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I know it’s trite to say that I felt an “instant connection” during an interview. But in the case of Emma Chamberlain, there’s no way around it. It’s kinda her whole thing. She’s built a brand based on being 100% herself and has been called things like “the internet’s BFF” since she rose to fame in 2016. So yes, our call did, in fact, feel like catching up with a friend.

Of course, there’s also the fact that I’ve been interacting with Chamberlain’s content for years now. I’ve watched her YouTube—where she started posting “day in the life” style videos in high school—and recently started listening to her podcast Anything Goes With Emma Chamberlain, which earned her a splashy exclusive deal with Spotify. But I’m not the only one who’s developed what the internet might call a parasocial relationship with her—this feeling of familiarity is what racked up her 14.9 million+ Instagram and 12.1 million+ YouTube followers over the past nine years.

Max Montgomery. SHIRT & SKIRT: GAELYN & CIANFARANI, JEWELRY: STYLIST’S OWN.

But the Emma Chamberlain of the red carpet and YouTube videos is very different from the girl who walked into Byrdie’s cover shoot. Instead of a couture gown or thrifted jeans, she was transformed into different art styles, including sculpture, pop art, and a Renaissance painting. The shoot is a nod to her dad, an artist, but this time, she was also the artist, as the concept for our shoot was based on her ideas. “There’s nothing I love more than making a little reference deck,” she tells me of her process, adding that she was “exploding with ideas.” In this case, the concept started with an image of a model with pop art–esque dots all over their face and grew from there.

Max Montgomery. SHIRT & SKIRT: GAELYN & CIANFARANI, JEWELRY: STYLIST’S OWN.

At 23, Emma Chamberlain is no muse. After years of being a canvas, she’s taking creative control—she’s the artist now. “I think prior to recently, I was just too young,” she says of creative directing, which she plans to do as much as possible moving forward. “I wasn’t mature enough or tapped in enough to what was even really happening around me when it came to things like shoots to be like, Oh wait, this is actually really fun and artistic and interesting, and being involved makes the results so much more satisfying for me.”

That’s just one of the many ways she’s been flexing her creative muscles as of late. She’s been painting detailed watercolors, building her first-ever IRL coffee shop, the Chamberlain Coffee Cafe, and trying her hand at acting. There’s also the shoots for her brand, Chamberlain Coffee, where Chamberlain transforms into characters like a business suit–wearing “office siren” and a lion tamer at The Chamberlain Circus. The high-concept photos look more like a fashion magazine editorial than an advertisement for coffee beans and mugs.

Then, of course, there’s her YouTube, which has become more of an art project than a carefully curated moneymaker. Chamberlain started posting videos as a teen in her suburban northern California town as an escape from her depression and anxiety. Her confessional yet fast-paced and grabby editing style set the tone—and the standard— for YouTube content to come, and she quickly skyrocketed to fame for her openness about mental health, Gen Z humor, and mostly thrifted style.

She kept up with the demand after dropping out of high school and moving to L.A. to pursue influencing full time at 17. But in 2022, she found herself burnt-out and uninspired and took a six-month break from the platform that made her famous.

Now, her videos—posted months apart instead of weekly—are almost unrecognizable from her earlier work. They feel more like short films directed by Wes Anderson, scored with classical music and soothing voiceovers. While the trademark Emma qualities are still there—her quirkiness, self-deprecating humour, and of course, vulnerability—there’s a new depth as well. Each video is often around 30 minutes, and they have a philosophical undertone: On the surface, her recent “hair theory” video is about her new haircut, but if you dig deeper, it’s really a rumination on boredom and identity.

Max Montgomery. JEWELRY: STYLIST’S OWN.

The shift was necessary but not entirely planned. Chamberlain was growing up, and it no longer felt authentic to vlog her daily life like when she was younger, as she’s “quite literally not that person anymore.” It was already a tough time for Chamberlain—no longer a girl but not quite a woman—and she was wondering who she was in life and on the internet.

Max Montgomery. DRESS: BAD BINCH TONGTONG, SHOES & EARRINGS: STYLIST’S OWN.

