F  L  A  U  N  T

 _Illustrated by_ [**Paula Castro**](https://breedlondon.com/artists/paula-castro/) Taylor Cassidy was still a high schooler when she realized the lack of proper education in our schools when it came to Black history. After seeing how misinformed her classmates were about Black history, Taylor became inspired to start teaching her peers through a platform that was once reserved for dance trends and lip-syncing: TikTok. Fast forward two years and Taylor’s account has reached a whopping 2.2M followers with over 60 million likes to date. But this newfound success hasn’t changed Taylor in the slightest. Her content continues to serve as a source of education _and_ inspiration with a mission to promote positivity and Black empowerment.  The 18-year-old, who also posts long-form content on her YouTube channel, has managed to build a full-on digital career from TikTok, signing with WME and even winning a Special Creator honor at the 2020 Streamy Awards. Talk about being a voice of change. * * * **When and why did you start posting on TikTok?**  I started posting, as it happens to be two years ago today, today's like my TikTok anniversary. In 2019, I started posting for fun. My friends were pressuring me to get it, and so it really became a place for me to discover my own creativity.  **You do a lot of TikToks focused on teaching Black history and about Black culture. What really inspired you to  go in that direction?** Around that time, I was a junior in high school. I was in this history class, and every single day, I would hear the students' answers to questions while we were talking about things that pertained to Black history. The comments they would make were very wrong or just very ignorant. I've grown up learning Black history as a very high priority. My mom bought this set of Black history books years before we were even born for the purpose of teaching her children. It was around Black History month, and I decided that if the kids in my classroom needed this Black history to be able to understand the basic fundamentals of our country's history, if I can make a series or if I can make something that can do that for somebody else too, I'm sure they'd enjoy it. So I created this series called ‘Fast Black History,’ and that's where it really took off. People loved it. People loved to learn about Black figures and things that they were never taught in schools. And so that's why I started to focus my content around it—not only because I loved it, but because it served somebody else's want to educate.  > [@taylorcassidyj](https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorcassidyj "@taylorcassidyj") > > Reply to @breezybreee30 Black Girl Magic Minute: @iamtabithabrown and @laetitiaky ✨✨ [##blackgirlmagic](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/blackgirlmagic "blackgirlmagic")[##blacktiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/blacktiktok "blacktiktok") > > [♬ Own Brand Freestyle - FelixThe1st & Dreya Mac](https://www.tiktok.com/music/Own-Brand-Freestyle-7019087686937872386 "♬ Own Brand Freestyle - FelixThe1st & Dreya Mac") **You have a segment called ‘Black Girl Magic Minute’ where you celebrate different, incredible people in the Black community. What do you want viewers to take away?**  I say this at the end of every episode: ‘Keep rising.’ That kind of encompasses the takeaway from what I want viewers to learn. I want them to continue to do what they love doing, whether that be on the creative side, the business side, if they want to become a politician. Whatever it is, I want them to keep going. The whole reason I started ‘Black Girl Magic Minute’ was to not only give credit back to these Black creators, but to uplift them and let people—even people who aren't Black—discover new creatives and new, amazing people to follow and to support. So a main takeaway is to keep rising and keep continuing to do the thing that you love, despite other things around you that might tell you that you're not enough or that you can't, because that's simply not true.  **In 2021, we're obviously all on our phones, and with school being virtual a lot of the time, a lot of people are just on the Internet more. Do you think social media is currently the best vehicle for educating audiences and celebrating Black culture while doing so? Or do you think there's a better way that we could expand?** I think social media is a great way to reach a lot of people all at once. But even with my videos, I can make a 60-second short about a Black figure, but I think the best way for you to learn Black history and preserve it, is to read. Read books by people who invest years worth of research into it. I think that the best way for us to be able to learn Black history is to implement it way better in schools. Black history being taught in schools right now is terrible, to be frank, it's bad. And if we can implement the teaching of Black history in all curriculum, in all units, all throughout high school, middle school, elementary school, then we won't need such attention to learning it from social media because social media can be so inaccurate. Sometimes I've even had to fact check myself. So I think it's great for reaching wide audiences, but on the accuracy part and the more in depth part, I think we need to focus on reading books and working to put it more in schools. > [@taylorcassidyj](https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorcassidyj "@taylorcassidyj") > > Let’s discuss the origin of GRILLZ BAYBEE [##grillz](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/grillz "grillz")[##fashion](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fashion "fashion")[##originstory](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/originstory "originstory")[##history](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/history "history")[##learnontiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/learnontiktok "learnontiktok") > > [♬ U Are My High - DJ Snake](https://www.tiktok.com/music/U-Are-My-High-6987561007916779522 "♬ U Are My High - DJ Snake") **You talked a little bit about how media can be inaccurate. Sometimes with TikTok, people will comment something and people will start fighting in the comments. What would you say you didn't expect when you started TikTok, but came out of nowhere?**  Man, in the beginning, it was really hard because I would work really hard on something in the very beginning when I didn't know all the TikTok features. I would work really hard, it would take hours to complete like one 30-second video. And to see fighting in the comments, trying to  gaslight me right when I would post it, I would not reply to it. I wouldn't do anything. ‘Cause it's kind of like, what do you do in that instance? You haven't been online-creating very long. You don't know how to respond to this person while still keeping this persona of being this positive, funny educator.  But as time went on, I got bolder, because after a long time you realize that you've worked hard on your content, and you deserve the right to defend it and the message you're trying to give. **How do you stay positive or how do you practice self care in moments where your psychological state kind of takes a hit?** I tell people this all the time: I get off my phone. Literally this entire month, I'm not posting. I'm not going to be online. And that's the best thing I can do for myself. To get off of my phone and remember that I have a family outside of my phone. Another thing is the heavy topics that I choose to speak about, I have to feel something about them. A lot of times people can choose one creator or one person to be the spokesperson for the Black community. So if there's something happening within Black culture that a lot of people are talking about, but I feel weighted whenever I hear about it, I don't force myself to talk about it. Black people need a break too.  > [@taylorcassidyj](https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorcassidyj "@taylorcassidyj") > > The Black History of Central Park [##senecavillage](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/senecavillage "senecavillage")[##blackhistory](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/blackhistory "blackhistory")[##centralpark](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/centralpark "centralpark")[##newyorkcity](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/newyorkcity "newyorkcity")[##blacktiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/blacktiktok "blacktiktok")[##culture](https://www.tiktok.com/tag/culture "culture") > > [♬ Nature Love - Nature Sounds](https://www.tiktok.com/music/Nature-Love-6736016472558012418 "♬ Nature Love - Nature Sounds") **In the future, do you see yourself expanding past TikTok and other forms of social media to continue your work? Do you have anything planned about where you want to go as an educator?**  I'm going to NYU next fall for film, and so I'm taking the storytelling aspect that I love to do so much in my videos, and I'm going to implement it in the film industry. The core messaging that I have within TikTok of uplifting Black culture, of lifting more Black creatives, I'm definitely taking that with me into every project that I do. So, films I create, whatever shows I work on, I make sure that Black culture isn't treated as a novelty or as a check box for diversity, but it's fluent and it's fluid. I'd love to make ‘Black Girl Magic Minute’ into a podcast. I'm definitely going to be staying in the entertainment industry.