About

Coming Out Videos are recordings of long-time closeted lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) individuals openly revealing their sexual orientation and/or gender identity to others for the first time.

Origin

One of the earliest known coming out videos on YouTube was uploaded to the site in September 2007 by YouTuber EatYourPeas18, who reveals in a short monologue that she is a lesbian. After her mother requested the video be removed, she reuploaded the footage on the channel VivaLaRevolution18 (shown below).

Spread

On January 11th, 2011, Kayla Kearney posted a video of herself coming out to her high school (shown below, left). Within five years, the video garnered more than 1.4 million views and 2,200 comments. On August 20th, 2013, YouTuber Lucas Cruikshank uploaded a video in which he comes out as gay, accumulating upwards of 4.8 million views and 22,800 comments in three years (shown below, right).

On October 11th, YouTuber myISH uploaded a compilation of 7 notable coming out videos on YouTube (shown below, left). On December 2nd, English Olympic diver Tom Daley posted a video on YouTube in which he reveals he is bisexual (shown below, right). Within three years, the video gained over 11.7 million views and 4,300 comments.

On February 14th, 2014, the Human Rights Campaign YouTube channel uploaded footage of actress Ellen Page coming out as a lesbian on stage at the Time to Thrive conference (shown below, left). On August 27th, a friend of then 19-year-old Georgia resident Daniel Pierce uploaded a video titled “How not to react when your child tells you that he’s gay” to YouTube. In the video, Pierce informs his family that he is gay, to which they respond by telling him he will have to move out of their house before physically and verbally assaulting him (shown below, right).

On January 14th, 2015, the brothers Aaron and Austin Rhodes posted a video of themselves coming out as gay to their father over the phone (shown below). In the first year, the video received upwards of 21 million views and 68,300 comments. On January 21st, the brothers appeared as guests on The Ellen Show to speak about the experience (shown below, right). The following month, the YouTube trends blog^[1] published an article about coming out videos on the video-sharing site.

Search Interest

External References