I
F THE UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING, EMMA CHAMBERLAIN IS MORE ALIVE THAN ANY OF US. BY SOCRATICALLY PROBING HER OWN IDIOSYNCRASIES AND IDEOLOGIES WITH AN AUDIENCE WHO READILY CONGREGATE IN THE COMMENTS (EARNING, IF THEY’RE LUCKY, AN OFF-CAST CRUMB OF CHAMBERLAIN’S CLOUT WITH OBSERVATIONS OF THEIR OWN), MUCH OF THE MULTIMEDIA ENTERTAINER’S MULTI-MILLIONS CAN BE CREDITED TO RUTHLESS INTROSPECTION. Of course, unlike Ancient Greece, the digital age needs more than meaningful discourse to pay attention. It helps that Emma Chamberlain is accessibly beautiful, unpreten- tiously smart, and, even in the grips of an unrelenting ex- istential crisis, ready to record in the eye of her storms. Although today, Emma Chamberlain’s video is off. Audio-only formats allow her to “speak more freely”—which, consider- ing the entertainer famously built her brand off the back of on-camera authenticity, is somewhat ironic. YouTube was first suggested as a creative outlet from her father, a painter. Mean- while, Chamberlain was an academically-overachieving only child who was at a vocational loss the summer of her soph- omore year. By age 18, the NorCal-native had left high school early, relocating to Los Angeles in pursuit of a full-time enter- tainment career. Three years and a solo podcast ( Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain, which will be exclusively on Spotify in 2023), coffee company (Chamberlain Coffee), and several lux- ury fashion ambassadorships later (Louis Vuitton, Cartier), she can’t escape her own image. “If I’m going to be completely honest, that part has messed with me,” she shares of the inextricability of her identity with that of the webosphere. “Obviously it’s worth it, but it is tough. I’m kind of an anxious person as it is, and it kind of makes me disassociate a little bit. I see so much of myself that I’m over- stimulated, and I disconnect my own being…and since there’s
every opinion in my comments section, now it’s on me to work out the truth. Do I look good? Do I look bad? Was this cringe? Was this insightful? How do I feel?” While vloggers and podcasters alike mine the anecdotes and ex- pertise of others for content prompts, Chamberlain can monologue for hours on end. Her output features no recurring characters—save for Declan and Frankie, her cats—and we watch, often mesmerized, always comforted as Chamberlain participates in aggressively ordi- nary activities: showering, shopping, sitting in her car. Few 21-year- olds have achieved what Emma Chamberlain has, and even fewer live the way she appears to—self-sufficient, self-reflective, and also, almost entirely by herself. “I think the reason why I maybe give less and less [about my life] is because there’s just less new things to give,” she says. “But I’ve already shared so much that I don’t have as much left… I have this space now in my mind to look at all of my values, and deconstruct them, to ask myself, ‘Okay, wait, is this the right way to be thinking about things?’” Consequently, her clips feature no diet trends-tried, no quick- tip makeup tutorials. Instead, Chamberlain unrelentingly dissects the post-adolescent existence, packaging each with learned succinc- tion (see: ‘QUESTION EVERYTHING’). Perhaps out of habit or the allure of increasingly candid thumbnails, legions of like-minded listeners click… then comment, writing: “Am I the only one who literally talks back to [Emma] like we’re having a conversation?” “The [creating] part is actually not that challenging,” Chamberlain explains. “As long as you’re in a good place mentally, that can be incredible. It’s the weight of everyone watching at all times that is so heavy. It is terrifying.When you’re at school, for example, you feel like your whole school is watching you when you’re walking down the hallway. It’s like that, but with everybody, and it can fuck with your head because the community of people watching you becomes everyone.” Chamberlain’s conversational prowess rarely alludes to her age, but her comparison of global fame to high school is a rare tell. Any- one who has survived the early 20s recognizes the era as perhaps the most emotionally fraught in one’s lifetime; adulthood with training wheels—rife with self-doubt, and ripe for disorientation, and even Emma Chamberlain is not immune. Self-employed since 17, Cham- berlain purchased her first house before she could legally drink. It
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