With around seven hundred thousand subscribers on Youtube, Jasmine Le is a rising content-creator, specializing in fashion, girl talk videos, and beauty. She also attends SDSU as a marketing major and I had the great privilege of chatting with her a week ago. Throughout our time together, we talked about taking on Youtube professionally, being an Asian American content creator, and fashion tips, amongst other things!
The first thing we dived into was Jasmine’s recent milestone of hitting seven hundred thousand subscribers. She reminisces back to freshman year at SDSU where her Youtube career began taking off: “I think I just hit one hundred [thousand] subscribers so this is crazy”. We talk a bit about life before Youtube and the catalyst for her passion with video-making. At thirteen, Le was given an iPod Touch, where she learned to make videos. “Do you know what American Girl dolls are? I used to make stop motion videos of them. I learned how to edit with the iMovie app and I thought ‘Wait, this is kind of fun… I can make videos of me.’” From there, began her Youtube career and her following success began.
In terms of the types of content she makes, “I think I kind of just found my space with fashion videos,” she says. As her channel grew, Jasmine garnered inspiration from other fashion creators like Jen Im and certain video types such as outfit lookbooks. “I liked it because that meant I could edit… The thing about making videos a lot is that I love the editing part of it”, she describes. “I love [turning] something like a raw clip which is boring and dark into something beautiful that showcases my personality.” We pivot then to the rise of platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok, where Jasmine talks about how she’s gained confidence in her fashion, as it’s become such a popular topic and hobby on social media. In essence, Jasmine finds bits of inspiration everywhere, which she translates into various media onto her platforms.
We continue on with the topic of fashion, discussing Jasmine’s fashion inspirations. “The thing is, I don’t think I have fashion inspo that I will copy outfits from… I don’t have icons necessarily with the type of outfits I wear,” she states. However, she looks to fashion influencers “with the way they layer, the colors, and the confidence they have with the outfits they’re wearing.” She lists off Koleen Diaz, Ruby Lin, and personal friends like Adrienne Reau as general inspiration. “It’s really cool to see someone step out of the box with their fashion, to look super hot and confident. It’s what gives me the confidence to experiment,” she says.
In a video Jasmine posted last year, she gives thorough styling advice. When asked to name one takeaway tip from the video, Jasmine almost immediately says: “It is okay to outfit repeat.” She continues, “Clothes are meant to be worn… The way that I look at fashion is: I’m expressing myself and I like the way I look in this so why should I keep finding new outfits all the time?” Diving into the toxic culture surrounding fashion on social media and how common it is to shame others over things like designer items or wearing clothing items twice, she notes: “Not everyone can afford a new outfit every time.”
And, as a last remark to fashion: “I feel like something a lot of people are afraid of with fashion is jumping into the deep end. Take it slow, build up your basics. Getting a lot of funky accessories can help you,” she states. Jasmine describes how clothing items like high-knee red boots or a pair of funky sunglasses can totally elevate any look. But, at the end of the day, “microtrends can make it really hard to find yourself. Fashion is all about you.”
Moreover, a large part of Jasmine’s identity also lies in being an Asian American. Throughout her social media presence, Jasmine has revealed bits and pieces about that identity. From a recent sit-down video where she discusses the realities of Asian fetishization to sharing a post for Lunar New Year in an ao-dai, I asked Jasmine how this part of her livelihood shapes the content she creates– good and bad. In response: “it’s definitely been hard. [People haven’t] really talked about how Asians experience discrimination or racism… until probably a year ago, which is long overdue.”
She continues on, discussing the double standards that lie in white creators vs POC making content on social media: “you can definitely tell that leeway that a lot of people give non-POC creators… Women of color have to do something extraordinary to be at the same level [of success].” With her own content: “In the beginning, when I was trying to find an editing style, I knew I had to go crazy. I knew it had to stand out so much that hopefully, people wouldn’t not subscribe because I’m Asian.” She’s observed throughout her time on social media that “most of the people creating trends on social media are POC and they’re not getting [the recognition] they deserve.” We talk about her own efforts to combat this, she states, “I’ve been trying to speak out about it. And, also, I try surrounding myself and keeping up with other content creators that also experience the same things.”
