Joana Ceddia went viral and brought back the spirit of old YouTube

Joana Ceddia is blowing up right now.

You might have stumbled across a video of her hacking off her hair with craft scissors in her parents' bathroom, or watched her break down the contents of her school backpack to reveal a watermelon wedge and a stray parka like an unboxing video gone wrong.

In my case, her video about DIYing an overpriced clothing line haunted the "Up Next" side bar for weeks. Like many Gen Zers, Ceddia was thoroughly disappointed that vlogger Emma Chamberlain's new collection wasn't even visible, since each item of clothing for sale in the Dote app was pixelated to add a sense of intrigue.

"How do I put this nicely," Ceddia asks her audience before launching into what can only be described as an ironic super-budget Martha Stewart impression. "If you're not willing to drop $25 on a pack of scrunchies, this video's for you."

When I first watched it at the beginning of August, the video had just over a thousand views, and Ceddia posted a video celebrating 100 subscribers. It stayed at the top of my recommended videos for the next month. On Sept. 11, she broke 100,000 subs. By this week, the video jumped to 2.8 million views, and her subscriber count ballooned to more than 508,000. According to SocialBlade, she gained more than 107,000 in just two days.

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Fellow internet dwellers couldn't figure out how she managed to do it. On Twitter, people wondered if she was buying subscribers, but that theory was thrown out because her view count matched up. One Redditor was convinced that she had bought views as well, but that's unlikely, too. The going rate for packages like that is around $550 for every 10,000 subscribers, or $800 for every 250,000 views. Considering that Ceddia didn't even want to splurge $45 on fabric -- and is literally a teenager -- it's unlikely she would drop thousands of dollars on a channel that doesn't appear to even monetized.

Ceddia herself addressed some fan theories in her most recent vlog about her tragic first day of school, accompanying her spiel with Snapchat-filtered selfies:

"I just wanted to say thank you guys so much for the support. The rate at which my channel has been growing is ridiculous -- I might be buying subs, I might not, you'll never know. So keep going with the conspiracy theories. There is no limit to how many subs I can buy. For all you can know, you might just be the one subscriber that's actually real, and everything else is fake. What is life anymore and how did we get here. Illuminati confirmed."

It appears that Ceddia hit the YouTube jackpot, and the mysterious algorithm that nobody can seem to figure out decided to keep promoting her video. When people inevitably watched it -- because if there's anything that those pointless life hack videos have taught us, it's that there's nothing more clickable than a DIY -- they ended up subscribing to her channel.

In a video called "joana ceddia FINESSED youtube," vlogger SincerelyJerry describes her as "the next YouTube superstar."

"She started a channel from scratch," he explained. "And then one of the videos happened to go fucking viral, and then she got 370,000 subscribers ... And you know, that is crazy impressive, especially when you think about the fact that she posted her first video two months ago."

But it's more than just people watching her hilarious video and deciding to subscribe. Ceddia brings a sense of authenticity that YouTube has been missing for the last few years.

"Her editing? A1," vlogger Kian Safai said in a video trying to explain her incredible ascent to YouTube stardom. "And she's just like, relatable and trendy and fresh and fun and cool."

Others on Twitter agreed.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

As YouTube grew and vlogging became a viable career, aspiring YouTubers starting upping their vlogging game. They invested in DSLRs, paid professionals to edit their videos, and were vigilant about staying active on Instagram and Twitter. To be a YouTube star now, it's pretty much expected that you reside in either New York or Los Angeles, have an endless wardrobe of outfits, and surround yourself with a squad of fellow YouTubers to collaborate with.

Ceddia, on the other hand, goes against every industry standard. She records her grainy videos on an iPhone, regularly wears socks and slides, and proudly uses a $4 microphone from a convenience store when she narrates.

Her channel has a refreshing DIY quality that YouTube has been missing lately. Watching her low budget videos is almost like watching an extended Vine -- may it rest in peace -- and her quirky rants are similar to those of classic YouTubers like Jenna Marbles and KevJumba. Ceddia, though, embodies the new wave of Gen Z vloggers.

With her quick editing, dry humor, and all around can't-do attitude, Ceddia represents what YouTube used to be when it first started: a kid cracking jokes in her bedroom.

We reached out to Ceddia for this story, but she did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.