Ur Mom Ashley is here for extra dynamic

written by Sydney Ling

interviewed by Sydney Ling and Sravya Balasa

PHOTOGRAPHER: Jason Rivera @jayrivphoto

STYLIST: Fiona Skye @fionaaskye

HAIR: Mika Fowler @mikahairstylist

MAKEUP: Chika Tanaka @chikamua__

LOOK CREDITS:

Top: Intimissimi

Pants: Babaton

Shoes: Adidas

Ur Mom Ashley embodies adventure. Whether it be camping in the expansive Mars-like valley of Jordan’s Wadi Rum, sampling every matcha in New York City for her own line, or exploring different platforms such as Twitch, vlogger Ashley Alexander pursues new ventures.

She started YouTube in 2018, initially gaining an audience through her thrifting and fashion haul videos. Since then, the 23-year-old has garnered over one million subscribers on her channel, maintaining much of her original content while expanding into lifestyle and travel vlogs. 

Alexander initially didn’t plan on becoming a full-time YouTuber. She started the channel when she began college, and she expressed that she had a buffer period for a few years before pursuing a full-time job and sustaining herself. She was initially a pre-med student, aspiring to go to medical school. Junior year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as her audience grew, Alexander had a realization: YouTube could be her full-time job. She switched from majoring in Biology to Business, putting her all into YouTube, and graduated in 2021 with a degree in Business Management and Psychology. 

After college, Alexander became more aware of running a business “where [herself] as a person is the business.” 

“First and foremost, when I’m making videos, it’s always for me. [It's] about the content, it's about the community and that is what I'm really trying to build,” she said. 

When developing her style and deciding on concepts for her videos, Alexander remains aware of how she wants to frame her videos to ensure they grow in engagement on the platform, and she allows room to experiment as well. She still sticks to her same style– a casual editing with pastel-colored intro fonts, bubbly music interludes, and sound effects.

“I realized if I get too caught up in it and try to follow the trends too hard, it makes YouTube a little less fun. I think if you start to compare yourself too much to other YouTubers, comparison, in that case, is the thief of joy. So I try to make videos that I really like to watch first and foremost, and make sure that that is my main goal before deciding to make a video based on what other people want to see,” she said.

Her charming, personable videos parallel fellow lifestyle creators such as Emma Chamberlain and Mai Pham, but she's set distinctively apart by her focus on a family dynamic with her siblings, whom she often records vlogs with. 

From France to Sweden to Egypt, Alexander documents her trips around the world with her family and her boyfriend, fellow YouTuber Kelly Wasaka. In the early stages of her channel, she began vlogging her family’s annual Nantucket trip and continues to do so now. For Alexander, recording their memories doesn’t detach her from the moments, but rather brings her close ones together as they make the video. Her favorite videos are her travel vlogs, because years later when she and her family watch them, they capture the feeling of nostalgia. 

“Vlogging actually will make for more fun moments just because it's like, oh, hey, we're vlogging, let's go do something that we normally wouldn't do or something that's a little more fun,” she said.

Alexander’s family is a core part of her platform. As a lifestyle creator, she shows the people she’s around, and when Alexander started Youtube, she considered her channel almost like a family channel, filming with her younger sister and brother, Amber and Andrew. 

“It was me and my siblings and that was the channel. Starting YouTube, I felt really shy in front of the cameras, and having my siblings be there made me feel like I could be more myself and more relaxed,” she said. 

Since her early videos, many fans comment about the humorous yet supportive energy the family share. From her siblings’ presence on Alexander’s channel came her tagline “extra dynamic.” Whenever her sibling was in her video or holding the camera for her, Alexander would sometimes say things like “I have my sister Amber behind the camera for extra dynamic,” or “my brother Andrew is in the video for extra dynamic.” 

“We would always say that phrase to be like, ‘Hey, they’re here.’ They add some extra spice and pizzazz to the video that really makes it different in my opinion and makes the video special and more fun to watch,” Alexander said. 

The phrase has since gone through many iterations. She first made merch in 2018 with the name, and in 2020, she started the “Extra Dynamic with ur mom ashley” podcast, recording episodes either by herself or with her friends and family about her life, relationships, and college experiences. From talking about body confidence, Asian American experiences, to insecurities, Alexander wanted the podcast to be a more vulnerable space where she could have different conversations for her audience to understand deeper facets of her life that she typically didn’t share in her videos. The podcast is on hiatus, as Alexander expressed that she struggled as a solo podcaster to constantly have weekly stories, but she hopes to bring the podcast back or start a joint podcast in the future.

The most recent manifestation of extra dynamic is Alexander’s new merch collection that dropped on February 15. The matcha-green sweatsuit set, tote bag, and cap, decorated with star and heart prints and “aaa” to stand for Ashley, Amber, and Andrew, are made in collaboration with environmental business Our Forest’s design studio Juniper, encapsulating Alexander’s carefree personality and her bond with her siblings. 

Alexander’s next adventure is her matcha line. Food and drink frequent her videos, whether it be taking her siblings to boba and mochi donuts, mixing pretzels and popcorn with M&Ms for a Christmas party, or baking TikTok recipe trends. Since the beginning of her channel, she often posts vegan “What I eat in a day” videos, sometimes pairing recipes with drinks such as strawberry matcha. Her love for matcha is now becoming her business. Sampling flavors daily and discerning the subtle differences in tasting notes, she plans to upload the line’s website and have the brand up and running by the end of the year. She hopes to potentially do pop-ups in New York, and see her dream physically come to life. 

Whether through her future matcha, traveling the world, or simply hanging out with her siblings, Alexander and her videos not only capture her energetic spirit but also add some sparkling extra dynamic into her audience’s experiences.