From YouTube to Hollywood: How Claudia Sulewski Became a Modern-Day Screen Queen

11.08.2022, 10:57 elle.com

I couldn’t tell you how—or where or when—I first started watching Claudia Sulewski online, but I do know that, for the longest time, I kept it a secret. It wasn’t that Sulewski was doing anything particularly nefarious; on the contrary, since she started posting YouTube videos in November 2009, you could categorize Sulewski’s corner of the internet as one of its more positive neighborhoods. But back in the early 2010s, when I must’ve stumbled upon her burgeoning lifestyle channel, YouTube content creation was still in its infancy. There were no Emma Chamberlains transitioning from YouTube star to Met Gala host; I didn’t even have an Instagram yet. So I watched Sulewski and the other creators I loved in private, mesmerized as they showed off their clothing hauls and their favorite makeup products—unaware that what I was really watching was a new crop of celebrities, forming slowly but surely, one upload at a time.