The Comfort We Find in Emma Chamberlain

One particularly sunny summer day, I went shopping with my friend. We scoured the mall for the perfect pair of jean shorts and sunglasses to wear during the final months leading up to the start of school. After spending hours scavenging around, we finally went back to my house. There we were, sitting on my bedroom floor going through our purchases. Back then, finstas (fake-Instagram) were popular, at least at my school. My friend came up with the idea to film a haul of what we bought to put on our finstas. 

“We should edit this to make it more fun!” My friend exclaimed. So, we spent all of 10 minutes throwing together random cuts and music on iMovie. “This sort of looks like an Emma Chamberlain video,” she said in reaction to the final product. 

During that time I had never heard of Emma Chamberlain but after my friend left with her bags of clothing, I hunkered down and opened Youtube. Immediately, I was sucked into Emma’s channel. First, I watched her vacation vlogs, then her summer look books, and finally her newest videos: school vlogs. 

I think that many of us delved into Emma’s channel in late 2017 or during the summer of 2018. And for many, it marked an unofficial period of transition. Emma’s channel was unlike any other. For the first time, saturated filters were thrown away, and relatability replaced blooper-less videos. 

Almost from the get-go, Emma provided the internet with this much-needed escape from the unrealistic expectations that many teenage girls faced. There she was, standing in her kitchen making vegan brownies or driving to school. The normalness of her actions allowed us to find comfort in the fact that teenage girls are not alone, no matter how much at times it can feel like we are. Even today, I still find myself going back to her cooking with Emma videos. 

Not long after her rise in popularity, Emma moved to Los Angeles. For me, it was fascinating watching someone close to my age pick up her life and move to a city. However, with this, we got to see snippets of Emma managing living on her own in that weird transition phase between teenagehood and adulthood. Right now, I am going through the same period in time. Her documenting her move was one of the only realistic depictions of life after high school on youtube. 

Along with popularity on the internet comes unfortunate and almost overnight criticism, especially in Los Angeles. Comments about her “changing” started to gain popularity, which was all unwarranted. To this day, I still don’t understand why a normal girl growing up and experiencing coming-of-age moments was controversial. We can all learn some things about the way we treat young girls, especially on the internet. Regardless, Emma stayed true to herself, and more importantly, began to open up the conversation about mental health and the pressure on today’s youth. 

Back in 2018 and 2019, mental health was never openly brought up on Youtube. Even today, we still have some work to do in terms of de-stigmatizing mental health. Emma began to talk about the pressure that she experienced as someone who edited her own videos. For the first time, I could relate to someone online, not in the sense that I was editing videos, but in the sense of feeling overwhelmed and sort of being in a self-destructive cycle. Once again, we teenage girls were reminded that we were not alone in growing into ourselves. 

Recently, Emma opened up on her podcast about how she wanted to take control of her editing again. However, to come to this realization, Emma said that she had to take a creative break. This one podcast about taking time for yourself and just resting almost entirely changed my perspective on the way we view creatives. In a time of rapidly-changing media, it seems as though no one wants to just breathe. It’s all about the hustle of business, social media, etc. I think it is very important that we take time to do absolutely nothing, and Emma brought that perspective to me. 

One of her newest videos, titled “it will be okay” delves into mental health and how even if we are in the darkest of places, we will be okay. At the beginning of the video, she talked about the feelings and emotions she had been experiencing after having a panic attack. The top commenter of the video expressed their own feelings in response: “this feeling Emma spoke about in the beginning made me cry because this is exactly how I felt for years I’ve never heard anyone else talk about it.” And I feel as though that summarizes Emma’s meaning to our generation. 

For so many people, Emma just talking about her feelings helps them feel seen in a world that has stigmatized mental health for far too long. In a way, it’s almost like a breath of fresh air.