Meet Lauren
Hey, besties! My name is Lauren Norris and I am a full-time content creator. I am so excited to have my own blog and another creative outlet to share more about my life. You may be wondering, Lauren, how did you even start? How is social media your full-time job? Let’s go back to the beginning of my social media journey and how I became the girl that just went for it.
SUMMER 2019
I had just gotten done taking a couple of gap years after graduating high school in 2017 and was finally able to go to college. I couldn’t attend college immediately after high school because I couldn’t afford it, at the time it was very hard for me to see all of my friends moving to college while I was stuck in my small town of Wetumpka, Alabama. My mom wouldn’t co-sign on my loans, so I had been working full-time overnight at my local hospital as a PCT, working for children's birthday parties on the weekend, and nannying on the side to save up for college. My grandparents called one afternoon and said they would help me kick start my college journey for my freshman and sophomore years (as long as I stayed in-state). I don’t think they know, but they were an answered prayer. Since I needed to stay in-state, The University of Alabama was the only obvious reason in my mind. It was a big SEC school that would also allow me to rush and meet new people. I applied, got accepted, and started planning out my college journey that would begin in a few months.
I knew I wanted to document my college journey to look back on years from now. While I was nannying over the summer the kids were on the playground, and I would be on my computer creating my YouTube channel. Finding color schemes, making graphics, and getting excited to post my first video. I thought this would be a great way for my grandparents and close family to see what was going on while in Tuscaloosa. The quote that I based my channel on was “be the girl that just went for it”. I loved this quote because that’s who I wanted to be. I thought “what if I really am the girl that just went for it?”.
Since I was rushing a sorority, I knew that it would add a lot of extra costs, so I decided to go through my old clothes and sell as much as I could so I would have extra cash. I also picked up a side job walking my “fairy godmother's” dog over the summer, but this never felt like a “job” to me! Like any college-aged girl, my dorm room decor meant A LOT to me. I would spend my free time scouring TJMaxx and Ross for all of the best deals. This is where I found most of my rush dresses too (including some second-hand resale sites online). I told my family about my thoughts of creating a YouTube channel, they weren’t against it, but they definitely didn’t think twice about it. I only mentioned it once, and they never brought it up again. I figured they may not have taken me seriously, but I kept saving my money and planning my channel.
AUGUST 2019
The morning I move into my dorm I make my mom stop by Chick-Fil-A to grab breakfast before the 2 ½ car ride to Tuscaloosa. The night before, I stayed up all night (no, literally… I procrastinated this hard) packing up our two cars to head to Tuscaloosa. At the time I was driving a two-door 1999 Toyota Solara that my family was allowing me to borrow while in college. Needless to say, packing up this mini car wasn’t the easiest task. I posted on my Instagram story a photo of my mom's DSLR camera that I stole from her (sorry mom) and said I was going to start posting on my YouTube channel. At the time, I had around 2,000 followers on Instagram (most of which were girls who had followed me from sororities in Alabama). I spent all day decorating my dorm in Presidential Village I where I was roomed with all random roommates. I vlogged my whole move-in process. On August 12, 2019, I uploaded my very first video: COLLEGE MOVE IN VLOG! | University of Alabama.
The next week I was rushing at one of the largest sorority recruitments, and I had a fabulous time rushing! I would use my mom's DSLR camera in my dorm room and bring my iPhone to film outside of my room. Rushing was one of the best weeks of my life up until this point. I was away from my small town and was finally getting the college experience I had been praying for. I never thought I would be able to attend college, let alone The University of Alabama, AND rush. It felt like I was in heaven, which is ironic because bid day came and I got into my top house! I was welcomed into “heaven” and the sisterhood of Pi Beta Phi sorority.
Shortly after bid day, I ran back to my dorm and my twin xl bed to start editing my rush week vlog. I decided to make myself a “work email” for any potential emails and uploaded my second video to my channel, Sorority Rush Week Vlog | Outfits & Bid Day | University of Alabama. Just in time for classes to start. Of course, I started filming my day-to-day life at college still using my mom's DSLR camera and my iPhone. Everything from waking up in the morning and accidentally calling 911 (yep, it happened) to all of my college experience firsts. I loved documenting my life on camera, it just seemed… right.
I have now been in classes for a little over a week. I am uploading my videos pretty consistently, not for my viewers, but for me. As I am walking back from lunch I get a phone call from my mom, I pick up and after my hello she says “LAUREN NORRIS. Why didn’t you tell me your videos are getting so many views?? This could really turn into something. You should really keep doing this”. Well, yeah, duh mom. I replied back to her by saying “I am filming and uploading to look back on this amazing experience, to me, it doesn’t matter if people are liking it or viewing it. I mean, it’s great that they like my videos! But this is just something I’m doing for myself”. Little did I know what was to come.
