YouTube first started as a social media forum for creative self-expression, but it has quickly become a powerful digital industry, helping agencies and managers around the world discover young talent. Tyra Booker, a sophomore broadcast and digital journalism major at Syracuse University, decided to start a fashion, beauty and lifestyle vlog, or video blog, when she was 14 years old. Now, FashionWithTy is managed by the Collective, has 32,636 subscribers and over two million likes on its videos.

The Daily Orange: What exactly is FashionwithTy and why did you decide to start it?
Tyra Booker: One summer when I was 14, I was injured from playing tennis and I was watching all these YouTube videos, bored, and I saw this YouTuber. Her name is Blair Fowler, and she had the opportunity to go to fashion week, was in Seventeen, Teen Vogue — and those were all my biggest dreams at 14. She was only doing that from videos. So I thought if I can get a camera and sit in front of it, then I can do this too. That’s so awesome.

The D.O.: How did you make the transition from being interested in YouTube videos to being a YouTuber?
T.B.: That summer I got a flip video camera, recorded videos and got 1,000 subscribers. So, I was like, “Wow! I’m really famous.” No, no, I’m kidding, but I was really excited about that. I kept growing at such a fast rate, and I ended up getting over 30,000 subscribers and attracting all of these different companies within a short period of time. With YouTube, how it works is the amount of views and subscribers, as they increase, the more sponsorship deals you get and the more agencies start contacting you because they want to be able to manage you as a content provider and leverage off your sponsorship deals. So, I did everything I wanted to do. I was in Seventeen, I was Beauty Blogger of the Moment in Teen Vogue, I did fashion week for 2013 and I got to interview Nigel Barker, Kelly Cutrone, Alessandra Ambrosio. So I was in the industry with people I admired, and I really loved that. I ended up getting managed by an agency called the Collective, which helped me to negotiate contracts.

The D.O.: I saw on your channel that you are leaving FashionwithTy. Can you tell me what made you decide to end the vlog?
T.B.: I did that for four years, up until my freshman year of college and I just realized that I wanted to be able to learn the business behind why YouTube is the way it is and why media is the way it is, (and) just having a brand — because I never realized, but I built my own online brand. So, I just want it to be much bigger than YouTube, which is why I just transferred into Newhouse, so I could learn more about the business behind that. I’m sure I’m going to have some spark of inspiration and continue doing videos. I just felt like I wanted to learn more about the field. But on campus right now, I am producing a television show for Zipped magazine, and I think that is going to branch off of what I do on YouTube.

The D.O.: You were talking a little bit about the cool people you got to meet as a result of your channel. Can you tell me which person you learned the most from?
T.B.: What actually made me think about being a broadcast journalism major was when I was doing the fashion week deal with Nine West, and that was on location. So, we were going to a bunch of different places and meeting cool people, which really inspired me. Working with that company was the most inspiring because I got hands-on experience and was able to take on-site direction. Besides celebrities, meeting viewers was really cool. We had Beauty Con, International Make-up Artist Trade Show and I would host meet-and-greets just to see my followers. Even on campus I’ve been recognized, which is pretty cool.

The D.O.: As a beauty guru, what are your favorite beauty and fashion tips for the winter?
T.B.: For beauty, I would say moisturizer. With chapped lips, use anything with petroleum jelly because there are addictive qualities in flavored lip balms. For skin, I would say use the Cetaphil Daily Moisturizer. In terms of makeup, I go very simple: my trustee Stila liner and BADGal Lash Mascara by Benefit. Favorite fashion tip for winter: I love layering. Layering jewelry, tights, sweaters over dresses, playing with textures. I love Normcore, but it’s hard to do in the winter here.

The D.O.: What did you hope to accomplish by making your channel?
T.B.: I think what it turned into was inspiring young teen girls to have confidence within their own skin. I think most people interpret having a beauty channel as being very superficial, but it’s acknowledging that you have this natural beauty that exists, but you are just using makeup or clothes to enhance it. Also, showing that to be the most fashionable person, you don’t have to have the most expensive things. You can mix and match different things.