While most high school students are procrastinating by scrolling through YouTube videos, junior Lilia Rodriguez has turned her love of entertainment into a vlogging channel with over 7,000 subscribers.

Starting her freshman year, Rodriguez posts primarily vlogs and challenges, with her most popular video of “BOYFRIEND CHOOSES MY OUTFITS FOR A WEEK * SUCCESS OR FLOP? * ” garnering over 300,000 views.

Though Rodriguez’s channel has only recently gained popularity, receiving over 6000 subscribers in the past two years, her experience making and posting videos is nothing new. She began in elementary school and continued throughout middle school, but deleted her videos after experiencing negative reactions from her peers.

“In middle school, people found out that I had a YouTube channel and they kind of made fun of me,” Rodriguez said. “But then, freshman year I started doing YouTube again…I just started posting more [and] didn’t care what people thought anymore.”

Rodriguez said this experience taught her not to focus on what other people think, a lesson which she said applies to her life as a whole.

“I’m not going to get anywhere if I keep on caring about what people think about me,” Rodriguez said.

Since starting her channel, Rodriguez has posted over 40 videos covering a broad array of topics from clothing tips to daily vlogs. Although currently a student at Freestyle Academy, an alternative digital arts program for MVLA students, Rodriguez sees filmmaking and YouTube editing as separate entities.

“I feel like in editing you can be choppier and [in] film they want you to be organized and have this big idea,” Rodriguez said. “Film and YouTube are kind of different to me. So I think I keep them separate.”

For Rodriguez, Youtube is not just a hobby, but also an outlet for stress.

“Thinking about making other people smile and laugh and enjoy my videos makes me feel happier,” Rodriguez said.