When you mention the word the girl next door, what comes to mind is that down-to-earth girl who keeps simple aesthetics, is very approachable, nothing is intimidating about her, and has a friendly aura, and you can never go wrong expecting vibes from her. The girls next door is usually beautiful, but not in the exclusive model sense. I am talking about naturally appealing with no extra makeup and all that extra facial makeover. This is exactly how you would describe Molly Rose on the first look.
Molly is very clearly, the quintessential girl next door and better. You see, from her YouTube content, she gives that an approachable personality type. Everything about her screams the type of person you can start a small talk about just any topic, and you don't have to struggle to hold up the conversation or escalate it to wanting to meet over a cup of coffee again. If anything, Molly perfectly fits the stereotypical belief that Canadians are friendly. The 21-year-old YouTuber is very exceptional and by far skewed away from what a typical influencer, model, and YouTuber would look like.
Molly Rose has more than 100k subscribers on YouTube, 100k followers on Instagram, and over 30k followers on TikTok. Her social media success is perhaps her most defining trait. Also, Molly is a Canadian from British Columbia and her personality comes shining through.
For a model, influencer, or content creator who has made it that far, there is a general pressure that they tend to give in to by giving this self-image of perfection. The struggle to connect with this large number of fans who look up to fans of that calibre usually misdirects influencers into turning themselves into some sort of perfect online figure. I speak of perfect looks curated by makeup and other expensive accessories. Don't forget expensive and highly professional photography and filming in some high-end and fancy locations. Even as people, they are forced to hide that awkward natural self that we all can't shake off. They sure do achieve that level of perfection they work so hard to get, but then, they only end up being nothing more than fictional characters totally out of touch and out of reach for their average audience. Something that seriously kills the authenticity that might have been their ladder way up.
YouTuber Molly Rose is far from any of this. The only enviable perfection in her is her superhuman curve and charming personality. Sure enough, those two, more so the curves, are like a magnet for people when it comes to understanding how she got so many followers. Even then, social media has made it obvious that there are so many models with great looks and hard-to-keep eye curves- sure enough, that alone won't keep the fans and followers loyal and hooked to a content creator's pages. This is where charms come in; people want to be entertained and look up to content creators who get cackles out of them. This is something that Molly delivers effortlessly. Her videos and overall charms speak of someone naturally friendly, naughty, humorous, and free to earth, too. The free-to-earth part is exceptionally important. Ever watched content from an influencer who gets you to question your life choices and how unlucky you could be, both aesthetically, financially, and even how you live your life? I am speaking of the 18-year-old influencers who are exceptionally good-looking and live in nice, highly curated apartments. If anything, life has been more than generous to them, or at least in how they make it appear. Watching such influencers, even though they could be creative and charming, can be demeaning and exhausting. They look and feel like they are from another world, and it is hard to connect and resonate with them (or they relate with what average life looks like). There is a word for it- mid.
Molly, in some strange way, doesn't teach influencer 101; she knows and understands what her average fan is like. Luckily for her, it is very obvious that she is not trying in some way to level down to what she thinks her average life is like. This is a girl who lives her normal daily life. She does her videos in her tiny apartment, nearly the same as the one I live in. Sometimes, it's just a messy background (give her a break. We all have those lazy days. I mean, most of the time, we don't tidy up like the entire China is coming to visit). Her photography and video filming are so basic. Just natural lighting was recorded using her smartphone. No makeup, no fancy background, no fancy clothes. And how does she make up for all that (now that nearly every other content invests half of the movie budget to make a 1-minute reel)? There is a lot she does that works the magic. Perhaps a look into the type of content she makes and shares will help.
Try-on hauls are a very common trend these days among influencers. If you ask me, I would tell you that specifically watching my Favorite influencer unbox, wear, and showcase a bunch of clothes and accessories she got from so and so the brand does not give me that much excitement. At first, it did, and I felt it was by far better than having that high-end supermodel with extraordinary body types pose for photos where the only interactive feature added is switching or scrolling through the colours of the given attire or accessories. I like to believe that a lot of people are by now numbed by just try-on hauls. Who would not? There are so many of them on YouTube, nearly as many as the grain of sand we walk on. Does anyone still get awed and excited about sand? No?
Anyway, why is this important? What does it have to do with Molly? Does it sound like trolling her? Since a lot of content she does is try-on hauls, how does it work for her now that I have an entire thesis to prove that try-on hauls should be scrapped from the category of content?
Well, the trick is delivery. Getting fans glued to this type of content is no longer getting the latest and the trendiest fashion accessories. If anything, a successful try-on haul is more about the person, the content creator, and whatever she is trying to review is no less props than the background behind her. This is why.
I have noted with all the try-on hauls by Molly that she makes them slightly about the accessories and clothing and more about a regular blog about a girl living her life.
From the very first try-on haul Molly Rose created featuring Shein, she has always kept that goofy and playful personality. Molly always understands that what is more important for the fans when looking at try-on hauls is hearing from her and listening to her story. She balances perfectly between showing exactly what she is talking about and talking as extensively as she can. As a storyteller, she never backs down from sharing her thoughts, opinions, and even intrusive thoughts with her fans. Something noteworthy is she keeps her background very simple and no distracting. This leaves her fans with only two things to focus on herself as the storyteller and whatever attire she tries to discuss. You could argue, aren't try-on hauls all about the influencer giving her opinions and talking about how the attires make her feel? What is so special about Molly's? That is right, what makes her special and worth the time?
