| “ | You don't encourage people to take care of their body by telling them to hate it. | ” |
―Laci Green | ||
Laci Green (born: October 18, 1989) is an American YouTube vlogger, educator, and feminist activist.
Green was born in Utah and had a Mormon upbringing. She left the Mormon community citing its conservative gender roles. Having discovered her interest in sex in an early age, she started to create sexual education YouTube videos in 2008, and in the coming years, also made videos on sexual orientation, body image and feminism. She has made content of a similar nature on behalf of Discovery News and Planned Parenthood. To promote her activism, she spoke in universities.
YouTube Career[]
In 2014, she helped raise attention on sexual assault accusations levied against Sam Pepper, and was a partial contributor to his damage in reputation. She also hosted a web series called MTV Braless. From 2014 to 2017, her feminist videos were subject to heavy criticism from a then-thriving anti-feminist and anti-SJW community on YouTube. Her reputation among this group improved upon her desire to converse with YouTubers like Blaire White, but feminist YouTubers criticized her for entertaining people in that community. In later years, she has become less active on YouTube and social media in general, though she does occasionally post.
Green's videos and activism have gained her recognition outside YouTube. In 2016, Time named her one of the 30 most influential people on the Internet and she won a Streamy Award for Science and Education. Her YouTube channel has more than 1,400,000 subscribers.
Other Channels[]
Laci created her first YouTube channel gogreen18 in 2007. Her videos were originally focused on atheism. Later, she took more interest in the effects of her experience with religion and she started her social justice project called "Sex+".
Laci was one of the hosts of DNews, a YouTube channel with short science-based shows, launched by the Discovery News website. She hosted Braless, the first MTV YouTube channel, as part of a 12-week deal with MTV. The first episode aired November 4, 2014. The channel was quietly shut down.
Early Life[]
Green was born in Utah into a Mormon household. Her mother is from a small American town and her father is from Iran. When she was two years old, her family moved to Portland, Oregon, then to California when she was 12 for her father's job. Her interest in sex education arose during a trip to a library in Portland.
Green was involved in the Mormon community when she was younger. As time progressed, she began to question the Mormon faith because of its strict gender roles and expectations of her as a woman. As a consequence, she decided to leave the church, but fell into a state of deep depression, and struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts. She began to work with a therapist who helped her through her depression.
In 2011, Green graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in legal studies and education.
Activism[]
As a sex educator, Green has given lectures at several universities and on behalf of Planned Parenthood. On January 18, 2013, she appeared on Dr. Phil in an episode titled "Girls Who Bash Girls Who Dress Sexy". She spoke about why she believes that slut-shaming is wrong and how it is used to degrade a woman's sexuality.
Green advances the sex-positive movement in her videos and lectures. She has said that she wants to "get people to talk about sex in a way that isn’t shameful, awkward or weird. People are uneducated and this creates so many stigmas that don’t need to be there."
After fellow YouTuber Sam Pepper posted a video of himself grabbing women's bottoms, Green wrote an open letter, co-signed by several other YouTube vloggers, asking him to "stop violating women". Channel 4 and the BBC interviewed her about sexual harassment in the YouTube community.
Personal Life[]
Green was in a relationship with fellow YouTuber Chris Ray Gun in 2017, but ended their relationship in 2019. Green is an atheist, though occasionally attends the Unitarian Universalist church. She identifies as bisexual.
Green now lives in Los Angeles.
Controversy[]
Harassment[]
In 2009, Green made a parody of Chris Crocker’s “Leave Britney Alone” video in which she urged haters to “LEAVE THE TRANNIES ALONE”. She removed the video after less than a day due to the negative backlash. Green apologized, stating that she had been ignorant about the pejorative nature of the term, but she continued to receive harassment and even death threats. Years later, three activists confronted her in a parking lot after a conference and threatened her with violence.
After sharing her weight loss journey, Green received negative backlash and accusations of fatphobia. She has also been prosecuted by religious communities for her criticisms of Mormonism and Islam. As an outspoken feminist, Green has also been subjected to harassment from anti-social justice warriors.
In 2017, Green reached out to some of her critics on Twitter. Soon after, she released a video titled "TAKING THE RED PILL?" in which she stated that some of the points made by these critics were more valid than they’d previously seemed and she announced her intention to have live stream debates with critics of identity politics, gender identity, and modern feminism. This decision was met with heavy criticism from the feminist community.
Feud with Sam Pepper[]
In September 2014, Youtuber Sam Pepper uploaded a controversial video titled "Fake Hand Ass Pinch Prank". In the video, Sam would go up to women and ask for directions before pinching their buttocks. Soon after the video was published, many people online claimed to have been sexually harassed by Sam in the video, which soon gained mainstream media attention. Subsequently, the hashtag #ReportSamPepper trended on Twitter, along with many people criticising Sam's actions.[1] Sam released another video a few days later where women would go behind men and pinch their buttocks. On the same day, he published another video claiming that his first prank was a "social experiment" and that the video was "staged and scripted" with actors, the online claims of "participants" having been fake. He went on to say that bringing attention to the issue of sexual harassment was "the focal point of the experiment", with the harassment claims online untrue jokes.[2] Sam removed both of these videos from YouTube shortly after.
On September 25, 2014, Laci Green consequently published a video called "Sam Pepper Exposed", addressing the online harassment allegation campaign on Sam. Green also wrote an open letter calling on Sam to "stop violating women and making them uncomfortable for views".[3] The letter received more than 100,000 signatures. On October 16, 2014, Laci made another video called "Sam Pepper Exposed 2".[4] Also that, multiple women came forward and accused Sam of sexual misconduct, including soliciting nude photographs from a minor, inappropriate sexual contact, and rape.[5] But still, Pepper was not arrested.