Ashley Alexander on finding her voice

The style of your videos has evolved a lot from when you first started your channel. Did you always have a vision of your videos in the style they are now, or did you have to experiment through trial and error? How did the current version of your videos come to be?

It definitely took a lot of trial and error. When I first started YouTube, I did a lot of hauls, which was really popular back in the day. I don’t know that they’re super popular anymore now as much as they were at the time. [My videos have] evolved more into vlogs and challenges here and there, which I actually like to do the [most]. I’m really happy that my channel is mostly [vlogs] and lifestyle content, because that’s my favorite content to make and to watch. It’s evolved a little bit, but at the same time, [I always] envisioned vlogging as being my main thing.

You were born in America, but your mother is also from Korea. What kind of exposure to Korean culture did you have growing up, and how did the two cultures blend together?

My mom moved to America when she was very young, so I feel like my mom has also grown up pretty Americanized in a sense. My upbringing was definitely very [Americanized, growing] up in the suburbs, but at the same time, my mom has always made a good effort to cook us Korean food and involve us in the culture. I remember watching a lot of K-pop [and] K-dramas as a young kid, which is where she introduced me to more Korean culture as well.
I mean, K-pop is all the rage these days, so your mom was showing you the trends before they happened.

She was ahead of her time. I remember listening to K-pop back in 2006, so a long time ago.

As a society, we’ve gotten better at showcasing different cultures and heritages, but of course there’s always room for improvement within that. What do you hope to see in terms of representation for Asian culture in the future?

In recent years, I’ve seen a lot of changes in media representation in Hollywood and on YouTube. [There are] a lot more creators, actors, [and] people like that in the media world, which has been really, really awesome. A lot of my demographic are Asian American girls, so it’s really cool to connect with them and hopefully be a role model. It’s a different responsibility. [I want to] show people that [they] can do YouTube too. That’s my goal.

Did you have any specific goals or objectives in mind when you first started your YouTube channel? Are those goals still the same today, or have they changed over time?

My goals are still pretty similar to this day. My main goal is to build a community of people [who] all have similar interests. Another goal of mine is to share my life and have a place to look back on my memories and the things that I’ve done. When I started YouTube, one of my biggest goals was to hit a million subscribers. I feel like a lot of YouTubers’ goal is to hit that milestone as well.

In addition to your YouTube channel, you started a podcast called Extra Dynamic in 2020. What made you want to branch out into creating a podcast?

I started the podcast over Covid when I had a little more time. I thought it was the best way to really connect with my audience and talk to them in a different way than I could in a YouTube video. [I could go] a little deeper, longer, get into the nitty-gritty of it, explain more of who I [was] and random things about my life. Extra Dynamic, as a term, [came] from having my siblings in my videos. They would either be in the video with me or behind the camera, and I would say that my siblings [were] there for extra dynamic. What it means to me is that there’s a little extra pizzazz, a little extra fun, or something extra. With the podcast, I wanted to go deeper with that and share the extra dynamic with everyone more.

The quarantine was a perfect time to work on projects like that, plus you get to go more into detail with a forty-minute podcast than you do in a ten-minute video. Do you have any other plans for the Extra Dynamic brand in the future?

I would love to potentially restart the podcast. Maybe next year. I don’t know if it will be under the same name or [a] different name. I’ve really [missed] having that super tight bond with my community that I feel like I had when I did the podcast, so maybe in the future, I’ll have another podcast. We’ll see.

Is there a message that you would like people to take away from watching your videos or listening to your podcast?

I mostly just want people to [have] a good laugh or [feel] like they have more of a sense of optimism. Something that I love so much about YouTube, [podcasts], or things like that is impacting the feeling that someone has when they go throughout their day, whether they watch my videos to relax or just to enjoy [them]. Making them feel better or happier is really the main goal.