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.
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]
Writing
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 PressInfamous 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]
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]
Personal life
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]
Bibliography
Non-fiction
You're Crushing It: Positivity for living your REAL life (2019)
^ abArmstrong, Stephen; Henry, Robin (27 November 2011). "Charge of the viral video". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2 October 2024.(subscription required)
