British Olympic diver Tom Daley made international headlines in 2013 after revealing in an emotionally charged YouTube video that he was in a relationship with another man.
Nearly four years later, Daley is happily married, having tied the knot with Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black in May. The video, meanwhile, remains an indelible part of the 23-year-old’s public persona, having garnered more than 12 million views since its release.
Daley, of course, isn’t the first person to have come out on YouTube. Company officials pointed to a pair of 2006 clips, seen here and here, as two of the earliest examples of LGBTQ people who turned to the video sharing platform just a year after its launch to discuss matters of sexuality. Still, as a public figure, Daley undoubtedly helped usher the concept of coming out on YouTube into the mainstream, as did pop singer Troye Sivan, who came out in a poignant video that same year. These days, coming out videos on YouTube are more popular than ever in terms of both views and uploads, the site said.
While YouTube did not provide specific numbers, officials provided HuffPost with a chart showing a dramatic increase in coming out video uploads since it was launched over a decade ago. Interestingly, August saw the highest number of coming out-related content in YouTube’s history, two months before National Coming Out Day (Oct. 11).