Me and Emma Chamberlain are Scared to Fly
by Amy Chu
My guilty pleasure is celebrity podcasts. I say “guilty” because I know I’m dependent on having a voice in my ear to drown out the anxieties that find me in the silent stretches of my day—on my commutes, while I shower, before I fall asleep. I listen to one celebrity in particular, Emma Chamberlain, because we share an interest in fashion, though I do not feel represented by her.
To most any woman or girl under the age of thirty, Chamberlain requires no introduction. But if you need one, Chamberlain started out on YouTube in 2016. She was a normal 16-year-old girl who made videos about her daily life, including cooking in her mom’s apartment and her “hauls” from the thrift store and the dollar store. Though it started as a personal project to deal with a depressive episode, Chamberlain’s YouTube channel gained millions of subscribers as she became known for her quirky narration and fast-paced editing. A profile in Australian Vogue described her vlogging style as having the self-awareness of Phoebe Waller-Bridge and the self-deprecation of David Sedaris. The New York Times profiled her multiple times: first in 2019, again in 2023 when she decided to take a break from vlogging, and most recently in 2024, for her growing success outside of YouTube. She started her own coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee, became a brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton, and hosted Vogue’s red carpet interviews for the Met Gala five times. Chamberlain posts fewer YouTube videos these days, but she still connects with audiences via her popular Spotify-branded podcast, anything goes with emma chamberlain.
Despite having been dubbed “Gen-Z’s older sister,” Chamberlain is two years younger than me, and I consider myself Gen Z. We don’t share any traits of background, race, or class, but still, I’m sometimes struck by the similarity of our anxieties and wants. She manages a phone addiction. Like me, she hasn’t touched alcohol in months. Both her long-term relationship and mine ended in October 2023. As a fashion influencer, she’s touted shopping less, spending less, and being more sustainable—values I share—while her podcast regularly runs ads for Walmart and eBay. We’re both thinking about how to decorate our living room with the most “squishy comfortable” couch (hers was featured in Architectural Digest, mine on Facebook Marketplace). What endears this influencer to me most of all, though, is that she too hates flying.
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