by Nicole F.
Jenna Mourey (Marbles), was born September 15th 1986 in Rochester New York. She first started YouTube in 2006 with her original channel jmourey66 and then started her main channel, Jenna Marbles, in 2008 after her original channel was impairing her mother from finding a job. Her channel first rose to prominence when her video ‘How to Trick People into Thinking You’re Good Looking’ went viral. From then on she became well known for her satirical and weird sense of humor and her angry rants filled with expletives, but in the past couple of years Jenna has grown and developed far more than I feel people realize and has become a strong pillar of the Youtube community.
She no longer does rant videos and has been focusing more on content that makes her happy than the content that would be necessarily popular. With her long-term boyfriend Julien, she has started a podcast where they discuss random things happening in their community, play games, and have important conversations about some of the controversies on YouTube. She has discussed this change on multiple occasions and has explained that she just wasn’t happy with what she was doing and that she had grown past the anger of her youth.
Having graduated with a Master’s degree in Sports Psychology, Jenna is far more intelligent than most people believe. After listening to her podcast, the Jenna and Julien Podcast, this becomes very apparent. She has shared her thoughts on both of the Paul brothers, animal rights, and the dangers of speculating if a woman is pregnant or not. She is very well-spoken and can articulate her thoughts in a way that it easy to understand and very relatable. In fact, that is the word that seems to describe who Jenna is the most accurately, relatable.
In her recent videos, nothing about Jenna seems insincere. It just seems like someone doing weird things because fuck it, why not? In one of her most recent videos for her birthday all she wanted to do was have some ‘me time’, paint her face green, and become a part of her green screen all to just make herself and hopefully others laugh. That is her whole purpose with her content now, to just have fun and hope that others have fun with her. Whether it’s disguising herself as a chair or just cooking dog treats for her dogs, all of her videos are things she does for herself.
She is also a major animal rights activist. For years Jenna was an on and off vegan, but has now settled into being vegan long-term and has even converted her boyfriend Julien to also be vegan. She owns three dogs that she cares for a great deal and is constantly making sure they are healthy and happy animals. She has stated in the past that any animal that lives with her, she wants to give them the best life possible. In 2017 she adopted a hamster that she and Julien jokingly named Ad, and when she posted a video and was flooded with comments about the type of cage she bought and helpful hamster care tips, she immediately took those to heart and rectified the issues, doing her best to learn about proper hamster care. Also in 2017 she decided to adopt some fish and then was devastated when commenters informed her that the environment she provided for the fish was unsafe. She then decided to return the fish and take down the video, uploading an apology after explaining the situation so that others would learn from her mistakes.
While Jenna may not be the first person you imagine when you think of a feminist, she is one of the few OG female YouTubers still thriving on the platform with 18 million subscribers and no connection to any major company or organization. She is an independant creator, something that seems a bit rare on the site, and has refused multiple offers to speak with politicians and figureheads due to her strong moral code. She refuses to give others access to her viewers and to use her influence to help sway the opinions of others. She refuses to break the trust between herself and the people following her.
Jenna Marbles is a true example of a modern feminist, a woman who is strong and independent and working towards her happiness without stepping on those around her. While many people still judge her for the content she posted in her earlier days on YouTube, she has grown exponentially and is a true role model for young women and animal activists. I highly recommend people check out some of her more recent content, or better yet her podcast, before continuing to judge her. Jenna is a creator that I feel does a lot of good for the YouTube community in an era where it just feels like everyone is trying to one-up each other for the most extreme, offensive, and dangerous content. While others are grinding for the views, Jenna is content to make videos teaching her dogs to swim and cooking with her boyfriend while wearing a leisure suit. It’s refreshing and pure and I personally will continue to support Jenna in her career on YouTube, as I hope others will too.