Creator Voices: Ari and Yubyn Choi
4 minute read time
Welcome to “Creator Voices,” a series where we interview Creators to learn more about how they’ve grown, their approach to content, and the fun, helpful tips they’ve picked up along the way.
In this interview, we spoke to Ari and Yubyn Choi, a married couple posting about their lives, their travels, and their family. And in honor of Pride Month, they told us all about being LGBTQ+ Creators in today’s digital world, and what brands can do to support the LGBTQ+ community all year round.
With Pride Month being a time of celebration and reflection, what does Pride mean to you personally, and how are you celebrating it this year?
To us, Pride means being authentic to ourselves and living the life we always wanted. It’s a time where we feel grateful for how far things have come for our community, and since we actually met during Pride month four years ago, it’s very special and significant to us!
It’s also the month where we had our wedding reception and now it’s the month that we are doing IVF! This year we are celebrating it by focusing on our fertility journey and documenting it all for our audience, so we can offer them transparent resources and let them know that it is possible to accomplish their dreams with the person they love.
Can you share your journey as LGBTQ+ Creators? What inspired you to start creating content?
Our journey began after we posted a simple and short video of our wedding reception back in 2022, which focused on our two cultures coming together (as Ari is Mexican and Yubyn is Korean). We didn’t expect much but within a few hours, it gained over a million views, which we hadn’t experienced before!
Most comments were supportive—not only of us as a married lesbian couple, but also an interracial couple. People said it gave them hope since our cultures can be known to be pretty conservative. The reactions from people inspired us to start posting more and giving our audience a glimpse of our daily life, such as cultural foods we cook at home, trips we take, and family moments we share.
How have your identities influenced your work and the content you create?
Our identities are a big part of the content we create because we feel that it is our responsibility to showcase a happy and genuine same sex relationship where two women from different backgrounds come together and simply get to live life together. We aim to get rid of any stereotypes people might have, as well as inspire other LGBTQ+ people that no matter where they come from, they can find love without having to change something about themselves.
How do you balance sharing details about your relationship online with setting social media boundaries and maintaining privacy?
While we love to share parts of our life on social media, we set boundaries when it comes to revealing every aspect of ourselves—we do enjoy our privacy, and with sharing parts of yourself online, there can also be judgment.
We’re glad to be able to show our daily life and activities or things we enjoy and do as well as big moments in our life, but we keep the very personal and intimate moments to ourselves unless it’s something we’re willing to or ready to talk about with our audience!
However, being as authentic as we can and giving people a glimpse into our relationship has made us closer with our audience, which we truly appreciate.
What are the most frequent challenges you face as LGBTQ+ Creators, and how do you work through them?
Constantly getting hateful and distasteful comments. While we know it comes with the territory, it definitely can be an eye opener when you’re first getting started as a Creator since some people like to hide behind a screen and leave homophobic, sexist, and at times even racist remarks.
We take our platform very seriously when it comes to making it a safe space for other LGBTQ+ people, so we do our best to get rid of negativity and make it a positive environment for our audience. We’re used to it and we know it will always happen, but we don’t let it get to us. At the end of the day, those people don’t know a thing about us, so we like to think it’s merely a reflection they’re projecting of themselves and their own insecurities.
We stay positive by encouraging each other and reminding ourselves the reason we do what we do is to inspire and motivate other LGBTQ+ people. We too were in their position when we were younger and afraid of coming out.
Who are some of your biggest influences or role models within the LGBTQ+ community?
Some of our biggest role models within the LGBTQ+ community are:
- Young Miko, who is a lesbian Puerto Rican reggaeton singer.
- Sarah Paulson, who is another lesbian actress we love. We’re a big fan of her work.
- Abbie and Julia Ensign—they’re a married couple with a child and we love the type of family fun content they make. It’s very uplifting as another married couple that’s currently trying to start our family as well.
What advice would you give to other LGBTQ+ individuals who are looking to start their journey as creators?
To showcase themselves as authentically as possible, because not only might that help someone in need, it may also change someone’s mind about negative perceptions they might have about same sex love.
We often get comments from people who admit to being previously homophobic, but by seeing the way we love each other and immerse ourselves in each other’s cultures and family, they’ve realized that we’re just like them. While we don’t feel it’s our responsibility to change people’s views, it does feel like an accomplishment to know that we might be making someone a little more open to different perspectives and opinions. After all, we think we can all learn from each other.
What are a few ways that brands can support LGBTQ Creators during Pride, and all year round, in a substantive, non-performative way?
Brands can support LGBTQ Creators during Pride by giving a voice to Creators and our stories, since we all come from different backgrounds and have something to say that might give hope to someone who needs it. By giving us visibility, we can not only celebrate Pride month but also give someone encouragement with our voices!
How can other brands, businesses, and Creators use their platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and bring awareness to important issues within the community?
We believe we can all use our platform by simply incorporating our community’s issues into our daily content, even sharing a few stories or sharing our opinions as to why these issues are important and ways in which we think we can best help.
Even just bringing awareness might make a big difference since it allows us to create conversations with our audiences.
