But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Outspoken podcast Network.
So I was completely alone in my apartment. I was in the second bedroom. I remember the sunlight coming in and pulling down the blinds and setting up the tripod, and everything just felt like it was moving more slowly.
It just felt really still and quiet, like I knew.
That I was as ready as I would ever be to do this, and I was extremely nervous, but I was just like, the thought of staying the same and continuing this like status quo is so much more terrifying to me than coming out. I wanted to take control of my story and not be a shame. I remember just turning on the camera and I just started talking.
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South, I thought being gay was the worst thing I could ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn that by seeking out our history, and what I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love. In this episode, we'll meet Ingrid Nilsen, who has one of the most viewed coming out videos on YouTube of all time, and we'll learn the impact that the video had on her and an entire generation of young queer people.
From My Heart podcast, I'm Jordan, go and solve this and this is what we loved. Coming out can be one of the most vulnerable experiences that we can have. I remember when I came out, there was so much crying. I felt like I was bringing a shadow into the light, this shadow that I always thought was shameful and horrible, and I was saying, I am that shadow. I can't imagine anyone seeing that moment because I felt so emotionally exposed.
But nowadays a lot of people record themselves coming out and posted on YouTube for the whole inner ned to see, And as of this episode, there are tens of thousands of those coming out videos currently on the platform, and these videos are powerful. They can provide role models to queer kids who might feel isolated. Interestingly enough, four out of the ten countries that watch coming out videos the most are countries where being queer is dangerous. That list
includes countries like Russia and Indonesia. But what about the actual people behind these videos, This really intimate moment now on public display. The comments on these videos are extreme, either people idolizing you or tearing you down. That's a lot for someone who is usually young and who is also just bringing that shadow into the light for the first time. So what are the personal effects of coming out on the internet and why would someone want to
do it? My next guest at one point had the second most viewed coming out video of all time, and after nearly ten years, it's still in the top five. In fact, as of this episode, it's been watched over eighteen million times. Ingrid Nilsen was one of YouTube's early starvloggers. She doesn't post there anymore, but that coming out video she made it lives on and I wanted to know the story behind that video, what led up to it,
and what happened after. We have this thing on the show where we kind of ask everyone like, when did you know you were yay? What was that for you?
Okay?
So the first very clear moment where I was like, oh, this is very different was Tila Tequila's shot it lost.
Yes, I remember that.
I was obsessed with that show and I would sneak it because I wasn't allowed to watch things on MTV or VH one, and so I would sneak it when nobody was around. And for people who don't know Tela Tequila's Shot at Love was a reality show where Tila Tequila is a bisexual woman and she had a pool of people to choose from both men and women, and
they were all vying for a shot at love. It was a dating reality show and there was one contestant who was a woman named Danny, and I had never seen a more masculine presenting woman, and my.
Whole body just like lit up.
I've been watching a lot of Love Island, the UK version, and they say Fanny flutters and that definitely happened to me with like all my teenage hormones running through me, and I just felt it so deeply in my body and I was obsessed. So that was really the first time where I recognized that I had this attraction to another woman.
That was like an awakening for me on so many levels.
So many of us queer folks like have the same experience of like getting our family flutters from like AMTV shows. I remember for me it was Room Raiders, like the gay edition, and my finger was on the remote like ready to change it in the case that my mom walked in or anything.
Was that you two yes, finger on the remote ready like high alert.
I definitely did that too.
So you grew up in California in the two thousands, yep, what was that like as a queer kid?
I mean I didn't have language for it, but I was definitely aware of just being more interested in other girls than my peers were. You know, growing up in southern California. I think a lot of people think, oh, California, is this really progressive place. And there are really progressive places, and also there are many places that are extremely conservative. And I grew up thirty miles outside Los Angeles in
a place called Roland Heights. When I was growing up, the area was really going through this huge shift, and so there were a lot of conservative values, like I remember Prop eight and this is.
The gay marriage vote that California was having eight.
