Junior Tatyana Ali has taken social media by storm. Ali started a YouTube channel (Tatyana Ali) just three months ago and already has 9,000 subscribers. Ali’s channel consists of hair tutorials as a way to empower women of color with different hair texture to learn fun and different ways of styling their hair.

The Oarsman sat down with her to learn more about the brainstorming behind this great YouTube channel idea.

1. What made you start your channel?
– I made it out of my obsession with YouTube and the constant questions I would get from people about my different hairstyles, including: box braids, cornrows and crown braids.

2. What are your videos about?
-My channel streams towards natural hair and teaches girls with curly hair how to do different hairstyles.

3. Where do you see your channel going?
-I want to be really famous. I want to go to Beautycon and make my channel a stable job. I already get paid for it, but I want to go higher with it. I make money by monetizing my videos and by getting sponsors.

4. Who inspired or has inspired your videos?
-My favorite YouTubers are thrifters and fashion videos and that was what made me want to start my channel. I wanted to do something spunky and different.

5. How did you gain so many followers in such a short period?
-I want to say it’s because of my personality. I want my viewers to think of me as a friend and so I try my best to act like myself to the fullest extent. I have a lot of support behind me to do this. I send it to family and friends and they share it on social media and with friends.

6. How many subscribers do you hope to get?
-I have 9,000 right now, but I want to hit 100,000 by this summer, which hopefully I’m not to far from. Next year I want to hit 1 million.

7. What do you want your viewers to get from your videos?
-I want viewers to be excited to watch my videos. It’s not just to empower black woman, even though that’s what it strives for. It is also for people from different backgrounds to learn about curly hair and the different ways of working with it. The hairstyles are for everyone to try out and have fun with my videos.

8. How long do you spend on your videos?
-Filming takes the longest, about an hour, depending on the hairstyle. And editing only takes 30 minutes, that’s my favorite part. I love making it come alive and adding the music. I learned everything on my own. My dad gave me his software. I learned through trial and error and now it’s second nature.