Schulich / en #UofTBackToSchool: Sabrina Cruz expresses 'nerdy and quirky' self on YouTube /news/uoftbacktoschool-sabrina-cruz-expresses-nerdy-and-quirky-self-youtube <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">#UofTBackToSchool: Sabrina Cruz expresses 'nerdy and quirky' self on YouTube</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Sabrina%20Cruz%20from%20Nerdy%20and%20Quirky%20%28web%20lead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=98VlUVIg 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/Sabrina%20Cruz%20from%20Nerdy%20and%20Quirky%20%28web%20lead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=BNt1c4uz 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/Sabrina%20Cruz%20from%20Nerdy%20and%20Quirky%20%28web%20lead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=v38DIIJe 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Sabrina%20Cruz%20from%20Nerdy%20and%20Quirky%20%28web%20lead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=98VlUVIg" alt="Sabrina Cruz at her desk"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>geoff.vendeville</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-08-31T00:00:00-04:00" title="Thursday, August 31, 2017 - 00:00" class="datetime">Thu, 08/31/2017 - 00:00</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">ÇŃ×ÓÖ±˛Ą student Sabrina Cruz on being a YouTube star: 'It’s amazing that I’m not more narcissistic than I am.' (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/geoffrey-vendeville" hreflang="en">Geoffrey Vendeville</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Geoffrey Vendeville </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/uoftbacktoschool" hreflang="en">#UofTBacktoSchool</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/undergraduate-students" hreflang="en">Undergraduate Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/schulich" hreflang="en">Schulich</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">How Cruz makes it work as full-time student and part-time online star</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>On campus, <strong>Sabrina Cruz</strong> looks like any other undergraduate student. But online, she has a following of almost twice the number of students enrolled at the University of Toronto.&nbsp;</p> <p>More than 160,000 people subscribe to her YouTube channel, filled with videos of comedy, rants, personal reflections&nbsp;and&nbsp;“cool history” lessons. In her personal videos, she offers&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKQZVBKOE7Y&amp;t=48s">“honest” tips on how to study</a> (“Step one: mental preparation ... or procrastination in disguise”), or describes how a house-warming party <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQxnjhIVbSM">succeeded despite a late furniture delivery from Ikea</a>. She also gives mini-lectures on economics and history, with clips from shows like <em>Rick and Morty </em>and <em>South Park</em>.&nbsp;</p> <p><iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6VpE3FuH2h0" width="560"></iframe></p> <p>Her path to YouTube stardom began in seventh grade.&nbsp;She has grown up with the website, publishing her first videos a few years after YouTube launched in 2005, and learning to balance her online personality with the demands of being a student.</p> <p>“It’s amazing that I’m not more narcissistic than I am,” she says.</p> <p>Cruz says there&nbsp;was a steep learning curve to mastering the platform. “My very first video was 11 minutes long and it’s me eating a cookie – one cookie, mind you,” she says. She believes all evidence of that embarrassing episode has been “deleted off the face of this Earth.”</p> <p>She says she&nbsp;continued making videos in part because she found it easier to connect with people online than with kids at her own school. She calls her channel “Nerdy and Quirky,” adjectives she identifies with. Among her first videos were rants about <em>Star Trek</em> and a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J1pCiSGLAY">vocal-plus-ukelele tribute to BBC's <em>Sherlock</em></a>.&nbsp;</p> <p>“It takes a long time to be decent at the internet,” she says.</p> <p><img alt="Sabrina Cruz smiling" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__5475 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" src="/sites/default/files/Sabrina%20Cruz%20%28web%20embed%29.jpg" style="width: 750px; height: 500px;" typeof="foaf:Image"><br> <em>Sabrina Cruz has been posting videos of herself on YouTube since Grade 7.&nbsp;“It takes a long time to be decent at the internet,” she says (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)</em></p> <p>She also had to learn to cope with the criticism she received from trolls ruling the toxic comments sections. “Starting out, (as a) low self-esteem small child, I was really bothered by it,” she says. “But growing up, you just reason that the user behind this is probably a 12 year old or someone with the mentality of a 12 year old, so how valid is their opinion?</p> <p>“I’m also super liberal with the trash button.”&nbsp;</p> <p>Her&nbsp;big break came years ago, with&nbsp;a shout-out from one of her YouTube idols that helped her more than double the number of her subscribers, to more than 20,000.</p> <p>Cruz says she found it challenging to maintain her audience and her grades last year, her first year at ÇŃ×ÓÖ±˛Ą. (<a href="/news/four-schulich-scholars">Read about why Cruz chose Innis College as a Schulich Leader.</a>) During the school year, she aims to publish two videos per week, each of which can take hours of research and editing.&nbsp;</p> <p>“It’s all about prioritization,” says the math major. “I still manage to have time to hang out with friends and do decent with my YouTube and decent&nbsp;with my GPA.”</p> <p>Cruz's YouTube fame came as a surprise to her new friends at university.&nbsp;“In real life, she's funny but I never expected that she's insanely famous and gets flown to <a href="http://vidcon.com/about/">VidCon</a>,”&nbsp;a conference for online video-makers in Southern California, says&nbsp;<strong>Keslen Murdock</strong>, an astrophysics major. The extent of Cruz's celebrity hit home when Murdock saw a teenage stranger recognize &nbsp;her on the subway.&nbsp;</p> <p>But <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=IRL">IRL</a>, Cruz is basically the same person she is on screen, he says.&nbsp;</p> <div>Having a YouTube channel with a large audience comes with perks: a share of ad revenue, sponsorships and tickets to conferences. But Cruz says she sticks with it despite her busy schedule for the same reason she started in the first place: to make other nerdy and quirky people out there laugh and smile.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>“I want people to feel a little less alone.”</div> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Thu, 31 Aug 2017 04:00:00 +0000 geoff.vendeville 111896 at