Quen Blackwell Takes Over

In a recent YouTube video, Quen Blackwell breaks down her digital footprint. “I don’t find my meaning in an app and my following that I have in that app,” she says in the video. “I think that I’m genuinely funny, so I will just find a new stage to do my clown tricks on.”

There’s a certain magnetism to Blackwell’s digital clownery that is real and raw, comforting even. She definitely knows it, too. “I cried on the internet and people related to it,” she recalls in that video. “I overshared about my life and people related to it, and I gagged a few times and people related to it”

When we connect,, the 24-year-old is sitting in her LA home, messy and fully engaged. Her hair is pulled back. Her mind is sprinting. And in conversation (just like in her content), she’s constantly flipping between philosopher, goofball and survivalist.

“On the internet, I never had to convince anyone why I deserved their attention,” she tells me. “I just got to be.” And for a girl who grew up in the Dallas suburbs, often the only Black student in her classes, that kind of unfiltered visibility was a lifeline. Online, she didn’t have to explain herself. She just had to hit record.

Before she had a glam team or a hit YouTube show, she had a chair. And then she fell off it. That Vine — a cheerleading stunt gone wrong — was one of her first viral hits, setting the tone for the kind of comedy she would come to define: physical, absurd, unhinged and radically honest. Her early videos leaned into discomfort: fake crying, choking, falling, flailing — a kind of performative self-harm in six-second bursts. She bled for the bit. And, somehow, people understood her.

Growing up in Texas in the late 2000s and early 2010s meant white suburbia, church parking lots, TOMS espadrilles shoes and deeply repressed weirdness. “I was making freak content,” she says. “It was like, ‘What is wrong with this girl?’” But she still played the game. She was a cheerleader. She wore the PINK hoodie and the jeggings and the Sperrys. She went full Texas glam. Still, her internet presence was full of chaos and contradiction; she refused to assimilate.

That refusal has quietly made Quen a blueprint for a new kind of creator. Before TikTok, before the “chronically online” label existed, she was speaking in memes, editing like a cartoon, and building a fanbase off of unfiltered weirdness. “My comedy was rooted in cartoons,” she says. “The way those are paced, the effects.” She now leads a small team of editors, but she still has the final cut. Her videos feel like memes stitched into memoir — jump cuts, reaction GIFs, confessional monologues and camera zooms that feel like punches. They’re funny, sure, but they also carry an undercurrent of emotional agility, a deep awareness that most internet users now perform but few actually possess.

And as someone who was thrust into the spotlight before she was old enough to rent a car, she’s keenly aware of how empty that spotlight can feel. “Being an influencer is an empty want,” Blackwell says. “Because you have to influence on something.” It’s not just a soundbite. It’s her actual working philosophy. Blackwell is done trying to go viral. She’s interested in building something. A body of work. A catalog. A legacy.

Lately, that legacy has taken many forms: major brand deals, viral modeling moments, music videos for artists like SZA and Omar Apollo, a recent foray into acting and her signature YouTube chaos that remains just as sharp as ever. She calls it the Quenaissance — a tongue-in-cheek term that somehow captures both the joke and the intention behind it. She’s still funny. Still unpredictable. But now there’s structure. Boundaries. A vision.

She’ll roast herself in the same breath she reflects. She’ll break into a vocal stim — “right, right, right” — mid-sentence. She refers to her Capricorn sun and Cancer rising with both derision and delight. “I’m sad today? Solution: hit my bong. Solution: go walk outside,” she laughs. Her self-help is stoned and real and surprisingly functional. If Quen has a brand, it’s that she refuses to brand herself into oblivion.

Her shoot for this cover marks a turning point, not just aesthetically but spiritually. “It felt so intentional,” Quen tells me. “I love intention.” That word comes up a lot when she talks about the future. Quen isn’t abandoning the clownery. She’s just building her own circus.

PAPER sat down with Quen to talk about how growing up in Texas primes you for the entertainment industry, the 2008 housing crisis-to-internet fame pipeline and vocal stimming.

Tell me about being a Texas girl. You came up on Vine in your room in Texas, falling off a hoverboard, strumming a guitar with your braids. You represent this whole generation of kids whose parents were maybe a little too lenient and had way too much access to the internet.

Completely. Too much access to the internet. Not enough emphasis on building real-life community. It was 2008, 2009 — coming out of the housing crisis and into wartime. Our parents weren’t really aware. They were just in fight-or-flight. So we all got a hold of a phone and were like, okay, let’s find some fun in this time.

I was on my phone. I was also in fucking Texas suburbia, which was a whole other thing — being Black in a completely different cultural environment that didn’t understand me. Every time I’d go to my friends’ houses or hang out in their groups, I had to constantly convince them why I deserved their consideration.

