WRITER, ACTOR AND YOUTUBE STAR
Franchesca Ramsey is a writer, actor and video blogger, based in New York. She has two YouTube channels – Chesalocs, which is dedicated to natural haircare, beauty and styling (she has long dreadlocks); and another on which she comments on social issues, including race, gender and sexual health, through sketches and pieces to camera. Between them, her channels have more than 250,000 subscribers; in total, her videos have had more than 26 million views. Franchesca Ramsey shot to fame in January 2012 when her video Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls went viral. The four and a half minute film was a comic riff on Shit Girls Say, the humorous web series created by Canadian writers Kyle Humphrey and Graydon Sheppard. Her version had 1.5 million views in 24 hours and 5 million in five days. It has now been seen more than 11 million times.
Franchesca Ramsey, who is known as Chescaleigh to her online fans, continues to make videos about subjects as diverse as cleaning your hair with washing soda, training for half marathons and safe sex, appearing as herself and as a range of characters. She is also a host on MTV’s news channel, Decoded.