Jasmine D. Lowe: I wanted to talk a little bit more about how you got into your work as a Youtuber and performer and how you balance being an activist and uplifting the community. How did you get to this point in your life? 

Eryn Mitchell: It's wild. Honestly, I was doing stand up comedy at the time, which is fine, because I don't do it much anymore. It was just this challenge to get out there and have your voice heard and perform. One day a girl walked up to me, she was like, Oh my God, you're really funny, another black comedian. She said, I'm writing a web series, and I would love you to be in it. I had an idea for doing The Lez Factor for maybe like three years before we ever filmed it. I have had the URL since 2009. I was living at home with my grandmother, and whenever she had conversations with my lesbian friends and me, she'd be like, you guys are all wild, and you guys should have a show or write a book. So, when I did this girl's web series, I was like, well, if I'm going to do hers, I might as well do mine too. It's kind of like that catalyst, somebody else pointing out to you that you have the potential to be there. I supported her, and then I literally went and filled her's on a Saturday, and I called some of my friends together, and we filmed on Sunday. The very next day. 

Jasmine: Wow. 

Eryn: When I realized I was gay, there weren't a lot of people who were like me at that time. I'm a lot older than a lot of the people who do web series now. I just turned 40. So, when I was 17 and coming out, I'm not femme or stud, I'm kind of in the middle, and the first person that I dated in life was a stud. She was like, Oh, you can't do that because studs can't date studs, and I'm like, what? I just kept running into people who kept telling me, Oh, you can't do this, or you can't do that because that and so, the black lesbian experience is one with all of these rules that I don't even know who came up with. As I got older and I found my tribe, and I realized I could be who I wanted to be. I just need to find those people who I could be me around. I realized that I wasn't the only person who was having these types of identity issues in the community where it's kind of like everybody tries to put you in a box. 

We started The Lez Factor in 2012. I was 32 at that time, and I figured there's gotta be younger lesbians out there who are going through the same things I am who feel like this is one way to be gay, and there's not. I was comfortable with who I was at 30, and I found the people who accepted me as I was and realized that these rules just constructs that we don't need to follow. I wanted to spread that word to other people. That's how the Lez Factor came about. It was my experience growing up as a lesbian who didn't fit any of the boxes. I'm not masculine or feminine. I'm not attracted to one type of lesbian. I like women--femme, stud it doesn't matter. I just wanted to get across that there were different viewpoints in the community. I tried to cast different archetypes that I saw. 

The very first episode of Lez Factor there was me, and then there was a person who had told me that they were masculine-identified, but they told me that they were a stud and that they only dated femmes with long hair. Then I got somebody else who was married and had a wife, and she was a femme, but she played football. So she was like a sporty femme. There was a girl named Ashley, and she was our resident bisexual because I feel in the lesbian community, there's a lot of bisexuals that are in the community. So it seems only fair to include one. Somebody had to cancel last minute, and one of my best friends came to help me set up, and on the way to the bar where we filmed, I was like, you're going to be a cast number, and that's how Stacy got on the series. We were trying to pick different archetypes so we could get a diversity of thought. I don't want to have six people talking about the same thing with the same opinion because there's no discussion or conversation in that. 

Jasmine: So, what happened between filming the first episode, publishing it, and then filming the second episode?

Eryn: We filmed in July of 2012, and the first episode of Lez Factor was published in March of 2013. It was just a lot of people say they want to do it, but then don't. I guess people really don't like editing. I was so frustrated by the process. I threw it on YouTube and then forgot about it. I was over it. I was like, no, The Lez Factor is dead. I don't want to deal with it. Then I got an email like a year later from YouTube that said your video had reached 10,000 views. This is before Instagram, with nobody sharing it. I didn't really post it too much on my personal Facebook, and my Facebook had about 200 friends on it. It did so well, and I think it accumulated over time. But at that time in 2013 before Amber's Closet. This is before there was a lot of black lesbian content. White lesbians are everywhere. At that point, they already had the L Word, and they already had Ellen. Black lesbian content was not as out there as it is today. So, people were finding it, and a year later, I'm going through looking at the comments, and people were like, Oh my God, I see all these black people and you are sharing things that relate to me. 

It's funny because I thought we were only doing it for the younger generation but, even to this day, our demographics are 92% women, and 75% of our audience is between 28 and 43. I would have thought by now everybody had it figured out, but they didn't. So, to this day, we have a bit of a more mature audience. The 18 to 25-year-olds or the 14 to 20-year-olds is where I thought it would be, and it's not where it's at; our demographic is skewed higher. I brought them back together again. I got a whole new cast minus one. For some reason, there is a lot of bi-phobia. I got a lot of negative comments about having a bisexual on there. They were like, it's called the Lez Factor, not the Bi Factor. There was a lot of pushback, and also people did not want a male host. I knew how I wanted the show to go, and I was like, fuck it. I'm going to be the host of the show, and to be honest, at that time, I was really still working on my comedy. I was like, Oh, maybe this will work or maybe my comedy will work.

