An interview that I have done more recently was with Sarah Kellysen, a YouTuber who also has a passion for singing and has created lots of original music, along with being an actress in a YouTube series called ‘ARTic’. In this interview we spoke about some LGBTQ+ related topics as well as why and how Sarah got into making YouTube videos, and discussing some sticky personal topics that people often question her about.
The only bad thing from this interview, is that I didn’t actually have a microphone at the time and when I screen recorded from my laptop, the audio was muted; but luckily Sarah had the camera rolling from her side and I can hear everything she says in relation to my questions…which is the best that we were going to get from this interview.
HOPEFULLY, if we have any future interviews together, that the sound quality actually works on both sides. The written version of our dialogue is below.
Brandon: How did you start on YouTube?
Sarah: I have been a YouTuber for about 11 years now, and I started out by just doing vlogs, was big on RuneScape and played it like 24/7 when I was 12 years old. I saw people that made RuneScape music videos where they would take pop songs and use the game and the dancing emotes and I would upload those. I recorded them on Hypercam 2 which was high technology at that time, and had a RuneScape clan which I wanted people to join because I wanted to have biggest RuneScape clan EVER.
It was a lot of fun, but then I started recording myself and advertising myself and took part in small commercials. I did commercials on topics such as mentos, how ‘Happy Leap Years’ should be celebrated (this was back in 2008), and then I was also big on acting and did a lot of acting training through my Primary school years. I started to get into acting a lot more and started doing Internet series’ throughout YouTube; such as Drakoloid, Diaries of Alice’s bedroom and ARTic (which I’m doing doing now to this day!!)- as well as Internet films and music videos.
One thing has lead to another, and I have had all of these amazing opportunities over the past couple of years. I really came in at a good time, when YouTube first started and the Internet was ‘coming up’. I really understand the Internet, and had 11 years of training to get better at what I love to do, and I have always wanted to be an entertainer so it’s a dream come true. YouTube has really helped with that to make it possible for so many people.
Brandon: Who were your YouTube inspirations?
Sarah: Like I said, I came from really early YouTube, so I was inspired by a lot of LBGTQ+ YouTubers because they were so themselves back then, and it wasn’t as commercialised so you would see their true authentic selves. I was also a big Britney Spears fan so I used to like Chris Crocker, and he is a true pioneer for any LGBTQ+ YouTuber on this platform. He was the first publicised YouTuber ever, so he truly paved the way for so many YouTubers to come in the future. I remember him being on MTV and stuff, you know, he was on the news, Maury, and he really paved the way.
I have also been getting into more artistic/contemporary artists. I consider ‘Poppy’ artistic. I love her videos and she is very interesting. She is a contemporary artist in my opinion. She doesn’t need to say much, she just does a little at a time, and I think those are the best kinds of YouTubers. She also has her own unique style and I think that’s what the best YouTubers are- not trying to blend in, they’re doing something totally different. I really appreciate someone like her doing that in the YouTube climate, especially when things are so commercialised. Taking your diversity and making it a brand itself is a really impressive thing to do in my opinion.
Brandon: What type of content do you like to create?
Sarah: Ooh, that’s hard, because I go through phases. I’m not the type of person that can just stick with one thing. It’s all lead from one thing to another. The thing is that lately I’ve been doing more music and I’ve also been filming like ARTic and stuff and we’re filming our fifth season; it’s like ‘comedy YouTube’. That is just a hit on the nail, like, you just really hit me there. I don’t know if I could really pick a specific video.
I love vlogging and talking because I do weekend chats on my YouTube channel where I just talk about what’s been going on, in my way; I like doing that. I think I could see me doing that for the rest of my life as well and I really like talking. On there we talk about different topics and I like what’s going on with current events such as the YouTube climate and other aspects of the world. Vlogging is where I started out technically, so that’s where it all begun, and that’s where the foundation of YouTube really comes from, so I guess if I had to pick one, it would probably be vlogging style type videos.
Brandon: How did you start in music?
