I was part of that first generation of kids to grow up caring more about my favorite YouTubers than my favorite celebrities. I still remember crowding around the desktop in the computer den at my best friend’s house when we were in elementary school. Her older brother navigated to YouTube and pulled up a video by Ryan Higa: “The Ninja Glare.” Higa was only 17 at the time, and the video would accrue more than 20 million views. It was a bunch of high schoolers goofing off and making comedy skits: exhilarating for a tween like myself to witness.

In the following years, I discovered Jenna “Marbles” Mourey, who was the most subscribed-to woman on YouTube for much of the 2010s. I looked up to Mourey like the older sister I never had. I adored her comedy and her rants about everything from airport attire (she hated when people showed up decked out in metal jewelry in the security line) to the double standards for men and women’s appearances. In a 2010 video called “Sluts on Halloween,” she introduced the idea to me that slut-shaming was wrong. She wasn’t exactly a feminist creator, but she instilled my earliest notions about what being a young adult woman entailed. A lot of her influence persists in me today, from the Halloween costumes I choose to the way I still wear black leggings almost daily when the temperature drops.

Given how much I loved YouTube growing up, it’s no wonder that I wanted to become a YouTuber from a young age, too. Back in high school, I corralled my friends to make our own skits, which received an average of about 10 views, all of which were me. In college, I had a short-lived ASMR channel (we still don’t have time to really talk about this, but someday…). And although I simultaneously wanted to pursue journalism, the magnetic pull of YouTube never went away. In my earliest professional media gigs, I reported on the YouTubers I had been obsessed with. My intimate knowledge of the platform’s culture led to a full-time career analyzing and investigating it.

And then, about a month ago now, I finally did it. That dream I had nurtured inside for so long came true. I posted what I considered to be my first real YouTube video on my first real YouTube channel. And those little numbers, those view counts and likes and comments and subscribers, starting ticking up, up, up. In 30 days, I surpassed one million views on my first five videos.

I didn’t expect it to happen that quickly, and I’m equally proud and grateful for the support. I’m also incredibly overwhelmed by what it actually means to have that many eyes on you. It’s not always a good thing, and while I’m making a concerted effort to focus on the positive, there are times when I’m terrified.