Soft White Underbelly | |
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YouTube information | |
Channel | |
Created by | Mark Laita |
Location | Los Angeles, California |
Years active | 2016–present |
Genre(s) | Biography, documentary |
Subscribers | 5.36 million[1] (March 19th, 2024) |
Total views | 1 billion[1] |
Last updated: March 19, 2024 |
Soft White Underbelly is an American YouTube channel by Mark Laita, a former commercial photographer, who interviews "people who are frequently invisible in society—the unhoused, the sex worker, the chronic drug user, the runaway, the gang member, the poor and the sick".[2][3] Laita created the channel in April 2016. It emphasizes interviews with people from Skid Row, Los Angeles.[4]
Lateshia Beachum wrote in the Washington Post that "Laita's warmly lit videos are portraits of addicts who recount childhood sexual abuse with detachment, sex workers who shed tears while telling of betrayal that led them to be trafficked as children, and gang members who talk about missing out on having their parents' affection."[5] Breanna Robinson wrote in Indy100 that "Soft White Underbelly is captivating because of the way it humanizes those who have society's stamp of condemnation on them."[6]
The channel gained attention in 2021 with the death of a previous interviewee, Amanda.[7][8][9]