# 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 LGBTQ youth, LGBT rights, as well as social issues including health care, education, and the prevention of suicide among LGBT youth. Oakley regularly posts material on various topics, including pop culture and humor.
Since uploading his first video in 2007 while a freshman at Michigan State University, his YouTube channel has garnered over 683 million views, and, at its peak, had over 8 million subscribers. 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". 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. As of February 1, 2021 he also had more than 5.6 million followers on Twitter and 5.6 million on Instagram.
From March to October 2013, Oakley co-hosted a weekly pop-culture news update – "Top That!" – with Becca Frucht for PopSugar. 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. He has hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook and Tumblr. In 2015, he released his first collection of humorous personal essays under the title Binge, via publishers Simon & Schuster.
Oakley was the host of The Tyler Oakley Show, which aired weekly on Ellen DeGeneres' ellentube platform. In 2017, he was named in Forbes "30 Under 30".

## Early life

Mathew Tyler Oakley was born on March 22, 1989, in Jackson, Michigan. He has twelve siblings. When he was an infant, his parents divorced. 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. Oakley came out as gay in high school.
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. 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.

## Career
### Social media

Oakley is an active user of many social media platforms. A self-proclaimed "professional fangirl", he is a fan of Darren Criss from Glee, along with Julie Chen of CBS's daytime talk show The Talk. He also sang Christmas carols on stage with English-Irish boy band One Direction and television presenter Jerry Springer.
Oakley is known for receiving attention from major celebrities and organizations, such as Liam Payne from One Direction, Chris Colfer from the television series Glee and the restaurant chain store Taco Bell, namely on the social network Twitter after commenting on a previous tweet of theirs or tweeting about them. Due to Oakley's prominence among many social media platforms (particularly YouTube), he was given the opportunity to meet U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House. He did a video with First Lady Michelle Obama talking about education issues.
Oakley attributes his success only in part to his accessibility as a young gay man. "It's not all about me being gay. It's kind of like an underlying theme for me [with gay life] sprinkled throughout the videos." He sees Ellen DeGeneres as a role model: "She embodies what I want my experience to be and my influence to be, where it's a positive one, it's a happy one, it's not something about the bad parts of life or the downsides of a lot of things. She's using her influence for good, and everyone knows who she is, what she stands for, and that she is a lesbian."
The Advocate in their 2014 "40 under 40: Emerging voices" says that, due to Oakley's presence on YouTube, he is the first openly gay person that many people have met. Oakley is considered one of the world's leading Celebrity influencers, having an Influencer Score of 99 from the influencer marketing software Klear.
In December 2020, Oakley announced he was taking an indefinite hiatus from making YouTube videos. He is currently actively streaming on Twitch, and sporadically uploads on YouTube.

### Acting

Oakley appeared on the YouTube Premium show Escape the Night, appearing as "The Thespian" for 10 episodes in Season 2.

### Live appearances

In 2014, Oakley premiered a live show tour, "Tyler Oakley's Slumber Party", featuring him in pyjamas and doing skits, and interactive segments with the audience. His two initial shows in Chicago and in Royal Oak, Michigan in early October both sold out in 72 hours. In December 2014, seven dates, all on the East Coast, made up the next leg of the tour, which was expected to eventually go to 40 cities. Variety noted that the trend of "digital-native stars hitting the road for 'in-real-life' shows" had been increasing. Oakley had been a part of DigiTour's 2014 US Summer tour of YouTube and Vine personalities.

### Podcast

Oakley has a podcast called Psychobabble with his best friend, Korey Kuhl. It launched in 2014 and as of 2022 has had over 400 episodes.

### Television

On screen, Oakley has done appearances on broadcasting platforms, with some airing on national TV. He was seen on Insider Tonight, featuring co-hosts Kevin Frazier and Thea Andrews. He has interviewed live from the 2014 Kids Choice Awards red carpet, along with many other events that have him meeting and speaking to celebrities.
Oakley, alongside best friend Korey Kuhl, competed in the 28th season of The Amazing Race, which aired in 2016. They finished in 3rd place. The two also participated in the 31st season of the show, which began airing on April 17, 2019. They finished in 2nd place.
In 2018, Oakley also appeared on the tenth episode of the tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race, where he was paired with Monét X Change for a makeover challenge.

## Volunteering and charity

Oakley supports The Trevor Project, an organization for the prevention of suicide among LGBT youth. 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.