SU student earns acclaim for YouTube beauty vlog, speaks on experience

Who knew being bedridden could be a blessing in disguise? At the age of 14, Tyra Booker sure didn’t.  But as she recovered from a tennis injury, her life changed.  She created what would become a very successful vlog, or video blog. FashionwithTy now has more than 32,000 subscribers and her video have more than 2 million likes in a short span of three years.

Yet it wasn’t’ something Booker set out to do. “It was just something I did to pass the time,” she said.

Her YouTube videos focus on makeup and fashion. As the number of her subscribers grew, she attracted the interest of a variety of companies as well. Proactive, Nine West, and L’Oreal are a few that have showered her with an abundance of gift cards and free products to try, promote, and review.

By using these opportunities, Booker turned herself into an entrepreneur. She learned how to negotiate contracts and market products to her audience. 

Magazines such as Seventeen, Essence, and Time have praised Booker for her efforts as a young teen making her own money from videos that she has produced and edited. In 2013, she earned the Teen Vogue moniker of “Beauty Blogger of the Moment.”

In 2013, she got to cover Fashion Week and interviewed the likes of Nigel Barker, Alessandria Abrosio and Kelly Cutrone.

Even with all the acclaim she received, there was some criticism that she had to learn to move past. From the negative comments left under her videos to her fellow classmates placing her vlog as the desktop background on all of the school’s computers — Booker has learned to own it. 

“I’m making it on fashion and beauty. It’s as superficial as you can get but it’s a business,” she said.

Booker is currently a sophomore studying public relations at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.  She wants to better understand the building of brands with the goal of conquering more online platforms.