【we eroticize the things we fear】

 To say Blair Imani is we eroticize the things we feara content creator just brushes the surface. Imani is an activist, historian, podcaster, and author, too. She's best known for her short-form content and series Smarter in Seconds, which delivers succinct lessons on social justice and history.

At the heart of her work is activism, and in 2020, in light of the racial reckonings in the United States, Imani found her work blowing up and her follower count doubling and then tripling overnight. Now with 173.9K followers on TikTok and 859K followers on Instagram, we spoke with Blair Imani on her rise as a content creator while attending VidCon 2025.

As a creator, what was your experience in gaining a following? Was it one video that really took off? Or a slow and steady build?

It was basically 2020, you know, back when everyone suddenly realized overnight that racism was a big issue that we should all care about and talk about it. There were these hashtags like #sharemelanatedvoices and #shareblackvoices.

And prior to that, I had been involved in the movement for Black Lives, and I was also basically a historian who would guest lecture at different universities. I was talking about how we can effectively raise our voices, and why half the country seems to be pissed off, and why the other half seems to be apathetic.

And literally overnight, I went from having 50,000 followers to 150,000 followers the next day, 250,000 followers. And it's just this reminder that, you know, we all don't go viral overnight, but you have to kind of operate in a way where you're prepared for such an inevitability or a possibility because you have to meet that opportunity with your preparation and that's how you get success.

And that sudden increase in followers, did that change your strategy at all? Or were posting as you always were?

I think it made me take myself more seriously. And I think for a lot of us who've been involved in politics and activism, we thought, oh, you can't ever do influencing or content creation and do politics.

But that's really changed from where we were five or 10 years ago. I kind of felt pressured to be like other content creators, posting my outfits and stuff like that. And then I had to get back to my roots, which was people wanting to watch my videos 'cause they wanna learn about race, they wanna learn about gender, they wanna learn about how to be more compassionate.

And so I have to stay true to what I started doing. Sometimes you have to lean on your audience to help you be reminded of why you got started in the first place.

Absolutely, and your activism and values are at the heart of your content. How does that shape your work?

One of the things I care about the most is the combination of lived experience and expertise. So if I'm doing a video about limb differences, I wanna be working with people who have limb differences. People whose bodies might look different from normative expectations.

If I'm doing a video on Down syndrome, I wanna be featuring content creators who have Down Syndrome. And I think that's a huge part of the activism because there is the phrase from the disability rights movement, which is, "Nothing about us without us," and that really is what drives my work. I love featuring other people in my show Smarter in Seconds.

It makes the work much deeper and then it also makes the networks deeper, and then you don't feel as isolated as a content creator.

Your content handles such vast and important topics, and you're turning them into short form content. How do you manage to make them both educational and engaging at the same time?

So I have ADHD and that has been the best life hack in doing content creation because if I'm bored editing my video, I'm gonna be bored watching it. So it means having innovative hooks, it means not saying things like, "Here's some things you might wanna consider when it comes to race" and instead "Here's four things you should stop saying if you don't wanna sound racist."

You're catching people off guard and then also answering questions. So for example, after Kendrick [Lamar's] Super Bowl performance, one of the top searches on Google Trends was, "what is 40 acres and a mule?" And I was like, "Great, I have a video on Jim Crow" and I'm gonna share it and we'll talk about 40 acres and a mule and how it was this conversation about reparations in the United States.

It's taking viral pop culture moments and turning that into like hardcore history, critical race theory, and education. My goal is that you come away learning something, but you don't feel like you just attended a lecture.

Was there a moment post-2020 where you realized this is your full-time job now?

I was able to start working with this amazing agency called DBA (Digital Brand Architects), and Raina Penchansky took me under her wing and really showed me what was possible as a content creator because I had come from the non-profit world.

And so a lot of the work that you're doing is sometimes underpaid and sometimes undervalued. And so now I'm in this career field that is highly valued and highly sought after. And so I had to really change the way I was looking at business.

Working with DBA, that was the first time I had like a savings account and wasn't in credit card debt. And I was like, "Wow, I can plan for a future. I can start thinking about having kids 'cause I can afford that now." It was a big game changer. But I think that moment happened later in 2020, when I was featured by the New York Times and they wanted to do like a day in the life.

And it made me go, "Okay, well if the New York Times is interested in my day-to-day work, maybe I should take myself very seriously."

With all of the wisdom and insight you've gained in these five years, what advice do you have for creators who are just beginning their careers?

I think one of the most important things, and it's a lesson that I keep learning over and over again, is that you have to really take it seriously when you do a brand collaboration. All these brands, they know how valuable you are and sometimes they think you're more valuable than you might even realize. And so they wanna work with you, and they want you to promote different things, but you have to recognize that when you put your name on something, you're also associating yourself with that.

It's not just a check, it's also your name. It's your legacy, it's your credibility. There's tons of ways to continue living your values and to do brand collaborations and partnerships.

If you're ever under the impression that you have to do this work by yourself, you're gonna be lonely and you're not gonna grow as much. Try to find your coworkers in the space, people who are also in your niche, and collaborate with them because, they'll understand what you're going through more than anyone else, and it helps you get outta that spiral of it just being you versus the algorithm.

It's also great because when a brand works with you, then you're able to kind of collaborate and talk about [it with other creators], Asking each other are we getting paid competitively? And then that's how we start to organize, right? So that just bringing back the activism into it.