Page 100 - Cosmopolitan - USA (February 2020)

I T ’ S O N L Y B E E N
9 0 S E C O N D S ,
uen
ced.
I’m now getting a light-green
manicure—a Statue of Liberty tint
I never would have picked out—
because Emma Chamberlain off-
handedly said she liked it. We’re
at Polish House, Emma’s West
Hollywood mani-pedi spot, and with
her seal of approval, the color beck-
oned. It doesn’t matter that you are
in your late 20s and don’t like going
to concerts because they’re too loud,
it seemed to whisper. You CAN be a
green-nail kind of person!
So I asked for Hint of Mint on my
fingers and my toes—after double-
checking with Emma to make sure
that going matchy-matchy isn’t
uncool. (The night before this inter-
view, I frantically texted my little
sister, age 24, to ask what I should
wear. “What if the teens make fun
of me?” I wrote, half joking. “They
probably will,” she responded.)
In case it’s not already glaringly
obvious: I have no idea what qualifies
90 Cosmopolitan Februar y 2020
as cool these days. I follow all the
right influencers and subscribe to all
the right Pinterest boards, but being
truly cool in 2020 is a tricky thing
to pull off. It’s not about choosing
between silver, gold, or rose-gold
jewelry (a life-or-death question back
in college)—today’s cool girls wear
all types of metallic accessories. And
if anything, the more uncool some-
thing seems (visible roots, ugly shoes,
the heroines of Booksmart, grandma
sweaters), the more Likes it gets.
“I think the word ‘influencer’ is
kind of disgusting,” Emma, who is an
influencer, tells me. “Let’s use me as
an example: If someone is calling me
an influencer, they’re saying that my
job is to influence, and I don’t think
that’s true. I prefer to entertain and
O P E N I N G S P R E A D
S t e l l a M c C a r t n e y j a c k e t . N i c h o l a s K i r k w o o d
s h o e s . S y l v i a T o l e d a n o e a r r i n g s
O P P O S I T E P A G E
D i o r d r e s s a n d b o o t s
be a friend. I don’t want to influence.”
(I look down at my nails and blame
them for being so easily swayed.)
But whether or not Emma thinks
point. Whenever I try to explain
she has powers of persuasion (she
does; sorry, Emma) isn’t really the
someone like her to a person over
30, listing her staggering success—
millions of social media followers,
astronomical numbers of YouTube
Louis Vuitton, the paralysis/faint-
views, a fashion partnership with
ing spells she causes in people like
my sister whenever she debuts a
new video—their main question is:
“Okay...but why her?” What is it about
this seemingly average girl from San
Mateo County, California, that cap-
tivates other teenagers from all over
the country, the planet—so much so
that it’s catapulted her into internet
superstardom? The answer to this
question doesn’t baffle just me—even
Emma doesn’t know.
“Why do certain people connect
and others don’t?” she asks. “I’m like,
Why has this worked?”
T H E R E ’ S A L O T T H A T I S N O R M A L
about Emma Chamberlain, things
she has in common with most Youngs
in America. She has a crush on
Timothée Chalamet (“curly hair
ruins me!”); a distaste for Keds
(“they’re so not cute”); a subtle, still
experimental personal style (she’s
wearing an Insta-approved turtle-
neck with layered necklaces); and a
minor infatuation with the Jonas
Brothers. “I’ve just been a huge fan
since, I mean, day one,” Emma
gushes, recounting how starstruck
she was meeting Joe Jonas and
Sophie Turner at Paris Fashion Week.
“I’ve been obsessed with them. So
that was super cool. I don’t think I got
to explain to him how much I loved
him, but we didn’t have a lot of time.”