The Black Canadian Creator Directory | 500+ Black Content Creators!

Last updated on April 18th, 2023 at 04:54 pm

The Black Canadian Creator Directory is a collaborative effort between Casey Palmer of Casey Palmer, Canadian Dad, Kaya Marriott of Comfy Girl with Curls, and Sherley Joseph of The Chonilla Network!

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Why do we need to die just to get everyone’s attention?

There are more Black Canadian content creators than you think—let us tell you a bit ABOUT them!

Before George Floyd’s murder on May 25^th, 2020, it felt like so many Black creators needed to be creators first and Black people second. Though the issues we face today were just as prevalent before the nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds that’d change the world forever, it never felt like we could talk about such a fundamental part of our identities and be successful as creators—we often needed to choose one or the other because no one wanted to hear our painful truths. But in the months that followed the footage of George Floyd in the last excruciating moments of his life, Black stories were sought out like never before, with a number of us ready to tell them.

But as brands looked to work with us and people looked to amplify our voices, we kept hearing the same stories about our peers—that Black Canadian creators were hard to find. That there aren’t enough Black people north of the border to even bother marketing to us. We creators knew different, though. We’d met countless other Black creators at events and knew that there were more than just a few of us—we just didn’t have anywhere to show everyone else the things that we already knew.

Until now.

Presenting: The Black Canadian Creator Directory, featuring 500+ Black Canadian creators out here doing their thing!

Here’s the thing—as creators, we’ve grown far too reliant on the digital tools that’re handed to us instead of trying to innovate and do anything that really goes against the grain. We look to game the system—if we can only get good enough at using these tools, with their hashtags and algorithms, enough hard work will eventually take us to the top.

But the internet is a fluid space with ever-infinite possibility, which means that we can ultimately be in control of the way we show up online.

Which is why I thought it was long overdue to create a comprehensive list of the Black Canadian creators in our nation and put our collective Black excellence all in one place instead of scattering it all over the internet and only telling part of our story.

It’s not the first list like it—I took inspiration from lists like Toni Fifi’s list of fourteen Black Canadian women bloggers to follow in November 2019 and Kaya’s list of thirty Black Canadian women creators a few months after that, but as I did my research, I found Black Canadian creators numbering in the hundreds, and that I needed to find a good way to showcase them all. So I partnered with my good friends Kaya Marriott from Comfy Girl with Curls and Sherley Joseph, founder of Black Canadian Creators and The Chonilla Network put together the Black Canadian Creator Directory—the celebration of the hundreds of Black creators we have in the Great White North and the perspectives they bring to this country.

Why the Black Canadian Creator Directory is IMPORTANT.

But you ask why all of this is important? Why do we need to work harder at giving Black creators some shine? It’s because we put so much of ourselves into the work we put out, yet like the world never sees us unless they’re ready to hear. And it’s no secret that Black creators rarely get their dues when it comes to their work. Black teens who use Instagram and Snapchat way more than their non-Black peers. Black creators’ dances blatantly ripped off on TikTok in repeated and remorseless cultural appropriation. Our Black creators have always brought something different to the table for decades—if not centuries—only to feel left behind in the dust as others claim fame from our work.

And I’d like to put a stop to all that, at least up here in Canada, where at less than 4% of the population it’s already hard enough to be seen. Our nation won’t recognise our influence through social media alone, so we needed something that shows just how many Black Canadian creators are out here doing the damn thing—and that’s what the Black Canadian Creator Directory is all about!

We have Black bloggers. Black vloggers. Black Instagrammers, filmmakers and more—the list we have is only a start… there’s always more of us to find every time you want to connect with us and add some more melanin to the mix!

I hope the list proves as eye-opening to you as it did to us while we made it, and make sure to share it with other creators you want to see added—inclusion’s just a Google Form away!

The Black Canadian Creator Directory