YouTube star Meghan Rienks reviewed a decade of her online content. This is what she learned about herself.
- Over the last decade, Meghan Rienks has established herself as a YouTuber, lifestyle influencer, podcaster, and actress.
- After navigating the transition to adulthood — all on camera — the 26-year-old is releasing a "sort of memoir" — an undertaking she describes as a self-help book from someone who's "completely unqualified to give advice but is your best friend."
- While writing the book, Rienks told Insider, she revisited the 10 years' worth of footage she posted on YouTube.
- Revisiting her content helped her articulate the lessons she wants to pass on to fans — lessons about social media, mental health, and a sense of self.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
In 2010, the summer before her senior year of high school, Meghan Rienks found herself stuck at home, diagnosed with mononucleosis. To combat her boredom, she filmed a video and uploaded it to YouTube. The grainy clip, in which she teased upcoming "weird and awkward" videos and tutorials, would jumpstart a career of creating lifestyle content that has racked up well over 200 million views.
A decade later, the 26-year-old has developed a 2.2 million-subscriber following on the platform, hosted a podcast, co-written and produced a film, and starred in a Hulu series — and now she wants to share what she's learned.
The YouTube star is adding "author" to her resumé — but her book isn't really about YouTube or the entertainment industry.
"YOU'RE NOT SPECIAL: A SORT OF MEMOIR," Rienks told Insider, is "an approachable self-help book from someone who's completely unqualified to give you advice but is your best friend." The role is one she's familiar with after hosting "Dr. Meghan," an early series on her YouTube channel in which she doled out advice from "How Not to Give a F---" to "How to Be Happy Being Single."
Rienks is the first to admit that she isn't an expert of any kind — but a decade of filming herself while transitioning to adulthood has given her the perspective to help her audience navigate mental health struggles, social media, friendship, and developing a sense of self.
"I'm much more likely to take advice [from a friend] than somebody who has a Ph.D.," she said. "I don't relate to that. I'd rather learn from somebody who's going to tell me all of their mistakes."
Writing the book, which Rienks says was a long and "painful" process, required going through almost ten years' worth of YouTube videos to jog her memory. Beyond offering a glimpse into her cringe-worthy teen moments and the evolution of her content, watching her body of work underscored the kinds of lessons she wanted to pass on — specifically about emotional wellbeing and the ways in which we use online platforms.
"In older videos, I really thought I had everything together — it's so wild," she said. "I went back and watched and was like, 'Am I doing a good job of faking this?' It took me a while to realize why I was logging on when things weren't great and trying to use [YouTube] as an escape when it wasn't."
Revisiting her entire online career underscored how she struggled to strike a balance between her offline and online lives — and how drawing boundaries and being honest was the best solution.
"It can be really hard to draw that line between 'when am I living my life for me?' and 'when am I living it for other people?'" she said. "Figuring out how to navigate all that was really hard, but I think I've found I'm not good at faking it. Just being honest and authentic was better than just powering through it."
Watching her late teens and twenties unfold also reminded Rienks of how much she's learned in the last decade — and how she has plenty more to figure out.
"I made this video about dealing with toxic friends in what, like 2011," she recalled, "but my [toxic friendships] didn't stop until like, you know, 2019. It's just crazy to think how much you think you know when you're a lot younger. And then once you get older to be like, okay, cool. I definitely did not learn those lessons yet."
As a result, Rienks says, her book doesn't claim to have all the answers, and it leaves room for unexpected turns to come.
"I have grown up so much even in the process of writing it. The final version doesn't wrap everything up with a nice bow," she said. "It leaves that door open for change and evolution, like my viewpoints on things and where my life's going to go. Because that idea of 'Oh, I've got it all figured out,' never bodes well. Life is going to throw you the biggest curveball."
Ultimately, the YouTube star wants her fans to avoid comparing themselves to online personas — and to remember that everyone is "faking it a little bit."
"With everything that you see online, you don't always know what's going on behind the scenes," she said. "And even in your own life, you don't really ever pay attention to what you're putting out there versus what you're necessarily feeling or what's going on inside with you. "
Rienks hopes her fans understand that she's had her own moments of curation – and it's not the full picture of her life.
"I hope they watch my videos and see my life through a specific certain lens but then realize like, 'wow everybody's doing that.' Everybody's curating their lives in a specific way," she explained. "All this stuff that they're going through, you don't always see it."
Read more: