A girl’s bedroom or bathroom is never complete without cluttered counters and drawers filled with heaps of glossy tubes and compact cases. Somehow, every girl seems to accumulate an abundance of products over the years. However, amidst freshman Carly Riche’s makeup collection is an item that you will not find in many other girls’ stash: a camera.
Riche first created a YouTube channel under the username “GlossipGirl61” in 2011, right before she started seventh grade. She was inspired by the hundreds of other girls known as “beauty gurus” who populated YouTube at the time. Caught up in all of the glamour, Riche decided to try to work her own makeup magic and created a channel.
“After watching other gurus on YouTube, I started to take an interest in makeup,” said Riche. “That was where my inspiration came from—I thought all of those girls were fascinating.”
The first few months on a social media website tend to be slow and subtle for a new user, and the same applied to Riche’s channel. Riche would film makeup tutorials, making sure to display each item with sleek style, just like all the other popular gurus. Next she would edit the footage on iMovie, adding music, text and other enhancements. Lastly, she would export the video and uploaded it to YouTube, making it public to the entire world. By the end of the first two months, Riche had only gained 50 subscribers. As she entered the beauty guru community herself, she began to make friends with fellow YouTubers through Facebook and Skype. They promoted each other and worked together on video collaborations. Then, one of Riche’s own videos got extremely popular. In the video “Summer Morning Routine” Riche goes through the steps of getting prepared for her day. This video is the most popular on her channel, with about 700,000 views. Currently, she has over 10,000 subscribers, and her videos receive anywhere between 1,000 to 40,000 views.
“Having a channel has taught me to put myself out there and to not be afraid to be myself,” said Riche. “I have learned to be a much more open person and how to face reality. Although my peers can always make fun of me, I have learned to not care about them and just do what I enjoy.”
Riche’s vlogging experience has taught her more than just how to correctly apply her mascara and curl her hair. Her videos are completely public and prone to both positive and negative feedback. By the time she culminated from middle school, her entire grade had discovered her videos. At first, she was frightened of criticism, but Riche learned to overcome her insecurity and stay true to herself as Glossip Girl.
