Arielle Scarcella is a YouTube personality with over 350,000 viewers across two channels. She’s been a dedicated voice to the LGBT community for over 5 years. Although very comedic, her work as always had an undertone of self-love and reflection. The notion that “laughter is the best medicine” is something Arielle adheres to in her videos.  Arielle has been successful in using her creativity to make us laugh and by doing so she talks about relevant topics that matter to our community and can empowers us all.  She’s opening up her life to the world and is taking us along for the ride one video at a time.

GB: So, what made you decide to go into vlogging?

AS: Primarily it was because of my friends, they’ve always thought I wrote funny Facebook statuses and then it transcended to making videos. I remember my first video was about lesbian cougars, I think it might still be up on my channel, but after that video I got a lot of attention from other Youtubers that eventually promoted and shared my videos. Next thing I knew I had like 100 subscribers within a day.

GB: Can you tell me a little bit of your coming out story?

AS: Oh god it feels like ages ago. I was 19, I come from a very Italian family from Brooklyn and when I told my mom she just said ‘Oh I knew already Arielle, and went back to do whatever she was doing. She just didn’t care and you know, didn’t make it a big deal because I’m her daughter and it’s a big part of who I am. It’s funny because my brother came out a couple days after I did.

GB: I noticed that you have brought your mom onto your videos before, what does she think about them?

 AS: She loves it. She doesn’t understand it completely.  We will go out somewhere and somebody will recognize me from online and she will say to me, “they know you from the internet?”  She doesn’t realize how many people are on YouTube watching videos.

GB: What does the responsibility of being one of YouTube’s most prominent LGBTQ influencer mean to you?

AS: I want to inform and help people that are looking for answers about their sexuality or people that need help understanding the LGBTQ community. Were living in times where people are being comfortable with being open with their sexuality and that’s great but unfortunately there are people out there that are not cool with it. If I could help someone come out to their parents or educate a person with one of my videos then I’m doing my job right.

GB: What can we expect from you in the future ?

AS: I want to continue to generate momentum for my non-profit organization, Project Toasty, which I am very excited about and I’m also continuing to build my GirlfriendsTV channel which is where a lot of my new videos will be posted in the future! Please feel free to say hello and leave a comment on one of my videos, I love to get feedback and it’s helpful for me to be able to communicate with you and get ideas for future videos!

Arielle’s videos have helped many people in the LGBTQ community, and they have been featured on Huffington Post, After Ellen, and BuzzFeed. If you want to see more of Arielle, make sure to subscribe to her YouTube channel and follow her on Twitter.