Emma Chamberlain’s Sustained Success
Emma Chamberlain has long been one of the few online creators/influencers I have loyally followed since the beginning of her career and have continuously found value in her work. She comes from a modest Californian family, a regular kid, who started making videos and posting them on YouTube at age sixteen, according to an article on The New York Times by David Marchese. These videos were silly, fast-paced, quirky, and filled with humor, just normal teenager behavior. She has continued making videos at her own pace and expanding her brand into a coffee brand, high fashion deals, and her extremely successful podcast, Anything Goes, exclusively sponsored by Spotify. She is arguably the most famous YouTuber, as she went on to be on numerous talk shows, become a role model in fashion, mental health, social culture, pop culture, media trends, etc..
I will be focusing on one of her episodes to show how personal she gets with her audience, which is why she is known to be relatable, unconventional, creative, and hilarious, but also classy and powerful. By the end of this post, I am sure you will see how Emma is a comforting presence for young people, and has become wildly successful, all while keeping herself neutral and separate from celebrity drama and cancel-culture — her likeability and reliability unwavering.
In my screencast, I look at Emma’s YouTube channel, her Instagram, and her podcast, Anything Goes. I talk about her brand deals, role in fashion, mental health, and business inspiration. Lastly, I cover the contents of her podcast episode “a series of unfortunate events,” the center of my thesis. Using the textbook and questions, I felt inspired to include how Emma portrays certain values and perspectives that are important to her audience, and also her techniques of storytelling and comedy, which attract and hold her audience’s attention. Ultimately, the most impressive strategy of all that I have noticed is the things she does not make public (omits), which are politics, hate/mean comments, relationship status and detailed, personal social conflicts, and names — I think this keeps her successful. Emma often ignites parasocial relationships in her viewers as well, as I personally feel like I am listening to a friend when I listen to her podcast.
The challenges I faced during this assignment were mostly due to using different technological platforms and resources. My computer had finally died (for good) while I was working on the assignment earlier in the day, so that had made Leap 1 difficult to complete on time! Another challenge I faced was analyzing Emma’s content, because as she became famous at 16 and is now 22, her creative style on her podcast and videos have changed a lot, and I wanted to encompass all of her in one short blog and video.
See my screencast below:
