Page 103 - Cosmopolitan - USA (February 2020)
P. 103
Talking to Emma is easy—a no-
pressure situation. But then I ask
where she got her necklaces, and she
politely responds they were a gift
from “Vuitton.” Oh, right, this is a
Cool Girl. Respect must be paid.
Her beginnings as a YouTuber
“ G R O W I N G
are canon at this point, but it’s worth
repeating that her story looks and U P O N
sounds a lot like those of the hun-
dreds of thousands of other young social
girls who try to become vloggers from
their childhood bedrooms: Emma media
started out with a few channels early
on in high school and abandoned
G A V E M E
them when they didn’t get much trac-
E A T I N G
tion. But encouraged by her musi-
cian dad, she decided to try again. I S S U E S . ”
“It was summertime. I didn’t want to
do my summer reading. I had to tap
into other new territories in my brain
because I was so bored. So it was like, awkward, easily excitable self was her “It’s a bloodbath,” Emma says,
every day, I was making videos.” lane. So she stayed in it, leaning in to point-blank, about the aesthetically
After a few more failed experi- harmless mockery of vegan pizza, her obsessed culture she found herself in.
ments (this time with beauty vlog- own zits, and more faux iterations of At this point, we’ve left the nail salon
ging), Emma finally went viral with YouTube staples (makeup tutorials and made our way across the street to
“We all owe the dollar store an apol- but terrible; pumpkin-spice product Dayglow, a hidden shoebox of a coffee
ogy.” In case you somehow missed it, reviews but with choking). shop, where it’s just us and the store’s
think of YouTube’s high-priced-haul Emma is, in other words, fully owner behind the bar. “Living in
videos, but instead of going through in on the joke—the joke being her- L.A., if you’re at an unhealthy weight,
a Sephora or West Elm cart, Emma self: someone who built her capital that’s normal. That’s really, really,
SHOES (CLOCKWISE FROM FLOOR): JIM MY CHOO; FENDI; WANDLER; A MINA MUADDI; JIM MY CHOO; TORY BURCH (2).
enthuses over plastic garbage that “B” Brand by parodying the very really a mindfuck, for sure.”
costs 99 cents apiece. thing she is. “I mean, I make fun of Unlike certain social media stars,
“I just made that video because YouTubers and I am one. I think of Emma refuses to advertise weight-
I was like...I don’t even know what I it as, Why not play into it? If you can’t loss products. “Like, your grind is
was doing. I don’t know what went beat them, join them.” Basically, she your grind, and I’m not going to get
through my head. I was super excited stopped playing the game and came in the way of that. I just think that
about it though, super pumped about up with her own—and that, I real- growing up on social media gave me
it. I was like, This is actually going to ize, is the first ingredient in the “Why eating issues as a kid. I literally have
be fun for me to fake through this haul, her?” recipe: rejecting the standard struggled with that my whole life.
and apparently, other people were YouTube thirst trap for a fuck-it kind Almost every person I’ve met has had
excited about it too. And it was like, of irreverence. some form of an eating disorder. I
All right.” Others started copying her shoot- mean, I’ve had...I don’t want to trig-
The response made Emma realize ing style (quick zoom-ins on the face, ger anyone, but so many.”
something crucial: Being her funny, old-school text captions that pop up She’s spoken before about how her
for a millisecond, deliberately bad all-night video-editing sessions
angles, lots of self-deprecation), so gave her extreme anxiety, but she
T H I S P A G E Emma invented even newer ones. She mentions to me now that staring at
V i v e t t a b l a z e r a n d s h o r t s . F r e d S e g a l t o p .
D r . M a r t e n s s h o e s . S t e l l a M c C a r t n e y dropped out of high school, moved herself for all those hours also led to a
s u n g l a s s e s to L.A., and wound up in an accel- severe case of body dysmorphia. “I’ve
O P P O S I T E P A G E erated Independence 101 class. She been fully not at a healthy weight and
V a l e n t i n o d r e s s a n d b o o t s
started talking to the press and going
to events, mostly because she was
lonely and struggling mentally.
Februar y 2020 Cosmopolitan 93
