Franchesca Ramsey

Ramsey had been working in graphic design at Ann Taylor when her 2012 YouTube video "Shit White Girls Say...to Black Girls" went viral and led to interviews on the BBC, Anderson Cooper and NPR.[6][8] Ramsey's YouTube channel contains topical and socially conscious comedy sketches and song parodies among other videos.[9] Her chescalocs channel is about natural hair.[1] In 2008, Ramsey won the People/YouTube Red Carpet Reporter contest, which greatly increased her channel's popularity.[10] In 2015, Ramsey became the host of the MTV web series Decoded where she discusses racism and cultural issues.[11] Several of Ramsey's videos have appeared on MTV, The Huffington Post, CollegeHumor, Jezebel, and Glamour Magazine.[12][13][14][15][16] In 2017, the show won a Webby Award in the Public Service and Activism category.[17]

Ramsey has been a target of online harassment, trolling and doxing.[18][19] According to writer Ijeoma Oluo, Ramsey is one of a group of African-American women who "face regular, coordinated campaigns of abuse aimed at forcing them off of the internet."[20]

After winning the People/YouTube Red Carpet Reporter contest in 2008, Ramsey became the target of racist harassment, beginning with a comment thread stalker posting racial epithets. That person then started sending harassing emails to Ramsey's work email address, and then making malware attacks on her employer's email server. The stalker then began posting personal details meant to imply that he was physically tracking and watching her.[19]

Ramsey said she had a good relationship with YouTube personnel in attempting to prevent the harassment, and was selected to participate in a survey of YouTube creators about changes they would like. She said she wanted the ability to block users by IP address, and limit comments to channel subscribers. YouTube did not respond, and the harassment continued. Ramsey discussed minorities being targets of harassment in a 2013 SXSW panel, in which she said she tries to ignore trolls, or hold them up for ridicule, to laugh them off.[21]

Ramsey was one of five YouTubers to receive a US$25,000 grant from John Green's Creators for Change project, to "amplify the voices of people who are not traditionally heard".[22] Green's goal is to help those in a position to speak out and build online communities opposed to hate speech, xenophobia and harassment.[22]

Ramsey says her long experience online has helped her ignore online harassment.[23] She said that she has not hesitated to speak on issues, but has learned to avoid mention of YouTubers by name, speaking in "generalities" instead, knowing that angering a fan base will bring "100,000 twitter messages from children" calling her racial epithets or targeting her husband, or harassing her at work.[23] She advises girls to choose their battles when confronted with harassment or open prejudice, and to find ways to educate individuals in a work environment, and that it gets easier with practice.[23]

In early 2016, Ramsey joined Comedy Central's The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore as a contributor and writer.[24][25][26][27]

Ramsey has also appeared in television series such as Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell[28][29] and Broad City.[27][30]

In April 2017, Comedy Central announced that they were developing a late-night comedy pilot to star and be executive produced by Ramsey.[31]

Ramsey hosted a podcast with her husband Patrick called Last Name Basis where the couple talked about their lives and the world around them. The podcast began in January 2015 and ended as a result of their divorce in March 2019 with a total of 112 episodes.[32][33]

Ramsey's 2018 book Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist is a collection of essays that describes her unintended role as an activist on racism and online harassment after the sudden media attention to her YouTube commentary.[6] She says the book is intended to help others navigate online world, including her own mistakes.[6] She admits falling into 'troll behavior' herself, and writes about why she and others have sometimes used destructive behavior online to deal with offline personal pressures and disappointments.[6] She offers strategies for surviving online abuse, encouraging logging off for a time, and regrets engaging rather than ignoring online harassers.[7]