OCTOBER 2019
Weeks pass and I start noticing the same thing my mom did. People really liked watching me. People were following me, commenting on my videos, and giving me video requests… could I actually turn this fun hobby into a job? I thought it might be nice to make some extra cash since my bank account started draining quickly once moving to college. Couldn’t hurt right? I got approved to start getting monetized (in short: making money) on YouTube by the end of September, barely a month into uploading content. I got my first paycheck from YouTube in October and felt so proud of myself. I remember it clearly, $659.02, WAYY more than what I had in my bank account. I didn’t know anything about running my own business, but I could slightly recall hearing someone say that you have to invest in your business for it to grow… yeah something like that. So, when I was up studying at 4:00 am one night, I decided to go on Amazon and purchase my very own vlog camera. My first paycheck covered the exact amount I needed for my camera, the Canon G7 X Mark II.
Pay Now. *Click*
That weekend my mom was coming up for parents' weekend and the Alabama football game. My vlog camera got delivered the day before she came. She will be so happy to find out I have her DSLR camera she thinks she lost. She comes into town and we start walking out of my dorm to Bryant Denny Stadium. I bring out my new vlog camera and my mom's eyes go huge. She immediately asks me
“Lauren, where did you get that?!”
“... Amazon? It’s my first camera!” I reply.
“No I mean, where did you get the money for that?!” She replied still in shock. “Oh, from my first paycheck from YouTube!”
“How much do you have left?!”
“... Um. Well, it was my whole paycheck BUT I HAVE TO INVEST IF I WANT TO GROW MY CHANNEL! Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” I reply.
I truly didn’t know what I was doing. I was basing this on a quote I may have heard.
Needless to say, I got a lecture on how I shouldn’t be spending my money and that I needed to be saving it instead. She wasn’t entirely wrong. Lucky for me, I was ready for where I was going, and my vlog camera was coming with me. Empty bank account or not.
EARLY SPRING 2020
We get news on campus that we may get an extra week off for spring break for something called “COVID”. At the time, I was thrilled for a longer break, but little did I know that this “thing called COVID” would impact the world in many different ways. Starting in March 2020, all of my classes switched to online learning and I was sent home from college. Everything I once had been vlogging about was ripped out from me in an instant. I found it very hard not only to transition to the new state our world was in and see disasters every day on the news but also to post on my social media. During the months of being at home, my paycheck never went over $200. I was devastated, I was alone, and I was scared.
Be the girl that just went for it flashed in my head. Instead of letting these negative feelings stop me, I decided that if I wanted this to be my full-time job, I better treat it like one. Trapped in my house, I would wake up every day at 6:00 am to start my work day. An average work day in my life would be getting ready to film, replying back to emails, negotiating brand deals, planning out videos/content, filming videos/content, replying back to comments, editing videos, making thumbnails, and much much more. Of course, during the time I couldn’t leave my house, a screw that held my screen fell out of my vlog camera. Sigh. I only had nail lacquer, so I plopped the lacquer on the screw and pushed it back into the camera. I was also using old books as my tripod, my boyfriend Will noticed this and bought me my first tripod (shout out to him because I still use that tripod to this day).
SUMMER 2020
I had just hit 10,000 subscribers on Youtube! This is a milestone I never thought I could reach. I was so proud of myself and the hard work I put into my channel. Around this time though, people close in my life told me I had “plateaued”. I had people telling me that what I was doing was stupid and I was wasting my time. I got told over and over again “you’re just not going to make this work”. I started getting very defeated. Did I really plateau? How am I going to live off of less than $200 a month? I thought, maybe they’re right.
A quote I had hanging above my dorm room bed read “Once upon a time you were a little girl with big dreams that you promised you’d make real one day. Don’t disappoint yourself”. This quote had now been moved back to my room at home and I saw it every day. Something told me to keep going. Why was I about to let other people dictate my life? I let them do that my whole life. Enough is enough. I was doing YouTube because I loved it and wanted to document my life, not to appease others. Their comments only fueled my energy, I worked harder than ever on my videos and taking photos for my Instagram. Will was always there to encourage me to keep pushing and helped me in any way he could.
AUGUST 2020
Today’s the day! I am finally moving into my sorority house and I can’t wait to room with one of my best friends. Will helped me move in, and later that night I started editing a vlog that would soon change my life.
