Casey McKinnon is an actress, host, writer, producer and pioneer in the new media field who was born and raised in Montreal, Canada.

She began her career in October 2005 with the launch of her first web TV series Kitkast. The show was an instant success and quickly shot to the top of the iTunes podcast charts. In May 2006, she launched sci-fi comedy series Galacticast, which garnered five Vloggie awards and three Parsec nominations. The show went viral on YouTube with episode “Heat Fozzy” getting over 1.4 million views, and with that success she founded new media production company 8Bit Brownies Inc. in November 2006 with her partner Rudy Jahchan. In June 2007 they added A Comicbook Orange to their production slate and licensed the comic book review show to New York new media company Next New Networks for two seasons. The show relaunched independently in 2009, was nominated for Best Hosted Web Series in the 2010 Streamy Awards, and won for Best Web Original Non-Fiction in the 2010 Best of Clicker Awards. In 2010, she produced Project: Comic-Con for Sony Network Entertainment, available in the PlayStation Store and on the PlayStation YouTube channel. She also hosted Pulp Secret Live at Comic-Con and produced Pulp Secret Confessions as mini series for Next New Networks in 2007.

Recently starring as Brownberry in the popular ElfQuest fan film ElfQuest: A Fan Imagining and guest starring in several web series, including BlackBoxTV, CraveOnline’s Fanboy Funhouse, and Babelgum’s Hurtling Through Space at an Alarming Rate as the evil arch nemesis Kalm, she has also appeared on TWiT‘s NSFW show, Goodnight Burbank, and Pure Pwnage spin-off Pro at Cooking as herself. In May 2008, she took her acting talents to the big screen and worked alongside actor Colm Feore in independent western film Six Reasons Why, distributed by ThinkFilm.

Her work has been featured in notable international publications including Rolling Stone, the Hollywood Reporter, the New York Times and BBC news, among others. She has appeared in television interviews on G4TV, Global TV and G4 Tech TV.

In August 2007, she started writing about her expertise in web video by contributing to The Guardian (UK). She has written about the legal struggles of web video content creators to build a solid industry, and the need to develop community and business models to overcome the clash of traditional media. She often speaks about these experiences at conferences, including the prestigious annual South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and the San Diego Comic-Con.

McKinnon is a judge of the Canadian New Media Awards and a member of the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV). She also helped form new media advocacy group New Media West with colleagues Rick Rey and Rudy Jahchan in February 2009 to advocate fair practices in online video with the intention of maintaining equal opportunity in the field. The group has developed relationships with entertainment unions like AFTRA and SAG to facilitate communication and understanding.

A graduate of McGill University with a BA in East Asian Studies, McKinnon also has a diploma in Communications (Film) from Dawson College and studies improv at IO West in Hollywood. Whatever time she has leftover is probably spent modeling, watching and re-watching countless movies, or playing video games like Red Dead Redemption, on which she proudly attained 100% completion. A huge supporter of micro-loan organization Kiva, she has also led charity fundraisers for Child’s Play and Movember.