Mina Le Just Wants to Talk

YouTube’s Video Essay Maestro is Taking off her Mask

The internet is a fickle place. For those of us young enough to have grown up online, we’ve witnessed platforms come and go like seasons. We’ve hopped from Myspace to Tumblr, Facebook to Instagram, Vine to TikTok, but no platform has held us in its grip quite like YouTube. It’s where we learned to shave our legs, to execute the perfect smoky eye, to plunge a toilet.

Throughout its history YouTube has not just launched careers but redefined the path to stardom, and the meaning of stardom itself. Goodbye scouting on the street, hello GoPros and selfie sticks. When Mina Le first started out, creators like Ryan Higa and Jenna Marbles were capturing our adolescent attention with videos like “How to be Ninja” and “Hello Young People, I’m Hillary Clinton.”

One of the most prolific genres of YouTube content is the video essay, Gen Z’s drink of choice for media analysis and discourse generation. Few creators have endured quite like Mina, whose visually and intellectually stimulating videos strike the right balance of critical thinking, pop culture, and whimsy needed to hold our attention for more than 15 minutes. With video titles ranging from “How did Glasses go from Nerdy to Cool?” to “Why is Everyone Chinese?” and “How to Actually Get Smarter (again),” she offers studied and thought-provoking insights on the current state of culture and its wider implications.

When we meet at New York’s Win Son Bakery, she’s fresh off a Spotify event the night before, speaking for a live audience for the first time. On top of her channel, she’s reconnecting with the personal essay here on Substack, writing a screenplay, and preparing to launch a video podcast on Spotify this summer. Over scallion pancakes and tea, we chat about media diets, AI, and Tumblr obsessions.

Flora Medina: On top of your YouTube and Substack endeavors, you’re starting a video podcast on Spotify. Talk to me about what that’s going to look like.

Mina Le: I started podcasting back in 2021. It lasted a few months but I don’t think I was really aware of the market itself, it just seemed like everyone was making a podcast. It was the natural progression for anyone online, just get a microphone and start yapping. I was boots on the ground, sending emails to get guests. There was a lot of editing involved, I would make a full YouTube video then edit bits into the podcast, essentially dissecting my own video as a director’s commentary. It just wasn’t sustainable in the long-run.

I’ve always wanted to go back to podcasting, I want to speak with more people. So much of my work is me talking to myself. There’s no one there to piggyback off what I’m saying. It can feel a bit myopic too. It’s almost a way to check my own ego. I’m really concerned about misinformation, and the cult of personality that it’s easy to have as an influencer, so I want more voices in my space.

How are you envisioning the differentiation between YouTube, Substack, and the podcast?

YouTube is my bread and butter. I’ve loved her dearly and will always love her. She keeps the lights on. YouTube can be highly produced, I have an amazing editor and she’s pulling a lot of that weight, and I love it for that. But something I love about a podcast is that it’s more informal, it’s off-the-cuff. I feel more connected to the people that listened to the first iteration of my podcast in 2021 because they’ve been able to see me a bit more mask-off.

Sometimes with video essays, people don’t realize there’s a script and a true writing component. Substack has allowed people to see the side of me that is just a writer, it’s legitimized some of my work in that way. I also like personal essays. I know everyone’s like, “Why does another man need a podcast? Why does another woman need a personal essay?” But I like writing in that way.

When you think of an idea or a topic you want to cover, how are you determining the approach or where it will end up?

I go to YouTube with large topics. Things with many points of view or conversation. That’s also where I get the most views. On Substack I don’t really care about views. The written word is so personal, for me I’m like, “If it blows up, I guess that’s cool,” but if ten people read it, I know ten people have gone on this intimate journey with me, which feels like enough.

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. It’s about New York City in the 1930s, my favorite kind of book. It follows a socialite who is also working her first job at a fashion magazine. It’s like Sex and the City, but if you survived the Depression era.

What do you see as the greatest threat to quality media right now?

Everyone says it, but ChatGPT. A friend of mine who’s getting a psychology PhD told me that for some of the assignments she’s working on with teenagers, they immediately put the assignment into ChatGPT to have it explained to them in a more “concise” way. Literacy goes down in that regard. I’ve also just noticed how people who are dependent on these chat systems, which are programmed to speak and cater to you as an individual, are losing the ability to communicate with other people if they don’t speak in the way you’re used to hearing. I think that’s really terrifying, not just for attention spans, but for being a member of society.

On a brighter note, what is inspiring you right now? Visually, creatively, or intellectually.

I’m always inspired by my friends. It’s a cheesy answer, but it’s amazing to see people who are not giving up or being cynical despite all the crazy stuff happening in this world. The people making the indie movie for less than a million dollars, or the people writing Substack essays, just making stuff in a time when we’ve been conditioned to be consumers instead of creators. I’m inspired, not necessarily by the aesthetic visions of what they’re doing, but the ethic and attitude.

I had a moment in time where I developed my own creativity from watching a lot of things, which is important to grow literacy, but now I’m in a position where I can do things and get inspired from the act of doing.

What was your first username?

My first email was my full name, which I didn’t love because that wasn’t chic at the time. My dad made the account, it was with verizon.net so that tells you everything you need to know. The first one I actually chose was something like devilangel412xx.

What was your first online obsession?

The first one I can remember—and am willing to admit to—was Spieling Peter on Tumblr. He was a Peter Pan actor at Disneyland. The poor guy, everyone just followed him around all the time. He was just the best Peter Pan at that point. I was in love with him. He was actually not a 12 year-old boy, he was a full man, which I need to preface.

Did you make videos as a tween or early teen?

I made some random videos that are buried somewhere on YouTube. I grew up in the era of Ryan Higa and Jenna Marbles, people just posting whatever they wanted. I do remember at 10-years-old, my friend was filming with her digital camera. I don’t know if that footage ever went anywhere, but there might be a digital footprint. Don’t look for it!

What was your first video ever about?

It was about Atonement. I’ll always remember, because I was also obsessed with that movie a few years after Spieling Peter. Specifically with James McAvoy and Kiera Knightley, the chemistry, and the cinematography. That video was about the costume design because I was also obsessed with the dress that she wears. For my YouTube one million subscriber party, I actually commissioned someone to make me a replica of the dress.