What Emma Chamberlain Teaches Us About Embracing Loneliness

Emma Chamberlain: American vlogger and YouTube personality with a net worth of over $12 million, coffee-centric entrepreneur through her successful brand Chamberlain Coffee, and, at just 21 years old, a paragon of how young women can (and should!) be embracing loneliness in the digital age.

Having been hailed as YouTube’s “it girl” since she launched her YouTube channel in 2016, Chamberlain has undergone a public transformation from run-of-the-mill content creator to a personality who makes authenticity her brand – and encourages her followership of young women to do the same.

What’s the “Loneliness Epidemic?”

Do you feel like your social circle has shrunk since 2020? If so, you’re far from alone: A recent study by Harvard titled “Loneliness in America” found that 61% of young people ages 18-25 and 51% of mothers with young children reported high levels of frequent loneliness, with 43% of those demographics reporting that they have felt an increase in loneliness since 2020.

The study commented, “As a society, we do little to support emerging adults at precisely this time when they are dealing with the most defining, stressful decisions of their lives related to work, love, and identity.” 

This comes alongside the widespread usage of apps for meeting new people both platonically and romantically, with a higher percentage of women than previous years stating that they have met at least one significant other online…at the sacrifice of less in-person interaction. 

Between romance, friendship, and even the workplace now gravitating toward being facilitated online, it’s no wonder why loneliness is on the rise – and why we’re seeing it reflected in our entertainment as well.

The Rise of Emma Chamberlain, Starting with the Sister Squad 

In her earliest videos, Chamberlain comes across like your standard YouTube personality geared toward young women: At the age of 16, she started her channel after her father encouraged her to find a passion outside of school. Her early videos are chock-full of the standard fare – namely fashion hauls, first-day-of-school vlogs, food challenges, and, of course, videos of her hanging out with her “best friends.”

But these friends – fellow YouTubers Hannah Meloche and Ellie Thurman – became noticeably absent from her content as time wore on. As her popularity continued to skyrocket, her friend group was replaced by well-known names James Charles and the Dolan Twins (nicknamed “the Sister Squad”) with video titles emphasizing their friendship, like “Best Friends Buy Each Other Outfits.”

Throughout the mid-2010s, this trend of content creators capitalizing on friendships with other well-known creators wasn’t uncommon. With 13 active creator houses (like the infamous Hype House) still popular among their viewers, it looked like Chamberlain would take the common route of using equally-as-famous “friends” to climb the YouTube subscriber ladder… until she chose to do the opposite. 

Despite the shiny exterior of these supposed friends laughing, living, and generally seeming to spend every waking moment together, fans noticed the undercurrent of tension in even their earliest videos. By the time the Sister Squad dissolved in 2019, none of the members appeared to be in contact anymore.

The following year, Chamberlain took a six-month break from posting to YouTube (which, for most YouTube personalities, would have nosedived her popularity long-term) – and had a completely different outlook on her content upon returning. “I’ve dealt with a lot of people with bad intentions,” she said in an interview with W Magazine. “Just because somebody has a following does not mean that they are a good person or a good friend. And I should have known that. I don’t know why I thought there was a correlation – if anything, I prefer to have friends who are maybe not even YouTubers.”

Beating the “Fast Fashion” YouTube Trends to Center Around Something Rare: Authenticity

Post-hiatus, there’s something poetic about the framing of Chamberlain’s videos. Rather than hard-cutting to a bubbly Chamberlain chatting to the camera about how her day has gone from the driver’s seat of her car, we get quiet stills of the sun setting over Los Angeles. A camera is perched above her stove as she cuts carrots into her evening meal, her back to us. She paints quietly at her kitchen table, reveling in the imperfection of what she comes up with. Sometimes she’ll take us, the audience, with her as she visits a new cafe, proudly taking up a table for one as she films the everyday serenity of passersby.

This is in stark contrast to the “fast fashion” trends that seem to come as quickly as they go on YouTube – between mukbangs, exorbitant clothes unboxings, and drama channels that cover the latest celebrity scandals in real-time, the unexpected tranquility of Chamberlain’s recent videos have contributed to her reaching the staggering milestone of 11.8 million subscribers and counting. If Seinfeld is “the show about nothing,” then Chamberlain’s channel is “the series about nothing” – but we see this resonate with more and more young people as her viewership continues to grow. 

Chamberlain takes trips out of Los Angeles by herself; she films herself struggling with a new recipe, or failing at a new type of visual art project; she picks a new restaurant she wants to try out and books a reservation for herself. In one video, she says that she’s never swam in the ocean at sunrise before and that all of her friends are busy that day. She goes alone, and a stationary camera takes in her exuberance as she splashes in the waves.

As for her friends? She now keeps her relationships away from the public eye. The ones she does occasionally showcase are her parents, in the form of brief calls to her mom just to tell her that she loves her, or having her dad be the man behind the camera as they travel across Europe together, dining at quiet holes-in-the-wall and filming snapshots of the art exhibits they flit between on their journeys.

Using Authenticity To Beat Loneliness in the Digital Era

There’s something to say when, in a world with so much content available to consume, over 5.1 million people opt to watch a video of Chamberlain’s simply titled “Cooking.” Comments from that one video alone follow the lines of:

• “Emma’s content is like a warm hug from a friend you haven’t seen in awhile.”

• “Emma just inspires us to eat our fruit, drink our water, stay off our phones, create something, cook, and think more positively.”

• “This new Emma era is so comforting. It’s like she’s really accepted adulthood and is beginning to enjoy it, instead of trying to be a teenager again. I am so much more in love with these vids now.”

• “Everything she puts out encourages us to be true to ourselves and live our lives in a way that’s authentic to us. I’m so grateful!”

Closing Thoughts

No matter the topic of the video, Chamberlain weaves one consistent thread: Being alone doesn’t have to mean that you’re lonely, not if you focus on fostering authentic relationships and follow your heart instead of following trends. And that’s a message worth hearing, now more than ever before.

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