Tyler Oakley
Mathew Tyler Oakley (born March 22, 1989) is an American YouTuber, actor, activist, author, television personality and Twitch streamer. Much of Oakley's activism has been dedicated to LGBT youth, LGBT rights, as well as social issues including health care, education, and the prevention of suicide among LGBT youth.[2][3] Oakley regularly posts material on various topics, including pop culture and humor.[4][5][6]
Since uploading his first video in 2007[7] while a freshman at Michigan State University, his YouTube channel[8] has garnered over 683 million views, and, at its peak, had over 8 million subscribers.[9] He was featured in the 2014 Frontline investigative report "Generation Like", a follow-up on how teenagers are "directly interacting with pop culture" to the 2001 report, "The Merchants of Cool".[10][11] SocialBlade, a website that rates YouTube and Instagram accounts, ranks his YouTube channel, As of February 1, 2021, with a grade "B", subscriber rank of 1,434th, video view rank at 7,022nd, and a SocialBlade rating of 345,254th.[8] As of February 1, 2021 he also had more than 5.6 million followers on Twitter and 5.6 million on Instagram.[12][13]
From March to October 2013, Oakley co-hosted a weekly pop-culture news update – "Top That!" – with Becca Frucht for PopSugar.[14] From 2013 to 2014, he performed the voice of Mr. McNeely in five episodes of the comedy web series The Most Popular Girls in School.[15] He has hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook and Tumblr.[16][11][17][18] In 2015, he released his first collection of humorous personal essays under the title Binge, via publishers Simon & Schuster.[19]
Oakley was the host of The Tyler Oakley Show, which aired weekly on Ellen DeGeneres' ellentube platform.[20][21] In 2017, he was named in Forbes "30 Under 30".[22]
Early life[edit]
Mathew Tyler Oakley[23] was born on March 22, 1989, in Jackson, Michigan. He has twelve siblings. When he was an infant, his parents divorced.[24] When he was in the sixth grade, Oakley moved to Okemos, and became involved in choir and drama. As a teenager, he had bulimia nervosa.[25] Oakley came out as gay in high school.[26]
Oakley graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in communication, marketing and social media from Michigan State University. While in college, he fell into a short depression after a breakup with a long-term boyfriend. Oakley admits he considered suicide at this time.[25] His college years were also when he first became involved with YouTube, using the video sharing website to communicate with his high school friends, who were attending different schools.[27]
Volunteering and charity[edit]
Oakley supports The Trevor Project, an organization for the prevention of suicide among LGBT youth.[2] He interned with them in 2009, and since 2011 has co-hosted TrevorLIVE, the charity's annual red carpet event. In 2013 he raised $29,000 for his birthday in support of the Trevor Project having aimed to raise $24,000 (because it was his 24th birthday). In 2014, he raised $525,704 in a similar event, and in 2015 he raised $532,224.[40]