Emily Wong Lok-ting, born in January 1992 in Toronto, Ontario, is a Hong Kong YouTuber renowned for her fitness, lifestyle, and travel videos. Raised in Hong Kong, she graduated from the University of Hong Kong in 2013, having studied global management and international business. Her journey from a corporate employee to a full-time YouTuber is both inspiring and insightful.
Early Life and Education
Emily Wong attended local Hong Kong schools before pursuing higher education. She began her career in the corporate world, working as a headhunter and later as a management trainee at Pernod Ricard, an alcoholic beverage company. Subsequently, she joined Lululemon Athletica in their social media division. It was during her time at Lululemon that she ventured into creating her YouTube channel to supplement her income.
The Rise of a Fitness Influencer
Wong started posting videos on her YouTube channel in April 2017. Her initial motivation was to make an additional HK$2,000 to HK$3,000 (US$250 to US$380) every month through the YouTube channel. Her channel originally went by the name "Emi Wong • StayFitandTravel". Her exercise videos quickly gained popularity, transforming her into an influencer in fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and fitness. Within four months, she reached 100,000 subscribers, and in a year, she hit 500,000 subscribers. This rapid growth prompted her to leave her full-time job at Lululemon in August 2018 to focus on her YouTube career.
Her high-intensity interval training video, which was 10 minutes long, was watched more than eight million times. In a 2020 interview with the South China Morning Post, Wong attributed her channel's success to how the workouts could be completed at people's residences. Lifestyle Asia deemed the classes be free and "easy to follow". Elle said of her videos, "The movements are not difficult and it will be very impressive after practice, even beginners who are just getting started in fitness can keep up".
Content and Impact
Wong's exercise videos receive the most views. Her high-intensity interval training video, which was 10 minutes long, was watched more than eight million times. In a 2020 interview with the South China Morning Post, Wong attributed her channel's success to how the workouts could be completed at people's residences.
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At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, she posted a video where she used a carpet sweeper to do lunges and bottles of laundry detergent to do squats.
While she speaks Cantonese in a number of her later vlogs, her videos largely are in English. The English-language content attracted foreign viewership as well as Overseas Chinese who are immigrants or studying abroad.
HK01 said Wong was similar to fellow fitness YouTuber Coffee Lam [zh]. It found that Wong had over double the number of subscribers of Lam in 2020 because Wong produced her content in English.
Personal Struggles and Triumphs
Emi Wong's journey wasn't without its challenges. From age 18 until 25 or 26, three to four times every week she would "drink herself into unconsciousness". She went to Lan Kwai Fong on weekends to drink.
On Instagram, she viewed posters' photos of what they looked like prior to and following their workout regimen. The content drove Wong, who was then at the start of her 20s, into exercising twice to thrice daily with the aim of having "toned abs". She was particularly motivated by the fitness author Kayla Itsines's Bikini Body Guide, which she purchased and followed.
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During employee dinners at her company Pernod Ricard, she was fanatically engrossed with the high-calorie food that was served. When her plate of chicken had sauce on it, she would clean the sauce away with hot water. At her nadir, she suffered from bulimia in which she would eat and then throw up for several months. At a Valentine's Day buffet, she ate a large number of French fries and threw up.
When Chad, her boyfriend, questioned her, Wong admitted that her inordinate time in the bathroom was owing to her affliction with bulimia. Chad told her about the negative health effects of bulimia including a higher likelihood of getting cancer. He got her to agree to always tell him whenever she vomited, so that he could warn her about the negative health effects again. Through his reminders, she gradually purged less often until she completely ceased to do so.
Criticism
HK01's Ka-chun Au reported that numerous fitness instructors have criticised the accuracy of Wong's fitness videos. Choosing one video to critique. Au said that the punches she threw in the video did not involve turning her hips and waist so are not how it is done in boxing.
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