JEN Z talks YouTube popularity and the powerful message behind her new song
JEN Z (Jennifer Zhang) has over 64,000 Twitter followers, 170,000 followers on Instagram and her YouTube channel, JENerationDIY, has 2.6 million subscribers.
Not bad for a 22-year-old from Vancouver who left NYU after two years to focus on her YouTube and media presence full time. It’s also a choice she has absolutely no regrets over.
Zhang began her YouTube channel seven years ago when she was 15-years-old. It was summer and her friends were spending their summer watching mostly “do-it yourself’ videos. “I was obsessed with watching those so one week I said ‘you know what, I’m making a do-it-yourself video this week,’ ” she explains of the channel’s origins. She then taught herself how to film and edit videos on her own and now, seven years later, it’s one of the platforms more popular channels.
When one watches Zhang’s channel for the first time it’s evident right away she’s definitely comfortable in front of the camera and comfortable talking about herself and being entertaining.
“When I first started my channel, I was definitely super, super shy and introverted. I’m still pretty introverted. I just like staying at home by myself all the time. But I have definitely come out of my shell doing YouTube and being able to talk in front of people and meeting people on the street. But I’m still learning to kind of be that extroverted person singing in front of the crowd. It’s something I still am learning to do but I’ve grown a lot.”
At first, Zhang’s channel featured videos where she often sang (she’s also adept at playing the piano which she’s been doing for 16 years and singing in school choirs) however she abandoned that concept only because she was too shy to sing to an online audience at the time. “Those were super embarrassing so it’s completely private and wiped from the internet,” Zhang says with a laugh.
Now Zhang is returning to her music roots. With a newfound sense of confidence, she has branched out from DIY’s and is exploring and producing other forms of entertaining. So far she has recorded and published the music tracks, “By the Rules” and “Love You Like Me” both which have been listened to nearly one million times on YouTube and Spotify combined.
Zhang’s most recent single “Falling To Your Knees” has over 362,000 YouTube views and 229,000 streams on Spotify alone since it’s Oct. 9 release (the music video is inspired by one of Zhang’s favourite movies, Ex Machina). She’s been releasing music at a rate of one single per year for the past three years, but now she’s trying to ramp that number up while still providing the content her fans enjoy. “I’ve been able to do a lot of cool things through the seven years on YouTube and had a lot of a lot of fun experiences that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
Zhang wrote “Falling To Your Knees” during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic — sometime during March or April. The song came about as a personal response to racism against Asians she was hearing and reading from people as the pandemic was spreading worldwide. No doubt this overt racism was a reflection of the vitriol propagated from America, notably from the U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters. Zhang was not spared from the derogatory comments and after reading one incendiary racist post somebody wrote on her YouTube channel, she knew she had to respond.
“I was getting a lot of those kinds of comments on my social media,” she says. “I never had to deal with that so explicitly before. I was arguing with this one guy in the comments and was getting really frustrated. So eventually, I had to stop responding to him. I wrote this song to channel my frustrations. So I would just like to shout him down. It’s terrible but that was the catalyst for the song. Now it’s done and it’s out there and I get to now shut those people down.”
With Zhang being a person of colour who has a large platform on social media, I asked her if she felt she was representing others who don’t have a voice. “I would hope so,” she answers directly. “I think it’s fascinating because growing up, I didn’t really see much representation in the media. And I think what’s great about social media is that you can kind of create your own opportunities instead of waiting for someone to give them to you. I think a lot of people nowadays can be their own representation in the world. I hope people listening to a song like this can find some empowerment from it in their own lives.”
While Zhang notices the entertainment industry is slowly and gradually changing for the better when it comes to persons of colour being represented she still feels there’s definitely a lot of room to grow. With her platform, she realizes she has an opportunity to explore more social issues.
“I think it’s something that’s increasingly more important to me with all the issues that we’ve gone through, just in this year. I think it’s really important for someone with a platform like me to use my voice to bring about some change.”
“Falling To Your Knees” was recorded by Zhang from her bedroom earlier this year just like many others who chose the downtime to exercise their creativity. Zhang recorded the song there because she couldn’t go to a studio. To absorb sounds she used pillows and blankets. “A super low budget,” she laughs. “But really fun to be creative and make it work.”
Zhang says the response has been really positive, and people are really resonating with its message. “I hope people find their own sense of empowerment in the song. I know why I wrote it and I hope people feel powerful and confident and that they can stand up to whatever that they’re facing.”
Right now she is currently focused on building her music career which she admits is a new challenge and hopefully in the future, she hopes to build a business of some sort. “I’ve always wanted to start a business, but who knows?”
Until then Zhang will continue to make new videos and music but even she admits she doesn’t know what to expect from her. It’s going to be as much of a surprise to her as it well her fans. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she says. “But I hope everyone has a decent rest of the year.”
Listen to Jen Z on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1fqQGhjVuevPcROlYKzn4b
Subscribe to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZll0PJXjErnm97V18BpBlQ
Follow on Instagam https://www.instagram.com/jenerationdiy/
