With the money collected from dog sitting, she holds her newly bought Canon G7X Mark 2 camera. Although she has never found her life to be that interesting, a creative flow has run through her brain while her family boxed their house up to move to their new apartment. Junior Abby Korte turns her camera on in her now nearly empty living room and opens her mouth to speak not just to the camera in her hand, but now her audience.

After Abby Korte’s first video titled, “Moving Vlog” uploaded on YouTube on April 7, 2017, she knew she wanted to continue to make YouTube videos. With her channel, @abigailnicole, now with over 350 subscribers, she has grown her channel, not only in the numbers but in her content as well, now with 27 videos uploaded.

“Once I had something interesting to film, I decided I was going to do it,” Korte said. “That’s when I first started realizing I really liked it.”

Korte has always watched YouTube, more than she watches actual television shows or movies. She has always been interested in influencers and entertained by their content. Whether it’s makeup tutorials or a “Day in the Life,” Korte has always enjoyed watching videos. With her newly bought camera, she used her love of the community to start filming and posting videos of her own.

“Ever since I was young, I would film myself or my friends and I in my basement,” Korte said. “I liked filming things. I just found it interesting and fun.”

When making a video, Korte begins by thinking through content ideas. Once she decides on what she wants to film, she starts thinking about what she’ll need. She makes a list of any materials she’ll need to buy or schedule the day when she can film. She’ll film the video and once she’s done, Korte likes to edit the video in one sitting. She uses iMovie on her MacBook to sort through the hours of footage. According to Korte, she will edit for nearly eight hours, but it goes by quickly because she is focused.

“Some videos flop, some videos do really well,” Korte said. “Making videos definitely isn’t easy when it comes to learning how, but when you learn it gets a lot easier. I was expecting it to be easy, but as I started taking it more seriously, it was harder than I thought.”

Korte films herself showing products and clothing she bought, giving advice about different things, like how to pass a driving test and simply driving around in her car with friends. She’ll do vlogs of her school day and some trending challenges as well. Whenever she is doing something interesting that day, she tries to film it for her growing channel.

“It’s something she really enjoys and puts a lot of effort into,” junior Mia McDermott said. “I will always support her no matter what and seeing that it makes her happy, I hope she continues to do it. I would rather be behind the camera then in the videos, but it’s still cool to see when she posts them and all the editing she does.”

While most younger kids join the platform to gain a following and earn money, Korte has always focused on making content solely because she loves doing it. Influencers earn monetization from ads on their videos and it has continuously gotten more difficult. Korte understands the difficulties of making money on YouTube, but doesn’t concern herself with it.

“I’m not doing it for money,” Korte said. “I don’t see it as a career. I want to do it until I get bored with it, which I think will be a long while.”

Korte wants to continue making videos, hopefully incorporating college life once she graduates high school. By making a YouTube channel, she found her interest in video production. She finds joy in the editing process and considers it a possibility as something she could do in the future. She will continue to upload on her YouTube channel for the time being.

“I love seeing the end product,” Korte said. “I love getting to bring people into my life. I love watching other people’s videos and I like to be for others what [other YouTubers] are to me.”