The Mixed Museum’s YouTube channel passes 500,000 views
Since launching in 2020, The Mixed Museum’s YouTube channel has become one of the most powerful ways we share Britain’s mixed race history with a public audience. From digital exhibition trailers to first person accounts, our videos are increasingly attracting attention, recently surpassing over half a million views. Learn more about the channel, what’s behind the growth, and our future plans in the article below.
The Mixed Museum’s growing YouTube channel
When The Mixed Museum first launched its YouTube channel in 2020, it was simply a home for video extracts from our Brown Babies digital exhibition and trailers for upcoming projects. But over the past five years, the channel has evolved into a key space for how we share knowledge and learning about Britain’s mixed race history.
Our videos have become a powerful way to reach new audiences, especially over the past year, which has seen a remarkable surge in interest. This month, the channel reached an exciting milestone: 4,000 subscribers and over half a million views across all videos.
Building The Mixed Museum’s ‘Brown Babies DNA Histories’ video series
Much of this recent growth is thanks to our new series of filmed interviews produced as part of Reclaiming History Through Science, our Mindsets + Missions project exploring the role of DNA testing in the lives of Britain’s so-called ‘brown babies’: the name given by the African American press to children born to Black American GIs and white British women during and after WWII.
Rather than fictionalised outputs, the group told us they wanted to share their stories in their own words, on their own terms. Working closely with the Blaine Brothers, we created a safe and supportive space for filming, followed by multiple rounds of editing, private viewings and group feedback before anything was shared publicly.
The care taken at every stage is visible not only in the quality of the production, but in the emotional depth of the stories themselves. The first film in the series, From Wigan to Atlanta, featuring David Yeates, now has over 300,000 views and more than 600 comments. Many of these express how deeply the story resonated with their own family histories or personal journeys of identity.
The Mixed Museum’s YouTube content: a library in the making
Though the Reclaiming History Through Science interviews are a pivotal part of our recent growth, first-person stories aren’t the only kinds of content you’ll find on our channel.
We also share:
- Short trailers for our digital exhibitions
- Creative storytelling in collaboration with artists
- Book club discussions and readings by authors
- Recordings of webinars and in-person panel discussions
While we are aware how powerfully first-person stories on our channel are resonating, and will continue to share more to-camera interviews, we will also continue experimenting with different types of outputs. These formats may not always go viral or attract huge numbers but they still offer meaningful ways to explore, share, and preserve Britain’s mixed race histories. As we look to the next five years of building our YouTube channel, we aim to create a growing library of accessible, engaging and informative video content that reflects The Mixed Museum’s commitment to sharing marginalised histories through multiple voices and formats.
So much of what we do is shaped by our community’s input. If you have ideas for what you would like to see on The Mixed Museum’s YouTube channel, please get in touch!
Learn more
Visit The Mixed Museum's YouTube channel
Watch From Wigan to Atlanta, our first 'Brown Babies' DNA Histories video featuring David Yeates
Learn more about the 'Reclaiming History Through Science'project behind the 'Brown Babies' DNA Histories video