Early in the morning, before the lively daytime sounds of NorthPark Center settle in, a still ambiance fills the air. As the new Glossier store opens its floor-to-ceiling glass doors to welcome select guests, other shoppers slow their pace, curiously peeking at the freshly stocked and intricately arranged makeup in a store that resembles a woman’s dream. The smell of earthy iris and sparkling bright pepper, Glossier’s signature scent, carries throughout the mall, lacing with the smell of fresh coffee. Trimmed in pink, white and glass, the feminine interior is balanced with light wood accents, creating a modern yet warm environment for shoppers. After speaking with the Glossier marketing director for creative advice, Michelle Tran places her tripod down carefully, ensuring the perfect angle for her next shot.
She strategically picks up Glossier’s newest perfume out of a line of scents and smells it, with a delicate smile across her face.
“That should be the perfect shot,” she said, retrieving her phone and scrolling through her album of videos and photos.
Tran looks at her phone, brows furrowing in concentration as she scrolls through the latest trends for inspiration. She pulls up her camera roll, reviewing clips from her last shoot and mentally pieces together transitions and scenes. Quickly switching to her calendar, she checks her packed schedule, from her anatomy class to an influencer event that night at an up-and-coming restaurant in Dallas. Filming content for Glossier is just the beginning of what Tran has allocated time for throughout the week.
Tran plays many roles beyond her social media platforms, from pursuing goals in the medical field to attending exclusive influencer events. Content creation has become a creative outlet for Tran, combining her love for beauty and meaningful connections with her life in medicine. Her desire to inspire young Asian American girls through her personal brand and platform motivates her to continue her social media work alongside other endeavors.
“I want to continue to be able to use my experiences to influence other young Asian American girls through showing how I am still struggling and navigating through my own identity through this time and space,” Tran said.
Tran’s mission to encourage young girls and students to balance all areas of their interests has reached Chinese American economics student Anna Keefer at Southern Methodist University. Keefer emphasized that representation on social media is especially important on campuses in the South. She believes the rise of Asian American content creators like Tran, whose content encourages young girls to embrace their heritage and balance creativity with careers in medicine, has the potential to directly impact college students navigating similar paths and challenges.
“Growing up there wasn’t a lot of Asian representation around me,” Keefer said. “I think it’s great that Michelle is trying to inspire young girls because if they can have someone to relate to and aspire to be in the future, that would change so much.”
Tran, a 26-year-old Dallas-based influencer, specializes in lifestyle, beauty, and food content while balancing aspirations in both the medical field and content creation. She holds a master’s degree in biomedical sciences and health equity from Baylor College of Medicine. After graduating, she spent two years researching cholesterol metabolism at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She began creating content more seriously during a transitional period in her life, documenting and blending her lifestyle as an influencer and a graduate student while moving to Houston.
Before Tran became interested in medicine, she said her passion for media and creativity was evident early in childhood. She showed an interest in content by editing and filming short YouTube videos and dreamed of becoming a fashion designer or news anchor.
“I dabbled in iMovie and made vlogs when I was really young, and even started a photography club in middle school and high school, which really allowed me to use my creativity,” Tran said.
Tran uses her experiences as the daughter of Vietnamese immigrant parents in her content creation. Her testimony and platform helps encourage young girls to see beauty in the uniqueness of their heritage and to embrace the struggles she faced in a predominantly white environment in Frisco.
Although she is passionate about leading the younger generation toward acceptance, Tran is transparent about her ongoing struggles with cultural pressure to choose between medicine and social media, personal identity, and a lack of support for her social media career within her traditional Vietnamese household. She is actively working to break those molds and believes time has the ability to change mindsets.
“My mom doesn’t understand because influencer marketing itself is a very new field, and she doesn’t see being a creator as a standalone career,” Tran said. “To her, a traditional career means being a doctor, lawyer, engineer or having a corporate job, so if you’re not one of those, it’s like, ‘What are you doing?’”
