Jane Austen on YouTube is sort of my new Gossip Girl.

One of the reasons I adore Gossip Girl is Blair Waldorf and her well-dressed go-getter self. I hadn’t found a character quite like her until I saw Pemberley Digital’s latest – Emma Approved! The original Austen-ian Emma Woodhouse is already in my list of fictional BFFs because we are annoying in similar ways. I get along with YouTube Emma just as well. Years before this series, I was already making Xandra Approved lists of things like cupcakes. I mean, I have a series in which I tell people what they simply must watch. *wink!*

It started with Lizzie Bennet.

So last year, Hank Green and Bernie Su produced The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is Pride and Prejudice told through Lizzie’s video blogs. [And through the characters’ Twitters and Tumblrs.]. Now Emma Approved is in full swing, the premise being a video documentary about Emma Woodhouse’s wedding planning slash life coaching business, staffed by Alex Snarky Knightly [as nicknamed by Emma], her assistant Harriet, and IT guy Martin. I wish I could get more of an Emma fix than a couple of 5ish minute videos each week, but if you’re a first-time viewer, lucky for you there’s already an archive of episodes to catch up on! Start here:

P.S. If you’re looking for more inspiring fictional females, check out last week’s You Simply Must!