You see, I have seen a lot of influencers get carried away trying to show the outfit parts. The self-obsession can be such a cringe; we are just not allowed to talk about it lest we are branded haters. But we surely clap back by not going back to watch more. Molly Rose makes the show part brief and straightforward and does not leave room for those awkward silent moments of self-obsession. She keeps it simple and straight. Even when trying to talk about the clothes, she sticks to the topic and does not get carried away. Speaking of what stands out as the giving review part, the depth matters. And if anything, fans are really good and smelling those who are effortlessly good at giving genuine and self-generated reviews and comments and those who are just trying to be nice and market the brand they are working with. There are reasons many people are quick to hit the skip-on ads buttons. People just don't like too obvious marketing.
Working with the brands means Molly would be doing some level of advocacy and trying to push sales. But she does not sacrifice her authenticity in pursuit of this. She keeps it real, about herself. The talks come naturally, and I believe that is something that anyone looking to connect with her would find worth sticking to. Besides, Molly has a great body, superhuman curves, super attractive twins, and is quite adorable to look at with more skin she shows. I tend to believe that far from authenticity talks, her physique is quite a marvel to look for. While doing the try-on hauls, she does by giving her fans the extremes. Moving from a very skimpy, suggestive, and highly risqué bathing suit that leaves very little to the imagination to an elegant maxi dress that gives all the Queen Elizabeth vibes. That playfulness makes her hauls interesting to watch, and even the fans never know what to expect, and that is where all the fun is.
You read that right. Molly does content on stretching and those yoga videos, not in a way that flexes her skills but in a way that she can share some of the basic stretching exercises with her fans. But there is more to these stretching videos than just some girl doing some Asian-like body movements (pardon me, I am not even familiar with where yoga came from- I must be Indian).
Molly is a storyteller; I don't know how she manages; those stretching exercises will wear me out. I would be struggling to multitask with breathing. But then Molly effortlessly manages to do so while in the middle of making some humanly impossible stretch. One of her stretch videos that fascinated me was the one she recently posted on YouTube. In the video, she reveals that she has been working as a Yoga teacher and guiding people through those stretching exercises for a while now. Molly reveals a lot about her personal life while at this. She understands for some audiences, especially men, who happen to be the majority of her subscribers, watching stretching videos can be boring. This is also true because I have yet to see men who practice yoga exercises.
Molly has the self-awareness to recognize that sharing stretch videos is a path away from what she mainly shares or is known for. She also knows that this move will come as a disappointment to a segment of her fanbase. She apologizes for this but realizes that a simple apology won't cut it. She makes the video half about the stretching and the other half about talking about herself. As I mentioned, people crave real people to connect and interact with in this age of AI and robots. For most, their curiosity takes them as far as wanting to know more about their influencer as a person outside the normal content. Molly takes advantage of this and effortlessly reveals the person behind the try-on hauls. Besides, the stretching exercises are fun to watch, too. Such a marvel, and I wonder how a person can be so flexible with her body. She admits some stretches are hard and even difficult for her, which should be soothing to people wondering if she is a human.
A huge break from try-on hauls and stretching videos and more about personal life blogs, Molly reveals that she loves cooking. She clarifies that her cooking is not Gordon Ramsey Grade (just like most of us), but she loves cooking enough that she would do more than noodles. While at it, she admits that she does not have any cookbooks nor tends to follow any particular recipe, but she is devoted enough to come up with something creative, as she has always been with her try-on hauls.
Something we have to credit her for is that it takes one thing to be a committed cook and yet another to reveal those cooking flaws to the public. What motivated her to like cooking that much when she could just order from McDonald's and save time? In her cooking video, she sometimes admits to doing McDonalds, but she prefers cooking. Her major motivations come mainly from how she was brought up. From a young age, she was very close with her Nanny, who exposed her to a lot of cooking and grew fond of it. As a child, she was also very picky about what went through her mouth, which required a lot of dedication to cooking, especially from her. She still finds herself picky about what she eats as an adult. She can't just take in anything from anywhere. She has to invest much of her time preparing what she likes instead of stressing whoever would find themselves in that position.
Molly admits she is not the best cook out there and gets a little awkward with knife work, but that does not stop her from doing what she likes, even much less sharing her experiences with her fans. The simple cooking video came out as something natural and a simple blog on what it is like in her daily life. For audiences who love to experience more than just the hauls, the cooking video is a perfect way to see who Molly is from another angle.
Even for Shore Thang, Molly Rose stands out as one of the rare talented personalities they have to work with. She carves her path in the social media sphere, bringing a sense of uniqueness and authentic personality. She hates to bore her fans with one-dimensional content that is just based on only her appearances. She is one of the few influencers and content creators who are breaking the rule that influencers should present themselves in some sort of perfect image. She shines through her imperfections and even an approach that she calls "Mid." She does way better than influencers who are hinged on superficial and surface-level curated appearances. It has worked perfectly well for her as she is not worried or bothered about looking some kind of way. Besides, none of that has stood in her way when it comes to gaining a large fanbase and staying relevant in the audience's eyes.
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