Yeah, and I remember how much hatred there was for gay people. Everybody had signs out in their front yard. It was just so how much people didn't want this. And I think was giving me the message that this isn't okay, Like you need to stay in line with what's expected.
Of you, which was data boy, get married to a boy.
Yeah.
And tell me about your family growing up.
Yeah, So you know, my mom is from Thailand, so especially my mom, being an immigrant, I was expected to be like a good girl and not ruffle any feathers, very much in line with how Asian women are. Their parents want them to move through the world and not really make any waves, you know. She wanted me to have a better life, and a lot of times that looked like being quiet, staying small, et cetera.
I relate to that a lot because I think when you have immigrant parents, it's their whole operating premise is like put your head down, don't say too much, and do exactly what is prescribed in order to be successful exactly. So it's the two thousands, my Space is thriving, YouTube is just becoming popular. How did you then kind of get into YouTube?
I got into YouTube because I started having an interest in makeup in high school and one of the things that my mom could afford to give to me was a subscription to seventeen magazine, and I devoured that thing. Every single month. I would wait for it to come in the mail, and I specifically loved the beauty and style sections, so I would save up my money and
buy things that they recommended. But a lot of times what they recommended were for blonde, white girls, and so I would buy something and it just wouldn't work on me, and I just felt really frustrated. So I started going on just Google, or maybe it wasn't even Google. It was like ask Jeeves or something at that time, Like I just searched online for makeup tips, and I discovered YouTube, which was still so new. It Yeah, So I eventually found these young women in their bedrooms all over the
world talking about the makeup that they were using. They would show what they would buy and then they would show how to use it, and I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. I was finding other mixed race women, women who were living in Asia and were showing like mascaras that worked for their lashes. So I remember that was like a huge game changer for me. It was also something that I really latched onto for a reason deeper than just makeup.
It was because I felt.
Really alone at that time because only a couple years before, my dad had died and my mom all throughout my high school years, she had breast cancer and it was extremely serious and nobody knew if she was going to live, honestly, and so for years I was preparing for my mom to die, and in the middle of my junior year, my dad suddenly died. He went from being totally fine and healthy at the beginning of the week and at the end of the week he was dead.
He had a stroke.
Wow.
Yeah.
And I remember I was really little, I had this nightmare about marrying a boy and I was distressed when I woke up, and I remember I ran to my dad and like curled up in his arms, and I was like, I don't want to marry a boy. And I remember my dad saying to me, well, you don't have to. And I didn't really like think anything of it at the time, but now looking back on it, I see that as a moment of my dad really holding space for me and that moment and not judging it.
And my dad was also my creative champion, So when he died, I really just stopped creating because I was so incredibly grief stricken and I really just felt so alone. And when I found these young women on YouTube just in their bedrooms, like it was like the rest of the world didn't exist for those ten minutes that I was watching that video, and it felt like I was sitting down with a friend and they were showing me all of their makeup, and that was so much fun for.
Me, Like it was sort of an escape exactly.
And I had watched YouTube for a while and I felt like I had learned a lot of things from all of these other young women, and I was like, Okay, well I'm going to post my own because at that time, it really was a community where you could keep track of every creator in all the different genres, not just beauty.
Yeah, and this is like two thousand.
And nine, yeah, and so I had no idea what I was doing, but it just felt good to contribute and give back to a space that had, even at that point, given me so much, and it just kind.
Of grew from there.
It was a strange experience.
It's twenty ten. Ingrid has only been on YouTube for a year, but her following is exploding. She started by posting makeup videos in her room, but then she began expanding her content, documenting her life, talking about dating and stress and anxiety. She was becoming more than a popular YouTuber, she was becoming a role model to hundreds of thousands of young women across the world. They saw her as the perfect all American girl, beautiful and stylish, smart and funny.
She hoped that by living up to this perfect ideal, maybe no one would find out that she was gay.
