Yo-Pro Hour with Evelyn From the Internets
Evelyn Ngugi lets us in on life as a social media content creator by day and a (Beyoncé-approved) YouTuber by night.
School
Evelyn attended The University of Texas at Austin, majoring in Magazine Journalism. Following graduation, Evelyn freelanced until being hired with the Englishman Times. She also received a fellowship with the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, working as an arts and culture writer.
Big Break
While in college, Evelyn did an internship with NaturallyCurly.com. After spending a few months unemployed following her time in Arizona, she found herself back with the NaturallyCurly team.
“[I came] full-circle, I had to be unemployed to come full-circle,” she says.
Becoming an official member of the Beehive
Evelyn created a video right after Beyoncé released her album Lemonade back in April, expressing the greatness that all of us felt after watching. Somehow, this got back to the QUEEN HERSELF and was played onscreen during a few shows of the Formation tour. Evelyn told us about what it was like to see herself on the big screen.
“Beyoncé’s people contacted me and then I like passed out right, like I died and came back to life… I signed a release that was basically like “yes I still own my video but you can show it or do what you want with it.” I did not know where, when, how, how many times, when… I didn’t know anything.”
“One day I was at home, like back in North Texas for Mother’s day, and I was at dinner and my friend texts me an expletive, just like ‘EXPLETIVE!’…it was the Houston show with Beyoncé and he was like screaming and crying and then I was screaming and crying and then I left the house and was just running up and down the street and I took a couple puffs of my inhaler.
Meanwhile, my parents are sitting in the living room like “…what are you doing?”
Tips for you
1. Come with your own ideas
“People can only tell you what to do for so long before they’re looking to you on whether it’s because you’re young, whether it’s because you’re part of a marginalized demographic, people in high places are looking to you and you might not feel ready…but you have to be thinking of your own ideas and how you can create a scenario in which only you can do what you do and you’re irreplaceable, like Beyoncé said.”
2. Do all of your ridiculous dreams early
“I’m in a place where I can’t take risks as much as I would like to, whether it’s for financial reasons or security reasons or it just freaks me out now, so take all the risks that you want to take when you’re fresh out of college because you’ll never be more free.”
3. It’s all about content, quality, and consistency on YouTube
“When I started [on YouTube], a webcam was like 144p resolution…and now people have drones, people have videographers when they travel just to photograph them. Figure out what stories you want to tell and stick to it.”
Missed our Yo-Pro? No worries, we recorded it.
