Fame brings influence but it can also take a heavy toll on mental health, said YouTube star and entrepreneur Connor Franta, who has amassed millions of followers since coming out as gay on the video-sharing platform seven years ago.
Franta, whose new book on love, loneliness and modern life will be published this month, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that his celebrity status had exacerbated his underlying anxiety.
“I would (attribute) a lot of my anxiety to the fame element. I think that’s kind of the genesis of it,” Franta, 29, said in a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles.
“(But things) are not as hectic as they once were and are much more manageable with age, with maturity and with just, frankly, calming down,” he said ahead of the Oct. 19 publication of “House Fires”, his third book.
Franta posted his first YouTube video in August 2010, coming out on the site four years later in a post that has since gained more than 12 million views and helped turn him into a role model for young LGBTQ+ people.
Besides recounting struggles with anxiety in his new book, Franta describes love, sex and life in Los Angeles as a young gay man.
Mental health issues are disproportionately common in the LGBTQ+ community, numerous studies show.
More than 40% of young, LGBTQ+ Americans said they had considered suicide in the past year, according to a survey published in May by the Trevor Project, a U.S. non-profit.
TRADE-OFF
But despite the stress of fame, it has brought financial independence and the potential to influence people, Franta said.
“The trade-off is where I’m just grateful for the fact that I have a large platform and a large audience that has a desire to hear my opinions on the world,” he said.
“You know, I can spread a message, I can start a movement; I can help do real good with that platform,” said Franta, who was born in Wisconsin.
He posted his first YouTube videos from his bedroom aged 17, when, surrounded by Harry Potter posters, he opened with: “Hello world! And by world I mean no one because I have no subscribers.”
Since 2010, his videos – sometimes confessional, sometimes flippant but always personal – have drawn more than 500 million views.
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