Skip to main content

19-year-old Vine superstar Lele Pons snags Hispanicize’s Latinovator award

lele pons snags hispanicizes latinovator award hispanicize 3
Image used with permission by copyright holder

dt-es-logo

This story originally ran on Digital Trends Español — the Spanish-language version of the site you know and love.

Read in Spanish

Recommended Videos

Three years ago, Lele Pons posted her first Vine as a shy high schooler. Today, she’s a Vine superstar, and the first-ever recipient of Hispanicize’s Latinovator award, presented Tuesday at this year’s conference for content creators and tech entrepreneurs in Miami.

Pons, named by Time magazine as one of the 30 most influential people in the United States, told Yarel Ramos of NBC Telemundo about her stardom, her love for the Hispanic culture, and about her new book Surviving High School, which goes on sale nationwide this week.

Pons has more than 10 million followers on Vine, but made it clear that her reach goes beyond social media success. She aspires to be an actress and singer. In fact, she recently completed a film that Digital Trends Español will soon hear more about, so stay tuned. Pons undeniably continues to grow as an artist in the entertainment industry.

At the press conference, Pons was asked where her ideas come from. “It is basically everything that happens to me every day, my life experiences. All my ideas are relatable. They are things that happen naturally, every day, things that all people know and talk about,” said Pons.

Nineteen-year-old Pons is one of the most talented and influential young people on social media. With the support of her family, she has managed to overcome all kinds of challenges, especially as a teenager during her high-school years. Her book is an account of her journey through high school. “I went through all stages. I was bullied the first year, people threw food at me, they mocked me by singing songs about me and they told me that I was ugly. I was very shy and socially awkward,” Pons said.

Lele-Pons-Hispanicize-Latinovator-award-4
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Digital Trends Español asked Pons about her transition from Vine star to author. “Writing this book was like making a Vine, there is a beginning, a middle and an end,” Pons explained. “When you think of a Vine video, it’s like thinking about an experience you’ve had, which people can relate to. By writing this book, I had to look back at specific moments, then think about how I overcame that difficult time and finally how everything improved.”

As for being Latina, Pons is very clear, “it is important to know where you come from,” she says when asked about the importance of being true to her roots, “I am very proud to be a Latina, because that’s also something that makes me very unique.”

Pons just celebrated her third anniversary as a Vine star, and many things have positively changed in her life. In 2015, she received a personal invitation from First Lady Michelle Obama to visit the White House and assist her with her campaign “Better Make Room”, which Pons said was the best experience of her life.

We will hear much more about Pons’ endeavors in the coming months but for now her book “Surviving High School” is available nationwide.

Nagidmy Marquez
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Nagidmy es comunicadora e internacionalista apasionada de las redes sociales, la historias del mundo y el acontecer diario…
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more
Here’s how to delete your YouTube account on any device
How to delete your YouTube account

Wanting to get out of the YouTube business? If you want to delete your YouTube account, all you need to do is go to your YouTube Studio page, go to the Advanced Settings, and follow the section that will guide you to permanently delete your account. If you need help with these steps, or want to do so on a platform that isn't your computer, you can follow the steps below.

Note that the following steps will delete your YouTube channel, not your associated Google account.

Read more