Gen Z It girl Emma Chamberlain is reconsidering her dream job

The American YouTube star has a coffee company, podcast and new collaboration with Warby Parker

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On a recent Friday afternoon, Emma Chamberlain passed a tow yard during a photo shoot in Beverly Hills, California. She walked by a row of dented sedans and sat on the step of a tow truck, her platinum mullet glowing white in the sun.

"Honestly, this is my enemy," she said, eyeing the vehicle.

The American social media star told the story in the confessional, self-deprecating patter that helped make her one of her generation's biggest YouTube stars: When she was 17, just after moving to Los Angeles, she had made a parking error on a street-sweeping day in East Hollywood. The car was towed. She panicked.

"I just called my mum immediately," she said. "Now, I think I'd know how to handle it, but back then, I did not."

A lot has changed since Chamberlain arrived in Los Angeles from the San Francisco Bay Area six years ago, after leaving high school to focus on her vlogging career.

At 23, she has 12 million subscribers on YouTube and 15 million followers on Instagram. She walks the red carpet at the Met Gala and sits in the front row at fashion weeks.

When British pop singer Charli XCX gathered a coterie of "It" girls for her 360 music video earlier in 2024, Chamberlain was among them, checking her make-up in the rear-view mirror of a smashed-up sport utility vehicle.

She is aware that this probably sounds like a dream job and, some days, it feels like one. But the older she gets, the more uneasy she feels about a future of sprinting on the social media hamster wheel.

"I'm having a moral dilemma about these platforms in the first place - like, do I want to feed the beast?" she said.