Dozens of shopping bags and makeup products are scattered around her room as Senior Vienn Nong sets up her Sony camcorder and prepares to film the next video for her YouTube channel.
Nong began uploading videos at the end of her seventh grade year to her channel, missfashionfreak13 after discovering the YouTube beauty community. She later changed the name to Vienn N. to be more profesional.
“None of my friends at the time were into makeup and fashion,” Nong said. “So I decided to talk to a camera about that stuff. I started getting into makeup at the end of sixth grade after playing around with some eye shadow, but it was a horrible idea to start out with bright blue and purple shades.”
To get ideas for her next videos, Nong watches other YouTube fashion channels to get a sense of what’s popular among teens. Recently, Nong reached 300 subscribers on her channel.
“Hitting 300 was really exciting,” Nong said. “To some, it may seem a bit trivial, but to me, 300 people is a lot. Imagine talking to a crowd of 300!”
In addition to her main channel, Nong also started a separate daily video log channel the day before the start of school to document every day of her senior year.
“If you see me around campus talking to my phone, this is why,” Nong said. “Vlogging is really fun, but it is hard because I have to keep up with making a video every day.”
For Nong, filming can take between 10 minutes to an hour depending on the type of video. However, editing will take her about one to three hours per video. Despite having to spend lots of time making videos, Nong’s passion has had a positive emotional impact on her.
“Making YouTube videos has really helped me forget about the stresses of life,” Nong said. “It makes me happy when I film and editing calms me down.”
Although Nong has received many positive comments from her viewers on her channel, she does occasionally receive negative criticism from some. However, she refuses to let the negativity stop her from pursuing her passion.
“Yes, I get hate and yes, it does bother me sometimes,” Nong said. “I get comments saying I’m ugly or I get comments on ask.fm saying that my videos are stupid. Fortunately, I do have some great supporters, most of whom are my friends. I hope my videos show that anyone can do what they love even if people do judge them. I am definitely planning on continuing my videos after high school. Who knows, maybe I’ll even meet a fellow YouTuber in college!”
TCHS School Newspaper