Photo by Frank Couch.
Elizabeth Baker, a junior at Vestavia Hills High, has her own YouTube channel and has been invited to Los Angeles this summer to meet other YouTube personalities.
Like many of her peers, Elizabeth Baker likes watching funny YouTube videos.
But a little bit unlike her peers, the Vestavia Hills High School junior didn’t stop there.
She started posting her own videos weekly. She built an audience. She talked with other YouTubers online, then met up with them like they were old friends at YouTube conferences.
But it didn’t stop there, either.
When an open call came for presenters at a big conference on the West Coast, Baker decided to give it her best shot.
“I’ve been to other YouTube conferences, but this is the biggest one there is. I was planning to go just as a fan, but then they asked for submissions to present at the conference,” she said. “They had a website open for submissions, and I don’t know how many people entered, but it was a lot.”
She submitted three of her videos.
Much to her surprise, she got picked.
On June 25, the 16-year-old will be playing guitar and singing at VidCon, a giant online video conference in Anaheim, California. Last year, more than 21,000 video fans and creators attended.
“I’ll be playing covers. I get a 15-minute set,” she said.
The song that got her picked for the spot was a cover of Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself,” viewable on her YouTube channel at youtube.com/absurdelizabeth.
But it’s her funny videos that have gotten her the biggest following, videos such as “My house is haunted,” a five-minute video explaining things that have happened to her in her house that she thinks might be the work of ghosts.
That video has more than 23,000 views.
“I’d been watching a lot of other people’s videos for a long time, and I just wanted to make videos too that entertained people,” Elizabeth Baker said.
Videos such as “How to be popular,” a tongue-in-cheek description of things that make you part of the “in” crowd in high school, have gotten hundreds of hits.
“That one was a fun one to make,” she said.
Many of her viewers are her schoolmates, some of whom have been in her videos, too. But a good number of her viewers come from other places, she said.
“I’ve made a lot of friends over YouTube and on Twitter,” Elizabeth Baker said. “It’s really cool to have friends that you haven’t gotten to meet in person but that I know I’m going to get to meet soon.”
At one conference in Orlando, she made friends and got to meet a lot of the YouTubers she likes to watch, she said.
That’s one of her hopes for VidCon — that she’ll make a lot of friends.
Her online presence has always been a social thing for her, way before she started posting videos two years ago, she said. “I’ve been active on social media for years.”
And as for the video production itself?
“I’m not sure what I’m trying to get out of it — I just think it’s a really cool experience,” Elizabeth Baker said. “I’m just probably going to expand my audience as much as I can. I don’t want to pursue it as a career, but I think it would be fun to keep making them for a while.”
Elizabeth Baker’s mom, Carolyn, said the family is proud of her.
“What started as a sporadic activity has blossomed into something she enjoys weekly,” she said.
The family is planning to travel to California with Baker for the conference, something they’re excited about, she said.
“We are still a bit in shock about Elizabeth singing in Anaheim. She is really talented and a hard worker, but this is surreal,” Carolyn Baker said. “She’s gifted, and she’s a joy.”
Carolyn Baker has appeared in a few of her daughter’s videos, including a recent one where she modeled Ugg boots, a cowboy outfit and a hat shaped like Sully from “Monsters, Inc.”
“We recorded that one recently,” Elizabeth Baker said. “She really likes telling her friends about it.”
In that post, “My Mom’s Coachella Lookbook,” the mom and daughter make a parody video based on other fashion videos posted online by people showing off their outfits for the massive music festival in California.
To check out Baker’s videos, visit youtube.com/absurdelizabeth. For more information about VidCon, visit vidcon.com.
