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Camryn Suzanne wants people to take pop culture seriously. The prolific YouTuber, who has a whopping 240 videos on her main channel, dissects this frequently overlooked arts sector on a weekly basis. In her video essays, Suzanne analyzes the careers and trends of pop culture’s haves, have-nots, and has-beens. She composes every video herself from start to finish, adopting an objective, journalistic tone rarely seen on hyperbole-prone sites like YouTube.
Like many Americans, Suzanne was initiated into the cult of pop at a young age. While her parents exposed her to everything from music to movies to TV, her older sister kept her up to date on the latest trends. To her recollection, The Cheetah Girls were the first pop culture figures who had her “absolutely obsessed.”
Her father, however, played a major role in the development of her introspective analysis, which later became a hallmark of her channel’s balanced commentary.
“Even when we were really little, he would always ask us questions about, ‘What did you think of this movie? What do you think of this social topic? What do you think of this?’ So at a young age, I really learned to connect dots whether I wanted to or not,” she said in an interview with The Crimson.
From there, it wasn’t a great leap to share her thoughts online. Her first two YouTube channels offered dance tutorial content, which were inspired by her lifelong dance practice.
Though those two channels never gained traction, her luck changed with her current channel, which she established in 2017 during her senior year of high school. Even on her third try, it took a little while for her to develop her creative voice.
“It started off as a reaction channel, not only because reaction channels got a lot more traction, but I also love music,” she said. “I always say, growing up dancing, there’s such a connection between music and movement.”
As a result, making commentary videos on music — the topic of her most recent and popular videos — felt like “a natural progression.” Her shift to video essays was spurred by friends and viewers, whose questions pushed her to develop her opinions further and post them online.
The depth of her third channel’s videos was also aided by her journalism background. Suzanne minored in journalism in college, so the growth of her online presence was paralleled by real world growth in her research, scriptwriting, and screen presence skills.
2024 was the first year she resolved to put these skills to full use.
“At the very beginning of last year, I told myself, ‘You know what? I’m going to commit to a posting schedule this year. I’m going to put everything I have in me because I was about to quit,’” she said.
This decision was inspired by her observation that other creators, whose success she admired, posted consistently.
However, Suzanne doesn’t solely attribute her success to gaming the YouTube algorithm. In the past year, Suzanne has also focused on building a community on YouTube. One of her favorite places to connect with her audience is in the comment sections under her videos.
“Commenting back to people has also been a huge game changer. I wasn’t looking at it as a community before because I didn’t think anybody was watching in the first place. But that’s really informed how I’ve moved forward with my posting schedule and how often I post,” she said.
Some of her viewers’ most memorable comments credit her with keeping them up to date on pop culture. In fact, staying up to date on long-lost pop culture icons is the premise of Suzanne’s successful “What Happened To…” series.
In these videos, she recounts the rise, fall, and current situation of former pop artists like Pia Mia and Mindless Behavior, both of whom racked up more than 230,000 views in Suzanne’s respective videos about them.
The series initially began with Suzanne’s own curiosity regarding the fate of 2010s teen pop singer Austin Mahone. Turning the theme of former stars into a series helped partially alleviate the perennial influencer problem of coming up with “new and fresh topics” on a regular basis.
As a bonus, they’re also a huge hit with her audience. Suzanne’s first video in the series — the aforementioned Austin Mahone deep dive — currently has 314,000 views on YouTube.
Regarding their appeal, Suzanne thinks these blasts from the past evoke feelings of nostalgia and connection in viewers.
“I think it’s kind of awesome to share that moment in time, and I also think it connects us in a unique way,” she said. “If you remember this person, it just feels like a small community.”
Still, Suzanne doesn’t measure her success in numbers alone. In her opinion, numerical metrics can belie a fragmented community or unsatisfied creator.
“You can even look at other channels. They’ll have 300,000 subscribers, but their view count is lower, or they don’t interact with their subscribers. There’s no relationship there for me, and I know it might sound redundant, but it’s the community part that puts it into perspective,” she said.
Suzanne also has words of advice for people seeking to build that kind of online community from the ground up. Drawing from her own experience, she assured newcomers they shouldn’t worry about immediately finding their niche.
“For somebody who this did not happen overnight for, yes, a lot of it was music related, but buried in my channel I have advice videos and dorm room floors and all types of stuff. So genuinely, whatever your interest is, go for it,” she said.
As always, consistency is key. Suzanne stressed the importance of sticking with it even if view counts are low.
“Keep your eyes on the prize,” she said. “Whatever that means to you.”
—Staff writer Giselle P. Acosta can be reached at giselle.acosta@thecrimson.com.