On the internet, I never had to convince anyone why I deserved their attention. I just got to be. And that felt more like my reality.

And you’re talking about those old videos of you as a kid on YouTube, or your Vine era?

That was the YouTube era, but also Vine. Just the entirety of my childhood, being in Texas suburbia and finding comfort on the internet to get through that from age 6 to 19. That was early YouTube, the Quenster17 page I made. And a little bit of Twitter. The internet has always been a safe place for me to just be what I am, instead of having to do this convincing game. I hate having to convince. It was this constant convincing I had to do throughout my childhood, and the internet gave me a place to put some jokes out into the world and get nice comments, some laughs, and some support back.

You moved from Cincinnati to the Dallas area, right?

I moved from Cincinnati, Ohio. All my family’s from there. All my extended family still lives there. We moved to Texas when I was about three. This is when my memory starts. I don’t remember anything before that. Moving to Texas as a child was such a traumatic experience.

Do you think your personality would have been different if you had stayed in Cincinnati?

I would have been a completely different person. I don’t think my soul would’ve changed, but the way it came out would be different. I don’t know if it would be for better or worse, because a lot of different pressures made me into the diamond that I am. And I wouldn’t forego those pressures, because I don’t know if they would’ve squeezed me into a diamond.

If I was in Ohio, I’d have had more family support. I probably would’ve been in a community where I saw more people who looked like me and felt more understood and seen. But I don’t really think about the “what if,” because I’ve got other stuff to think about. I’m not sitting around thinking about how a hypothetical would’ve changed me.

I do wish I had gotten to visit my extended family in Ohio more. I’m not really family-oriented like a lot of my friends. One of my best friends, Katie, she’s Cuban, and her family is so insular. But because we’re so spread across different states, I never had that unity. I mean, I can create it in my adult life now, with the friends I have and the community I’m building, and you know, my family.

There are so many influencers from Texas.

Yeah, the Texas influencer is a different breed. It’s its own thing. I just know any entertainers that come from Texas, I don’t know if it’s because the culture of standing out is a thing in Texas. We’re different. We carry that on our shoulders, and it kind of primes you for the entertainment industry. Or maybe it’s that Texas is so big that you have to be big so young to be seen at all. Also, we have extreme subcultures in Texas and so many different places that you can find your niche when you’re young.

It’s a whole country. But fast forward to Vine. You were in high school? Or was it middle school?

When I was doing Vine, I was 14 or 15.

So, like, middle school, almost high school. Eighth to ninth grade. And it was mostly white kids in your community?

Yes. It gave, like, during Black History Month the room felt heavy because I was the only one.

Okay, that’s very Dallas, though. If you lived in Houston, I feel like it would be different.

Oh, it would’ve been so different. I wish. But it was Dallas. It was Dallas suburbia. It wasn’t even Dallas proper.

What was the vibe at school? Were you famous, lowkey?

No, I wasn’t famous. I would’ve been famous in school if I was making beauty content. But I was making freak content. It was like, “What is wrong with this girl?” At the same time, though, I did do things to align myself with the community. I was a cheerleader. I loved getting my Texas glam on, getting my hair done, nails done, being a southern girl, whatever. But my videos did not help my case of “I’m just like all of you. We’re all the same, just kids in high school.” My internet presence did not help that at all, because I was being who I truly was, which was nothing like them online.

Before I started recording, you mentioned ChatGPT ruining your brain. What's your consensus on influencers or creators using ChatGPT nowadays? Are a lot of them using it for thumbnails, prompts, or topics? What's your personal vibe towards it?

ChatGPT to influence your content — it’s very noticeable. It removes the authenticity you can bring to your audience. For me, I use ChatGPT to revise an email. But also, I should know how to revise an email myself. Like, I know some grammar stuff. I use ChatGPT to do it. And it’s like, I also smoke weed and take edibles, so my brain is already, like, woo. Giving it a wheelchair when it can run on its own, it’s like, girl, just run a mile. So I try not to use ChatGPT. Currently, I use it if I have a love interest. I put our charts in there.

Okay. No, I heard it’s really good at astrology.

Yeah, I’m like, why is that? I think because it’s scouring all the astrology topics on the internet, and so much of astrology is set. There’s not much nuance. So ChatGPT is good for things that don’t have nuance. Congratulations! It’s good for astrology. But not for things with nuance, like creativity.

I’m very struck by your editing in your YouTube videos. Who does your editing? Do you just have a vault or bank of video memes, reactions, that you can add in on the second?