“It’s a mess of a time, and it was very challenging for me, because I was like, I’m growing up. I can’t rely on this old YouTube format that I built my career on because it doesn’t feel authentic anymore. And if I keep doing it, it’s just a lie. At that point, I was forcing something, and I’d rather do nothing than force something.”

Danessa Myricks Colorfix Mattes in Primary Red

Now, she takes a more intuitive approach. “I think the last two years have just been a lot of experiments and a lot of just trying to be present while I figure out what’s next.” She posts videos only when she feels like it and has been focusing more attention on her podcast,in which she waxes poetic on a single philosophical topic for an hour.

But she wasn’t just creatively stuck. It got to a point where she was simply terrified to post on the internet. While she’s grateful to have her platform, she also recognizes how unnatural it is to have so many eyes on you and the “psychological challenges” that come with it. She felt like people were constantly waiting for her to mess up. “Being a public figure on the internet right now is just waiting for attack.” Add some complicated feelings behind the scenes and a step back was necessary.

“I’m really trying to get over my overall fear of the witch hunt that is the internet. Because if I want this to be my career, you can’t function properly [if you’re scared all the time], and that’s been [the case] for the majority of my last few years. But I’m fighting that demon. I’m getting through it.”

It can be hard to empathize with someone who has millions of followers, a cosmetics deal, and a Los Angeles mansion and still feels unliked, but unlike most influencers, Chamberlain knows that. “These experiences can be very isolating,” she says. “You can feel like everyone hates you.” But then, she puts it so simply: “It’s very unnatural to be reacted to and perceived to the extent that a public figure is. When even 10 people can comment that they hate you, you just think that everyone hates you. Because 10 is a lot to a human brain.”

However, Chamberlain says her current relationship with social media is better than ever. To “heal her relationship with YouTube,” she tries to avoid the comments over there—“It can ruin my next six months”—but she finds it fun to engage with her Instagram followers here and there. She limits her scrolling time to 10 minutes after posting something and has a second phone without any social media. She’s been pouring her time into her podcast and cafe. She spends her weekends going to hot yoga and people-watching in coffee shops. Her support system is crucial, and she’s surrounded by people—including her friends, family, and partner—who love her and are on her team. She’s been creating more than ever and has a daily routine to keep her sane. “When my real life is good, the shit that actually matters, it doesn’t matter what’s going on on the internet. Because the internet, ultimately, is not real.”

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Chamberlain doesn’t take her success for granted. She mentions she hasn’t been to her cafe since it opened in early February, as the lines are around the block. When I joke that surely she can cut the line, she gets serious: “I don’t do that type of shit. I don’t believe in that. I don’t take free handouts from my brand. If I need a new product, I buy it. I do not take shortcuts.”

Max Montgomery. DRESS: DAUPHINETTE, EARRINGS: TIFFANY & CO.

She’s also been offered acting opportunities simply because of who she is, as is the business, but is incredibly aware of what she calls her “self-nepotism” and the fact that she’s never really dreamed of being an actor. “I have a head start because I’m a public figure already, and I never want to abuse that.” However, she’s discovered that she loves transforming into different characters for shoots, and she’s starting to take the auditions a little more seriously. “There’s something sort of relieving to me about getting to not be myself for a second, because that’s what my entire career is. I love being myself for three hours a week on my podcast, but it’s cool to be someone else.”

Some fans don’t like this new and improved Emma—in fact, they would already say she’s someone else. They miss her long brown hair and once-signature high pony, and they miss her more casual video style. They miss having near-constant access to her and seeing her around other YouTubers like the ones she was close with circa 2018.

Max Montgomery. DRESS: VICTORIA’S SECRET PINK, SHOES: STUART WEITZMAN, EARRINGS: STYLIST’S OWN.