There was this part of me that just felt really other, almost like somebody was going to find out that I was like a fraud. I think because I was so deeply in the closet, I really reached for this idea of what was perfect. I tried to be as perfect as possible so there wouldn't be anything that anyone could
like pick me apart for. So I think that being on the Internet in my early twenties, I started learning I'm going to be picked apart for anything and everything, and all of this was so new for everyone, and people just expected you to tolerate it. Like if I saw a comment that hurt me and it had to do with like what I was doing or how I was speaking, I would try so hard to like fix myself, but there was nothing I could do to like get it right.
So I just constantly felt like I was like trying to fix myself in order to be like as perfect as possible.
When we come back Ingrid's YouTube following continues to grow, and with it, the pressure to come out in twenty fifteen, Ingrid had become one of the most popular vloggers on YouTube to millions of people. She had the perfect life, complete with a boyfriend. There was something about her that felt so relatable, but to her, she felt like she was hiding a secret from everyone that she was gay, and that secret was building inside of her like a
pressure cooker. The stakes were high for her. YouTube wasn't just a hobby, it was her job, and it was also her community. After years of feeling isolated while grieving her father's death, she was finally starting to feel like she belonged, like she was part of something, and she was afraid that by telling people she was gay, she'd
lose that. So you are at this point building a really big following, like amassing millions of subscribers, millions of views on YouTube, and you're sharing really all of your life with your followers, but you are still closeted. Why do you think at that point you were staying in the closet.
I was definitely afraid. I was scared, in part for my physical safety living my life so publicly. There were times where my personal space and safety were violated, and so I was like, if I come out, Am I putting myself in even more danger? Am I making myself even more of a target for people?
So that was one thought, and then I was also.
Just afraid of being even more isolated than I had already felt like, I felt like, you know, I am finally developing friendships that I feel like could last for a long time, and I feel more confident about myself in terms of business and work and my skills, and
I didn't want to lose all of that. I didn't want people to view me differently in a negative way because I just felt like, well, if they know this thing about me, They're going to think that I was lying to them this whole time, and that I'm a liar and that I am a fraud, and like all of these things that I've been so scared of are going to be true.
I was really afraid that.
My mom would want nothing to do with me anymore, and that was like my one parent that I had left, and even though we had a very complicated relationship, I didn't want her to disown me. So there were a lot of fears just kind of circling around, and every day it kind of felt like a new one. Was like the number one fear. So I just felt a lot of like weight in terms of the repercussions of coming out.
Were you scared that if people knew the truth about you that they wouldn't love you? Yes, including your mom? Yeah, So what was the moment when you thought to yourself, I just can't run away from this anymore.
I hit this breaking point. I at first thought it was because I was so overwhelmed with work, and I remember crying on the phone with my manager at the time, like I was on my couch on the phone crying, saying that I just I needed a break because I was just going, going, going for years, and I just needed to have some kind of separation from this constant schedule that I was in. And I just had this feeling of I need to go to New York. I
associated New York City with really great memories. So I booked an airbnb for six weeks and it was like a fifth floor walk up in the middle of summer, and that's where I really came out to myself because I finally just had space from everything in my everyday life to really just be with myself. I was listening to music, reading poetry, going.
On walks stillness exactly.
And I think just being in a different location, being by myself, having this stillness, there was just no way that I could hide from it. It just became so clear, so clear, like every day it was clearer. And I came back from that trip, and not long after, I broke up with my boyfriend, who I was like getting ready to move in with.
Wow.
So yeah, after that trip, it was just like this domino effect of breaking up with my boyfriend. Then I started going through all my friends and coming out to them, and I was like, I am going to tell my mom last, because that was the person I was most afraid to tell. So when it came time to tell my mom, I honestly felt like I was going to be sick and cry at the same time. And I remember just sitting in her living room and I was like, I have to tell you something, and she was like what.
She was scared, like what do you have to tell me? And I told her that I'm gay. It's something that's always been a part of me. And she sat there for a minute and was quiet, and one of the first things she asked, what does this mean You're going to uh change the way that like you dress and you're not going to be interested.
In makeup anymore.
And I was like, mom, no, like it has nothing to do wow with that.
