Cream cheese-covered bagels. Dino nuggets. Converse shoes. Sprite bottles. 

Communication junior Ashley Xu has made commercials starring all these objects. From planning and research to filming and editing, Xu single-handedly creates art pieces and posts the results on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

Since she started posting videos in 2020, her accounts have amassed more than 1.3 million followers on TikTok at @ashhasacamera and 1.1 million subscribers on YouTube. Along the way, companies like Verizon, Amazon Prime and Canon have reached out to her for brand deals.

“Once quarantine started hitting, I started creating content with a more set schedule and I had a niche,” Xu said. “When I started growing my skill set, I kind of proved that I was serious about the whole content creation film thing.” 

Xu starts her commercial videos by introducing the product, before giving viewers a glimpse into a short behind the scenes. Then, she transitions into the final commercial, which features a series of edited visuals accompanied by trending TikTok sounds. 

Her videos have earned film industry recognition. She was nominated in the Cinematography category for The YouTube Streamy Awards — the internet’s biggest awards show, according to The Washington Post. 

She recalled being in class when her manager submitted her for the awards, but did not think anything of it at the time. Later in the quarter, she found her headshot on The Streamys website saying she was nominated. 

“That was so surreal, just sitting in class, listening to my professor lecture and internally being like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” Xu said. 

At the ceremony in Beverly Hills, Xu said the experience was like seeing her entire TikTok “For You” page in person. It was a completely different environment than what she envisioned just a few years prior. 

In high school, the Bay Area native was “dead set” on becoming a computer scientist — but hated AP Computer Science. She took film classes for her electives in high school, where she fell in love with videography and began learning how to edit. 

In 2021, Xu’s skills paid off when a budget-friendly official Sprite commercial she made in her Schapiro Hall residence hall room went viral on TikTok. Hundreds of thousands of comments raved about how her simple setup created a commercial that rivaled those of companies with high budgets. 

Xu said she felt an incredible adrenaline high at the time, but her journey has also had some low points. If the videos she made afterward didn’t take off after she expected them to perform well, it felt like a punch to her ego. Xu added that the lows felt even worse after she began monetizing her content. A dip in revenue, on top of lower views, sometimes causes her to question her self-worth as a creator. 

“You start wondering, ‘Am I cut out for this job?’” Xu said. “‘I can’t pay my rent off not going viral, so what do I do?’ It’s a stressful job, but it’s very rewarding at times.” 

Having a solid support base to navigate the lows proved essential for Xu, who connected with commercial videographer and content creator Grace Wells. 

Wells, who creates similar content on TikTok, said the pair texts each other daily about their shared experiences and struggles. 

“Ash is definitely my closest friend in our niche,” Wells said. “Besides the fact that she’s an awesome person, she’s a female when basically everyone else (in the industry) is a guy. It’s nice to feel we connect in this way.” 

Xu emphasized the necessity of innovating upon the content that originally drew her in. 

That inspired her to dip into TikTok’s popular thirst trap trend, but with a twist centering random foods. In summer 2022, she would walk through Target and Safeway with her friend Claire Kwok to look for foods to film together. Xu said she saw the trend as a way for her to breathe new life into product videography. 

When she reposted her TikToks on YouTube Shorts, Xu said her channel gained nearly 500,000 subscribers in two weeks, which made her realize the growth process between the two platforms was wildly different. 

Xu said the food thirst trap video breakthrough was a turning point in her career, helping her learn to place more trust in herself.

“Just because you’re going through a low point right now doesn’t mean it’s going to last forever,” Xu said. “I’m putting trust in myself that I will be able to come back and let myself have breaks — because not posting doesn’t mean that I’m wasting time. It’s important to recharge, refuel and go at it again with new creativity in mind.” 

At the same time, her content has allowed her to attend numerous industry events. She recalled taking a quiz a day before attending a TikTok event to speak with the chief marketing officers at Marvel and Target the next day. She also flew out to the Cannes Film Festival in France to be a featured creator for a Meta panel in May 2022.

But Xu said balancing that creative process alongside school, homework and NU Club Volleyball poses a challenge.

Kwok recalled a time after Spring Break when Xu flew to four or five different states within a week to partner with different brands. 

“I just hope everytime she hits a burnout or hits a wall in her creative process that she remembers who she is,” Kwok said. “She really is a powerful personality, but then the qualities that she does have, like athletics, intelligence, creativity — they all add to her as a whole.” 

After an early graduation this year, Xu plans to move to New York City and explore the possibility of maintaining a creative full-time job with content creation on the side. She said she hopes to figure out a stable path and experiment more with YouTube and long-form videos. 

She also said she’ll continue to work on distancing her self-worth from the numbers. 

“I remember this quote from another creator who said, ‘As long as you’re learning something from each individual project, if you look to yourself yesterday and you’ve learned something, then you’ve won,’” Xu said. “It’s just honing in on your own journey and making sure that you’re growing. Doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing — as long as you’re on that upward trajectory, you’re in a good place.” 

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @jennajwang

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