Jasmine: Let's talk about the fans.

Eryn: We've ended up with some serious super fans. We had a fan in New York who was pushing the show more than I was. She was advertising for it. She was telling people she would follow them back if they followed The Lez Factor. She was doing her own giveaways. That's how much she believed in the message we were pushing. She helped push us from 3000 followers to 10,000. It was all so super interactive. People really felt connected to who they felt connected to. Like if there was an opinion they felt was theirs, then that's who they would gravitate towards. People would literally call us because there's a member on our Instagram. It is actually connected to a phone that people can call. 

People used to call for advice. If they were heartbroken, they were feeling sad. Some were suicidal. People used to actually pick up the phone and call, and if I were able to, I would talk to them or Stacy, my partner at that time, would talk to them. It was very much a family thing where people felt like they were that connected where they could talk to you like you were their friends. We also found a lot of older lesbians who were like, Oh, you know, they were just coming in the scenes. A lot of people who were finding out that they realized that they were gay later in life will contact us. We were all still 30 at that time. It was just very interactive. We got invited to people's birthdays. Stacy and I went to a few of our fans' birthday parties. I mean, it was really like a personal, personal touch. We knew the people who were following. They would comment, and we would comment back. If you look on our YouTube, people didn't even say, Hey, listen, I got a question. They would just say, Hey Eryn, I know you're answering me, and they very much feel part of it.

Jasmine: Is this something you plan to continue to do for another ten years down the line? Or how do you see it sort of evolving?

Eryn: I don't know about ten years, but if I did do it further, we definitely need to get to different cities this year. The plan was to go to Chicago and New York and Atlanta--but COVID.

Jasmine: Yeah.

Eryn: What I'm looking to do in the future is branch out into more different avenues of entertainment that we can give people more content. Just more content, basically. That is my ultimate goal. I'm looking at starting a streaming network with queer content just because many of the streaming services that I see now that are focused on queer content, do all scripted shows, and I feel like they're really missing out on the element of reality. If you look at reality TV, that's what people are into, because they want to see real people, even though it's exaggerated for dramatic effect. They're still real people. It's not a character they're playing. I feel like that's really an avenue that people are missing out on and other streaming platforms. So that's what I would like to bring in the next five to 10 years.

Jasmine: What advice do you have for young queer POC who wants to become an entertainer on YouTube? What advice do you have for them entering into that space?

Eryn: You have to be original, and you have to be yourself. You can't put on a character unless you're doing comedy. You have to be 100% authentic because women will call you out. They feel like you're being fake or lying to them. I had one new cast member, and you can come and tell, by the way, she answered questions that she wasn't trying to be like a hundred percent out there. And so some like few people commented. They're like, that person felt like they were being fake and I didn't like them. So don't bring them back. 

When I asked the person, I said, you know, people say your answers felt like you were holding back. She said, I'm in a new relationship, and I just didn't want to put it out there. You have to be authentic because women have a bullshit radar, and they will call you out on it. So, be authentic and be proactive. You have to get involved with the people who are watching you and supporting you. I can't tell you how many times people were like, Eryn, I just watched the show so I can hear your stories or thank you for responding. Or, when people send you emails or DMs, you have to respond to all of them. Also, never think that anything is too big or too small to respond to. Don't say, Oh, this person only has so many followers, I'm not going to take the time. You take that time because you never know what's going to happen in the future. You never know who you're helping. You could be touching somebody who really might need that help at that time. Try to respond as much as you can. I know we're all human, and we have limits, but there's another day, and another day to answer their question.

Jasmine: Was there anything else that you wanted to share with QTYPE readers?

Eryn: Just that we can't let the movement die. We have to support each other. We can't look to other people. We can't march to other economic freedom. We can only do it by cooperative economics. I try to buy something queer all the time. I look at everything that I purchase and ask, can I buy this from a queer Black vendor? Can I buy this from a person of color? Can I buy it from a mom and pop shop? We have to focus on where we're spending our money and who we're supporting because it can be life and death and somebody's eating and not eating in our community. We have the chance to support somebody over a big business that could care less, and we need to support each other because it's so important today. But that's all I really care about right now.

You can follow Eryn Mitchell on Instagram @eryn_worldwide and watch all the episodes of The Lez Factor on YouTube by visiting the following link: youtube.com/c/theLEZfactor.

Read the print version of this article and other stories by downloading a copy of QTYPE’s summer issue!