But she was so supportive.
She was just like, you know, you are my daughter, and I love you and I want you to be happy. She had told me, you know, I just keep remembering what your dad would always say to me, because I was always trying to like control like what you were doing and how you looked. And he was like, our job as parents is not to like own her, Like we don't own our child. We are just here to guide her and you have to let her or be whoever she's.
Going to be.
And I think when I came out, that was the moment where my mom really like stepped into that role.
That's powerful. So basically, now you know, you are out to your friends and your family, but you're not out to your YouTube following what influence do you to come out on YouTube?
The reason why I wanted to share that with my community was because I felt like I couldn't authentically move forward and like continue doing my work without sharing this information because it was such a huge part of my life. And also I wanted to take control of my story. I want to just own my story and not be ashamed of it.
So now walk me through that moment that you came out on YouTube.
So I was completely alone in my apartment. I was in the second bedroom. I remember it was like really warm because I didn't have air conditioning, and the afternoon sun came into that room, and I remember the sunlight coming in and pulling down the blinds and setting up the tripod, and everything just felt like it was moving more slowly.
It just felt really still.
And quiet, like I knew that I was as ready as I would ever be to do this, and I was extremely nervous, but I was just like the thought of staying the same and continuing this like status quo is so much more terrifying to me than coming out. I remember I like, I was like, I can't even style my hair. I'm gonna throw on some red lips because that makes me feel like myself. I'm gonna put
on a striped shirt. And I remember setting up one of my dad's paintings behind me and just feeling like I want to have my dad here with me in this moment, and that was the way that I felt like I could have him with me. So there's this painting in the background of my coming out video that is my dad's, and I remember just turning on the camera and I just started talking.
Okay, I'm doing this.
All right.
I guess I am just.
Going to get right to it.
There's something that I want you to know, and that something is.
I'm gay. It feels so good.
That moment is just burned into my memory.
So I am sitting here today because I care about you guys.
You have been a part of.
My life for the past, you know, almost six years, and this is a really big part.
Of my life.
I remember finishing the filming part of it and already feeling like, okay, like here's one weight that has been lifted, Like I was just getting lighter and lighter with every step that I was taking in the process. And when it came to posting it, I knew that it was going to be extremely emotional for me, and I told my friends, I want to post the video and then run away from it and not look at it, and I want to go on a road trip to Mane and be with my favorite people. And that's exactly what
we did. I remember posting it in my living room the same couch that I had been.
Crying, like on the phone, the same couch that you were crying on the phone with your manager.
Yeah wow Yeah.
And I made it live and wanted nothing to do with whatever the outcome was.
When you look back at your decision to post the YouTube video, what gave you the courage to do that, because it's a pretty remarkable shift from the ingrid that was trying to be perfect for everyone.
You know, I wanted to live my life as fully as possible, and that's ultimately what it came down to. I knew that taking this step, doing something that I had been.
So afraid of, was worth it. Like my body on.
Every level was telling me, you have to do this, like you just cannot hold this in any longer, like you are ready to get this out. And I really felt like that was the first step in this deeper self discovery that then followed.
I want to live my life unapologetically because I'm proud of who I am and I'm not going to apologize for who I am anymore. This is life that I've always lived in my head.
I don't know it's real.
I love you guys.
It's twenty fifteen and Ingrid has just come out to the world on her YouTube channel, and the response was pretty intense. She had instantly become an idol to millions, but she had also opened herself up to a lot of criticism as well. People saw her as the stereotypical girls girl, someone who loved hair and makeup and shopping, and her coming out video broke a lot of stereotypes around the image people had of what a lesbian looks like. At the time, a lot of people couldn't believe that
she was a lesbian. This was all hard for her to deal with, on the one hand, becoming a hero and on the other being questioned about the most vulnerable thing she had ever revealed about herself. So what was the the response like.
