She quickly makes her way from class and heads toward the softball field to make it in time for a game she has in 10 minutes. In the process of her rushing, the bystanders she passes tries to catch the slightest glimpse of her. The lucky few who see her are taken by her charisma that shines just as bright as her smile; and the even luckier few who meet those glistening brown eyes are greeted with that signature smile
Her name is Ronni Gallegos, a 19-year-old Long Beach native whose a softball playing and honors college student with a diamond heart and a handful of aspirations.
“I’ve been doing softball since I was 5,” Gallegos said.
Aside from softball, Gallegos has an abundance of experience playing multiple sports from swim to soccer to basketball to figure skating. What drew her to committing to softball was her father who played baseball back in high school.
“He had three daughters and he wanted all of us to be apart of softball,” she said.
What further made Gallegos stick with softball were the friendships she made along the way and the memories she created. Plus, she’s really good.
However, Gallegos is not your average college student-athlete. In between softball and her honors courses, she’s also YouTube sensation Ronni Rae with over 15,000 subscribers.
Gallegos first caught the Youtube bug during her final year of middle school.
“I started my first YouTube channel in eighth grade and it was called ‘JustBeForYou'” she said. A shared channel that she had made with a friend at the time.
She had been watching YouTube since she was in the sixth grade and fell in love with the girls who would film makeup tutorials and shopping hauls that would make every girl envy.
“I would pretend to do hauls in the mirror and stuff like that,” she said.
Eventually, Gallegos transitioned from her mirror to her iPad and began uploading her own videos and Gallegos instantly made a following as the charismatic and drop-dead gorgeous Ronni Rae.
On her YouTube channel, Gallegos videos range from topics such as beauty, fashion, and lifestyle. Based on her channel, what separates Gallegos from other YouTubers is her ability to maintain a balance between beauty/fashion and athletics.
“I post softball videos so that brings in a different audience, so I get multiple comments from girls who say that they play softball too, so I have that different relationship with subscribers that other YouTubers don’t,” Gallegos said.
Gallegos’s audience is broad and ranges from girls who share her love of makeup to girls who play softball and sports in general. In her videos, viewers can watch her do an everyday makeup look while the next video might be a blog about how she gets ready for one of her softball games.
Even though YouTubers like Gallegos receive a great deal of praise from their audience members, they also generate harsh critics and cruel responses.
In high school, a group of girls who Gallegos thought were friends, went behind her back and took screenshots of her Instagram posts and YouTube videos, sharing these photos on a group chat where they would talk badly of Gallegos. The hate progressed further. The group of girls created a fake Instagram and YouTube account where they began to flood her comments section with cruel and threatening statements.
She didn’t find out it was that group of girls until after she graduated high school. Looking back she sees the overall experience as flattering.
“I was like, wow they really went out of their way to do that,” she said.
She came to the realization that it was indeed flattering because while they were taking the time to post something so vile and petty, she was on each of those girls minds.
Today, Gallegos doesn’t let the hateful comments faze her. With her ambitious spirit and diamond heart, she plans to continue her time as a student-athlete and hopes to transfer to UCLA the upcoming fall semester.
Gallegos plans to continue her time on YouTube and hopes it will open opportunities for travel and networking. She sees her YouTube videos as practice for being behind much larger cameras as she eventually wants to be a sports commentator on ESPN. That way she can still have involvement with sports while releasing her positive yet charismatic attitude and still look flawless as ever.
“I hope to leave a little sparkle as I go,” she said is her mantra. This was one of the many daily quotes that Gallegos received from her mother when she left her home in Long Beach to play softball at Mt.SAC.
Gallegos does leave a little sparkle wherever she goes. According to one of her greatest friends and softball teammate, Ashley ‘Nikki’ Soto, Gallegos is the friend that everyone hopes for and inevitably needs.
“Ronni’s definitely the friend that everybody should have… she has high energy and is always positive,” said Soto.
She furthers her statements by saying that Ronni’s high energy reflects her kindness towards others which makes it impossible for people to dislike her.
“She gets along with every single person,” Soto said. “I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like her, I don’t know anybody that’s one to talk about Ronni because she’s never mad at anybody… you can’t be mad at someone who’s out of the drama or anything like that.”
Like her family, friends, and followers they cannot wait to see where that girl with a diamond heart will go.
The next time you’re on the Mt.SAC campus or browsing through the videos on YouTube. Be sure to look out for that platinum smile… and you’ll know it’s her when you see her… she leaves a little glitter as she walks by.
