“I am a consumer first, and then a YouTuber second,” says Nicole Rafiee, an up–and–coming content creator. “I still feel like a 12–year–old fangirl watching YouTube on my computer in the basement.”
Perhaps, Rafiee admits, it’s a slight case of imposter syndrome that leads to her ranking of these identities. But a much larger part appears to be the way she grew up: online. At her discovery of YouTube around the third grade, Rafiee became obsessed with the site, spending her days watching stop motion animation, home–film–esque music videos, and a lot of Webkinz content—the bread and butter of early YouTube.
Her love for the game that is YouTube began with a love of watching others play. But it didn’t take long for a young Rafiee to start uploading her own work, inspired by the greats before her.
“I started at a very young age, like elementary school, and then deleted it all,” she says. Though Rafiee enjoyed the process of creating content, the idea of people watching it, particularly those who knew her off–screen, was much less enjoyable. “I started up again in middle school ... making bits and skits. People found it; I deleted it and started up again,” Rafiee explains of the cycle she was stuck in, starting up and deleting her online presence.
For a time, Rafiee attempted to consider a more tangible, traditional career: she attended Temple University to be a physician assistant. However, the likes of biology, anatomy, and kinesiology proved too rigid for her, and Rafiee found herself “daydreaming about making videos.” By the beginning of her sophomore year, she scratched that creative itch and again began uploading videos with a new mindset—she was ready for the world to watch.
Never is it a better time to watch Nicole Rafiee than when she’s info–dumping internet lore. “I have always been that friend who will tell you about all my interests,” she says. “Even if you don’t care, I will tell you everything that I am currently obsessing over—artists, movies, shows, bands—like I am that annoying friend that will drag six friends to a concert that they don't care about.”
An established expert in pop culture, Rafiee has put her years of digital fandom experience to use in a series dubbed “Chronically Online Girl Explains.” Rafiee has found her perfect niche. From Chappell Roan, to Challengers, to Street favorite Brat, she’s reached a corner of the internet where her explanations are near gospel.
Though she’s cultivated a community of pop culture obsessives, Rafiee is determined to be more than just another content creator existing in the vacuum that is the internet. In early spring, Rafiee became one of the founding members of Creators for Palestine, originated by YouTuber Nikki Carreon.
“It was just so incredible to see what it became, because, no joke, it literally started as like 20 of us in an Instagram group chat,” she says. The group grew to over 130 members—with the likes of Kurtis Conner, Hasan Piker, and The Try Guys—and culminated in a livestream on May 30 that helped the campaign raise over $1.5 million. Rafiee, who insisted on not only digitally promoting the event, but also taking part of the livestream, flew to Los Angeles for a mere 12 hours. “I know it was last minute, but I was one of the founding creators of it. So I really, really wanted to be there.”
For Rafiee, the money raised was far beyond the belief of what the original group thought could be accomplished. But she believes it may pave the way for future content creator activism. “It’s so cool to see the power that so many people have,” she says. “I think that it maybe has opened a lot of people’s eyes, especially creators’ eyes, [about] how much of an impact they can have.”
Though Creators for Palestine was a major event in which she took a large role, using her online platform for good has always been a running theme of her content. Notably, Rafiee has talked openly about her journey with OCD to further raise awareness around mental health.
“I started my YouTube channel not knowing I have OCD,” she says. “It’s kind of hard to watch a lot of those videos because I am so evidently clearly struggling with OCD, or severe anxiety, or depression, or whatever … but I just didn’t have a name for it, and I was clearly using YouTube to cope.” An outlet, she’s quick to acknowledge, that she was glad to have in her life at that time.
Interspersed between more frivolous videos like Colleen Hoover readings with her best friend Jake and Sims 4 play–throughs with rather salacious goals, Rafiee has documented the various aspects of her life affected by OCD. In a recent video entitled with the double entendre “i fear i’m being followed,” she talks freely of her struggles of having an online presence and experiencing bouts of paranoia: a topic that, though she originally wanted to shy away from due to fear of seeming ungrateful for her audience’s support, she felt a necessity in wanting to share.
Rafiee talks of the few instances where viewers have reached out and were able to look into an OCD diagnosis after watching her content and seeing how the symptoms pervade in real life. And though she speaks mostly of her own experience with the condition, she hopes that her sharing her experiences with mental illness will encourage others to seek wellness in whatever form they need.
“I’m so happy that there are so many people out there seeking a diagnosis, whether it’s OCD or just getting mental health help in general, because it’s getting around [to] where it’s not as stigmatized as it was before. But we have such a long way to go,” she says. “I’m just an advocate for any help that people can get—whatever that looks like. … I think that it’s important to show that, like, yeah, it took some time, it took a lot … to get here. And like, if I can do it, anybody can do it.”
The success she’s experienced, though more than welcome and gratifying, is still unbelievable. Rafiee keeps herself grounded by her day–one philosophy: being authentically herself, especially the obsessed–with–lore–that–no–one–with–a–day–job–has–time–for aspects of herself. At the end of the day, Rafiee stumbled into becoming a voice for the chronically online niche internet people, a group she has always been a part of.
“I’m like, damn, I scammed my way into this. … I don’t know how I technically got here. Because at the end of the day, I’m still just a big fangirl.”
