A Black father created a YouTube channel to create content with representation for his young daughter. Now, the account is racking up tens of millions of views a month.

The main character “Gracie” from Gracie’s Corner YouTube channelGracie’s Corner/Javoris Hollingsworth Gracie’s Corner is a YouTube channel that provides children of color content through a cultural and educational lens. Javoris Hollingsworth was inspired to start the channel after seeing the lack of representation in the content his young daughter was consuming. He and his wife, Arlene, started the channel at the beginning of the pandemic.

In July 2022, the channel garnered 77 million views. Every weekend, families gather around to watch the latest episode on the “Gracie’s Corner” YouTube page.  Just as they would with televised children’s shows such as “Arthur” or “Curious George,” kids watching “Gracie’s Corner” can sing and dance along to catchy tunes about different cultures, months of the year, or counting, while Gracie and her friends take them on new adventures.

 —Blavity News (@Blavity) June 18, 2022 Unlike other shows, viewers of “Gracie’s Corner” can expect a cultural education. Gracie is a young Black girl and the other characters in the show are Black and Latino. After watching other children’s shows, “Gracie’s Corner” creator Javoris Hollingsworth said that he found that representation was often not at the forefront.

“In all instances, it almost seems like we’re always kind of like, either an afterthought or not really thought of at all,” Hollingsworth told Insider.  As the parents to a Black daughter, Hollingsworth said he and his wife, Arlene started “Gracie’s Corner” at the start of the pandemic after seeing the lack of diversity in the shows their daughter was watching. “It was like, okay, we can either be upset about it or just try to take a proactive approach and just create our own stuff where children of color are brought to the forefront,” Hollingsworth said.

Javoris Hollingsworth’s young daughter, Gracie, the namesake for the YouTube showJavoris HollingsworthThe show is named for their daughterThe show’s main character, Gracie, which is named after Hollingsworth’s young daughter, is shown every week learning a new lesson. Lesson topics range from how to count money to learning how to say the months of the year in both English and Spanish. Every episode features a different song created by Hollingsworth, who formerly worked as a musician.

His daughter lends her voice for the main character, Gracie, and Hollingsworth hires a freelance illustrator to create the visuals. —Gracie’s Corner TV (@Gracies_Corner) July 14, 2022 As of August 1, 2022, the channel sits at 694,000 subscribers. In the month of June 2022, the page picked up over 44 million views.

In July, that number skyrocketed to 77 million views, according to analytics tracker Social Blade. “For the most part, everything has been extremely positive,” Hollingsworth said. Hollingsworth said the key with whatever character is created is to be intentional about what their role is in the series.

Besides Gracie, there are only three other recurring characters in the show — a young boy named Zyron, a father and a grandfather. Hollingsworth said that’s on purpose. Hollingsworth and his wife have a son younger than Gracie and they want him to be represented as well as strong Black male figures.

As far as what’s next, Hollingsworth said he and his wife have been in negotiations with a few streaming platforms. On their website, graciescornertv. com, they have workbooks and coloring books that correspond to the episodes on the Youtube channel.

Hollingsworth said he and his wife are routinely in contact with teachers on how they can improve the content and materials.  They hope in future episodes to include more characters of different races and ethnicities.  “I think America is a cool, beautiful place, where we have all of these different cultures and all these different backgrounds.

But I feel like the content that we’re presenting to people should also represent that same local diversity,” Hollingsworth said. “If a child of color is going to be a part of society, they should feel like they are a part of society, whether it’s in media or any other form of representation. ” Read the original article on Insider.