What happened to Applemilk1988 The rise and fall of a Weeb

Hi and welcome to today's video. Today I

want to talk about a YouTuber from a long,

long time ago called AppleMilk1988, also

known as Emily. And I want to talk about

her because back then I used to watch her

channel and a lot of other foreigners

living in Japan. That was back in 2010,

2009, during the peak of my anime and

Japan obsession. I decided to go onto

YouTube and look up some Japan-based

YouTubers. I used to watch quite a few

YouTubers who lived in Japan:

Gimmeabreakman, Tico-san, Tokyo Cooney,

Unrested, Bobby Judo. 10 years ago, they

were all part of this kind of little

J-vlogger community, which doesn't really

exist anymore. These days, the Japan

YouTube scene is pretty much dominated by

the likes of Rachel and Jun and Abroad in

Japan. But back in the day, around 10

years ago, there used to be a lot of these

small YouTube channels, and there was this

nice community feeling to it, full of

colorful characters and eccentric

personalities. This was before YouTube

became all family-friendly and sterile.

Now it's all kind of boring, and there

isn't really this sense of community

between the different Japan-based

YouTubers. It all just feels very

commercialized. I know there's a channel

called Tokyo Creative where all these big

Japan-based YouTubers come together and do

collabs, but it just feels kind of fake

and forced. It doesn't feel authentic. It

just seems like a business move between

the big YouTubers to try and get some

extra clicks. I don't get this sense of

community that I used to get when I first

started watching J-vloggers all the way

back in 2008 to 2010.

I feel like all of the Japan-based

YouTubers now are all basically just

clones and copies of each other. Just like

Rachel and Jun clones or Sharla clones,

where they're all trying to be squeaky

clean, they're trying to present this

positive, good image, they're trying to

sell Japan as this wonderful place to live

in. And all of the channels just seem like

the same kind of thing. They're all just

advertisements for Japan. Back in 2010,

around that time, things were very

different. Back then, people's videos

weren't so well produced. People didn't

have access to these expensive cameras.

They didn't have camera crews or editing

teams. It was all done by themselves using

some cheap, crappy camera. And it just

came across as very amateurish. And this

was a good thing because it gave you this

sense of rawness that came from their

videos. You could really get a sense of

what they were like as people, their

struggles in life and living in Japan.

And I feel like the, the popular

Japan-based YouTubers nowadays, they don't

have that. Anyway, one of the Japan-based

YouTubers who I used to watch was this

American girl called Emily.

AppleMilk1988. And I'm not really sure

why, but I've been thinking a lot about

her recently, and there's just something

about her that sticks out more than the

other YouTubers who I used to watch.

Maybe it's because I feel as though I

could kind of relate to her, or maybe it's

just because she's a fairly attractive

girl. I used to look up to these YouTubers

that I watched back then quite a lot

because I felt very envious of them. They

were living the dream. That's what I

thought. They were living in Japan, which

was a country I desperately wanted to live

in as well. They could speak very good

Japanese, which was what I wanted to be

able to speak, and they also had YouTube

channels, and they were followed by tens

of thousands of people, and thousands and

thousands of people were watching their

videos, which at the time I thought was

pretty impressive. I felt like I could

relate to most of these people,

especially Emily Apple Milk, because,

well, she was also really obsessed with

Japan. She dreamed about living in Japan

just like I did. And she thought she could

find happiness in Japan and ultimately

failed, which is something I can also

relate to. So let me explain a little bit

about Apple Milk. Basically, she moved to

Japan around 10 years ago, and she was

quite active on YouTube. She was— I guess

you could call her a YouTuber. I'm not

sure how much money she was making off of

YouTube. I think back then it was a lot

harder to monetize your videos. You had to

become part of a network or YouTube had to

approve your channel for monetization

until you could actually make money off

it. It's much easier these days. So I

don't really know how much money she was

making off her YouTube channel. She only

has 30,000 subs, so I think it's safe to

say she wasn't making a huge amount. Her

YouTube channel used to have a lot of

videos on it, but if you look at it now,

um, there's only 5 videos. The oldest one

is 10 years ago, Happy New Year YouTube.

The next one is I'm Human, 10 years ago.

