Margot De Riemer practically just arrived on campus, and she already has more than 120 thousand followers on YouTube.

Hailing from Connecticut the, freshman manages her own YouTube channel with videos she films and edits under the alias Margot Lee. She describes her channel as lifestyle and fashion-based. Other YouTubers and social media influencers often inspire her, she said, but she ultimately creates the main idea for each video.

De Riemer’s YouTube career began with a channel that she created along with two of her friends. This channel eventually fell through due to unavoidable circumstances.

“My two best friends and I had a channel, but one of them left for boarding school and one of them just didn’t want to do YouTube anymore,” De Riemer said. “But I really liked it so I started a private channel by myself that I didn’t tell anyone about.”

She began her own personal channel titled “Margot Lee,” that she continued to develop over the past four years. De Riemer was determined to continue her channel during her transition to college. After posting a video highlighting her move-in day this past fall, she received immense positive feedback, which motivated her to share her passion with her new friends.

“People here really want to get involved with my channel. I get to have my friends on it and work with professors,” she said about how her college peers reacted to her work.

Since arriving in Syracuse in August, De Riemer has utilized the many opportunities this place has offered her. She did an interview with one of her professors for National Public Radio. She also spoke on a panel during Global Entrepreneurship Week along with another Syracuse student. Her strong social media presence rewarded her a role co-running the Instagram account for Original Grain in downtown Syracuse.

“I feel like I’ve grown in a lot of different senses,” De Riemer said. “I’ve become very independent.”

Looking toward the future, she said she wants to challenge herself as a producer to create more dynamic videos. She feels her bigger projects inspire her more, resulting in a higher quality end product. De Riemer hopes to collaborate with more YouTubers in the future and has recently begun communicating with YouTube celebrities who she has always admired.

The term “social media influencer” has recently started to gain traction, referring to people of Generation X who have gained fame through a social media platform. Now that she is at school, De Riemer is realizing the impact she is making on social media. She hopes to utilize her channel to guide her toward a creative work environment later in life.

“I want to take advantage of this platform and see where it will take me,” she said.

Published on January 31, 2017 at 9:56 pm

Contact Chloe: cjgreenw@syr.edu