Celebrities like Tyra Banks, Jimmy Fallon, and Ellen DeGeneres were all early adopters of Periscope, the live-streaming video app acquired by Twitter in January and released to the public on March 26. But Periscope’s most-hearted user isn’t a celebrity with millions of adoring fans on the Internet; it’s Amanda Oleander, a 25-year-old artist living in Los Angeles where she works as an illustrator for E!.
Oleander joined Periscope the second day it was available for download and quickly began to incorporate the app into her daily life, broadcasting upward of five times a day. The broadcasts range in length: She may stream for 20 minutes in her car, 30 minutes while she’s painting, or an hour while she visits one of her favorite spots in downtown Los Angeles. Now more than 1,000 people tune in to each one.
With two small YouTube accounts — one for illustration tutorials and one for her vlog — and a charismatic personality, Oleander says Periscope was a perfect fit. “It’s so much easier [than YouTube] because you don’t have to edit, you don’t have to put music, you know what I mean? I thought that sounded so cool,” she says. It took less than a week for Oleander to get a sense of her evolving stardom. “I was like, whoa. It took me four years to get 2,000 followers on Instagram. And I did this on Periscope in four days?! I was really surprised.” Now Oleander has about 134,000 followers and 18 million hearts (Periscope’s version of a like on Facebook or a double tap on Instagram). “I don’t really have anything to hide, and I think people can feel that,” Oleander says.”You’ll see me when I don’t have makeup on. I don’t care if my nails aren’t done. I just try to be as real as possible.”
Oleander thinks of Periscope as a form of multitasking. She loves to give viewers a glimpse of her life, turning on her live-stream while she’s roaming Los Angeles — whether it’s at a cave in Corral Canyon or during one of her “red light chats,” during which she talks with her Periscope audience each time she hits a traffic light. (“It’s completely legal in L.A. to have your phone in a stand [on your dashboard],” she says.) Oftentimes, she shoots from her apartment while drawing one of her quirky illustrations, in a style she describes as a mash-up of Tim Burton and Shel Silverstein.
Oleander is comfortable having hundreds of eyes watch her from afar at almost any time of day — 4,875 viewers tuned in to watch her answer questions live in a “chat before bed” on May 7. She responds to a stream of questions, often using her fluent Spanish skills to translate for Latina fans. “Favorite movie? … I haven’t been to the movies since Christmas, and I’m not even kidding. Oh, yeah, [my nose is] red because I just popped a pimple. Do I like The Notebook? Oh my gosh, I loooove The Notebook.”
She easily lists off her top superfans, giving a quick synopsis for each. U.K.-based Murpo is her no. 1. “He’s so awesome. If anything is going up, if there’s an update, if anyone’s saying anything negative about me from another channel, anything, like, he is there, telling people, ‘Give her hearts!'” Murpo, who asked to be identified by his Twitter and Periscope name, told Cosmopolitan.com in an email that he’s seen nearly every one of Oleander’s live-streams, estimating that he’s only missed about seven. “Amanda is fun [and] has good energy, so whenever you are watching [her], she makes you feel good,” he explains. “She’s such an amazing artist and a joy to watch.” Lily — another superfan — even met up with Oleander at a lounge in Los Angeles to see a live show. “I just feel like I’ve accumulated a whole bunch of new friends,” Oleander says.
Although she’s not completely foreign to the entertainment industry (she lives in L.A., after all, and she once appeared as an extra in The Hunger Games), Oleander still feels a little weird about the fame Periscope is bringing her. Following a profile in New York Magazine, The Wrap and CBS picked up her story. Sponsors have contacted her with requests to send her clothing and accessories in the hope that they’ll show up on one of her popular broadcasts — though Oleander insists she’s very selective. “I’m like, ‘Where is it made? Is it made in a sweatshop? No, thank you.’ I don’t care if you give me $1 billion; I’m not going to show it.”
Oleander’s rise to Periscope stardom has affected her life in other ways too. Though she hasn’t made money from her live-streams, she has raised the price of her custom illustrations from $10 to $15, then again to $20 — a result of an increasingly packed schedule. She’s booked appointments with entertainment agencies, hired a friend to be her manager, and her grandma has temporarily relocated from the East Coast to help her with tasks around the house. Just the day before Oleander’s interview with Cosmopolitan.com, one of her fans recognized her on Hollywood Boulevard.
“He was like, ‘I’m watching you right now!'” Oleander recalls, bemused. “He took his phone out and he asked me to be in his Periscope, so I said hi to his friends and he said hi to mine and we all took pictures together.”
But that’s not to say Periscope is free from shortcomings — perhaps the most notable being sexual harassment. “Unfortunately in the society we live in, that happens so much,” Oleander says. “I don’t get a lot of bullying; that’s rare. It’s more of, ‘Oh, show me your boobs.’ So I just block them, and that’s it.”
Despite vulgar comments, Oleander remains optimistic that the app has the power to do more good than bad. She’s already begun using her account to broadcast interviews with successful acquaintances about how they got ahead in life. Recently, she live-streamed a collaborative illustration for 12 hours, later sending the digital file to anyone who donated at least $5 to a page she set up on GoFundMe for charities offering aid to the victims of the earthquake in Nepal.
When she hit 100,000 Periscope followers, Oleander decided to kick off a world tour in Los Angeles, with definite plans to hit San Francisco and San Diego, and the ultimate goal of visiting cities outside the country. “I’ve never really had time to travel a lot. And that’s something I’ve wanted before Periscope, but now I’m doing it with a twist, because I’ll be Periscoping,” she says. Although attendees will be encouraged to live-stream their hearts out, Oleander wants the meet-ups to feel like a fun way for emerging artists to connect IRL, with pop-up galleries, food, and giveaway bags for everyone who attends. Sponsors will fund the event, though Oleander is keeping the list a secret until she makes the formal announcement on Periscope. “I’m so excited. I have a feeling I’m going to start crying, honestly,” she says. “I was like, oh my gosh, I’ll be meeting [my fans] in real life. Crazy. I’ve already cried on Periscope, like, twice.”
But Oleander also knows her willingness to show unfiltered snippets of her life is part of her appeal. “I think in the society that we live in right now, you see so many people on reality TV, people always have to look good or always have to wear certain brands. I think people just find [me] refreshing,” she says. “I don’t try to be somebody that I’m not.”
Story: COSMOPOLITAN
