Today we’d like to introduce you to Selena Norinh.
Hi Selena, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I actually didn’t start in social media. I started as a medical assistant!
When COVID hit, everything had shut down the world felt so heavy, but I was still one of the people that was going into work, even putting in the overtime hours. I remember thinking about how I would someday explain this to my kids. What do you even tell them? How do you describe what this felt like?
I didn’t trust my memory to hold onto it. So I started taking photos and videos instead. It sounds dramatic now, but the honest thought in my head at the time was that if we were all going to die, there should at least be some proof that we were here.
That instinct wasn’t new, though. I’ve been the one documenting things for as long as I can remember. Photos, videos, saving everything, always the person telling people to look at the camera. COVID didn’t create that in me. It just made it way more urgent.
That’s the whole origin. There was no plan, no strategy, and no audience. I filmed where I was, which was right here in the Holland and Zeeland area, real days, real places just having fun documenting these stories and memories and people started to watch.
In 2023 I left the medical field to do this full time. I don’t want to make that sound braver than it was, because it was terrifying. I thought I was going to be working in healthcare for the rest of my life. That’s where I saw it myself. Then I traded a paycheck I could count on for one that changes every single month, and I’d be lying if I said that part has gotten easier. Unpredictable income is still the hardest thing about this work. It’s the part nobody puts in the highlight reel.
What’s grown out of it is a community of over 350,000 people and more than 100 million views across platforms, covering unscripted lifestyle adventures and travel. And I do every part of it myself (I shoot, edit, color, caption, build the thumbnail, write the title, and hit upload.) There’s no team behind me. Some days that’s exhausting.
The philosophy hasn’t changed since the beginning: human-first, unretouched, zero retakes. My approach is basically “I investigated so you don’t have to.” I go find out whether something is actually worth it, and then I tell you the truth about what I found.
Where I’m headed is a channel that can sustain itself (videos someone stumbles onto two years from now and still finds useful.) These days I’m less interested in chasing whatever is spiking this week than in building something that lasts. I’m still figuring plenty of it out. But I’m building it from the same place I started.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, it hasn’t been smooth and the hardest parts weren’t the ones I expected.
The first one I don’t talk about much. I was still working in healthcare when I started making content, and it was not welcome there. I felt judged for it constantly. It eventually became an environment I couldn’t stay in, and I left on a timeline I wouldn’t have chosen. There’s an irony there I still think about: the thing I was made to feel small for is the thing that became my entire career!
The second one took me a while to master: There’s Nobody tells you what to do anymore. No one’s coming to save me. Nobody’s coming to help me. It’s just me on my own.
In healthcare I had a schedule. It sounds like freedom, and it is but nobody warns you that a completely blank calendar can be its own kind of paralysis. I’d have a hundred things I could be working on, no idea which one actually mattered, and I’d end up doing none of them. Learning to build my own structure, and to be realistic about what I can actually finish in a day, took me far longer than learning how to shoot or edit. I’m still working on it.
The third was trusting that being myself was allowed. In healthcare, every detail had to be exact, and that instinct follows you. It’s easy to feel pulled toward the polished version of everything. Deciding to stay unscripted and keep the no-retakes approach took time. Believing it was a strength and not laziness took longer.
None of that has made me want the old schedule back. But I’d be lying if I made it sound easy. It’s the least stable thing I’ve ever done, and the only thing that’s ever felt like mine.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I make personality-led lifestyle and travel content on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, and the line I keep coming back to is: “I investigated so you don’t have to.”
That’s the actual job. Most lifestyle and travel content tells you a place is beautiful. I go find out whether it’s worth your money and your Saturday, and I bring you along for the experience. When I’m curious about something, I don’t just ask the question… I dive all the way in. I wanted to know what being an Amazon driver was actually like, so I did it myself and filmed the whole thing. That video has been watched more than 340,000 times, which still surprises me.
What sets me apart is that none of it is scripted and I don’t do second takes. What you’re watching is the first time I saw it, reacted to it, or realized I was wrong about it. That’s a harder way to make videos and it means some are messier than they’d otherwise be. It’s also the entire reason people tell me it feels like watching a friend instead of an ad.
Alongside my own channel, I create content for brands. Short-form ads and product videos that run on their platforms instead of mine. It’s a different discipline; there I have about two seconds to earn someone’s attention. But the rule doesn’t change, and I’d argue it’s the most underrated thing in advertising right now: a video that feels like a real person telling you about something will beat a polished, expensive production almost every time, because people can tell the difference instantly. Some of the most effective things I’ve ever made cost nothing but my own time and looked like a text from a friend. That’s usually why brands come to me.
I’m also a one-person operation. I shoot, edit, color, caption, design the thumbnail, write the title, and upload every single video myself. There’s no team and no editor.
What I’m proudest of is that what I’m making now will last a lifetime. I started all of this because I was afraid of forgetting, and what I’ve built is a record (of a place, of a time, of who I was while I was making it.) Someday my kids will be able to watch it. That was the point long before it was ever a job, and it’s still the point.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
The right dose of delusion.
You have to believe it’s going to work before there is a single piece of evidence that it will. When I started, nobody was watching. I’ve published videos that got 87 views. If I had been strictly rational about any of that, I would have quit in year one.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/selena.norinh
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/selena.norinh/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SelenaNorinh
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@selena.norinh
