Rachel Nguyen is creating outside the algorithm
“Fuck buying the $5 Instagram ad, put $5 into a creator's pockets.”
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, from Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci.
If you create on the internet, in any way, I guarantee this conversation will speak to everything you’re struggling with right now. —Kate
Ironically, I discovered Rachel Nguyen thanks to an algorithm. I say ironically because when her December, 2020 “POINT OF VIEW” vlog came up on my screen via YouTube’s robot-recommendation, I realized I was watching something I hadn’t seen on the internet in some time: a piece of art created totally outside trends. The vlog followed none of the familiar rhythmic, algorithmically-driven patterns of the days-in-the-life I normally consume, but was instead a mixed media event composed entirely of a screen recording of Nguyen’s own computer.
While I was just meeting Nguyen, the creator has been on the internet for some time. In addition to her YouTube channel, which she started in 2013, she also ran the blog ThatsChic and has worked with brands like Glossier and on projects like We’re Not Really Strangers. Our interview was one of those in which the conversation quickly took on a life of its own. I knew instantly it would be one of my favorites.
I went into the chat jealous of the freedom with which Nguyen creates on the internet, seemingly immune to the pressures of clicks and the whims of changing algorithms. I learned that it is, of course, not that simple—something she teaches in her Video Creator course. In this interview for paid subscribers, Nguyen and I spoke about how to create authentically on the internet, what we owe to our audiences, and the importance of reallocating our resources to individual creators, not brands.
My introduction to you is pretty late in the game. How did you get started on YouTube?
Before I went on YouTube, which is roughly around 2013, I still had an entire other life of blogging. I had my blog ThatsChic in 2007, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12—so I was already digitizing my life and putting myself online on ThatsChic for six years prior to starting YouTube, which is kind of crazy. I was so young and I think the first initial touch points of recognition and the feeling of a follower—which, once I started YouTube I was like, I hate that word. I'm going to banish it for my vocabulary. I had this tainted experience of seeing other people being too shy because somebody's consuming their blog. And I have even felt like, “Oh, I'm gonna be shy because this is a follower.” I noticed it from bloggers and I noticed it myself and that's when I was like, I'm gonna go on YouTube and I just wanna be me.
I don't want a veil between me and anyone who wants to be a part of my world. And I just wanted something that felt raw that we can all experience and see a reflection of. And of course the idea of this has evolved since I've been on YouTube and as I've gotten older—I am 32 now, about to turn 33. I've really grown up and had my adult years online. That's sort of my start to YouTube. So I do feel like I have a very niche experience. It's not exclusive to me, but I do know that the experience I have had is really interesting. I've just been able to see all aspects of how to grow in and out of these spaces and watching the pendulum swing from place to place and seeing what people like and don't like.
Are you active on any other platforms?
I'm actually not on many platforms. I feel like I have somehow managed to get off of the rat race a bit. I'm on Instagram and I feel like it's like a Pokemon thing where I see all my friends on there and that's it. And I chat with people and maybe am allowed to explore curiosity in there. I consume TikTok. I try to with intention. I put myself on YouTube, but the core of how I'm able to really even exist right now is doing my online course.
What is your online course?
So my friend and I, Puno, she started I Love Creatives, which is this platform that is ever evolving, but it kind of started off as a place for creatives where people can list, like, "I'm a photographer looking for work," or "I need a shoot done." So it's sort of this Craigslist for creatives. And then she started making courses and her Squarespace course was really a big hit, and she had another course after that, but then when she asked me like, how do I make my videos, I was like, I do X, Y, and Z and I ask myself these questions. I think about my videos in acts, like there's a four act structure, and I think about these things because it helps bring intention to editing and it helps inform when I'm filming.
So she took my process and we made this workbook on it called the Video Creator course. And it's broken up into three parts. The first part's creative process, which is the part I teach, and then the second part's video editing, which she teaches. And the third part's about freelancing. So anyone can sign up and it's a self-paced course. But twice a year I run through this programming with students and I've just learned that it's not about making a video, it's about how do you trust your creative process and how do you make a creative process? And a lot has to do with like, how do you just be authentic to yourself?
I know you also are behind a project called Warde. Can you talk a bit about that?
Warde's a community. I haven't really been working on it lately, so I don't feel like I am tied to it in any way. But I think the fun thing about how to approach the internet and just creative work in general is having fun projects that you just funnel ideas into. And Warde was birthed because of an idea that I just had a feeling that digital community was needed and that there wasn't quite a familiar setting of how to be in a community online. And the experience of community I once had online was like, on forums and that doesn't really exist anymore. So I was just experimenting and I started Warde and I feel very lucky that I'm always instinctually making something before people know they want it. And then of course the pandemic happened, so Warde just just took off. I started Warde like six months before the pandemic and it was already a thing that was happening and it was fun. And then the pandemic and being in lockdown, like Warde actually saved me and a lot of people because it was so fun.
Your way of presenting digital information is totally unique, nostalgic like a scrapbook, but also very current and interactive and moving. It’s what the internet feels like in my brain, but prettier. What is your thinking behind that?
