How Emma Chamberlain Went From Viral Sensation to the Internet’s It Girl
Rachel Seo It’s 9 a.m. on Thursday morning, but Emma Chamberlain has already been up for three hours. Clad in an all-gray Thom Browne set, she perches on a deep-seated sofa, surrounded by tall posters of images from her newly unveiled campaign with Canon. In one, she poses in a red carpet-ready gown, a camera in hand; in another, she films herself sipping tea in a vaguely Parisian setup that calls back to her vlogs. She explains that she probably could have woken up later than she did, but she wanted to have some of her morning to herself before her busy press day. Six years after her YouTube videos catapulted her into meteoric internet stardom, Chamberlain is now a 21-year-old bona fide Gen Z it girl — one with a busy schedule that reflects the diversity of her interests and the versatility of her talents. Stardom in the social media age extends far beyond follower count. Chamberlain’s 16 million followers on Instagram and 12 million subscribers on YouTube first launched her into the public eye, and her ability to organically create viral moments (see: her muttered “Love ya” to Jack Harlow at the 2022 Met Gala) keeps her name in the temporal stream of online chatter surrounding enormous cultural moments. Though her videos now come every few months, her Spotify exclusive podcast “Anything Goes” exhibits the charisma that made her famous, giving her an outlet to discuss a slew of topics that range from minimalism to sex to trends and culture. Then there’s her entrepreneurial side: Her company Chamberlain Coffee proffers fun, brightly packaged products as an extension of her own identity as an avid consumer of caffeine.