How Karen Civil Built Her Entertainment Empire

“You called me different; I thought I was eccentric. You called me weird; I thought I was unique,” says Karen Civil in an exclusive interview with MyComeUp. Having turned negatives into positives at the flick of a switch throughout her long and successful career, the digital media strategist, author, and self-described philanthropist explains how her background has shaped that.

“Growing up in Elizabeth (New Jersey) definitely taught me to have thick skin,” Civil says. “You gotta think about it: my name is Karen Civil, I’m a Haitian-American person who grew up in a predominately black neighbourhood. So black people didn’t identify with me because they didn’t feel like I was one of them. And then Haitian people didn’t identify with me because my name was Karen Civil.”

Civil compared this feeling of not belonging to the story of Cinderella. When the shoe didn’t fit, she simply went at life from a different angle. Though she felt she was “supposed to listen to hip hop,” in middle school, during the early days of the internet, Civil created fan sites for the artists she was into. And one day when her brother returned home with a teen magazine featuring The Backstreet Boys, Civil would later approach them, building a fan website that gained worldwide popularity.

“It opened up my mind to meeting people who were just so different from me,” Civil says with a wide smile. “Yep, 1997 was a great year for me.”

Civil began heading to and from Manhattan to develop her career. There, she did an internship with radio personality Angie Martinez, and worked diligently on her media projects. “Even though it was a 20 minute ride on the New Jersey transit, it was just a whole different mind state when you got to New York,” she recalls.

The results speak for themselves. Today, as the CEO of her own company, Live Civil, she reflects thoughtfully on the industry that surrounds her, and what it means to be a black woman within that. Navigating workplace sexism with a distinct confidence in her own expertise, Civil also refuses to let racial expectations and labels get the better of her.

And although the internet was, in many ways, the making of her business, she appreciates that “whatever fuels you, can starve you.” This comes across as a measured approach to the “rampant” online landscape she sees in today’s world—a far cry from the early days of the web that helped make her name.

Whatever the experience, Civil has a knack for summing it up effortlessly—and often in good humour. “In this industry there are 4 different types of animals,” she explains. “There are eagles who soar. There are crabs who bring you down. There are snakes… and then there are chickens.” 

Pausing for a moment and grinning, she continues, “So I just make sure I surround myself with eagles.”

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