Sarah: Well I started years ago back like five years ago. I was finishing my other show ‘Diaries of Alice’s Bedroom’ at the time and it was in its last season. This was right before I started ARTic really…and I was asked by the producer if I would like to sing; and we did a musical episode in our last season, and the producer and the writers of that show (which are the same for ARTic), asked me if I was interested in being a singer and would I be able to sing a specific song, and I was given a pop song called ‘Stars for Life’ which is on my channel because I celebrated it’s five years and I just sang it and I went in and it was a lot of fun. Then we began recording a soundtrack for it, so I recorded quite a few songs for that and then that released in 2013.
Brandon: How did you know you were ‘gender fluid’?
Sarah: I think I knew from a very young age, because I was the type of person that would always dress up in something of the opposing gender of who I am. I knew at like three or four to be honest with you. I came out because I wanted to show people who I truly am, because like I said before, I was on two shows where I played a full female, and I played female characters on other shows prior to that. It was a very transphobic climate I would say, and homophobic climate on YouTube back in those days when I started.
You’d be considered a total joke and I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously, which is why I went out like this for so long as a full female. It was just ‘Sarah the female’ and I would have boobs and everything. I decided to come out because I was tired of hiding pretty much and I was like; this is the perfect time, I’m old enough. The YouTube climate is not the same as it once was and it’s a good time to do so even though people still consider me legitimately as a joke. This is who I am and now it’s able to be taken in serious context.
Brandon: For people that call you a ‘drag queen’ or don’t understand being gender fluid, what would you say to them?
Sarah: I think a lot of people classify me as ‘drag’ which I’m really not I would say, because there’s a difference between drag, crossdresser and gender fluid. There’s like a whole spectrum of that, that I can go on for like an hour about but those people really don’t know what they’re talking about because drag is a different thing; like a whole performance aspect. I definitely don’t wear drag makeup because my makeup is not overdone like a drag queen, and drag queens are a whole art piece in many ways, because they wear costumes that are not like things you really would walk out in. I do more of a ‘subtle everyday sort of drag’ if we were going to talk about it in that sense because I can go out like this and I can blend in.
When people are talking about drag, you’re standing out moreso and you’re performing which is a different thing. Here, I’m not always performing and right now this is me being casual and me just chilling out- and I definitely don’t do the drag makeup. Even when I’m doing my performance work and my live sessions, that’s not totally dragged either. There’s a whole culture for that where they lip sync to pop songs, but I have my own music so that’s what I’m doing.
There’ definitely a huge misconception with us, and people don’t undertand these types of people…and even within the community itself, there are people that in my city personally, a lot of homosexual men don’t understand it as well. There needs to be more education on that and the only way people can be educated is if there are more gender fluid people on YouTube, on television and in the media. That’s what I am trying to break ground in right now.
Brandon: Do you try and make LGBTQ+ content?
Sarah: I do try to make that, like I said I do that on ARTic with the topics, and that’s where I mainly do it because that’s on a platform which has a more general audience. Whereas with me, I already know a lot of LGBTQ related YouTuber so they know who I am. In my music, I am more inspired to do it there now and that’s where it truly shows. I have a song called ‘Open UP Your Heart’ which is a song about trying to look at things with more clearer eyes and be accepting of all people and that’ what that song is all about.
Right now, my focus with the LGBTQ content is not on my YouTube channel but more away from my YouTube and instead on my music. I feel like it’s so developed now and I do hope to do more educational videos on gender fluid people in the future, but for now it’s in the music because I want to be an LGBTQ artist for LGBTQ related songs because there’s not much of that out there. Most of my songs are to do with a lot of LGBTQ+ related things.
I think especially with the political climate and with the Youtube climate right now, we need to be more upfront, and I think there are a lot of issues where people have beenscared to talk about it or don’t want to make it the ‘whole thing’ of their channel. It’s very important to speak out, especially small youtubers like us, who are part of the community; need to speak up and be more upfront about it, in order for there to be change.
Brandon: Explain how you managed to be without your phone for a week…?
