Girl, Start That YouTube Channel

Written by Alberlynne “Abby” Woods 

Mela thought she could stay behind the page.

After all, she is an author. Writing was the work. Her words could speak for her.

Social media had other plans.

Mela released I Am the Invitation at the end of December, a book centered on a deceptively simple question: What would happen if we invested in ourselves with the same intensity that we invest in everyone else?

That question eventually pushed Mela beyond the book, beyond Instagram posts and, just a few months ago, onto YouTube.

Her experience offers an important reminder for anyone sitting on a channel idea in 2026: You are not too late.

“I thought I could be behind the page, behind the scenes,” Mela said. “Social media definitely has told me no.”

I understood that more than I expected.

If you follow Cue The Culture closely, you may have noticed we have been a little quiet lately. After a strong run of consistency, we went dark for a few weeks. Issue No. 4 has been delayed. Again. There are ideas I have wanted to execute, goals I have written down and things I know I need to do that have remained undone.

Sometimes getting stuck does not look like doing nothing. Sometimes it looks like doing a million things while avoiding the one thing you know you need to do.

My conversation with Mela made me confront some of that.

For the first few months after releasing her book, Mela intentionally kept herself out of view. She did not show her face or share much about the organizations, work and experiences that existed beyond her author identity.

Then she began to understand something about creating in an increasingly artificial world. Audiences do not only want the content. They want some connection to the human being creating it.

“People want to know that you are real,” she said.

So Mela started showing up.

She launched a YouTube channel, began posting videos and stepped into interviews, including conversations with Brown Girl Collective and The Wade Report. With each appearance, the woman who once thought she could simply put her words into the world began becoming part of the story herself.

That may be the lesson for anyone who believes they somehow missed the YouTube wave.

You didn’t.

The goal is not to compete with somebody who has been uploading videos for 10 years. The goal is to begin building the digital library of your ideas, expertise, personality, creativity and perspective today.

And your first video probably will not be perfect.

Mela is refreshingly comfortable admitting that hers were not.

“You’re not going to be perfect when you first come out there. I was not,” she said.

Maybe the lighting needs work. Maybe you discover you talk too quickly. Maybe your camera angle is wrong. Those are not reasons to wait. They are things you can only learn by beginning.

“You got to have that baseline,” Mela explained. “You got to see where you need to improve.”

That landed differently for me.

There is a thin line between wanting something to be excellent and allowing the pursuit of excellence to keep you from moving. I have had to reconsider some of my own thinking about Cue The Culture, this delayed fourth issue and the goals I keep setting for myself.

At some point, a goal has to become more than something written in a notebook, typed into a Notes app or announced in a meeting. You have to set it. Start it AND then stick with it, especially after the excitement of starting wears off.

Mela’s visibility is creating opportunities she could not have completely mapped out when she wrote I Am the Invitation. Men have connected with a book that might easily have been marketed primarily toward women. Women’s ministries have asked about a devotional. Mela is working on an audio version and already thinking about another book.

A man reading I am The Invitation while drinking

YouTube becomes another lane.

“People actually want to hear it,” she said. “People actually want to see it. That’s YouTube.”

For Black creators in particular, that is worth sitting with. We spend countless hours watching other people build businesses, explain their expertise, document their lives, review products, teach skills and tell stories. At some point, we have to consider whether we should move from audience to participant.

Mela believes showing our humanity can give someone else permission to do the same.

“When we truly walk and show the human side of us in this partial artificial world,” she said, “we’re giving people an invitation and permission to live their life.”

Maybe that is why I Am the Invitation found me when it did.

Because I needed the reminder, too.

I am the invitation.

Not I am waiting for an invitation.

Not I hope someone invites me.

Not I will start when everything is perfect.

Not I will get back to it when life slows down.

Not I will finally do it when somebody notices me, validates me, follows me, books me or gives me permission.

I am the invitation.

For Mela, that meant stepping from behind the page and in front of the camera.

For me, it means getting unstuck. Getting Cue The Culture moving again. Finishing the fourth issue. Setting goals and honoring them long after the motivation that created them has disappeared.

For you, maybe it really is that YouTube channel.

Whatever it is, Mela’s message leaves us with a much harder question than whether it is too late to start.

What are you still waiting to be invited to do?

The permission slip is already signed.

The door is already open.

Stop waiting for the invitation.

You are it.

Buy Book

four women looking at a amazon page for the I am The Invitation book