YouTube star Niomi Smart speaks out after facing abuse from online trolls

YouTube star: Niomi Smart uploads videos filmed at her Notting Hill flat about food, fitness and fashion
Mark Blunden @_MarkBlunden6 September 2016

One of London’s top YouTube stars today revealed how she copes with online trolls — and gave advice to up-and-coming vloggers about handling them.

Niomi Smart, 24, uploads weekly videos about food, fitness and fashion to more than 1.8 million subscribers.

She films and edits the clips from her flat in Notting Hill. When not filming, she blogs and tweets to her followers.

Smart told the Standard: “The natural instinct is to read 100 lovely comments and then there’s one bad one, which is the one you read into more. But I think, ‘You know what, I’m not going to let it bother me,’ because they are trolls, they’re looking for attention, they’re looking for a reaction.

“If it’s constructive criticism I’ll take it on board, but it’s not all going to be positive and happy. With this whole online presence you have to have quite a thick skin, it’s made me a lot stronger. You can’t please everyone.”

She advised fledgling vloggers to “surround yourself with people who know you for you, your close friends and family. Just think you don’t know who these trolls are, and they don’t know who you are... it means nothing — they could be saying it to anyone, so try not to take it personally”.

On Thursday, HarperCollins publishes Smart’s first recipe book, Eat Smart: What To Eat In a Day — Every Day. It features 150 plant-based ideas to “nourish the body” without “lacking flavour or indulgence”. She said: “I wanted my book to show that you don’t have to buy all of the really expensive superfoods.

“The book is 100 per cent all myself, with the recipes created by myself and written by myself. I’m so passionate about these recipes and there would have been no point if I didn’t make them myself.” Smart, whose website is niomismart.com, started vlogging after she graduated with a law degree.

On the challenges of sharing her life online, she added: “I’m still a private person, I don’t put everything out there. I think people are very quick to judge, thinking you are putting your whole life on there, but actually you have to be quite selective. For me, it’s food or it’s fashion. It’s never really about me and my private life.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in