Sarah: I have a life of my own and I am sick of being addicted to this damn phone, and I wanted to get away from everything for a week Iit was one of the most refreshing weeks ever, waking up everyday and doing things. There was a time that I didn’t have a phone, and I had to think about what I did back then, when I didn’t have my phone. I began finding stuff to do and living life a real, normal adult for a week. I was learning how to cook, I was cleaning and I interacted with more people in my house. I also spoke a lot to my fence builder which I really enjoyed doing, and I learnt a lot during the week. It was nice to not be on social media and having to deal with the YouTuber controversy and all of that stuff, so yeah, it was refreshing.
Brandon: What do you think of the new YouTube rules, including the flagging of videos that are LGBTQ+ or falsely accused of being ‘sexual’?
Sarah: They’re not checking, they’re more just ‘cherry picking’ who they want to pick on and they pick on LGBT YouTubers specifically, and I don’t care what anyone else says; it’s a fact! It’s very obvious as well, and the thing is, my hour watchtime suspiciously went down and I have really high views on some of my videos so I was starting to think, how is this possible; that I don’t even have 100 hours of watchtime?? I called b*llshit on it, and I really just said it for how it is. I began taking screenshots a while back and started posting what they sent me, because I was reporting it as some of my videos got flagged for no reason.
There was this other talk show/podcast that I was involved in within the small YouTuber community where I was with ‘.5 with Tyler’ a.k.a Tyler Gibler, where he said to me that the video they flagged of mine wasn’t even inappropriate and that it was more of a ‘Pick on Sarah’ sort of day. It’s almost like they said ‘Let’s pick on this small LGBT Youtuber, because she doesn’t have a voice, because she doesn’t matter and she’s not welcome on this platform’. That’s what I read that as. They don’t want to admit to their transphobic/homophobic agenda that they have going on and a very descrimintive tory agenda that’s been going on for years, but it’s now showing moreso. I do believe it has a bit to do with the political climate in the states as well. They are an American based, y’know company so that’s where it’s coming from. They’re not afraid to show that now, so it’s just exposing what they’ve always been on the inside.
You know what they need? They need someone who’s pro-LGBTQ on their administration panel, because I don’t think they have that, that’s what I’m getting from this. It’s targeted to a younger audience right?- so, parents are watching as well, and we had a religious group that complained about one of our videos, and they were hating on the video. It got to the point where we had to remove all the comments, because it was getting so hated and ever since then, I know Youtube have been watching. There was also an episode where we dealt with transphobia violence which got completely flagged which wasn’t allowed to be posted/shown anywhere at all. It was a very important message I felt. So, for the one we did for our Season 5 finale, which was about one of the characters coming out of the closet, we actually kind of indirected Youtube about conversion therapy centres and how they don’t really work and a reason why theres a huge ban for it, because of the suicide rate is really high.
We didn’t say anything about the title, didn’t give anything away about the plot and then we posted it to be sneaky about it. That’s what people are doing more often, but this is not a new thing. Chris Crocker specifically would be excluded from things that Youtube would do and you would see all of the main Youtubers at them, including on ‘YouTube Live, back in 2008 and they were all invited, but he wasn’t. He quit Youtube specifically because of the LGBTQ hate on the platform from not only the administration but also the people.
It’s quite sad when someone from the community quits because it’s important to stand strong and fight against it as much as you can, and I encourage anyone in the small Youtuber community who is LGBTQ to listen up; I am so glad you’re here and please stay with us! Don’t quit, we can win against this, we just have to keep showing that we’re there!
Brandon: One thing you would like to change about the world and how people view you?
Sarah: I want to be viewed as someone who is a game changer, who is progressive, who took risks at a time when people like myself were not accepted, and to really break that ground. I really hope that at the end of the day, I am a gamechanger with that, in some way, some form, to help other people to come forward. I think that’s what I am happy doing, and that’s why I keep creating stuff and content. This is why I am still here after 11 years, and still doing things; becoming a ‘gallery artist’, working my way into bigger and better things, and hopefully they will impact the world in the future.
Video interview with Sarah:
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