Bethany Mota has turned her YouTube channel into a fashion empire

BETHANY Mota just finished high school and still lives with her parents. She also makes $500,000 a year. Who is this girl?

Young fashion bloggers are making serious coin from their passion.

"I APOLOGISE on behalf of my hair because it is just not loving me today," Bethany Mota tells us with mock exasperation.

Her self-titled YouTube channel overflows with Bethany-isms like this. "I love sunflowers. They're one of my favourite flowers," she beams while fawning over a dress. You get the idea.

At 18, Bethany is the very picture of carefree youthful confidence in the 21st century, and she's got millions of disciples hanging on her every word.

She made her first YouTube video in 2009 and has since become a superstar of the shopping haul genre, in which users show off the clothing or makeup they bought on recent shopping trips.

What started as a hobby is turning into big business for the northern Californian native, who graduated high school a few months ago and still lives with her parents. She's got more YouTube subscribers than Lady Gaga and double the Instagram followers of fashion bible, Vogue.

News_Module: A picture from Beth's Instagram profile

At 13, she turned to YouTube to escape bullies. Armed with little more than a camera and a stack of books in place of a tripod, she found sanctuary in the website's beauty community.

"I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to leave my house," Mota told Business Insider. YouTube "was kind of an outlet for me to be myself and not really worry about what anyone thought."

Mota doesn't say how much she earns from the videos, but several sources familiar with YouTube advertising estimate her videos would pull in $US40,000 ($A45,615) a month.

Her authenticity hasn't just caught viewers' attention. Big business is taking notice, too.

News_Module: Her debut collection for Aeropostale

Bethany (or Beth, as her YouTube channel instructs you to call her) resists promoting products in her videos for payment, but outside YouTube, she's making serious bank through deals with like-minded companies.

After flirtations with the American retailers JC Penny and Forever 21, Mota was courted last year by hip youth outlet Aeropostale, who now stock a full line bearing her name.

"I have the freedom to pick the colours, the patterns and how I want to do it," Mota tells Business Insider. "They're very open to my ideas. It's not like, 'This is what you're going to do.' It's more of me telling them what I want."

While other YouTube stars might reach the same number of clicks and subscribers at Beth, a fashion licencing deal like this is rare - the Holy Grail for amateur fashion moguls hoping to turn their YouTube fame into legitimate, minted fame.

News_Module: Not her most grown-up look

So what's next for the mini mogul? Her agent says you'll have to watch this space.

"She's 18," Stubblefield says. "I think she's still discovering what her dreams are."

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