CJHS freshman finds viral success on Youtube

Piper Hesse at CJHS

In 2022, then-fifth grader Piper Hesse started a small Youtube channel with less than a hundred subscribers. She would post edits of the popular game, Roblox, not expecting to go viral. Little did she know, in January a year later, her videos would start to blow up and reach audiences worldwide. 

Now a freshman at CJHS, Hesse’s channel has over 2.67 million subscribers.

“I think what caused my channel’s success is being smart about how I made my videos, including the audio, caption, everything,” Hesse said on the success of her channel. “I did something that not a lot of people do, which is including many different topics into one video to get the most amount of people to watch it.”

Her rising popularity on Youtube and Tiktok is a testament to the increasing number of content creators whose channels have struck fame in the digital age.  

While Hesse runs the channel by herself, she has lots of support from her friends and family. Freshman Liliana Alfaro, a close friend of Hesse, was there to witness the rise of Hesse’s channel. “She [Hesse] would come to school and tell us how she got merch from some brand and she would also show us how her videos got more and more views,” Alfaro said. 

With her videos reaching millions of viewers across the globe, Hesse hopes to inspire her audience to be creative and make their own videos. Her comment sections show the impact of her videos with one youtube comment saying, “I love your videos so much! You inspired me to start making my own videos.” 

“At the end of the day,” Hesse advises, “In order to find success, you just have to keep posting, even if no one is watching.”