Twenty-four-year-old Quenlin “Quen” Blackwell has never lived a life without the internet.
She’s A Content Creator
The Dallas, TX, native was raised in a predominantly white suburban neighborhood and began posting on Facebook when she was eight years old, she reflected during an interview with Complex. Her personality can be described as witty and spontaneous.
In 2015, she went viral at age 14 due to her content on the short-form platform Vine — which shuttered in January 2017 — under the nickname “Quensadilla.”
She has entertained and maintained audiences while transitioning to other platforms such as Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube, where she has collectively garnered more than 19 million followers, Cosmopolitan reports.
Authenticity remains her superpower.
@quenblackwell IM FEELING THE SPIRIT TODAY
“I know that I’m very authentic to myself. I know that I am a true person when I look at myself in the mirror … My parents raised me well, so I don’t think I will lose my authenticity as I gain notoriety,” she told Complex.
“So I won’t lose my relatability because I will be a good person, and people see good people as themselves,” she added.
Brand Deals
Blackwell has been able to snag various opportunities through her online presence. She has secured brand deals with Urban Decay, Valentino Beauty, and ILIA Beauty.
Additional deals include:
Complex reports that Blackwell more recently decided to monetize her brand. She now has a full team and, as of 2024, signed with the agency CAA, The Hollywood Reporter notes. Previously, she was signed to United Talent Agency, WWD reports.
She’s a Model
She is in her modeling bag, strutting down runways including the Off-White AW24 show in Paris, and more recently, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. She has also worked with Burberry, Charlotte Tilbury, and Elisa Johnson.
She’s A YouTuber
Blackwell also launched a YouTube cooking show called “Feeding Starving Celebrities,” which she told Complex was easier to bring to fruition because of her team.
Blackwell launched a Patreon, where subscribers can access unseen footage and sneak peeks of future episodes with her celebrity guests for $5 a month.
What started in her best friend Larray’s home and later moved to her kitchen has now grown into a full-on set production, her Patreon notes.
The series has featured guests such as PinkPantheress, Kali Uchis, and Lil Yachty. Her video with Duke Dennis has garnered 9 million views alone (at the time of this writing).
Decision To Monetize Brand
Speaking to her decision to monetize her brand, Blackwell shared with Complex that it came from observing the landscape of others who could buy homes.
“Seeing the new girls be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve been watching you my whole life. I’m about to go buy a house.’ I’m like, ‘A house? With what?’ ‘My money.’ I’m like, ‘Y’all getting money,‘” Blackwell mentioned.
“I said, ‘Let me try to get a couple nickels.’ I just started waking up every day and being like, ‘This is a job.’ And I treat my internet [presence] like a job now,” she continued.
She also mentioned she manifested living a life of abundance.
“I never thought money was not going to be abundant in my life. I never saw me like being like, ‘How am I going to make a dollar?’ I feel like I manifest abundance and it comes for sure,” she said, according to Complex.
Building on her mindset of abundance and treating her craft like a business, Blackwell ventured into entrepreneurship with her fashion brand, Riquera, which took a couple of years to find a manufacturer. She told Complex that a stronger foundation was needed for the venture, so she paused it after the first drop, but teases a second could be on the way.
“I found good manufacturers. I found incredible designers. I know what photographers I want to work with now. I know how to model myself and so I know what type of modeling I want done and I just like went and trained myself to do what I want to do,” she explained to Complex.
As for what’s ahead, ELLE reports that Blackwell will appear in the HBO series “I Love LA,” created by Rachel Sennott.
