As I watched a video of Emma Blackery eating a spoonful of garlic powder followed up with a pint of cola and milk before almost vomiting I couldn’t help but respect her.

The professional YouTube blogger puts herself up for humiliation, reaches out to her viewers and is always 100 per cent honest. No wonder her fans love her.

She doesn’t have a boss telling her what to say or an editor changing her words.

With almost 900,000 subscribers to her blog, and 57 million views so far, she is a woman with clout.

Her notoriety as a vlogger (video blogger) has also helped her establish a music career and this month she supported Charlie Simpson on his UK tour.

But things were not always so rosy for Emma. At 20 she was at a bit of a crossroads in her life.

She had finished sixth-form at Bromfords School, in Wickford, and decided to go straight into working as a waitress in a cafe in Basildon.

Emma, now 23, says: “I was exhausted from working so many hours but I also wanted to do something with my music that would take my mind off of it.

“So I started the vlog as a music channel performing covers.

“Then the book 50 Shades of Grey came out and I did some vlogs with me reading passages aloud with commentary in between.

These got quite a lot of views and gradually the comedy took over from the music.”

Now Emma makes a living from her weekly vlogs. She still uses the same camera she started with – a Cannon 60D.

However, she has been able to update her software “I used to use Movie Maker but I was able to upgrade later to Final Cut Pro,” says Emma.

YouTube celebrated its 10th birthday last week and the site has been a platform for people to express themselves in the way they want.

Three hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, not all of it is worth watching but the top vloggers get hundreds of thousands of views for each video.

Emma’s vlogs are as varied as her life and the lives of her viewers.

No subject is out of bounds. Sometimes she will think back to embarrassing anecdotes from her school days, the dilemma of moving out from her family home and occasionally she lets her viewers decide on the topic.

In one video, titled Kitchen Dares, viewers asked her to eat random things in her kitchen. Emma ended up eating garlic powder, cola and milk and to finish, a ham face mask.

I’d never be a Why would I?

She says: “I script the vlogs but the content can be about everything and anything. It might be about awkward things like making small talk and a lot of the time it’s me messing about and doing silly things.

“The thing people love most is seeing people make fools of themselves that’s why we love You’ve Been Framed.

“I don’t mind. I think it makes me more relatable to me viewers. You might think that someone is above you and then you see them put stuff on their face and you realise they’re not. They’re just like you.”

As her viewers grew so did the feeling of responsibility to her fans.

She says: “I started out more reckless about what I spoke about but as my audience grew I had more of a feeling of responsibility.

“I don’t want to offend people. I try to offer advice and be a good influence. That is what comes with having a lot of viewers, the pressure can get to you a bit sometimes.”

Because Emma is her own boss she lets the content of the vlog be shaped according what her fans enjoy.

She says: “It is a democracy because if there are lots of comments not liking a vlog then I will change what I talk about.

“I want to give my audience what they want and with vlogging you get that direct communication.”

It takes Emma a day or so to film and edit a vlog.

She earns money from the advertising videos at the start of a vlog.

When it comes to filming Emma makes sure she is in the right frame of mind to perform.

Emma says: “I try to blog at least once a week and I make sure I am in a good mood because I want to it my true self across but I also want to be the best version of myself.

“It is vital to be self critical and analyse what works but at the same time it is very hard.

“I think seeing where you’re going wrong is difficult, not just in vlogging, but also in life.

If I read negative comments they do affect me but I try to take them all on board.”

It has been a particularly busy time for Emma, who has been touring with Charlie.

Unfortunately part way through she had to take time out from the tour because of a severe throat infection but she was able to make the Colchester Arts Centre date and complete the tour.

Emma says: “I never would have imagined that my vlog would lead to me performing music. I really enjoyed the tour and I hope it will continue.

“I was on tour last year with some other music YouTube musicians and I brought out my second EP, titled Perfect, on 11 November last year, which is my birthday.”

Emma doesn’t think that vlogs are only for the younger generation.

She says: “Vlogging is taking over and it is not just for teens. I read 50 per cent of people who watch YouTube are over 30 – they just watch different things.

“My blog’s demographic is 13-17 with females and 18-24 for males and middle-aged Scandavian men. But let’s not talk about them!”

So if a big TV company offered her a job as a presenter would she accept it?

“I’d never be a TV presenter, why would I? I get to do it as a YouTuber and I would be leaving behind my 890, 0000 followers.”

Visit www.youtube.com/user/emmablackery TV presenter.

Other successful YouTube bloggers:

POINTLESSBLOG Alfie Deyes started his PointlessBlog YouTube channel in 2009. As of December 2014 the channel has more than three million subscribers and more thanr 160 million views on YouTube. He was named by Yahoo! News as one of “12 Web-savvy entrepreneurs to watch” in 2013.

ZOELLA Zoe Elizabeth Sugg is an English fashion and beauty vlogger whose debut novel, Girl Online, broke the record for highest first-week sales of a first-time novelist since 1998. She created the blog in February 2009 and by March 2014 it has received 140 million visits.

TYLER OAKLEY The American YouTube personality Tyler Oakley is an advocate for Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth, and social issues including healthcare, education, prevention of suicide among LGBT youth, and gay rights. Oakley began making videos in 2007 and his work of more than 350 videos has over 290,000,000 views and close to 5.8 million subscribers as of 2014.