On June 7th, YouTube star GloZell Green released Is You Okay?, a self-styled memoir that adds her name to the list of digital personalities who double as published authors. By entering the literary world, GloZell is following the lead of many of her colleagues, but her effort is anything but ordinary. Instead, she uses her age — she turns 44 in July — and her experience to share a story younger creators cannot tell.
GloZell, like Ricky Dillon, stylized her book as both a homage to the challenge videos for which she is famous and a revelation about the past events in her life that have led her to this point. “The creative process was theraputic, fun and sometimes uneasy,” she told Tubefilter. She explained how she had to relive relive the past and realize “what it took, who and what I lost, and who and what I’ve gained to get where I am today.”
What GloZell ultimately chronicles is a remarkable transformation. As she puts it, she grew up in a world with typewriters, landlines, and a limited number of TV channels. Despite all that, she has entered a field populated by creators who were born into social media, and has thrived within that world, racking up more than 730 million views and over 4.3 million subscribers on her channel. “My book is unique because I am older,” she said. “I have a wisdom that is unique to my story.”
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As GloZell sees it, her age doesn’t just give her a unique perspective; it also serves as a major part of her appeal to viewers. She calls herself “the gap between kids and parents,” and as she has set out on a book tour, she has noticed changing dynamics among her admirers. “My fans are getting younger and older,” she said. “I am reaching audiences both ways. Before it was just kids. Now it’s kids, parents and grandparents.”
Once she has completed that tour, GloZell will return home to LA, where she will continue to work on a number of other projects. She is planning an animation channel and a second book, and in her personal life, she is gearing up for motherhood. You go, Glo.
