From the same guys who brought you the diversity problem in tech, there is now the diversity problem in tech YouTube! Catchy opener attempt aside - this isn't going to be a huge rant or invitation to debate about diversity, it's just a short blog post about suggestions for YouTube channels to follow that aren't already-popular white men.
But before any comment trolls come yelling about 'forced diversity' - I did not come across these channels because I typed 'i hate white men >:(' into the YouTube search bar.
Sylvia@sylviapapdev
the volume in this bus22:03 PM - 24 Jun 2020
Trust me - I have seen a lot of tech YouTube. The Tech Tube, as they say. There are a lot of great white men on here, with a lot of followers and subscribers already! And then there are a lot of really great channels featuring women and POC, with way less subscribers, views, etc.!
I found all of these YouTubers because most of them have the less traditional path to tech involving bootcamps or self-instruction, and have struggled with imposter syndrome due to being a minority in tech. While I 110% acknowledge my white privilege - I am still a woman in tech, and hearing other people talk about how they also struggle with feeling like they don't 'belong' in this industry is relatable and motivational.
This is NOT a criticism of anyone or anything (except the obvious diversity problem in tech). But I have seen a lot of posts like these:
- 10 Web Development YouTube Channels You Probably Didn't Know About
- 10 Youtube Channels To Follow As a Junior Web Developer / Designer
- 20+ Developer YouTube Channels To Follow
Again - everyone in these posts/lists is great. The posters of these lists are great. I follow a lot of them. I enjoy their videos. But almost 100% of these are white men. So I just thought I'd do my own version of great tech YouTubers you might not have heard of.
Final argumentative point - 'diversity and inclusion' does not mean forcing an unqualified person into a company or your YouTube feed just for the sake of it. It's to give people who are just as, if not more, qualified, a fair chance, within a system that has made it harder to reach the same level of success. I could really get into the research on this, but this is just a blog post about YouTube, so... not yet.
One more note - I came across most of these back when I was still in the 'Should I go to bootcamp?' phase of life. So if you can break up 'tech YouTube' into two categories, one being these more informal, vlog types, and the other being tutorials with step-by-step instructions on how to code something specific, these channels are more relevant to the first category, but some of them certainly have both.
Ok, all of that being said - here are some of my favorite YouTubers, that I haven't seen on other popular lists, with a special focus on women and BIPOC.
Senegoddess
I especially enjoyed her 'day in the life' videos. Those can be a controversial sub-genre on the tech tube lol because a lot of them just show people eating free snacks in nice lounges. But I felt like hers were more realistic.
The Come Up
Self-taught SWE, no bootcamp, no CS degree, did Recurse Center. Also a lot of personal finance tips!
Jarvis Johnson
Actually not really a tech YouTuber anymore :'( but probably just one of my overall favorite YouTubers who used to be a SWE and were some of the first videos I watched back when I was deciding whether or not I wanted to make this career switch.
Mayuko
Also really enjoyed her 'day in the life' videos.
Amigoscode
CodingPhase
Jabrils
I especially enjoy his machine learning tutorials
Ijemma Onwuzulike
Dummy Codes
Special shoutout to a fellow Sacramento resident - we are the Bay Area Lite
Nicole Young
Conclusion
Small side note, but I only chose the number 10 here because that's what the majority of other posts of this type seem to do lol. There are obviously so many amazing YouTubers out there. Too many for anyone to list.
Final food for thought: there are probably some very interesting cases to be made for how the YouTube algorithm and suggestions contribute to this problem, or could help fix it.
Top comments (2)
Awesome aggregated list Sylvia! Bringing POC who are already killing it into the spotlight is a great approach I think. Another awesome source of tech/news convo is a podcast called Techish. Thank you for the post!
Hi
I also have a Youtube Channel, in which I discuss tutorials, and react.js projects SEO, SSR.
Please check it out and maybe we can collaborate on something.
Video : youtube.com/watch?v=66owdRkc8pI
Channel : youtube.com/c/CodersLifeSimplified