20-year-old vlogger Jenelle Eliana is a popular youtuber who rose to fame quickly over the summer in June 2019. She first began gaining followers by posting pictures of her new life on Instagram. They were pictures of her traveling the country by way of a van she had bought and remodeled to live in full time. She had been posting that she was beginning a Youtube channel during the summer but had never gotten around to it.
When she eventually posted her first video titled “Van Tour / Solo Female Traveler lives Vanlife with Pet Snake” she quickly amassed over 1.5 million subscribers in three weeks, which was seemingly unheard of in the YouTube community. The video itself had over 5.6 million views in the short time span.
While a majority of viewers and fans chucked the high number up to her quirky personality, unconventional lifestyle, and pet snake, there were a few skeptics who questioned her rise to fame.
A few people were convinced YouTube hired an actress to pretend to live in a van, a trending topic on YouTube as of late. They believed she had been trained to act like she actually lived in a van and that her views were robotic creations. They also think this because YouTube was recommending her channel more than others which is how she gained so many views.
The critics thought she was too clean, and her videos were too high quality to be her own. They also thought she couldn’t be successful on her own, especially without previous promotions. They tried to poke holes in her story of how she came to live in a van. They failed to realize she had a popular Instagram page beforehand to help garner publicity for the start of her channel.
Personally, I don’t think YouTube would be so desperate that they would pay people to act as though they lived unconventionally, thinking that that it would bring them more success. I think people are just stunned at the staggering success of a woman who rose to fame out of the blue.
You can watch her first video and subscribe to her channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG8QnjT57UY&t=108s