Future Black History Month: Issa Rae's YouTube-to-HBO Success
This year, we’re celebrating an extended Black History Month by highlighting a variety of rising forces who are creating history before our very eyes. As the creator/star/writer of the celebrated online series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, Issa Rae has walked a steady line from URL to IRL stardom. Her show premiered in 2011 and ran for two years, totaling 25 episodes and earning her more than 208,000 YouTube subscribers to date. In 2012, she made Forbes' 30 Under 30 list for entertainers.
More recently, HBO bought Rae's Insecure, a series where she and Yvonne Orji live through "uncomfortable experiences and racy tribulations." Days before this year's Super Bowl, Rae launched Fruit, a 10-part podcast drama told from the point of view of a fictional football player exploring and struggling with his sexuality. “All these alpha-male sports just don’t allow for masculine gay men," Rae told the Guardian. "And masculinity itself is just [so] fragile that I always found it interesting to explore in the sports world."
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