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Soft White Underbelly (YouTube channel)

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Soft White Underbelly
YouTube information
Channel
Created byMark Laita
LocationLos Angeles, California
Years active2016–present
Genre(s)Biography, documentary
Subscribers5.94 million[1]
(October 28th, 2024)
Total views1.2 billion[1]
(August 27th, 2024)
Last updated: March 19, 2024

Soft White Underbelly is an American YouTube channel by Mark Laita that interviews "people who are frequently invisible in society—the unhoused, the sex worker, the chronic drug user, the runaway, the gang member, the poor and the sick".[2][3] Laita, who previously worked as a commercial photographer, created the channel in April 2016 as an extension of his 2009 photo book Created Equal.[4]

Interviews

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Laita created the YouTube channel in April 2016. After posting an interview with a 21-year-old prostitute named Kelly in December 2019, the channel grew from 3000 subscribers to more than 500,000 subscribers in less than three months.[5]

Many interviews take place in Laita's small studio on Skid Row in Los Angeles in front of a backdrop that Paper magazine calls "yearbook photo-esque" and consist of questions about the interviewee's childhood, lifestyle, and plans for the future.[4] He takes a black-and-white portrait of subjects to use as the video's thumbnail on YouTube. Laita compensates his subjects in various ways, including money, purchasing phones, and funding recovery programs. One subject, Kelly, told The Washington Post that Laita is known around Skid Row as someone who talks to people and gives them money. In 2020, The Washington Post reported that he gave between $20 and $40 to interviewees and up to $100 to people who were more at risk of being exposed, such as drug dealers and sex workers.[5] He does not always share the details of the compensation he gives subjects, and he told Paper "I don't want it to be videos about me helping people. I think that's kind of gross."[4]

Many of the channel's interviewees are residents of Skid Row.[6] Subjects include a 13-year-old prostitute, ex-Amish women, OCD clowns[further explanation needed], and Dave Matthews Band tour bus driver Jerry Fitzpatrick (who commented on the Dave Matthews Band Chicago River incident).[7] Some of the channel's most well-known characters are the Whittakers, an inbred family in rural Odd, West Virginia, whom Laita visits. In videos, Laita takes the family on excursions such as the state fair, a bowling alley, and grocery shopping sprees.[4] Laita held a crowdsourced fundraiser to purchase the Whittaker family a new house. In 2024, YouTuber Tyler Oliveira questioned Laita's honesty and posted a video at Whittaker's house in which a family member asked, "What house?" and "Mark says we ain't got no more money in" the fundraiser. Laita responded with receipts of the more than $100,000 he had sent to the family over the three years they filmed together.[4][8] Laita stated that one of the Whittakers lied about her father dying and asked for funeral money, which she used to buy drugs.[8] Another prominent character is Rebecca, a 26-year-old homeless trans woman on Skid Row whose personality and musings on fashion and culture have attracted loyal fans and whose struggles with drug addiction are displayed in real time.[4]

Reception

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Lateshia Beachum wrote in the Washington Post that "Laita's warmly lit videos are portraits of addicts who recount childhood sexual abuse with detachment, sex workers who shed tears while telling of betrayal that led them to be trafficked as children, and gang members who talk about missing out on having their parents' affection."[5] Breanna Robinson wrote in Indy100 that "Soft White Underbelly is captivating because of the way it humanizes those who have society's stamp of condemnation on them."[9]

The channel gained attention in 2021 after the death of one of its three-time interviewees, a 25-year-old sex worker and recovering crack cocaine addict named Amanda.[10][11][12]

Commenters and critics have raised concerns that Laita's videos are poverty porn.[8] Some question the veracity of subjects' stories about themselves.[5]

References

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  1. ^ a b "About Soft White Underbelly". YouTube.
  2. ^ "'Soft White Underbelly' interview series shines a light on difficult realities of the human condition". Texas Public Radio. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  3. ^ Boyer, Nicholas (20 January 2021). "Soft White Underbelly: Your New YouTube Channel". MUD Magazine. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Guzman, Ivan (April 22, 2024). "Soft White Underbelly Is Life Laid Bare". Paper. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d Beachum, Latechia (February 27, 2020). "A woman's hard-luck story on YouTube led to thousands in donations. Some smelled a scam". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  6. ^ Anders Anglesey (16 May 2021). "Amanda, 'Soft White Underbelly' subject, dead at 25". Newsweek. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  7. ^ Sissler, James (2024-01-07). "Dave Matthews Band Tour Bus Driver Discusses Life On The Road, Infamous "Dumping" Incident, More [Watch]". L4LM. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  8. ^ a b c Ohlheiser, A. W. (2024-03-21). "The latest drama in "poverty porn" YouTube, explained". Vox. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  9. ^ "What we can all learn about life from YouTube's 'Soft White Underbelly'". Indy100. 25 August 2021. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  10. ^ Newcomb, Alyssa (2021-05-16). "Amanda, beloved subject of popular YouTube series 'Soft White Underbelly', dies at 25". Today. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  11. ^ McBride, Jessica (16 May 2021). "Amanda Passed Away: Soft White Underbelly Subject Dead at 25". Heavy. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  12. ^ Reilly, Kaitlin (2021-05-15). "Amanda, Who Appeared On Soft White Underbelly, Passes Away at Age 25". E! Online. Retrieved 2024-07-23.
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