I am a person that lives for nostalgia and I create work based on lived experiences. So I think because I have had this adult-forming experience online, it's sort of the feeling that I know that feels right to me. And I think, without giving it much thought, I just always return to that feeling because it's my way of protecting when the internet does feel good for me. [Back] in that time, you could log in and every nook of the internet kind of felt fun and exciting and curious and explorative and it's just not like that anymore. I return to that feeling a lot and I think it just subconsciously enters my work. And I somehow just am able to pull from that without thinking about it.
I kind of see your work as almost a reaction against how the internet has changed. And I think maybe why it feels nostalgic is it's not in any of the siloed niches or boxes of how we create right now. The way we create now is you make a TikTok and you follow a trend that someone else created. Or like, you post on Instagram and you're doing an Instagram dump. Do you feel like you are purposefully rejecting how the internet has homogenized a little bit?
I feel so seen. I definitely rebel and react against things that are happening. For a while I felt pushed away from the internet because I felt like I wasn't unique anymore. And I felt like this world I've created for myself has been commodified to the Nth degree and it no longer felt special to me. And I was talking to my therapist about this. I couldn't gain traction in my creative work anymore because I felt like everyone was doing the same thing I was doing. And he was like, "Don't you tell your students all the time that they should not create work based around what other people are making and that there is no end goal to making something nice?" And I was like, "Yeah. I do talk about that and I really believe it." And he goes, "Well, you're not practicing it. In fact, you rebelling against everything else is still having an external reaction to something else."
Even trying to rebel and react against it is still me having an external thing trigger me. And I think I'm slowly realizing that and trying to pull back. And this is something I also try to tell my students—and work with my students too; we do the work together. How do you just make things from what we feel and see? It's an easy thing to talk about, but it's a hard thing to put in practice. It's really easy to notice how the things that we put out, how people are reacting to it, good and bad. I also tell people when they're starting to hit virality, I'm like, good feedback is just as detrimental as bad feedback. And it's like, how do you stay stoic in this forever moving ocean of information and people and opinions and stay internally still? And I think with practices outside of being online and having my own discipline of reconnecting with myself, constantly checking on myself every morning, checking into myself at night, allows me clarity to show up online in a really authentic way.
Speaking of therapists who have to hear a lot about the internet, one of the things that my therapist and I talk about is how my sense of internal validation has just totally disappeared because over 15 years, the external validation I got from likes and engagement on social media replaced the value of enjoying something just because I enjoy it. That's exactly the problem that I have with creative work, too. I love the kind of independent creating you're doing, but I feel discouraged from doing that myself because I'm like, it's not ticking any of the boxes that the algorithm likes, so it's gonna go into a void, so what's the point? I talk myself out of it. Have you ever felt pressured by the algorithm?
I feel super lucky, but I maybe shouldn't totally bring this up to luck because I know I've worked hard on keeping the integrity of my work and therefore maintaining an audience for as long as I have. It's a really special relationship that feels really long and something that I don't wanna tarnish. And I think because I have this deep respect for my audience, I'm very careful of what our interaction feels like. I understand a user's experience because I myself am a user and I understand that I don't wanna have a call to action every time I log on. I actually want a space where I feel like I can reflect on myself. I want a space where I can watch something and go somewhere and not feel like the journey I'm on is actually an advertisement. I try to honor that and I've developed a space where I'm allowed to do that.
As far as algorithms, I don't think about that because I don't think about trying to build a bigger audience. Like my relationship and how I interpret it with my audience is the algorithm for me. It is me being cognizant and thoughtful of who's watching and what are they going through, and how do I become a conduit for them to escape because I know that's what's needed right now. Maybe like 10 years ago when I started YouTube, there was a place to wanna find cool things to buy and maybe that was it. And that's changed.
Even just looking on your website, it reminds me of those websites that you would go to and the whole point of them was they were just a cool little space. And now I don't even know how to find those things because I go on the internet and wait for stuff to get served to me rather than seeking stuff out. Are there other creators, other spaces, other projects you've found that you feel emulate those versions of the internet? 'Cause I'm sure people are still creating that stuff. Put another way: Where do you hang out on the internet?
I love Are.na. Are.na's a great place that feels like they have a similar philosophy and ethos. They've been around for like 13 years—they're like Pinterest to gather information. But it doesn't feel like it's been modified. And it's supported by people. I was actually having this thought on my walk today of like, buying things. Fuck buying the $5 Instagram ad, put $5 into a creator's pockets. Put $5 towards other people. And it's like, how do we start? Cause this is all politics, right? We've all been talking about, how do we support each other? How do we not rely on the government and the system? And right now the system is: brands control the internet. And we are giving them money and validating that. And it's like, how do we support each other and the money exchange is actually happening within people, for people. We're supporting somebody's GoFundMe, we're supporting a creator who's making something that we're consuming, we're supporting a creator's work.
It's almost like the equivalent of going to mom and pop shops, not relying on these bigger anomalies to dictate our spending habits and our viewing habits and our work habits. And I think that there's a future in this world where Patreons and OnlyFans and Substacks and all these things, we're going to start supporting each other. But it it has to be a reallocation of resources.