Emma Frances Chamberlain was born on May 22, 2001 in San Bruno, California. Starting her career off as a YouTuber in 2017, she is now better known for her coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee, her podcast Anything Goes, and her work in the modeling industry.
Starting her career at just 16 years old, she’s become one of the most lovable and relatable social media presences with 12.1 million subscribers on YouTube as of 2025. Through her social media, she gave her audience a space where they could be and express themselves however they wanted.
Chamberlain grew up as an only child with divorced parents in Southern California. Her father, Michael Chamberlain, is an oil painter and photographer, her mother, Sophia Chamberlain, is a flight attendant according to her Linkedin People Magazine found. Despite her parents divorcing when she was five years old, she stated that she is “grateful for her family dynamic” in a Call Her Daddy podcast episode.
Growing up, Chamberlain’s family struggled financially compared to her peers. In interviews, she explains how she felt different and excluded from the people around her but never felt bad about her family. In a Youtube video of her growing through her childhood home, she explains that she lived with her dad more often growing up, but still had a good relationship with her mom.
In high school, she was open about attending an all girls catholic preparatory school and doing cheer and track before dropping out at 16 years old.
In 2017, Chamberlain made the decision to drop out of school due to a depressive episode that she was struggling with throughout most of her high school experience. While deciding to drop school at the beginning of her junior year, she realized she wanted to pursue YouTube full time.
Early videos on her channel consist of thrift hauls and vlog style videos. One of her first popular videos was in July 2017, titled “GET TO KNOW ME TAG”. By November of 2017, she had 300K subscribers, and her video “we all owe the dollar tree an apology” was one of her first viral videos.
Her videos were different compared to what other vloggers or lifestyle influencers had been posting. She was authentically herself on camera and her videos were quite chaotic, compared to the normal vlog styles YouTube viewers had been used to.
She became known for her quirky teenager personality. She loved coffee, fashion, and authentically talking about life. At the end of her videos, she would give viewers a “forehead kiss” which many loved. She made fans feel like they were sitting right there next to her.
In June of 2018, Chamberlain moved to Los Angeles.
By Chamberlain’s late teen years, she was the fashion icon teen girls looked up to, especially after being the cover of Vogue in 2022. She was attending Coachella annually, pulling millions of views for the vlogs leading up to the festival. On top of becoming a Coachella icon, she was a part of the “Sister Squad”. This was a public friend group that posted fun vlogs and challenges across all of their platforms. It consisted of Emma Chamberlain, James Charles, a makeup influencer, and the Dolan Twins, former comedy creators. Their friendship changed the internet. Everyone loved the new dynamic of a quirky teenage girl with popular twin brothers and a funny makeup artist.
Not only the Sister Squad, but Chamberlain had other memorable friendships that made everyone smile. She would post travel vlogs with Ellie Thumann and Hannah Meloche, both content creators. The three embodied what girlhood looked like for many of their viewers .
This time period of vlogs, lifestyle, challenge, and frequent collaboration videos was an unforgettable time.
In 2019, Chamberlain created Chamberlain Coffee. What started as selling coffee beans and drink accessories, expanded into matcha, chai, canned to-go coffees, and assorted merchandise. On January 30, 2025, the first in-person cafe opened up in Westfield Century City Mall, CA.
Her brand’s marketing is much different than other companies, and her personality shows through every new post on social media; marketing, involving other peoples art, and overall embracing her creativity.
Shortly after creating her coffee company in 2020, Chamberlain created her Anything Goes Podcast. Unlike YouTube, she has consistently uploaded podcast episodes over the past five years. The episodes consist of advice giving, trending topics, storytimes, and more. She even had guest stars for a while. Some of those guest stars included Rainn Wilson, Mac Demarco, Jerad Ellner.
In recent podcast episodes, Chamberlain has admitted to wanting to post more on YouTube again. At the end of summer 2021, she had a big brand change in her videos. Before then, all of her videos had all capitalized titles and unserious thumbnails. But that summer, her videos had short word titles with very simple thumbnails of a clip of her in the video.
At this point, Chamberlain started posting a lot less on YouTube. She traveled Europe with her father and started attending more high profile events that year, like hosting the Met Gala and Fashion Week.
She posted a Met Gala video in May 2023, then didn’t post on YouTube again until November that same year. She had almost never been missing from her channel for that long. The post from November 2023 was titled, “are you mad at me?”.
During this time, Chamberlain started getting backlash for becoming such a mainstream celebrity. Fans were upset to see her post less and show up to events that showed how much money she had been making. Chamberlain always liked fashion though. She built her channel off style and haul videos. The same people that watched her as a quirky 17 year old, didn’t want to watch her at big name events instead of vlogging in her car, due to her rise in fame.
Since the end of 2023, internet users have moved past bashing her for her money, but now many judge Chamberlain for the stylistic choices she has made. She has kept her hair consistently short and also had it dark for a long time. More recently, Chamberlain got a blonde pixie. There have been many TikToks that have expressed a disliking of it and miss the “old Emma”. They missed the quirky, loud youtuber who didn’t care about what others.
Emma Chamberlain is still the same girl, however, she’s 23 not 16 anymore. All she did was grow up.
She has gone through her third style change of her podcast this year after she came back from her winter break. The logo and color scheme changed, and the location for video episodes also changed. Chamberlain has been even more active on her podcast than she has been the past year, posting more than once a week.
Even though she might not be the mainstream “it girl” anymore, Chamberlain will continue to be for many fans. Her videos are timeless and are nostalgic for her timeless fans. YouTube isn’t her only platform. Following her Instagram, coffee company, and podcast is the best way to keep up with her now.
Emma Chamberlain is the definition of a comfort creator.