Well, I went on this road trip with my friends and one of my best friends to this day, Eileen, she worked with me at the time, and I remember at one point she was like, it hadn't even been twenty four hours and she was like, oh my god, it has like a million views and it hasn't even been a day. And I was just like, I don't want to know anything. I was like, don't tell me anything. So all my friends respected that and so it wasn't until I returned from that trip where I was just like,
what just happened. I come back and it has like millions of views. I'm getting tweets from so many people, people reaching out to my management, like offering book deals, people reaching out in the creator community, being so supportive. So it was just like stepping into a whirlwind that I just was not expecting at all, And it was a really strange experience, honestly, Like, I don't think going viral is like something that our bodies or minds are really.
Equipped to handle.
And I think a lot of people associate going viral with being a really good thing and being really exciting. But for me, knowing that so many people I didn't know, strangers, straight up strangers who had never watched a video from me before, we're seeing this video and weighing in on it, like articles were being written about it, and I was just like, I felt so vulnerable and so exposed. And so that was a lot for me to just take in mentally and emotionally, and also dealing with the comments.
There were so many comments telling me that I was a liar, that I was just doing this for attention, that I don't look a.
Because people were sort of unable to deal with the fact that you didn't fit their stereotype of what a lesbian looks like.
Yeah, exactly.
And after sharing something so personal personal and then getting that response of like, you're a liar, you're a fraud, You're like doing this for attention, we don't believe you, which really fed into, you know, this.
Core fear that I had that really hurt.
And I think that I'm still unpacking all of that even now, ingered.
What did you learn about yourself with all of the exposure that came from this experience.
You know, I spent all of my twenties sharing my life online, which is one of the most tumultuous decades of I think a lot of people's lives, and I really just had to figure it out in front of people. And now I've really just relaxed a lot more into who I am. You know, after coming out, there was this period of time where I felt like I had to prove my gayness, my queerness, that I am a real lesbian. Like I was so worried about do I look gay enough? How is anybody going to be able
to tell that I'm gay? Because of like how I look. And I've realized that for me, queerness is so much more than who I'm having sex with and how I present to the world physically. It's how I live my life on multiple levels.
It's how I spend my money.
It's how I vote, it's the people that I surround myself with.
Everything.
It is really expansive. And so once I stopped equating my queerness with just how I looked, I started to relax more because I was just like, I know that I am so queer, I am so gay.
So you're saying that what you learned is that you define your queerness, yeah, and not anyone else.
Yeah.
So you know you at the same time are getting a lot of this backlash around coming out, but there are millions of people that are getting inspired by this video. I want to read you a comment. Actually, I'm thirteen years old and I'm a lesbian. I've never said this before, and I'm terrified of telling my parents, but your video has inspired me to come out. What does that mean to you?
I mean it kind of makes me want to cry because I just like feel myself in that comment. I think that as human beings, all we want is to love and be loved and to have a positive impact.
On just one person.
In our lives, and that is one person whose life is being impacted in a positive way. And to know that there are so many more of those people out there, it's just like overwhelming for me in a really huge way.
That's it's just so much bigger than myself. It's one of my proudest moments, and I think it was resonating with people because they hadn't seen someone like me before and someone was finally speaking to them, speaking at the very least a part of their language, like hitting something inside of them, touching something inside of them that hadn't been touched in quite that way before.
There's still so many young queer people that are in the closet and that are looking for that inspiration, looking for that courage. What do you say to them?
You have it inside of you.
That courage is there, and everything inside of you will tell you when it's time. For me, it was that moment where staying the same became scarier than making the change. And that's going to look different for everyone, but everyone has that courage inside of them, and it's just the beginning, Like I get older and life just keeps getting better, and I want people to know that's what's in store for them, like this big, expansive, full, beautiful life.
But We Loved is hosted by Me Jordan Gonsolvis. New episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in to tell your story, email us at Buttweloved at gmail dot com, or send us a message on Instagram or TikTok at butt we Loved. We are a production of The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshino Zaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
are Me, Maya Howard and Katrina Normal. Fact checking by Marisa Brown. Original music by Steve Bone special thanks to Jay Bronson and Roquel Willis. If you loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.