“Listen, people can be like, ‘we miss the old Emma,’” she says when I ask if she feels pressure to keep her image stagnant. “I fucking don’t.” She laughs, but she stands firm in her feelings. “I was a child. I was a mess. I don’t want to be anything like that, because I celebrate my own growth.” She points out the catch-22 of being her: If she never changed or evolved, people would be telling her to grow up. So she’s happy to be changing for the better. “I’m getting better. I’m getting smarter. I’m learning. I push myself constantly to make that trajectory go upward. And so I’m proud of that.”

“The internet is impossible to please,” she continues. “This is the one thing I know is right. I know it is always right to continue to grow and evolve.” That means making mistakes in her personal life or career—or trying new things and cringing later. It doesn’t matter, as long as she’s on the up. “I can cry about the hate comments, but I cannot stop growing and changing,” she says.

Violette_FR Yeux Paint in Poison des Délices

Chamberlain may have gotten famous for being a “normal girl” (or even the “normal girl”), but she now wears a different label: It girl. Her quirky-cool style has spawned countless trends and earned her deals with Louis Vuitton and Lancôme. But perhaps her It-girl status was truly cemented over the summer, when she starred in Charli XCX’s “360” video, alongside a stacked cast of cool girls like Gabbriette, Alex Consani, Julia Fox, and of course, OG It girl Chloë Sevigny. The video was tongue-in-cheek (“you have be like, known, but at the same time, unknowable,” drawls model Richie Shazam when explaining the concept of an It girl), but it does really serve as a who’s who of the coolest girls on the internet (or at least on a certain side of the internet).

When I ask if Chamberlain feels like an It girl or if that’s a label she even likes, she hesitates. “To me, it’s a little toxic. I’m not saying I don’t like the concept of an It girl, or the actual It girls, but there is something a little exclusionary about it to me that I don’t like. We’re adults! There being It girls makes the internet feel like high school to me.”

She also finds it a little stifling to be put in that (or any) box. It’s not so much the It-girl mantel that she minds but the expectations that come with it, namely to adhere to the standards of a certain kind of hotness—which her current style is very much rejecting. “[People will call me] an It girl or this hot girl,” she says, “then if I wear an outfit that’s very much me in the sense that it’s comfortable and maybe a bit less sexy, then it’s like, ‘Emma turned ugly. She’s no longer an It girl.’ But you made me that way! You told me that’s who I was. Maybe I wear a cute little outfit and I’m in the Charli video one day, [and] maybe the next day I look like an old woman, but that’s because that’s who I am.”

“You’re disappointed because you put me in this box,” she continues.“It’s definitely a compliment—so I’ll take it if you guys want to put me in the box—but don’t get mad when I wear a little cashmere bonnet on my head and go out for the day.”

Max Montgomery. DRESS: GRACE LING, SHOES: PARIS TEXAS, JEWELRY: STYLIST OWN.

When it comes to her personal style, Chamberlain has both followed and kick-started countless trends over the years. There was her “VSCO Girl” era when she just started out, complete with her high pony, a scrunchie, and plenty of Brandy Melville T-shirts. In 2020, she sent millennials into a tailspin when she single-handedly brought back yoga pants, which have since been rebranded as “flared leggings.” She dabbled in the “quirky knits” trend. On Euro vacations, she wore plenty of polos and socks and loafers, a look that caught on like wildfire with downtown NYC girlies of a certain age.

One of Chamberlain’s recent videos, “I got rid of (almost) everything,” set off a wave of de-influencing discourse. The video, which opens with a montage of hundreds of her old haul videos and ends with showing off her newly edited wardrobe, mostly made up of neutrals and nondescript wearable pieces with a handful of standout vintage and designer items. The video may have had the internet arguing over the true value of minimalism (“A Capsule Wardrobe Won’t Save You,” reads one headline), but for Chamberlain, it was more of a necessity if she wanted to fall back in love with fashion.

Max Montgomery. DRESS: GRACE LING, JEWELRY: STYLIST OWN.

“My current style is definitely pretty minimal,” she says. “I’m definitely at a place now where my prefrontal cortex is ultimately reaching its final stages of development and I cannot buy things that I’m not going to wear for the next 10 years. I just can’t justify it anymore.” She’s narrowed it down to a defined color palette that’s “soft on the eyes,” a few classic patterns, and some novelty pieces.