“I went to school in Huntington Beach, California. It’s very white and conservative. From a young age, I was taught that being Asian was bad. I tried so hard to be white” Jasmine states. Going deeper into the internalized racism fostered in that environment, Jasmine confessed: “I went to Vietnamese school to try and learn the language, but, I had this kind of hatred for how Asian I was because of the people I was surrounded with. And, that made me refuse to learn Vietnamese and it’s probably one of my biggest regrets.”
She’s learned to grow into that part of herself, though. Recently pictured in an ao-dai for Lunar New Year on Instagram, Jasmine reflects on it: “I felt so great posting that. It was nice taking it back. It’s me being like ‘You know, I’ve grown up. I now know how wrong it was and all I can do is move forward.” Explaining how she participates in the New Year traditions, she laughs, “I follow the superstitions… Don’t wash your hair or clean your house!.” But at the end of the day, “It was cool seeing the response on that [post]. So, it’s just so cool taking it all back.” In a way, Jasmine is reclaiming her Asian identity.
As we continue with our chat, we shift the conversation to Jasmine’s time and experiences at SDSU. For many freshman and prospective students, her vlogs and videos on SDSU tend to be ones that pop up first. Jasmine cringes at the mention of them: “Oh God. I watched those videos a couple months ago with my best friend… We were dying. They were so bad!.” Still though, “I’ve really loved SDSU. I don’t regret at all being here. Actually, I initially wasn’t planning on attending a 4-year… In high school, my GPA wasn’t great, I didn’t take a lot of APs, or participate in many clubs. But, I just applied to some colleges and got rejected from most of them but got into SDSU and I thought ‘Hell yeah!’. I’m so happy it all worked out. I really like [SDSU]”.
“I actually lived on the theater floor my freshman year, even though I’m a business major. [My roommate] is a film major so they put us both there. And, I am so grateful for that. There were so many strong personalities and it was just so fun being surrounded with them,… [doing things like] playing [Nintendo] Switch in the common areas. I have a lot of fond memories from that year,” she reminisces.
As she finishes off her senior year, we dive into plans for post-grad: “I would like to keep up with social media. I guess you never know when it’s gonna end… but I want to take it one day at a time. This is my time right now and I want to make the most out of it.” She is grateful to finish college as well, “I’m glad I have my degree just to fall back on it in case [social media] doesn’t work out anymore. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket.” Mostly though, Jasmine’s focus is on growing her career as a content creator: “I’m trying to post as much as I can. I know it sounds superficial but it’s a tangible form of success on the Internet.” She’s also interested in modeling: “I do want to become a model or model for something one day,” Jasmine says, “I’m short [and] have monolids. Monolids are something I don’t really see in the industry but it adds to the Asian representation I want to see. It’s a big goal of mine.”
As we near the end of the interview, we circle back to the theme of the interview, which is “Inspiring Women.” Because the interview at its core is about her inspiring journey on social media, Jasmine was asked about the women who inspire her. She ponders a little before saying “Ashley from BestDressed on Youtube. She is the moment. Everything she’s done was so revolutionary… She would [dive] into taboo topics in her fashion videos and I had never seen that before and loved it.” Another figure is Jen Im: “If I could grow up to be one person, it’d be her. She’s such a girlboss and not in a sarcastic way! She’s running a business, has a child… but she’s still doing everything. She’s exactly who I want to be when I grow up and if I ever met her, I think I’d break down,” Jasmine jokes. To finish, she lists Safiya Nygaard: “I just love how well-spoken and educated she is and how she puts that out into the world.”
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The longer I reflect on our conversation, the more I realize the dynamic person Jasmine is. As someone who watched her videos in high school, this interview gave me and hopefully will give other watchers a chance to learn about Jasmine behind the scenes. Her story and breadth of knowledge on fashion/social media are nothing short of inspiring. As she graduates from SDSU this May, we at Her Campus SDSU are wishing her all the best.
Thank you all for reading! Check out our other articles and social media pages to stay up-to-date with any future interviews.