman, Spiderman – were all heroes whose training regimes she aced.
Each video ends with a badass cinematic sequence, where she shows off the new superhero moves that she’s learned.
From reel life superheroes, she then began idolizing real-life superheroes. In 2018, she created the series “Challenge Accepted”. This is an ongoing series where Khare challenges herself to train for a profession in just 6 weeks, often pushing herself past her physical and mental limits.
Going all out
A pop star, a Victoria’s secret supermodel, a chef… these were some of the professions she tried out in S1. Each video takes 3-12 months to make, from pre-production to creation!
In S2, she upped the ante. In S2, “Fire Academy”, Michelle trained alongside real-life firefighters. At the end of the video, she goes into a burning building in over 1700 degree heat to save a 175lb plastic dummy.
In her “FBI Academy” episode, she trained alongside federal agents, going through a series of fitness and stress tests. The video ends with her encountering a real high stakes federal training procedure, where she has to think fast whilst armed with a gun!
Michelle sees the people professions that she represents in “Challenge Accepted” as heroes, and wants to show the world just how difficult these professions really are. But her videos aren’t always about her running into burning buildings or training with the federal bureau.
In 2019, she created her first musical style video titled “The YouTube Rewind Musical”. She hired actual broadway stars to play YouTube superstars. Alongside them she performed in a musical about the biggest YT moments of 2019.
She’s also made the jump into mainstream TV. In mid-2020, she went on to host Karma on HBO’s streaming platform. The show involved having children work together to solve puzzles through physical challenges.
She’s not a scrimper when it comes to intellectual activity either. She was a part of this year’s PogChamps3, a chess.com-sponsored competition that raised over $150,000 for charity. Although she didn’t win, she reached the semi-finals of the competition. She played alongside notable names such as MrBeast, Pokimane and Rainn Wilson.
The Challenge has just begun
Today Michelle has a podcast; her YT show and also streams regularly on Twitch. She’s tried out over 20 professions and trained like 8 superheroes. Perhaps the biggest challenge in front of MIchelle is finding more challenging things to do.
Considering her success rate with challenges though, we know where we’re putting our money.
What’s Michelle been upto?
Over the last few months, Michelle’s been upto some of her coolest challenges yet-
Training like a chess GrandMaster; Training like an Astronaut and even climbing an 85Ft cliff with only 1 week of training.
Michelle’s been pushing her limits, one challenge at a time.
