Ashly Perez

6 Reasons Why Ashly Perez Is The YouTube Star The World Needs

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If you haven’t already heard of Ashly Perez then you have been missing out on absolutely golden content.

Ashly is a star and creator of a bunch of viral Youtube series coming out of Buzzfeed and it’s impossible to not love her. The YouTube channel is called Buzzfeed Violet and it’s Buzzfeed’s first scripted character universe. It was created in 2014 by Perez and two others to provide more vibrant and diverse female characters that were lacking a presence in digital media.

The Buzzfeed Violet channel has published over 400 videos, garnered nearly 3 million subscribers and over 1 billion views. Ashly’s character (which is pretty close to Ashly herself) has become a crowd favourite and Perez is now the creative force behind her own spinoff sitcom ‘Unfortunatly Ashly’.

Please allow us to indulge in our new found love-fest with six damn good reasons why Ashly Perez is the kinda’ star the world needs, but probs doesn’t deserve:

1. She’s hilarious

Ashly is like the mate that always makes you laugh. The Ashly of the scripted series feels so natural because it’s Ashly’s own ace banter. It’s this authenticity that makes her incredibly likeable and hilarious. It’s powerful to be able to use your own quirky awkwardness to create humour. Plus, Ashly isn’t restricting herself within the boundaries of what is ‘lady like’ so it’s a nothing-off-limits kind of real life humour.

In a world that still leans towards the predisposition that ‘women aren’t funny’, Ashly Perez is slaying.

2. She invented the hashtag #LadiesMakingThings

In short, she’s a feminist superhero. Ashly does a huge amount of work to promote the joy that is women collaborating with and supporting other women. WE NEED MORE OF THIS. The objective of the #LadiesMakingThings hashtag is to platform the discourse and promote the cause. The initiative is embodied by Ashly herself and she’s super active on Twitter with engaging and celebrating women who are #MakingThings.

 

Ashly gave this advice to fellow women and women of colour in an interview:

“My advice for anyone who wants to do the same, who wants to get involved in media, particularly women and women of colour – you know It’s a hard industry because it’s pretty much all white dudes – so what I would say is, make as much media as you can and don’t let anyone stop you.”

What a gal.

3. She’s a body positivity Queen

As a creator, Ashly is passionate about making space for the diversity of female bodies in the digital media she produces. Her maxim is that beauty doesn’t have to look a certain way. She’s also been mega brave about sharing her own journey with insecurities and body positivity. On her personal YouTube account she shared a personal video opening up about her own experience with insecurity and it’s all the feels.

“I just wanna let you know you’re not alone you’re not the only person who looked in the mirror and thought: ‘am I pretty? Am I worth it? Am I wanted? Am I desired?’ And it’s not that those things are bad it’s that what really batters is that you’re beautiful inside”

This is the kind of attitude we need to see in the media.

4. She’s been an inspiring figure for the LGBTQIA+ community

Ashly announced that she is gay in a very public way. She broke the news in a video titled ‘Coming out’ on the BuzzfeedVideo YouTube channel. It’s a very raw and very real representation of her experience of discovering her sexuality and the video will make your heart freakin melt.

Since coming out Ashly has been an encouraging figure for the LGBTQIA+ community and her character provides a nuanced representation of queerness that is lacking in the media.

5. She’s passionate about more racial diversity in the media

As a woman who identifies as Cuban, Filipino and Korean-American, Ashly is an active spokesperson for race representation in the media. She’s fighting for people of colour to be more than just a ‘diversity quota’, who are too often shallow characters reduced to stereotypes.

The media has a long way to go and Ashly is passionate about the cause, as she says:

“It’s important to see someone who looks different or like you in any way”

6. She is a real life Wonder Woman

Ashly is a director, actor, producer, writer and all round awesome human being. She is Wonder Woman. In a space dominated by men, Ashly is killing it with her savvy business skills and creative intelligence. She’s the queen of viral content because she hasn’t shied away from tackling new challenges. And that’s why she’s the hero we need in the world.

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For fans who want to drink from Ashly’s beacon of wisdom, we have great news for you. We’re hosting Ashly Perez at the inaugural ‘Video Junkee‘ – a festival for lovers of all things in film, streaming, TV and online video.

Ashly will be giving a talk in Sydney on ‘Making viral content that actually matters’ and sharing her tricks of the trade. Check our more details on the session here!

 To get around Ashly in the meantime you can bingewatch Unfortunatly Ashly here.