“Save, upload… Okay, I am good to post my video! WAIT. I forgot to plug my Instagram into the video. DANGIT. I have to re-save the whole thing and my video is going to be late” I screamed in my sorority dorm. We were in the middle of sorority recruitment at this time so time was really of the essence here. After I fixed my editing mistake my video was good to go up, and there it was: Moving Into My Sorority House! | Pi Beta Phi | The University of Alabama. Uploaded just two days before my one-year anniversary on YouTube.
The morning after I uploaded it, I noticed my video really got a lot of attention. It had skyrocketed in views and I noticed my subscriber count went up a lot along with my Instagram following. I was very busy doing sorority recruitment so I didn’t pay that close attention to it. That night I had gone up to 30,000 subscribers. My friends in my sorority surprised me with cookies that night to congratulate me. A few days later, 50,000 subscribers, and hours later, 60,000 subscribers. Is this real life?! My sorority move-in video had reached hundreds of thousands of views. Man am I glad I remembered to plug in my Instagram last minute in editing.
In the three weeks that my video had been live, I had hit 100,000 subscribers and my video was over 2 million views. I was in shock, did this really just happen? A month ago I wanted to quit YouTube because people told me I should. And this happens? At this moment, I felt all of my hard work pay off. All of those 6 am mornings, all the times of self-doubt, restless nights, everything was worth this exact moment.
When you have a video go viral it brings a lot of new eyes to you which leads to dreadful hate comments. Dealing with this all of the sudden was very hard for me. I had countless crying sessions in my car because I was too shy to cry in front of my roommate. All because people I didn’t even know on the internet were saying nasty things about me. This gets easier, but it never will be easy.
SEPTEMBER 2020
I had tons of emails from talent agencies wanting to sign with me. I prayed about it and hopped on a zoom call with a girl named Erin. At this point in my social media journey, a huge chunk of my time had been dedicated to replying back to brands about collaborations, negotiating prices, reading contracts, and all the behind-the-scenes I never realized truly went into social media. I had managed my own brand deals up until this point but was very interested to learn more about the talent agencies who had reached out to me and how they could take some of this load off of me. Not only was I planning, filming, editing, and uploading my videos myself with negotiating brand deals, but I am also a full-time college student. I fall in love with Erin and the type of person she is. She is kind, listened to me, and has my best interest. I signed with the talent agency and Erin is now my right-handed woman. I always told my mom I wanted an agent, does this mean I made it?
Around this time I get my YouTube paycheck from August. Woah. I realized that I actually could make this a full-time thing. I start signing with major companies like Amazon, Cricut, Audible, Clinique, Grammarly, and more. My mornings/days were dedicated to my school work and my nights I would stay up until sometimes 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning working on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Thank goodness my roommate was a biology major, so we pretty much had the same sleep schedule.
YEAR OF 2021
Remember that two-door 1999 Toyota Solara I was driving? Well, it was about time we sent her to the nursing home. With my channel skyrocketing and my brand deals with my talent agency, I was finally able to buy my own first car. I bought a 2019 Toyota RAV4 and her name is Remy! I had never been able to do this and I never thought I would ever be able to do this. All because I trusted that little thought in my head, here I am.
That summer I moved into my very first apartment where I got approved for it by myself. I bought a little ragdoll kitty, Elle, and knew I was now able to finish putting myself through college. This was all so surreal to me. As someone who grew up in a family that struggled with money my whole life, I felt very blessed to have the work ethic and dedication I do. I really was the girl that just went for it, and now I am empowering others to do the same. ~
Social media has a way of showing you people's highlight reels. That’s why this blog is so important to me. Just by looking at my platforms, you may not know this was my story, you may not know that I almost gave up, and you may not know how hard I worked for where I am now. By reading this blog though, you’re now able to learn a little bit more about me. I now have a full team behind me who help me run my brand. On my team, I have my talent manager, a part-time editor, an assistant, and two blog editors. I am hoping to expand my brand more in years to come and I can’t wait to see where my journey takes me.
Not only have I been able to have amazing memories like having my own collection at The Tiny Closet and staying in the largest cabin in America, but I also have been able to give back to my community. I launched my own merch in honor of sexual assault and domestic violence survivors like myself where part of the profit went to a women's safe house in Tuscaloosa.
I am forever grateful for the opportunities that I have had and am blessed to be where I am in my life. Always trust your dreams, always follow your heart, and always be the girl that just went for it.