Outside of familial support, Tran advocates for the importance of a stable support system, especially one outside of the influencer circle. She believes support is detrimental to overcoming fears and anxieties.
“I think my support system is everything,” she said,“The fear of being perceived really scared me from actually posting, and I think it helps that none of my close friends are in the field since it provides that distant support for me.”
Tran credits her long-term boyfriend for much of this support and spoke with gleaming eyes of his efforts. She believes that without his encouragement, she would not have continued to kick-start her social media career.
“I’m happy Michelle’s found a way to express herself creatively and also support herself financially,” said Bryan Ho, Tran’s boyfriend. “It’s been a fun and crazy ride.”
Tran said she has been able to manage her content and stress well because she is on a management team that helps guide her on the organization of scheduled social media posts. She attributes much of her success in content planning to supportive marketing directors who set clear expectations.
“Being friendly and guiding influencers to gear their content toward our branding is fun to me,” said Parker Damato, influencer marketing director at Glossier. “I love seeing Michelle and other influencers talk about our company through the lens of themselves.”
Along with navigating cultural career-path stereotypes enforced by her parents, Tran also struggled to accept her heritage while growing up in the South. She said in college she felt pressured to immerse herself in white culture to fit in, which prevented her from embracing her unique traits, and left her without a strong sense of personal identity.
“I was in a sorority and wanted that culture to be my identity so badly, but obviously our features and culture are so different,” Tran said. “I didn’t accept my Asian features and background until my junior or senior year of college, when I found friends who looked like me and had similar backgrounds.”
The lack of Asian representation in sororities and on campus is also evident at SMU and the experience of feeling alienated as a minority often pressures college women to conform to fit in. Michelle’s content serves as a guide for college women, validating their experiences as they navigate their heritage.
“It is difficult navigating the worlds of being Asian and embracing my culture, but also embracing my American culture,” Annie Liu, a student at SMU, said. “Having influencers like Michelle who’s navigating similar worlds really inspires me by showcasing that it is possible to live a fulfilling life in between worlds.”
Since her undergraduate years, Tran has undergone significant personal growth, especially in her mindset toward her heritage, she said. She has come to recognize the value of uniqueness and the importance of embracing cultural differences. Now, Tran proudly celebrates her heritage by sharing her lifestyle and experiences, honoring her roots with confidence and openness.
“I’m embracing my Vietnamese American heritage more deeply than ever, weaving it into my everyday life and sharing it openly through my content,” she said. “It’s been a journey of reconnection and pride, celebrating my culture in a way I didn’t see growing up.”
With her personal growth and deepened understanding of Asian American struggles, Tran emphasizes the importance of empowering young Asian American girls through authentic representation. She is committed to helping them navigate similar challenges with confidence and resilience and hopes to pave the way for future generations by sharing her heritage and celebrating her roots in her work. Through her content, she aims to create a platform that honors diversity, fosters pride and encourages young girls to see themselves as capable of achieving their dreams.
“I want Asian American girls to know they deserve to see themselves represented and celebrated in every space, including those that feel out of reach,” she said. “My hope is to inspire them to embrace their uniqueness and pursue their dreams unapologetically, even if the path hasn’t been paved yet.”
Tran also plans on continuing to combine her cultural background and professional ambitions by creating content that documents her journey navigating a career in medicine. She aims to prove that beauty and brains can coexist —and that it should be encouraged to excel in both. For Tran, choosing one path would mean sacrificing the part of herself that thrives on writing, editing, and creative expression, while choosing the other would mean giving up her fascination with science. She can not imagine choosing only one, and has come to terms with making space for both, and hopes to promote this mindset to her young female audience.
“I struggled with the idea of this all the time, where I have to choose between medicine and influencing,” she said. “Maybe I don’t have to pick and choose; humans are so multifaceted, and I feel like you can do both.”
As she scrolls through her camera roll in the middle of Glossier, admiring fragments of curated content ready to be stitched together, a sense of familiarity and nostalgia for her passion for media washes over her. She reflects on her childhood.
“If younger me knew what I was doing now, she would be so proud,” she said.