Emmuel Reyes (’15) had always envisioned himself making it big somewhere, someday. The only problem was, he had absolutely no clue where or how he’d make it happen.

Even so, Reyes never could’ve imagined that he would become a full-time content creator, interviewing his favorite rap artists for a living, with his interviews raking in millions of views across multiple social media platforms.

With his sub-par grades and little desire to further a career through academics, in his senior year of high school Reyes decided to not apply to any universities — something he currently doesn’t advise doing — and headed straight to Palomar Community College.

“At heart, I just knew that going to a university wasn’t gonna work out, and I didn’t want to waste my parents’ money either,” Reyes said. “I was just like, ‘I’m gonna graduate and figure it out because I have no idea what I wanna do.’”

Although Reyes knew that not going down the university path was best for him, when looking at his friends who’d all committed to the four-year university route, he couldn’t help but feel he was slipping behind.

“I was always the one guy in the group that didn’t really have good grades,” Reyes said. “My friend group, they all went to universities. They all knew what they were gonna do after college and high school. But me, I’m just like, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna do. What’s happening?’”

Determined to find his own path, once Reyes enrolled at Palomar in 2015, he began trying out an array of classes in an attempt to find something he enjoyed. Out of all of those classes, the one thing that spoke to him the most was Palomar’s radio program.

That same year, Reyes started a YouTube channel where he experimented with multiple genres of content, as he’d always loved talking and connecting with different people.

“I would [do] social experiment pranks on people, interview people in public [and ask] the craziest questions,” Reyes said. “None of those videos did good, so I stopped doing it. Then I started going to every rap concert that I would [normally] go to and interview fans in the line.”

According to Reyes, interviewing people just felt right.

“I would go to an [A$AP] Rocky concert, I would go to a Playboy Carti concert, I would go to all of these concerts and I would interview fans in line,” Reyes said. “That was just me trying stuff. I didn’t envision this being a career. I was just like, ‘I love rap music. I’m just gonna do it.’ I feel like naturally, I was just good at it and I’m good at talking to people.”

Reyes graduated from Palomar in 2019 with an associates degree in Broadcasting and Radio and continued on to work for the sports radio station, The Mighty 1090, while also continuing to post his rap concert interviews on YouTube. In 2020, however, all of it became unfulfilling to Reyes.

“I just wasn’t really happy with what I was doing,” he said. “The radio station started to become stale. I wasn’t very passionate about it anymore, so I left. I stopped the YouTube interviews because I feel like I wasn’t getting a lot of views on it and I kind of just felt like, ‘Why do I keep making content if nobody’s watching it?’ I was just very discouraged, so I started working at the gym and I was really just trying to figure it out. I had no idea what I was gonna do with my life at that point.”

Up until 2021, Reyes continued this lifestyle, unmotivated and uninspired to do much of anything.

“I was losing myself,” Reyes said. “I felt like I had nothing going on. I was just working [a job] at the gym and I wasn’t really trying to figure out what I was gonna do in the future. It reached a breaking point when I went out for the last time. I came home super late and I just started staring at my ceiling. I laid down in my bed and I was just like, ‘This can’t be it. I know I’m made for something more, and I gotta do something.’ That night, I decided to move to L.A.”

“That’s when everything started to align with OGM hitting me up to work for them,” Reyes said. “I just needed something new, and a change of scenery can always help, especially after graduating. I’d been in San Diego my whole life so I think I just needed a fresh start somewhere, and L.A. happened to be that fresh start.”

That fresh start made all the difference for Reyes.

“I brought back the fan interviews that I would do in 2018 [once] I started working for OGM, and it worked,” Reyes said. “I finally had a platform to give me more eyes. When they would post my videos, they would do really good, they would get a lot of views and things like that. That’s how [my] love for journalism rekindled. When I started working for OGM, I started going to all these events in L.A. and I was just having a really good time and I was meeting a lot of people too.”

Reyes still remembers the first time a fan approached him for a photo. It was late 2021 and just as he’d done hundreds of times before, Reyes attended a concert in hopes of interviewing a few staff members and fans to post on social media.

And although his videos were starting to gain more traction, he never expected someone to actually recognize him, much less, be a fan.

“I remember this kid, maybe a freshman in high school, came up to me and was like ‘Hey man, can you take a picture really quick?’ and I was like ‘Oh yeah, I got you,’” Reyes said. “I grabbed his phone and I backed up a little bit [to] take a picture of him and he was like, ‘No dude, I want a picture with you,’ and I was like, ‘Wow, really?’ He was like, ‘Yeah dude! I love your videos,’ and then he took a selfie with me. I’ll never forget that.”

Since then, Reyes has continued to work for OGM, interviewing up-and-coming artists on his YouTube series titled “Well Well Well…” He said that the most impactful part of this journey has been his followers.

“Without the support from others, I wouldn’t be here,” Reyes said. “I’m a lot more confident than I was before. I think the acknowledgement and love from others has changed me. It makes me realize that my videos do bring people together, which is the most important thing. If people are that excited about my videos, I’m doing something right. That support of others is really what helped shape me.”

Reyes said that if he was given the opportunity to speak with his high school senior self, he wouldn’t say a thing.

“I ended up exactly where I’m supposed to be,” he said. “So, senior year me, I wouldn’t change anything. He did it the right way. He didn’t know what he was gonna do, but he figured it out in the end and so I wouldn’t even bother it, because no matter what, you’re on the right path. He was on the right path no matter what, so I’m super happy for him.”

For Reyes, the greatest lesson he’s learned so far is that life is not a race.

“When I was in a community college, all my friends had jobs, they’re at a university and so I absolutely felt behind,” Reyes said. “[But] it was never a race. You cannot compare your journey to anyone else’s, just focus on your own. I’m at that point right now. I don’t really compare myself to anyone else, I don’t see anything as competition, I don’t see anything as a race. I’ll just focus on my journey and what I’m gonna do and that’s all that matters because it’s really not a race. You’re not behind, you’re not caught up, you’re not ahead of anyone. This is just your life, this is your journey, and that’s all that matters. That’s all you got to focus on.”