Thanks Guys, 9 years ago. And then there's

2 videos, music videos of her band,

around 6 years ago. Apart from that,

there's been no new updates, so I don't

really know what's happened to her. I did

a little bit of digging around and I

managed to find her Twitter, and the last

update was about 2 years ago. She made a

tweet about 2 years ago, 22nd of

September, something about a cat. And then

in 2015, there's some tweets about her

music, so she was still doing music. And

there's a lot of tweets from 2013. One of

them says, I left Japan because I was so

effing tired of being a novelty. So I

think it's safe to assume that she left

Japan in 2013. There's also another tweet

where she mentions leaving her band. So

I'm guessing she went back to America

after failing to find what she was looking

for in Japan, and she never went back to

Japan. Japan again. I don't know, maybe

she did go back to Japan secretly and

never told anyone about it, didn't say

anything on social media. She could be in

Japan right now. I'm not really sure

because there hasn't been any updates on

her Twitter since 2017, and there's been

no updates on her YouTube channel. She

used to make a lot of skits, comedy-style

videos. There was one video which was

quite popular about Pikachu bread, and,

and she spoke Japanese in most of her

videos. Her Japanese was okay, it wasn't

perfect. But it was better than most

foreigners who lived in Japan. And I kind

of got this feeling that she thought she

was better than everyone else because she

spoke fairly decent Japanese and she was

living in Japan. And she just seemed kind

of arrogant, and I never really found her

funny. I didn't really watch her videos

all the time. I didn't watch every single

one of them. I came back now and then to

just check up on her channel to see what

she was up to, but I wasn't really a fan

or an avid follower of hers. I'm not

entirely sure what happened, but there was

some kind of scandal where she asked her

viewers, her YouTube audience, for money

to help her get a modeling music career

off to a start. And as you can imagine,

she got a lot of negative backlash and

criticism because of this, because, you

know, it's never a good idea to ask for

money. She was part of a band and she was

doing live music, doing concerts, and I

think she also tried to become some kind

of idol, like a model in Japan, and she

even released some DVDs where it's just

her in her panties and her bra and she's

doing poses. I'm not really sure what

happened. Maybe she got tired of doing it,

or maybe it just wasn't really making her

much money. Maybe it didn't really go as

she planned, and it seems like she packed

all that up and went back to America and

quit YouTube as well. I guess there's

several things I feel like I can relate to

her when it, when it comes to my own

situation. Number one, I also

was completely obsessed with Japan. I was

also completely obsessed with the idea of

living in Japan, and I thought I could

find happiness here. I thought if I could

move to Japan, then everything would be

fine. I'll feel happy and my life would be

great. But I think me and Emily both

realized that just by coming to Japan

doesn't necessarily mean you're going to

find happiness. I think me and Emily are

also kind of similar because we've, we've

both had this desire to want to become

famous. I think she's over it now since

she's stopped her YouTube channel and she

stopped her modeling thing. Obviously,

I'm still not over it since I'm still

trying to make it as a YouTuber. I think

she got trolled pretty badly. There was

this incident where people were linking

her channel and her videos on 4chan, and

she was getting trolled pretty intensely.

And I think she just couldn't handle all

of the hate and the trolling that she was

getting, and that kind of drove her off

the internet. I think that was a major

part of why she decided to just vanish

like that, and I completely understand

that. It's tough being, being hated by so

many people. I experience it on a daily

basis. Every time I upload a video, I get

hundreds of people insulting me and hating

me. I get all these people saying things

like they hope my channel fails, they hope

I stop getting views, and it just feels

like everyone wants you to fail, and it

gets It gets on your nerves. It really

wears you down mentally. And sometimes you

just feel like packing it all in. I've

disabled my Twitter a few times only to

re-enable it again. I've thought about

deleting social media like Instagram or

Discord a few times, but I haven't because

I still enjoy it more than I hate it. But

at the end of the day, you just have to

remind yourself that those people are just

a bunch of idiots, and there's no point

worrying about what they think of you. It

doesn't matter. Don't concern yourself

with the opinions of idiots. I think she

also got hacked as well, and quite a lot

of her secret— not secret, but private DMs

and private chats with other people were

leaked. And apparently, I don't know if

this is true or not, but apparently she

used the money that she begged her

audience to give to her for her modeling

and music career. She didn't use it on her

modeling or music career. She used it on

herself to buy clothing and other things.

So it turns out she's not a very nice

person, very deceptive and manipulative.

But for some reason, I kind of feel sorry

for her. I think that's maybe because I

kind of see myself inside of her as well.

I, I can relate to her a lot, like I said

before, and I think she suffered, or

probably still suffers now, from

depression pretty badly. She seemed like a

bit of a lost soul kind of person. She

didn't know where her place in the world

was. Tried to find it in Japan, failed,

got ridiculed online. I kind of feel a

little bit disappointed that she gave up

on her dreams. I think it would have been

pretty cool if she just ignored all of the

hate and the trolling and she carried on

with her YouTube channel, and her YouTube

channel became really big and her music

career was successful. It's a bit

disappointing that she gave all of that up

after all of the hard work she probably

put into building it. I'd be very

interested to find out what she's doing

now, what she's up to now. I don't know if

anyone has any information. Yeah, I know

I'm supposed to be the one who does the

research for the video, and I'm supposed

to be the one making the video that

informs people on the topic, but I'm,

I'm too lazy. So if there's anyone here

who has any information, it'd be great if

you could share it with us in the comments

section. I heard that she's working in a

coffee shop in America. I'm not sure if

that's true or not. I feel like she

represented an era.

J-vloggers when the whole J-vlogging thing

was just getting started. Before all of

this Rachel Nguyen stuff, before all of

this Abroad in Japan stuff, before all of

these channels that are just basically

trying to sell Japan as a tourist

destination. Back when there were real

J-vloggers who made real stuff talking

about their own lives, their own

struggles, their own personal flaws.

There was a real rawness that came from

their videos, and that era is— it's over.

I miss those days when it was just some

guy in his apartment using some crappy

camera talking about his life in Japan.

And I feel like those— those days are well

and truly over, and I feel like I've

arrived at the scene at the party too late

and everyone's gone home, or they've grown

up and they've moved on. I kind of wish

that I was also a YouTuber back then, and

I was part of the whole community. But I

guess it's too late now. I guess YouTube

has changed, and not for the best. It's

not what it used to be. YouTube used to be

about real people, about their lives,

about their struggles. To me, the true

spirit of the J-vlogging community used to

be about people like Emily. It was about

people who were passionate about Japan,

who had a dream, who came here looking for

something. They had their ups and downs.

They weren't perfect people. They were

human. I feel kind of sad that this

element of community on YouTube has kind

of faded away, and now all we have are

these soulless, faceless, kind of cold

travel documentary channels where it's not

about the person or their struggles in

life. Nowadays it's all about top 5 places

you can see in Tokyo in under 10 minutes.

I think it's kind of funny how a lot of

these internet personalities these days

don't really have much of a personality.

Anyway, I hope Emily is doing well. I hope

she's doing okay. I hope she's in a better

place than she was before, and I hope

she's happy.