I literally started from zero; I had zero subscribers. I remember my first subscriber - I was so excited, and then I looked, and it was my dad.
Emma Chamberlain
I would hope that young girls could relate to me and see that the lives of people on the internet are not as perfect as they seem.
If somebody has a bad reputation on the internet or if they have a really good reputation on the internet, I don't care. I want to meet said person and make up my mind for myself, and then go from there.
If I was staying the same, then I wouldn't be evolving and changing and that would be boring and that would be unhealthy.
I ran out of any type of persona. I just had to be me.
I've cried multiple times after posting a video. So much work goes into each video that I don't know how I'm still alive.
My family wasn't shocked by my success, but I was. But they just knew I'd do something in entertainment.
During the middle of sophomore year, my friends and I would get bored at lunch, so we would film videos on my computer webcam of us dancing in the gym to Christmas music.
I've dealt with a lot of people with bad intentions. Just because somebody has a following does not mean that they are a good person or a good friend.
For me personally, I just don't have anything to prove anymore. I know exactly who I am, I know that I'm intelligent and acting dumb or acting like whatever. If that's funny to me because I know it's false then so be it.
I would sit in class, and I would just cry. Like I don't even know why. It wasn't my school's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. I just didn't like the environment. I totally had too much on my plate. At this point I wasn't even doing YouTube yet, mind you.
For me, because I've been such a YouTube lover since day one, I want to continue doing YouTube but also branch out and do other things simultaneously.
There were times when we couldn't even go to the movies, when I was a kid, because there wasn't enough money.
I don't like to say things that I wouldn't want to say to someone's face. Those are my morals for life.
When I was younger I had a gut feeling that I was going to use my personality in some way, but I didn't know how. But I always had an outgoing personality. That was the one thing that I was known for.
I didn't have cable, so YouTube was my cartoons.
I'm a very predictable person.
I wasn't really big enough when I was filming at school for it to affect anyone too much, but I think my friends that were consistently in my videos during that time definitely got attention that they weren't anticipating. I'm not quite sure how they felt about it to be honest.
It messed with my head a little bit when people started to imitate what I was doing.
Relationships with people in general, in no matter what capacity, are something that's very emotional. They mean a lot to you. I think having eyes on that in a critical way can be really tough.
When something's really significant, whether it's good, bad, ugly, I like being able to look back at a moment in time that was high-emotion. Whenever I'm crying I like, weirdly, to document it.
I've always been the one who struggled financially, so now it's so cool that I can make my own money and do whatever I want with it.
Honestly, I was posting videos just to have something to do.
I had never seen anyone edit the way that I edit before I did it, and it's just what felt right to me.
There's nothing anybody who watches my videos doesn't know about me, unless it's something genuinely sacred and private to me.
Let's say another YouTuber rates my outfit from Coachella, right? They are completely entitled to their opinion, and I actually really loved my Coachella outfit. If they say, 'This is ugly,' and even if I don't think it's true, it's a mood killer.
I grew up watching YouTube and it was tough feeling like everyone I watched had a perfect life. I couldn't help but feel that my life sucked when I watched their videos.
It is so rewarding to have a community that I can interact with. Whether it's meeting them in person or reading their comments, it's all so surreal and humbling.
I learned from making random little personal projects, like school projects or little GoPro montages with music. Then once I made my channel, I really improved just by making video after video.
