Meet Aubrey Stevens | Digital Creator & Student

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aubrey Stevens and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aubrey, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
While I believe hard work and consistency have been the keys to my success both as a digital creator and as a student at Caltech, it is more important to prioritize your health and well-being than anything else. I began my journey as a digital creator when I was 16 in high school. When I first started, I had ample time to spend on photoshoots, editing material, and interacting with my followers. Eventually, I got a bit burned out of posting content daily and needed to take breaks from content creation; sometimes these breaks lasted a few days, sometimes longer.

When I started college, I took a break from social media to allow myself to adjust to college life. Unfortunately, I became extremely ill my freshman year, which developed into a chronic illness I still have to this day. I was unable to juggle being a digital creator, my bioengineering studies, and taking care of my health. Thus, I had to make a sacrifice and take a break from content creation, which I did for a couple years, until I returned from my hiatus a few months ago. My chronic illness forced me to put my creative endeavors on hold temporarily while I focused on my health and studies. I realized that it wasn’t worth overworking myself in order to attempt to “have it all” at the expense of my health.

I am a bit of a workaholic and am someone who isn’t always the best about putting my own well-being first, but becoming chronically ill taught me that you have to put your health first always. I am still chronically ill and am actually currently on medical leave from school, which has given me more time to focus on my creative ventures. Since going on medical leave, I’ve been able to dedicate more time to creating content on Instagram, starting up a Tiktok, running my shop on Poshmark, and even writing poetry.

I still have days where I am unable to do work as a result of my health. I used to try and push myself through these days and force myself to do work anyways, but I’ve learned to listen to my body. If you force yourself to work too hard, it puts immense strain on your body and mind, which is detrimental to your health in the long-run. In a career with a flexible work schedule, it’s important to maximize your productivity when you have the energy to do so and take breaks when your body tells you to.

I will often work intensely for several hours straight, taking hundreds of photos with multiple makeup looks and outfits and shooting tens of videos. This will typically serve as my content for the week, which I spend time during the rest of the week editing and I reshoot things as needed.

I typically work as much as I can while still keeping enough time in my life to stay healthy both physically and mentally. Staying healthy mentally includes setting aside time to spend with my friends and family and to do things besides school and work. If I feel like I don’t have enough time for my personal life, I’ll make small changes to my work life to try and fix the balance, because it’s not sustainable over the long-term to continually overwork yourself.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My art is all about creating a cohesive aesthetic in each individual set of images that invokes a certain feeling from the viewer. At first glance, my page looks like any ordinary influencer, but I use fashion, makeup, photography, and photo editing together to create an interesting piece of art. I know most people won’t stop to look at it for more than a second on Instagram, but I put a lot of time into each one of my posts and hope that it inspires someone or touches someone.

I’m personally the most proud of my ability to create a cohesive mood to my photos through the use of various photographic elements. I feel that I have fairly creative uses of fashion, makeup, and photography, which I do almost all of myself. I have passions for all three of these things, which I think you can see in my work. I started thrifting in high school and got so into it that I started my own resale company, Stevens Resale. I operate a store on Poshmark called @ch1candun1que where I sell my own clothes, as well as a selection of cool things I’ve thrifted. I’ve also been into makeup since middle school and am into someone glam and advant garde looks.

As for photography, I like to play around with various lighting and angles to create various effects. I do sometimes lightly retouch my photos, but I never change any of my features. I do however adjust the coloration and lighting of my photos to make it fit a certain aesthetic or amplify a certain characteristic of the photo. I believe that my ability to edit photos has greatly improved over the past few years, which you can definitely see if you compare any of my old photos to my newer ones.

In addition to this, I also try to share personal content about my life and about my health. I believe that in our society, people don’t openly talk about what they’re struggling with enough. I hope that through openly talking about my journey with my chronic illness that I can help others who are dealing with something similar. I have already had multiple people reach out to me to discuss their health journeys and if I can even help out one person, I feel like I’ve made a difference.

My biggest challenge has been being a content creator while chronically ill. I had to take a break for a couple years, as I was unable to manage being a full time bioengineering student at Caltech, being chronically ill, and content creation. Even while on medical leave, my chronic illness can make things difficult. I have days where I don’t feel good enough to get out of bed and am unable to post on social media as a result. I often premake content when I’m feeling well to overcome this issue, but it still makes things much more difficult.

I want the world to know that I am someone who cares immensely about other people. Everything I do is in the hopes of positively impacting other individuals. While it may seem like I’m just posting silly Instagram content or Tiktoks, I hope to turn this into something bigger in the future. I’ve had some ideas for launching a business after I graduate from college or trying to publish some of my writing.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Eat- Tamale Kitchen (the egg and potato burrito smothered is my favorite), Sierra grill, Fel Fel, Snowl, all you can eat sushi at Sushi Katsu, Pupusa lover

Stuff to do- Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, Cog railroad up Pikes Peak, Hang out in the RiNo, hike the incline in manitou springs

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to dedicate my shoutout to my mother who taught me to always stay open to my creative side. As someone who decided to pursue a career in STEM, I was always taught by others that I had to focus all of my energy on that, but my mom who is a very creative person herself, always supported my creative ventures. She is a very fashion forward person and is the reason that I myself am interested in fashion. My mom never got the opportunity to pursue a creative career, as she came over as a refugee from Vietnam as a child and her family lost everything. However, she sacrificed a lot to ensure my brother and I had the opportunities she never got. I’m truly grateful for her support and encouragement through my various creative endeavors.

Instagram: @xxaubreystevensxx

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aubrey-stevens-966376257

Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@xxaubreystevensxx?lang=en Poshmark: https://posh.mk/KKKHTHF5xzb