This past week featured a day that is very special to many queer people and that day is National Coming Out Day! It is a day that both celebrates queer people finding the courage to be themselves while also being hopeful for those who aren't able to come out, and in honor of that day, I wanted to share my favorites of a modern queer pastime: the YouTube Coming Out video! So, here are 11 of my absolute favorite coming out videos!

1. "I'm bisexual - a coming out song!" by Dodie Clark

Dodie Clark is one of my favorite YouTubers and musicians, and her quirky personality is chief among the reasons why. Although this video is not the first time she has spoken about her sexuality, it is the first time she has been openly bisexual on her main channel. Dodie, rather than making it the typically dramatic moment, comes out via cheeky song sponsored by Skittles in order to support Pride Month! It's an adorable and happy video, and its all the more wonderful because Dodie also made it with the intention of letting her LGBTQ+ viewers send it to their loved ones as a means to come out as well!

2. "My Sexuality" by Evan Edinger

Evan Edinger is a more recent subscription but I love him all the same! Although he is American, he does live in the UK and actually used to be flatmates with Dodie Clark. He hasn't spoken very much about his sexuality, but his coming out video is one of the most honest and frank coming out videos I've watched in recent years. One of the unique things about Evan's video is that he comes out as demisexual, which for the uninitiated is a sexual orientation characterized by a lack of sexual attraction towards another person unless a deeply emotional or romantic connection develops or exists. This is not to be confused with the restraint of sexual activity until such a connection exists. One of the things that I love about his video is that it shows the broad spectrum of sexual diversity among the LGBTQ+ community: our sexual identity is not just who we love, but how we love and under what conditions we express that love.

3. "Coming Out" by Connor Franta

I love Connor Franta. I will admit, I initially started watching his videos because I thought he was cute, but after he came out, you could really tell how much happier he was and he really came into himself. He slowly started to include more artistic content in addition to the standard YouTube entertainment. His coming out video is emotional, and was obviously difficult to make, but it shows a special sense of progression for him, especially to people familiar with Franta's work, when you notice that he has moved from denying his sexuality in a video to embracing being gay and being remarkably open about it in videos a few years later.

4. "Coming Out" by Troye Sivan

As much as I love Troye Sivan being a successful musician, videos like this make me miss him as a YouTuber. This was the video that pushed me to come out to my friends in high school, and part of why I watched it on repeat was because Troye was so close to me in age. He's only a couple of years older than me, and to see another teenager be so candid and matter of fact about his identity as a gay man was just so astounding to me. It's simple, sweet, and everyone loves hearing Australian bari-tenor voices anyway, right?

5. "Coming out... I can't keep this a secret anymore" by Jay Versace

I wish I watched Jay Versace more because I NEED to. If you don't know who Jay Versace is, Jay is most famous for his totally hilarious vines that you should go watch, but he has recently begun making YouTube videos as well! What I love so much about his video is that he just doesn't care. From the get, he makes it very clear that he's tired of homophobic, heteronormative bullcrap and that he is not about to let mess like that decide how he should live his life. He doesn't really specify a label and prefers not to label his sexuality anyway, so the most I would say is that his sexuality is "I don't care".

6. "Something I Want You To Know (Coming Out)" by Ingrid Nilsen

If there is a quintisential coming out video that perfectly emblemized what it is like to have to tell someone something so important to you that it hurts, I wholeheartedly will always think of this video. There is something about coming out that is both exciting and terrifying in ways that are both exhilerating and emotionally draining. Watching Ingrid tell her story and describe her journey to the world reminds me so much of the first time that I ever told someone that I was gay and the literal burning fear that came with it. I ugly cried watching this video and to be honest, I still do. If you watch one video on this list I would totally recommend this one.

7. "TRANSGENDER COMING OUT GUIDE" by Alex Bertie

This one is a little different because it is less a video about Alex coming out and more about Alex helping others figure out how to tell others about their own gender identities. The video itself is incredibly educational and filled with all sorts of useful information about coming out as a whole even though it is from the perspective of a transman about coming out as trans. That being said, the basic template used is pretty malleable for any coming out circumstance.

8. "I'M NON-BINARY?" by Jake Edwards

Jake Edwards, who is also the romantic partner of Alex Bertie, initially came out many years ago as trans and has operated from that perspective. However, he most recently came out as non-binary in an incredibly thoughtful video detailing how our understandings of who we are can change when we become more comfortable with who we are already. In Edwards' case, after some time partaking in hormone therapy, they began to reexamine their previously complex feelings about femininity in ways that allowed them to experiment with femininity on their own terms. This newfound comfort naturally led to further questioning about where they felt they stood in terms of gender, and in the end, Edwards felt it was necessary to amend their identity. Part of why I love this video is that it fully accepts that people change in unique ways and that it is okay for that change to occur.

9. "My Sexuality" by Ricky Dillon

Ricky Dillon is another one of my favorite YouTubers for the sole reason that he is just really fun. He's sweet, goofy, really into nerdy stuff, and is all about positivity in the best kind of way, so it is very rare for him to get particularly serious in a video. That being said, his coming out video is one of my favorites because it isn't just about telling people about his sexuality but also part of him figuring himself out as well. He doesn't really label himself for the most part but did make note that the closest descriptor he identified with was asexual.

10. "I'm Bisexual " by Shane Dawson

Shane Dawson is one of the most prolific and well-known YouTubers in the business, so it made huge shockwaves when he came out as bisexual in an extremely vulnerable and honest video. Part of what I love so much about Shane's video is that he doesn't just give you the standard details one would expect from a coming out video. Rather, he goes into detail about his sexual confusion and about how his issues with his sexuality bleed into other parts of his life. Sexuality isn't easy and it isn't simple, at least not for everybody. His video is heart-wrenchingly real and, in my opinion, at least, provides a really open window into what life for LGBTQ+ people looks when it comes to understanding their sexual identities.

11. "Coming Out | This Is Who I Am" by Matthew Schueller

This video is by far my personal favorite coming out video. There's nothing profoundly unique about it, nothing that makes it any more hopeful or devastating than any other coming out video, but it is the one that I have the deepest emotional connection to. I mentioned earlier that Troye Sivan's video is the video that got me to come out to my friends in high school. This video is by Matthew Schueller, who is gay, is the one that talked me off a ledge. Early on in my journey to figure out who I was, I was totally and utterly ashamed of being gay, and it was just part of the territory of living in the South and living in a religious home that does not happen to be open and affirming. Unsurprisingly, this promotes unhealthy mental attitudes and I found myself constantly anxious and depressed (I still do but for very different reasons, we might tackle that in a different article). I found myself searching for something that made me feel like what I was feeling wasn't unreasonable or unheard of and I happened to find this video made by a college student who chose to defy what was expected of gay people of faith and affirm both aspects of his identity. The video is frantic, impassioned, and everything I needed, so I like to hope that it will be the answer to someone else's needs as well.