19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
She Didn't Give Up on Her YouTube Dream — or on Love
Finding success as a YouTuber can be a dream come true. But it doesn't always lead to a satisfying love life — or so it seemed to Remi Ashten Cruz after building a devoted audience for her takes on everything from dorm décor to snack food.
Miss Remi Ashten, the YouTube channel Ms. Cruz, 30, started in 2012, had spawned spinoff channels and podcasts that have won her five million followers across platforms. But finding men whose relationship goals matched her own in Los Angeles while helming various series including 'Pretty Basic,' the podcast she still hosts with her best friend, Alisha Marie McDonal, had been mostly a bust.
'A lot of guys were condescending about my career,' she said, because of its focus on what she called 'girl topics,' like trends and relationships. By the time Cal Robert Parsons, 29, reached out on Hinge in June 2019, she was ready to call it quits on dating altogether.
'I had officially given up,' Ms. Cruz said.
She had told Ms. McDonal as much the day her phone pinged with a 'Cal messaged you' notification. 'We had just wrapped an episode, and I told her this guy Cal asked me out on a date,' she said. First, she responded to Mr. Parsons. 'Yeah, sure!' she wrote. 'Then I told my best friend, 'I'm not going on that date.''
Ms. Cruz is from Anaheim Hills, Calif. Her parents weren't thrilled when, in 2013, she told them of her plan to take a year off from college at the University of California, Riverside, where she was studying psychology, to focus on YouTube. She never went back.
'I had so much drive,' she said. 'I was posting every single day. I loved it. I still love it.'
Mr. Parsons, 29, knew nothing about her onscreen persona when he asked her out. But 'I thought she was pretty,' he said. And Ms. Cruz's answers to a 'three things you love' question spoke to him.
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