Last September, senior Jenna Hoover uploaded her first YouTube video. The video, titled “i drank way too much coffee for my first vlog!!” has racked up 700 views to date and helped Hoover get into the world of vlogging (video blog). While at first she was afraid what people would think about her videos, eventually she got over it. “I was like, ‘I’ll just do it in secret!’ But then I was like, ‘Nah, people can just watch it. It’s okay,’” she said.

Typically, Hoover decides to shoot a video when she’s bored. “I have this list of potential video ideas in my phone, and then I’ll go spontaneously film it,” she said. She records with her phone. After filming, she edits the videos and gets them ready to be uploaded. “It takes, like, 10 hours,” she said, “so, I’ll just be super lazy one day and lay in my bed and edit forever.”

In the past, she made all her edits using Videoshop on her phone, but Hoover received a MacBook for Christmas and plans to do all her editing there now. Her favorite videos to create are vlogs but, according to her, those are the worst kind of videos to edit. “There’s just so much going on,” she said.
Hoover has received a lot of support from those around her. Her grandma is constantly asking her about it, and her dad created a YouTube channel just so he could subscribe and be notified when she posts. “Anytime I put a video up, we talk about it,” she said.

Her family is always curious on as to what her next video will be, but Hoover remains in adamant in keeping it a secret. As for her friends and fellow peers, she thinks the reaction has been pretty relaxed. “After I put up my first couple videos, a ton of people who had never talked to me were talking to me, and it was so weird because I don’t know how to interact with people,” she said.

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"My coffee video ruined coffee for a solid month for me because it made me sick to my stomach that day," Hoover said.

Hoover decided that joining and creating on the social media platform would be fun after watching many other creators, like the self-proclaimed “Sister Squad”, comprised of James Charles, Emma Chamberlain, and Ethan and Grayson Dolan. “Their personalities don’t blend, they just clash and it’s so funny,” she said. One of her absolute favorite influencers is Ryland Adams, though. “He’s such a mood. Like, when he kisses his G-Wagon, that’s going to be me someday,” she said.

YouTube isn’t Hoover’s only interest, though. She also really enjoys interior design, the passion having sparked from when she used to rearrange her room as a child. Someday, Hoover would like to be able to mix her passions for YouTube and design. “Next year, I’ll be living on my own, and I plan to get an apartment and be able to do all my interior design stuff,” she said. “I want to be the Joanna Gaines of YouTube.”

At the moment, Hoover’s channel is paused. Along with being a senior in high school, Hoover is also the student council president, conditioning for tennis season, and was recently hired as the main interior designer of a lake house for a local family. “YouTube has taken a backseat, but when I’m done with high school and all these activities and everything, I think I’m going to have more time for it. Then it’ll be constant,” she said.