Name: Rosianna Halse Rojas
Year: 3rd
Degree: English with Study in North America
When and how did you get involved with video blogging? I started in 2006, when I had just turned 15. I found vloggers such as ZeFrank, TheHill88 and LonelyGirl15 and really enjoyed their videos. After a while I worked out how to make and upload really basic vlogs using a crappy webcam and YouTube directupload! I kept it a secret from family and friends for a couple of years, though…
Tell us about some of your greatest achievements in the Internet world: I recently hit 19,000 subscribers and over 2 million video views, so that’s pretty crazy. In January I made a video every day after being approached by Channel 4’s New Year Revolution and loads of people joined me in taking part “trying something new” every day, which was really fun. Just the other week I won YouTube NextVlogger, a competition where sixteen winners get $10,000 worth of promotion and $5,000 worth of production equipment and that’s huge for me, especially as you also get mentoring sessions with big YouTubers and one of my favourites, Natalie Tran (communitychannel) is one of the mentors.
What do you like to do when not vlogging?: Big fan of orange wednesdays! Also, equally lazily, love spending an afternoon rewatching old episodes of The West Wing. I’ve weirdly become a bit addicted to running recently though, which is very out of character, and I do love a sneaky bit of pilates.
Other favourite Youtube bloggers: communitychannel, vlogbrothers, hayleyghoover, jennamarbles, marionhoney, sourcefed, schmoyoho, crashcourse.
Plans for the Summer: In June I’ll be going to California for the third annual VidCon — an online video conference — where I’ll be speaking on a panel about women on the internet. In July I graduate… aahhh!! At the beginning of August I’m flying to Poland for their YouStars event. A bunch of YouTubers are going to Warsaw and Krakow to promote vlogging and as I’ve never been before, it should be really fun. From there I’ll fly to Chicago, where I’m writing articles and conducting interviews with the authors attending an event called LeakyCon for an entertainment website I help run called LeakyNews. I’m also going to be there for my 21st birthday!
Advice to people wanting to get involved in vlogging: Patience! You just have to keep making stuff with two or three viewers until you get to the one video that will be shared around, and by that point, you’ll have improved a lot! If you have any friends who like vlogging or writing sketches or whatever, collaborate. Combining skills is always worth it. Also, try to put aside enough time to edit.
What’s your video style?: Now that companies are becoming more and more aware that vlogging is a great place to advertise their product, sincerity is a premium and audiences are naturally suspicious. Rather than being overproduced and scripted, I prefer to plan the basic outline of what I’m going to say and then just go ahead with it, re-recording bits where I stumble over words and adding things in as I go along. I’d love to be able to do a bit more collaboration in the future, maybe in summer!
How would you describe your personal style? A bit Topshop dominated. I’m loving all of the pastels everywhere at the moment and I’m a huge fan of coral and navy blue. Generally I’m pretty girly in my dressing choices, with the odd nerdy t-shirt (Zack Morris, Space Mountain, casual dinosaurs) thrown in for good measure.
Favourite moment at Exeter: Just… all of freshers. definitely took that for granted, had so much fun at Birks.
What you’re going to miss the most: Being in a small enough “city” that you run into people you know all the time and the general student luxury of being able to stop by houses full of your friends just hanging out.
Plans for after graduation: Still a bit clueless. I’ll focus a lot on the YouTube stuff and also my work with LeakyNews, get on with the novel I’m supposedly writing and work as many part-time jobs as necessary. I’d love to do social media publicity for a publishing house, though.
Where you see yourself in 5 years time: homeless, surrounded by broken video equipment and the same sentence written over and over again on street rubbish. That, or living in California, married to Ryan Gosling, taking the new media world by storm and with a couple of bestselling novels under my belt. Either one.
Favourite quotation: “When we have found all the meanings and lost all the mysteries, we will be alone, on an empty shore.” – “Arcadia” by Tom Stoppard
See Rosianna in action here!