Pascack Valley junior Lauren Bell was called “bling” for wearing jewelry by her second grade teacher. When Bell started her YouTube channel on Aug. 13, 2013, she wanted to find a word that complemented “bling.” With over 300 subscribers, Bell is known as “dazzlebling.”

“It’s pretty ironic how everyone calls me dazzle when it all started with bling,” Bell said.

Bell began posting videos a year after the creation of her channel. She started because she was inspired by Bethany Mota, a Youtuber who makes lookbooks and vlogs. 

“I like making little films, editing them, and sharing them with people to make them happy,” Bell said. “YouTube to me is fun.”

Originally, Bell wanted to have a makeup and travel channel, but began posting vlogs to “keep memories alive.”

“I really hope that people watch them and are happy and can look back on them 20 years from now and say, ‘That’s what my high school years were like,’” Bell said.

PV junior and Bell’s best friend, Emily Kennedy, is seen in many of Bell’s videos on her channel, especially vlogs.

“It’s kind of weird getting filmed all the time, but you get used to it,” Kennedy said. “It’s fun to look back on the videos and be like ‘I forgot we did this.’”

Bell said she does not follow a normal posting schedule, but vlogs when she goes somewhere with other people. Last August, she took her friends to Disney World and posted videos from their trip on her channel.

“I made sure I posted every single one of those vlogs so that I have them,” Bell said. “It’s about memories.”

Behind the publishing of videos, Bell tries to edit during her free time in school and edits and posts the video at home. She said that it takes around a week to post a fully-edited video.

“It’s difficult when teachers give you a lot of work to do and you’re starting to slip on a lot of your classes,” Bell said. “Sometimes, I like to get ahead of schedule and edit it all day during school and keep it private until later in the day. Your main focus should be school and YouTube should be next.”

At PV, Bell believes that people are very accepting of her channel and that asking other students to be featured in her videos has made her a “different person” since she has always been shy.

Bell participated in “Vlogmas” during the month of December where a video was posted every day until Christmas. Her videos consisted of footage in PV with other students and on vacation in Aruba.

“I’ve never got any hate comments from anyone from school or hate comments in general because I haven’t really put myself out there for them to find me,” Bell said.

Bell said that becoming a professional YouTuber has been her dream since she discovered the platform, but most video production majors in college involve movies or becoming a director. In college, she is deciding between going for a business degree with filming as a second option at Coastal Carolina University or attending a filming school in Los Angeles.

“Thinking about the next chapter in my life is very scary, so I’ve been contemplating if I want to be that far away from home,” Bell said. “Los Angeles has always been a dream of mine to visit ever since I started watching YouTube. There are just so many opportunities if you work hard enough.”

“It’s fun to see her come up with ideas for different videos,” Kennedy said. “She’s just grown as a YouTuber and it’s kind of cool.”