Emma Blackery

Music career

Blackery's first release was the demo-EP Human Behaviour, put out on Bandcamp in early 2012; the title track was later re-recorded for her 2017 EP Magnetised. Her first official EP, Distance, appeared in July 2013 and included a music video for its lead track "Go the Distance", produced by Arthur Walwin. The second EP, Perfect, was released on 11 November 2014; its title track topped the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart for one week and entered the UK Rock & Metal Singles Chart at number eight. In 2015, Elle placed Blackery on its "30 Women Under 30 Who Are Changing the World" list. The fourth EP, Sucks to Be You, produced by Jason Perry, came out in 2016; its title track peaked at number 85 on the Scottish Singles Chart. On 4 April 2016, Blackery announced she would join pop punk band Busted on their Pigs Can Fly tour. "Sucks to Be You" was runner-up for the first Summer in the City Song of the Year award. After touring with Busted, she toured on her own and performed at other YouTube events. Her fifth EP, Magnetised, released on 26 May 2017, spent one week on the UK Albums Chart at number 63, peaked at number five on the UK Independent Albums Chart, and reached number two on the Official Independent Album Breakers Chart. On 6 August, Blackery received a Summer in the City Song of the Year award for "Nothing Without You". The cover art for Magnetised was featured at the Apple Keynote event for the iPhone X in September 2017. In 2018 she founded RWG Records and began work on her debut studio album Villains, stating that releasing on her own label gave her control over more aspects of her music career. On 16 March 2018, she released the lead single "Dirt", produced by Toby Scott; the song appeared on Spotify's New Music Friday UK playlist and was described by Record of the Day as a "slick combination of Scandi-pop" and "sassy American pop". Blackery described "Dirt" as "best served cold". On 3 May 2018 she released the second single "Agenda" along with a lyric video, followed by a music video for "Agenda" on 22 May 2018, a lyric video for "Icarus" in June, and a music video for "Take Me Out" in August.

Other work

Emma Blackery first got into making YouTube content after being inspired by Shane Dawson, Smosh, Dan Howell, Phil Lester, and later Troye Sivan in 2017. By 2018, she was running three active channels, though she had also deleted, rebranded, or abandoned others over time. Her main channel, simply called Emma Blackery, went live in May 2012 and became a home for vlogs, music videos, comedy sketches, and more. She started gaining traction by reading parts of Fifty Shades of Grey, but those clips were taken down for copyright issues. By 2018, that channel had close to 1.5 million subscribers. She also set up EmmaBlackeryVEVO to host official music videos like "Nothing Without You," "Magnetised," "Don't Come Home," "Dirt," "Agenda," "Icarus," and "Take Me Out." Another channel, Vloggery, was where she posted vlogs, including her longer IPOAD series, and she also covered Summer in the City 2017 in three videos there. As of May 2019, EmmaBlackeryVEVO, Vloggery, and a Topic channel were all closed to new subscriptions, with their content moved to the main channel.

In 2013, Blackery took part in YouTube's Geek Week, and the following year Grace Helbig had her on the Not Too Deep podcast. She earned a Gold Creator Award in 2015 for hitting one million subscribers, joined PewDiePie's now-defunct Revelmode network, won a spot on Tom Scott's Game On show, was highlighted by YouTube as one of 18 #MadeForYou UK creators, and appeared in the Red Bull TV documentary Kings of Content alongside Louis Cole. After being featured in YouTube Rewind twice, she said she was unhappy with it. In 2018, The Guardian used her as one of three examples of the stress and burnout that comes with being a YouTuber. She later admitted she had stopped trying to make every video go viral and felt fine just creating what she wanted.

Some of her most-watched videos include "If Tampon Commercials Were Honest," "The Sims in Real Life," and "If Websites Started Dating." Her video "My thoughts on Google+" blew up in 2013 after Tubefilter called it the best reaction to YouTube's new comment system, and she performed it again in November 2018 to mark Google+'s shutdown. In December 2016, TenEighty listed her parody "YouTube Heros (Parody)" among their "Five of the Best: Parody Videos."