Tyler Oakley

On YouTube, if anything, coming out as gay or bi or trans explodes someone's popularity.

Nowadays, if somebody in America is feeling alone and wants to find a coming out story, they just search 'coming out,' and they'll find millions of first-person examples of people telling their story.

In middle school, I was really into the 'Redwall' series, about anthropomorphic rodents in medieval times. I had a bowl cut, too, if you need the full imagery.

I remember a distinct moment when it was my junior year of college, and the content I was making was changing and not really myself, and I tried to switch back to just putting me out there. I'm happy that happened really early in my career, because that was before I started doing podcasts or writing.

Since the beginning, I have always tried to just be me. There have been moments in my career as a YouTuber where I've recognized that I'm trying to emulate something else, or I'm being heavily influenced by a YouTuber or something like that, and I realize that's not what I want to be putting out.

I think that it's really important to step back and to take breaks as a digital creator because every other kind of platform is kind of set up to have seasons or time off or at least a barrier between creator and consumer. You have these set-up boundaries.

In elementary school, I loved the 'Bailey School Kids' series. It was about a group of classmates who would speculate whether adults in their lives were supernatural beings. I read literally every single book in the series.

All the money that's donated to the Trevor Project provides resources that directly affect the youth that actually watch my videos. It's a cool thing to see them basically provide resources for each other.

A lot of YouTubers get that mainstream celebrity, they get these big deals, maybe a book deal or a TV deal or whatever it is they aspired to do, and they kind of abandon ship on what got them to that point.

There's something about YouTube, where you're not being anybody but yourself. You have the opportunity to start as yourself from the very beginning. From the very first video, you choose what you say, and you choose what's right and wrong for your presentation of yourself.

There are so many voices on YouTube, and there are incredible creators that are popular for a reason. And although it's great to be inspired by them, nobody is going to subscribe to a second-rate version of them. It's really important to put your best foot forward and be your best self because you will always be the number one version of you.

Once you dye your hair for the first time, you see other people with dyed hair, and you see them differently than you did before. And you're just like 'Yes! Live! Work that color! Yes, I love you in every way! You're killin' it! I want to do that color next!'