Dabbling into beauty was not initially part of Manny MUA’s life bingo card. His family had wanted him to pursue medicine, but his interest in makeup made him reevaluate his plans. He ended up deviating from their expectations anyway and carved his own path. “I had my struggles with my family due to misunderstanding and miscommunication,” he told Teen Vogue. “I did have push back in the beginning of my career because my parents weren’t really sure what I was going to do with my life going in the route of makeup. I was planning on medical school so when I threw the makeup wrench at them, they were not expecting that.”
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While he didn’t expect to become wildly successful, Manny had concrete plans from the get-go. “For me, my goals were like, ‘I want to be a beauty influencer, I want to have a brand,'” he shared with Yahoo!’s In The Know. “Those were the goals I kinda, like, set for myself. I didn’t plan for any of it to happen.” But what set him apart from other beauty YouTubers was his authenticity. “When I started YouTube those years ago, I felt like people weren’t being their authentic self — in the beauty space, specifically,” he added. “I feel like when I started, I wanted to able to treat YouTube as almost like my diary or my journal, and I would just kind of just be who I am.”
