Lindsay Amer is someone we all should be aware of. Their TED talk, launched in June 2019, surpassed one million views within just a few weeks. This seven-minute video, which you should watch or listen to as soon as you can, begins with Lindsay singing and playing the theme song to their four-season YouTube video series called Queer Kids Stuff and ends with a very real entreaty for better LGBTQ+ representation in media and better conversations with kids, to arm them with a better understanding of the world outside the mainly heterosexual-presenting and cis, or normal, gender environment that makes up most media consumed by both kids and adults.

The Queer Kid Stuff video series is very different from the Minecraft streams and political vitriol that makes up a lot of what uncurated YouTube has become. It’s fresh, bright, friendly, upbeat, welcoming, entertaining, and educational. All done with Lindsay, the engaging host, and their co-host, a voiced-over teddy bear, behind a desk covered in letter blocks that spell out words like ‘Intersex.’

Queer Kid Stuff is uncomfortable in a heteronormative world, and that’s the point. Lindsay Amer’s professional theatric and media life has centered around pushing the bleeding-edge boundary of what we’re okay with, backed by a very real urgency: to reach kids who may be struggling now with the sorts of topics they cover in their videos.

Success is weird. What is it about creation and creativity that draws us, pulls at our souls to do something outside ourselves? It’s a wrongness with the world, a missing piece or an injustice or something about yourself that needs to grow and fill the space inside. And what happens when you grow and finish and do and become isn’t always painless and is instead frequently quite painful and difficult.

The simple act of creating anything new in the world is difficult enough, let alone putting into that creation a passion informed by pain and struggle, knowing that hateful, bigoted headwinds are coming and won’t let up for a minute. Still. Lindsay has kept it up for four years and shows no signs of slowing down.

Please enjoy as we explore Lindsay Amer’s verse!

#VerseShow comprises conversations that give voice to creators, their process, their struggles, and the celebrations of their work. It's an interview podcast with a bend toward curiosity about the creative process.