Max Montgomery. TOP & SKIRT: MISS CLAIRE SULLIVAN, EARRINGS: STYLIST’S OWN.

When it comes to beauty, self-expression is the name of the game. It’s also what led her to her much-discussed new haircut: a bleach-blonde chop somewhere between a pixie and a bowl cut. She thinks of everything as a potential accessory—her phone, her nails, her water bottle—and felt she was letting her hair go to waste. “It was such a shame that my hair didn’t feel like an accessory. It was just brown and straight. I was just so bored. I was like, This is such a bummer. I feel like I could be using this to express myself, and I’m not.”

While she’s seen the negative comments on the cut—“Emma’s had a glow-down”—and to a degree, she gets it, she does feel like she’s truly found her look. “[My hair] elevates almost every outfit. It changes the way that I style things, because it gives this automatic edge. I can wear an all-black outfit, and suddenly it’s chic and interesting, when before it would have just been really boring.” She also loves the fact that it’s so easy to style—all she uses is a little K18 for hair health and some Moroccanoil Purple Hair Treatment to keep the color bright.

Makeup is yet another form of artistry she’s been exploring, especially since cracking her acne after years of struggling with her skin. “I’m not an everyday makeup wearer, but I think I’ve grown to love makeup even more as an adult, where now I’m fully seeing it as an art form and I’m seeing myself as the canvas.”

It’s been thrilling to think of makeup as a creative outlet instead of a way to hide, and it’s something she doesn’t take for granted.“Getting my skin to a place where I don’t feel like I’m covering things up has been really rewarding. I think anyone who’s had acne for years on end knows what that feels like. I wish that I knew how to crack the code of not feeling this desire to cover the acne. I wish that I had that answer. I don’t. Every time I have acne, I’m like, Oh god, here we go again. It sucks, and there’s no sugarcoating it.” 

Max Montgomery. TOP & SKIRT: MISS CLAIRE SULLIVAN, SHOES: JIMMY CHOO, EARRINGS: STYLIST’S OWN.

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These days, Chamberlain is taking things easy. She sat out fashion month to rest and focus on quieter work. She loves early morning yoga and a smoothie and loves exploring her city even more. Her perfect day would be flitting from the flea market to the bookstore to the park with a friend before watching Severance at home. But her favorite thing, she tells me, is to sit in a cafe for hours, observing the people and the world around her. (That being said, three days after our call she made her new haircut’s red-carpet debut at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.)

Like many influencers, Chamberlain still struggles with the contradictions between her relatable persona and high-impact life. But harnessing her creativity—in her videos, brand, and Instagram posts—is how she’s making it work. Now, instead of her persona, she’s putting her artistic vision front and center.

Because the thing is, maybe she never was a normal girl to begin with—how normal can it be to change the world of video editing as a teen? It’s not just the fact that she showed her acne and vlogged from school that made her the internet’s sweetheart, but her singular taste, trademark wit, and clear creative vision that’s been present since day one. While she’ll always be an open book—it’s not just a part of her brand but a part of her—she’s no longer letting other people’s idea of “relatable” define her. She’s been special all along, and now she’s going all in.

Just like she did all those years ago, Chamberlain is once again carving out her own niche; one that fits her better, at least for now. She’s still inviting us into Emma’s world, but this time it looks a little different.Maybe it’s shinier and smoother, but it’s just as inviting.

Max Montgomery. TOP & SKIRT: MISS CLAIRE SULLIVAN, EARRINGS: STYLIST’S OWN.

Editor in Chief: Hallie Gould

Writer: Bella Cacciatore

Photographer: Max Montgomery

Director: Matilda Montgomery

Makeup: Lilly Keys

Hair: Sami Knight

Nails: Thuy Nguyen

Stylist: Jared Ellner

Set Designer: Amy Jo Diaz

Beauty Direction: Hallie Gould

Creative Director: Jenna Brillhart

Photo Director: Kelly Chiello

Social Director: Star Donaldson

Special Projects Director: Jason Sheeler