Lex Croucher | |
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![]() Croucher in 2016 | |
Born | 8 March 1992 |
Alma mater | University of Southampton |
YouTube information | |
Channel | |
Years active | 2008–present |
Subscribers | 118,000 [1] (October 2024) |
Last updated: 16 October 2021 | |
Website | www |
Lex Croucher (born 8 March 1992) is an English author and YouTuber. Croucher began their career on YouTube before going into writing with their debut non-fiction book You're Crushing It (2019) and novel Reputation (2021). Their Arthurian novel Gwen & Art Are Not in Love (2023) won the 2024 YA Book Prize among other accolades.
Croucher grew up in Surrey. They graduated from the University of Southampton with a degree in English. [2] [3]
Having done some BlogTV shows and discovered AmazingPhil through MySpace, [4] Croucher created their YouTube channel under the username tyrannosauruslexxx on 2 June 2008. [5] Also inspired by the likes of fiveawesomegirls, charlieissocoollike, and John Green, Croucher would use their phone camera to film videos. [3] In 2011, Croucher won Google's NextUp grant, which allowed them to buy a "proper camera", laptop, and editing equipment and go to VidCon. [4] By 2013, Croucher had over 60 thousand subscribers, and their content shifted from autobiographical vlogs towards advice and opinion pieces. [6] [7] As of September 2020, Croucher's main channel had over 120 thousand subscribers. [8] [9] Croucher has been on an indefinite hiatus from YouTube since 2021.
In addition, Croucher created the side channels lexcanroar in 2008, featuring mostly vlogs, [10] and girlyashell, featuring beauty content. [6] From 2011 to 2014, Croucher was a member of the collaboration channel Sarcaschicks. [11]
At both Summer in the City (SitC) and VidCon, Croucher co-founded and chaired the Women on YouTube panel from 2012, [4] discussing the experiences of women creators in an online space. The SitC 2015 panel included Cherry Wallis, Theadora Lee, Dodie Clark, Laci Green, Lucy Moon and Jana Damanhouri. [12]
Due to their sex education-related videos, in 2014, Croucher was invited to appear on the BBC Two programme Newsnight to discuss the new NICE guidelines around the morning-after pill. [4]
In 2017 and 2018, Croucher hosted an advice podcast with fellow YouTuber Rosianna Halse Rojas titled Make Out With Him, with a focus on dating and relationships. [13] [14]
After graduating from university, Croucher contributed to HuffPost UK and had a WordPress-based blog. [7]
As announced in 2018, Croucher began their professional writing career with You're Crushing It: Positivity for Living Your Real Life, a non-fiction self-help guide aimed at teenagers published by Bloomsbury Children' Books in 2019. [15] [16] Croucher described it as written for their teenage self. [17]
In September 2019, shortly after Croucher first spoke of it on at SitC, [18] Zaffre (a Bonnier Books imprint) picked up the rights to publish Croucher's debut fiction novel Reputation, a Regency era-set romantic comedy, [8] in July 2021, billed as Mean Girls meets Jane Austen. [19] Zaffre acquired the rights to two further Regency novels from Croucher in February 2022: [20] Infamous, [21] published 21 July 2022, and Trouble, [22] published a year later. [23] The former had a US release via St Martin's Press Infamous in March 2023. [24] Croucher was nominated for the 2023 TikTok Book Award for Author of the Year. [25]
Also in 2023, Croucher released their first young adult (YA) novel Gwen & Art Are Not in Love via Bloomsbury UK in the UK and Commonwealth and Wednesday Books (a St Martin's Press imprint) in the US; both publishers had acquired the rights back in 2021. [26] The Arthurian Camelot-set novel centres on the arranged betrothal between a medieval lesbian princess and a gay duke. [27] [28] Croucher told The Bookseller , "I wanted it to be absolutely over-the-top ridiculous, funny, escapist; full of things like flirty sword fights and terrible puns". [29] Gwen & Art Are Not in Love won the 2024 YA Book Prize and the 2023 Books Are In My Bag Readers Award for Young Adult Fiction. [30] It was also shortlisted for an inaugural Nero Book Award, a Barnes & Noble Award and another TikTok Book Award, [31] [32] [33] and longlisted for the Branford Boase Award. [34] It has been nominated for a Polari Prize. [35]
Croucher reunited with Bloomsbury UK for the release of their second YA medieval romance Not For the Faint of Heart, a Robin Hood reimagining. In March 2024, Croucher signed a two-standalone book deal with Gollancz (an Orion Publishing Group imprint), which won a 10-way bidding war for the rights to The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones, a fantasy YA novel. [36]
As part of their YouTube career, Croucher traveled to Syria with the charity Save the Children. [37]
In 2015, Croucher started an online petition calling on Sea Life London Aquarium to improve its penguins' living conditions, which garnered media attention and over 100 thousand signatures. [38]
In April 2020, Croucher presented a video for Greenpeace's channel and website titled Do hashtags and petitions actually work?; in the video, Croucher discusses the effectiveness of online activism (via petitions, social media and hashtags) and the term slacktivist. [39]
In 2020, Croucher added their name to an open letter from The Second Shelf, a feminist bookstore, showing their support for the transgender and non-binary community, along with over 200 other authors. [40]
Croucher lives in London. [2] In 2020, Croucher came out as non-binary via Twitter, [41] [42] which they elaborated on in a YouTube video. [43]
Year | Title | Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | — | TikTok Book Awards | Author of the Year | Shortlisted | [25] |
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love | Books Are My Bag Readers' Awards | Young Adult Fiction | Won | [30] | |
Nero Book Awards | Children's Fiction | Shortlisted | [31] | ||
2024 | Branford Boase Award | — | Longlisted | [34] | |
Barnes & Noble Children's and YA Awards | Young Adult | Shortlisted | [32] | ||
TikTok Book Awards | Book of the Year | Shortlisted | [33] | ||
YA Book Prize | — | Won | [29] | ||
Polari Prize | Children's and YA | Shortlisted | [35] |