We have a folder, a master meme folder, that we add to. I have two editors now, and I’m onboarding two more. People are human, and I’ll never expect myself or the people I bring into my business to work the way I do. I can work 12 hours a day, every single day, for five months, but I’m not going to expect that from someone else. If you’re tired and don’t want to be in front of a screen, take the week off. Be a human.

And I’ll find someone else to help out. Because I will be like magazine, TV show, internet, blah blah blah, all the time, because that’s what I signed up for. The process is: I make the video, send it to them, they cut it down, send it to me, I send it back, they add a little bit, then I add a little bit. It’s a whole creative flow.

And it’s my favorite thing. When I first started on the internet, my comedy was rooted in cartoons — the way those are paced, the effects — so I learned to edit very young. I know exactly what I want from my editors. We speak the same language in that way, and you can tell in the videos. They’re never not entertaining.

I can tell you work very hard. That’s very Capricorn of you. What would you say is the most Capricorn thing about you?

I’m very solutions-oriented. I see the world through problem and solution. The other day I was hanging out with someone, and they were venting to me. And my Capricorn brain — I can sit and listen and give you space to vent, and I’ll shut up. But in my head, I’m like, here’s the solution to your issue.

You’re like, let’s speed it up.

Yes! I’m like, we’ve talked about the same thing for three hours. We have the answer. Let’s just act on it now. Very Capricorn. I’m sad today? Solution: hit my bong. Solution: go walk outside. It’s always like that in my head.

The other day I had the craziest work week. I didn’t want to work. I just needed to sleep. I had only been getting five hours of sleep a night for two weeks. I was running on E. I started crying because I just wanted to sleep. I cried for three minutes, then I was like, what do you need? What’s the solution? You need a hug. So I went down the hallway, got a hug from Katie.

Then I was like, what’s the next solution? You need to tell your team you don’t want to work today. I told them, and they said, “Okay, go dark. Get off your phone, we’ve got it handled.” Then I was like, what’s the third solution? Dopamine. So me and Katie went to the antique mall. Even though I felt so overwhelmed and sad, I knew the solutions to make myself feel different instead of stewing in it.

I need to be more like that. Capricorns love structure. Y’all have a plan.

Yes, always.

Fuck, marry, kill: Vine, Twitter, YouTube.

Kill Vine, just because it’s already dead. No reason to bring her back. Marry YouTube, because I think longform content is good for the brain, for society and for culture. Fuck Twitter, because she kisses me so good. I love her little jokes, how she makes me giggle. But would I marry Twitter? No. She doesn’t think well. No foresight. I wouldn’t marry Twitter, but I’d have my fun with her.

What would you say to a 13-year-old who is striving to be an “influencer” as their life goal? Anything surprising or shocking?

First, I’d tell them that being an influencer is an empty want, because you have to influence on something. Because it’s like, are you a comedian? A cook? A singer, dancer, songwriter? Are you a strategist? Are you into marketing? You have to have your niche to influence upon. When people say, “I want to create content,” it’s like, no. Do you want to be a claymation director? Do you want to make high-stakes competitive gaming videos, like MrBeast?

If a kid said they wanted to be an influencer, I’d tell them to figure out their niche instead of figuring out how to gain an audience. The audience will come when you know your niche and what you're actually interested in. Humans on the internet are very smart. They can sniff out bullshit fast. So the way to get a real audience — not just bots who are like “yes, they put on lipstick, love” — is knowing where your power lies and what genre you’re most seen in. I’d say: figure out your hobby first.

Yeah, and it’s becoming harder and harder. The niches are becoming more and more specific.

Or people just want to watch you in their free time. You have to have pull. You can make bullshit and get an audience, congrats, but an audience that doesn’t make you want to die? That comes from having a niche or a genre. Then people will interact with you more like a human, instead of treating you like a content-pumping robot.

Would you ever move to NYC?

It would make me feel crazy. But also, I could get a loft. Living in New York would make me so happy. I love LA. I love the city. I don’t know how much I love the hustle culture here, and how quick everything is. Because it kind of doesn’t give you space to build community, because everyone’s trying to get stuff done all the time. Whereas in New York, you have to build community because you're so packed together.

Do you have a current vocal stim?

Wait, yes! I have a current vocal stim. Lately, I’ve been saying “Don Julio” for anything that’s top tier or supreme, even though I know it’s not the best tequila ever. Me and my friend Larray will be like, “That shit is Don Julio.” Like, “This bitch? She’s that.” Or I’ll say to Katie, “Katie, you’re literally the Don Julio of it all.” I love saying, “I am the Don Julio.” Like, you are the Don Julio of the interview.