My top 10 youtubers of 2013
This is my personal top ten list of the You Tubers that have influenced me in 2013. I’m an avid You Tube watcher and I will admit that I can lose an hour of my day catching up with my favorite channels. So I decided to create this list of my top ten. This list is of the people that have influenced me one way or another this year. It was very hard for me to pick just ten so I’ve added an honorable mention list towards the end. When I start posting my own videos again this year I hope I will be able to make as strong an impression as theses talented ladies.  Â
10. FusionofCultures: I stumbled upon this fabulous natural hair vlogger  two years ago when I was trying to find tutorials on better natural styles. I had been natural for a while and the only styles I had mastered were two strand twists, flat twist, Afro puffs, and my awesome Fro-Hawk. A friend of mine that favored relaxed hair made a statement that natural hair was not styleable,  could not look professional in the work place, and was a juvenile hair choice that looked silly on the over 30 set. I decided I was going to prove her wrong, and in my search for fresh new styles I stumbled upon Laila Jean’s channel and creative hair tutorial. I think she taught me my second pinup protective style and helped me realize natural hair is more versatile then most people know.  Check out one of her latest pinup styles here
9. Andrea Lewis: Ok so I use to watch degrassi the next generation the secrets out. I know I was an adult when the show aired, but in my defense I use to watch the original Degrassi when I was a kid and they reeled me in with the whole baby Emma going to Junior high now. When I watched the show I really liked Andreas character Hazel. I liked her so much when they phased her character out I made a point to keep up with her on line. I first found here on youtube when she was doing Those Girls Are Wild with her friend Shannon. I always enjoyed watching her music and there fun video’s.   Since then they have separated and Andrea has gone on to accomplish her dream of creating, producing, and staring in her own youtube show Black Actress. On her personal channel she gives a lot of advice with her Self Love Saturday videos. She’s really inspiring and positive person to watch.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHr1QkzuriQ&feature=share
8. AndreasChoice: This girl is just loads of fun. I love her videos because the editing is phenomenal. She’s really creative with DIY’s, hair, and makeup. Her energy is really happy and positive. I tend to float towards people that are positive and upbeat so I also do that when watching You Tube. I always feel like if I watch one of her videos at the beginning of the day I’m more upbeat and energized. The first video I watched of Andrea’s was how to lighten your hair with honey. I was searching online trying to find a natural way to dye my hair. Andrea has African American in her heritage so I figured this could work for me too. Check out the video here. http://youtu.be/ddY6mHt0Lzo
7. My Natural Sistas: These sisters are real life sisters that truly know what they are doing. I first came across their channel because of the wedding video of India & Lillo. They made me throw out any ideas I had for my wedding and model my wedding ideas after there’s. It was just so beautiful I couldn’t help it. The sisters have a wide range of videos on natural hair for long, medium, short, and color treated. They have health and nutrition videos and one of the sisters Carmen is a Certified Personal Trainer! If you are in the Huston Texas area you should check her out. I would but I’m stuck here in Chi-raq so hopefully I will lose weight dodging bullets… I kid, I kid.  Check out this awesome smoothie video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNJSIGWgAgk&feature=share&list=PL7cKSUvItjmxvkRmopw_5QQgOErWXz4kX
6. Communitychannel: Natalie Tran is one of the funniest people I have every come across in my entire 32 years of life. I’m just going to let her videos speak for themselves. http://youtu.be/zRyf23boUO4
5. Shameless Maya: She has the confidence I wish I had. I know it’s in me. Maya wasn’t always shameless too she had to push herself out there. For a year Maya made herself push beyond her fears and came out the other end a stronger person she’s a real inspiration.  I first heard about Shameless Maya through Andrea Lewis channel. They were doing the shameless promotion segment and asked others to shameless promote what they do and their video would be featured on those girls are wild channel. Maya’s videos have some of the best editing I’ve ever seen on You Tube. Good editing is a must for me to watch most You Tube videos and often a deal breaker. Maya covers every topic you could think of. I got to meet up with her in the Chi before work. She’s Just a warm kind person to be in the presence of. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXweKDgxwXE&feature=share&list=UUKMqrQHftdwuLPkK1nveVfw&index=2
4. Toyaboo: The first time I watched a Toyaboo video she made me cry. I became a fan from then on. She was talking about her struggles with hair and her natural hair Journey and she was just so honest and real that I had to keep up with her and her growth. Today she is a confident and happy actress that just moved to L.A. to further pursue her acting. She uses to reside in Chicago where I’m from and we use to work right across the street from each other. I never formally introduced myself to her, even though we passed each other on the street a bunch of times. I always punked out. Once I sent her a message asking her to do my makeup for my wedding, but she had another engagement out of town. I think really highly of her and I always felt that if we met we would be friends.  I think her genuine honesty is what keeps me watching all of her You Tube channels about hair, fitness, and life. http://youtu.be/IR70oe5-uFo
3. Issa Rae: everyone knows about all the accomplishments Issa Rae has made in a short period of time. I first became a fan of the series the misadventures of awkward black girl. Since then she has brought us a multitude of exceptional black programming to You Tube. What Issa is doing is very important. Regular TV was lacking programming that showed African Americans as we are complex human. We are just like everyone else with the same problems. She’s making more opportunities and opening more doors for Black people. Plus her shows are relatable to anybody from any background.   http://youtu.be/kmFHRgl2pek
Â
2. Naptural85 aka DearNaptural85 aka StyleByNap85: Ya’ll know I love me some Miss Whitney. Nobody better say anything bad about Miss Whitney or I might have a fit. That’s my girl for real. I love everything she does from hair style tutorials, Lifestyle blogs, cooking for her adorable family and most recently DIY’s. Her daughter Olivia is so cute. A lot of things she’s done for her daughter I’ve passed on to my sister.  My sister does not have time to watch her videos and she says they are way too long but seeing as she has 367,759 viewers on her Naptural85 channel alone I don’t think too many people are complaining.   http://youtu.be/xWlnrc2cDno
1. Talia Joy Castellano: Talia was sent by God to bring awareness to childhood cancer. She was wise beyond her years and very special. It hurt me so much when she started to transition into the next life and passed away on July 16th this year. She was very strong and positive despite what she was going through. She was always smiling and making goofy faces. Whenever I felt like I was having the worst day I would see one of her videos and she would be smiling it up. She was going through a lot of pain and sickness, depression and loss. Loss of a normal childhood outside of a hospital bed, and loss of her other friends she had met suffering from the same illness. Talia shined like a light despite her problems and her smile would make all your sadness melts away. I’m really going to miss her, but I know she’s an angle watching over us in heaven and I will see her again. Here is the first video of Talia’s that I ever watched. I clicked on it because I wanted to know why that little kid had a bald head. I knew about childhood cancer but it was something about that pic that drew to me. http://youtu.be/rZ5-vxzx3dY
Honorable Mention List
chubbycurl 