Becoming Ms. Rachel

The toddler whisperer is far more than just a streaming sensation, thanks to her bestselling books, a hit toy line and an activist turn. By Aisha Counts and Felix Gillette

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Becoming Miss Rachel the Toddler Whisperer is far more than
just a streaming sensation, thanks to her best selling books,
A Hit Toy Line and An Activist Turn by Ayish
Accounts and Felix Gillette Read Aloud by Mark Leedorf. In
late summer, Rachel Accurso, a YouTube star with more than

(00:20):
sixteen million subscribers, was putting the finishing touches on her
next video. As always, Miss Rachel, as she's known to
her fans, was collaborating closely on the project with her husband, Hearin.
Whatever they put online, the Accursos knew would get devoured
by vast numbers of riveted youngsters. They wanted it to
be exceptionally good. Often their videos dig into a single topic.

(00:46):
This time around, they'd be exploring the nature of friendship, specifically,
what does a friend look like? Their answer would be
simple and instructive. A friend can look any which way.
They can have any type of hair, They can have
any color skin, says Acurso. It can be brown, it
can be peach. A friend could even be Palestinian. Months earlier,

(01:07):
the Accursos had met a three year old girl named
Rahaf Sayed who'd lost both of her legs in an
Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Now Rahaf would be starring with
Miss Rachel in the friendship episode, along with an ornately
diverse cast of other children. We want to show that
Rahaf is a wonderful friend of mine, a Curso says,

(01:28):
before making a new video, the Accursos do a lot
of research. For this one. They'd hired a team that
included a Palestinian writer and an academic expert on how
children perceive race. I never go into something like this
without black riders and race and diversity consultants. Accurso says.
It's a highly conscientious approach to making online videos that

(01:49):
at first glance can sound almost too earnest for the
shoot from the hip just asking questions brainwrought Internet culture
of twenty twenty five. But over the past six years,
the Accursos have succeeded at building one of the most
influential brands in children's media. Their YouTube channel has amassed
more than twelve billion views. They have a licensing deal

(02:11):
with Netflix, several best selling books, and a toy line
that sold at Target and Walmart. Amid a boiling hell
broth of overstimulating clips and artificial intelligence slop. Miss Rachel
offers something rare, calm, educational content that even the most
screen time conscious parents can get on board with. In

(02:31):
a typical twenty to sixty minute multi segment video, Miss
Rachel stands in front of colorful backgrounds and teaches her
audience about animal sounds or concepts such as feelings, by
using songs, simple animation, and short clips of real kids.
Many episodes feature puppets like her orange frind Herbie, who
wouldn't look out of place on sesame Street. Her videos

(02:54):
move slowly and directly address the viewer, creating the feel
of a FaceTime call with a favorite pre school teacher
on camera. Miss Rachel, who's forty two, wears a consistent uniform,
a pink T shirt beneath the pair of denim overalls
with a pink headband holding back her dark hair. Throughout
the episodes, she is joyful and encouraging, giving off the bright,

(03:16):
enchanting aura of a lightning bug steering a chu chuo
train through a moonscape made of marshmallows. Naturally, some corners
of the Internet have come to despise her as Miss
Rachel's viewership has risen, so has a Curso's public profile.
She has used her fame to draw attention to issues
affecting kids, and her recent advocacy for children in Gaza

(03:38):
has ignited fierce debate among her social media followers and
in the media. A Curso has never been more popular
or successful, or is controversial. Her success comes at a
time when public broadcasting in the US, long a source
of free educational programming for kids, has seen much of
its funding slashed by conservatives in Washington. Urso is an

(04:00):
outspoken devotee of vintage PBS programming, particularly Mister Rogers. Neighborhood
admirers often position her as the fading medium's natural successor
in a streaming era dominated by laissez fair tech platforms
rather than rigidly controlled TV networks. What she and Aaron
do next with their growing clout will be a crucial

(04:22):
litmus test for children's entertainment. The new system has already
proven entirely hospitable to voices of misinformation, conspiracy, and hatred.
What remains less clear is whether it can sustain one
dedicated to thoughtfulness and acceptance. A Curso was raised by
a single mother in Springvale, Maine, a town in the

(04:43):
southern part of the state. In two thousand nine, when
she was in her early twenties, she watched a video
of a performance by a New York City public school
youth choir and felt inspired to move to Manhattan. The
following year, she met Erin at a Unitarian church in
the city. In the years that fo followed, a Curso
earned a pair of master's degrees focused on music education

(05:04):
and early childhood learning, and worked as a music teacher
at a preschool in the Bronx. Aaron continued to build
a musical career on Broadway, working for major shows including
Sister Act and Aladdin. In twenty eighteen, the couple had
their first child, a boy named Thomas, and a Curso
began teaching a music class to fellow new mothers. On

(05:25):
the side, she set up a YouTube channel and uploaded
videos drawn from her lessons. Music is so wonderful for development,
and it teaches gestures and bonds you with your child,
she says. When Thomas started showing signs of a severe
speech delay, the Curso scoured the internet for videos that
might help, but what she found was mostly disappointing. She

(05:47):
and Aaron decided to try to make something better. Filming
against a green screen they'd bought on Amazon, the couple
began shooting short videos a few times a month. Initially,
they focused on creating material that would get Thomas to talk,
incorporating music and speaking slowly so he could observe and
mimic sounds. Aaron helped write the songs and voice the puppets,

(06:10):
and he edited the resulting content. About a year after
starting their YouTube channel, covid nineteen hit forcing Everyone Inside.
Almost overnight, their passion project took center stage, with daycare
and schools shuddered. Parents everywhere were suddenly desperate to find
anything their kids could watch unsupervised while they scrambled to

(06:31):
cram in a few mannic bursts of work. YouTube offered
a near endless supply of free videos that appealed to toddlers,
but much of it was materialistic, stultifying junk. In one
particularly popular genre known as unboxing videos, creators of all
ages would mesmerize young viewers by opening package after package

(06:53):
of desirable toys. As the months passed, a growing number
of families turned to Miss Rachel for shit shelter, often
discovering her via word of Mouth. Michael Palmer, a web
video strategist who works with YouTubers to improve their business,
heard about the channel from his wife, who in turn
had heard about it from a mommy and me playgroup. Curious,

(07:15):
Palmer fired up some Miss Rachel videos for his daughter
and was impressed by the engaging programming, which struck him
as notably less frenetic than the jittery, revd up style
he was accustomed to seeing on YouTube. Afterward, he reached
out to the couple, and soon he was helping the
Accursos upgrade their production equipment and hone their strategy. They

(07:35):
were both very new to YouTube, and they had a
ton of questions about how does this work? Palmer says,
of course, they wanted more people to watch, so how
do we optimize things production wise? With Broadway shut down
and its workforce largely idle, the Accursos were able to
tap into Aaron's professional network to help make their programming better.

(07:56):
It's just so cool being in New York City and
having the Broadway community. A Curso says, they're the best
of the best, and Aaron knows them all. Over time,
They're simple singalong videos evolved into a variety show of sorts.
While Miss Rachel was the primary performer, Aaron, who enjoyed
goofing around on camera, appeared frequently in a supporting role,

(08:18):
going by mister Aaron, I like being silly, he says.
By the end of twenty twenty, Miss Rachel's videos had
exploded to twenty two million views, according to Palmer. She
speaks to children in a way that allows them to
feel like they are being heard, says Katie Kurtz, YouTube's
global head of Youth and Learning. She's very deliberate in

(08:39):
her waiting. She'll speak, she'll pause so that they can
kind of communicate back. The tactic has captivated a generation
of young watchers. It didn't take long for the rapid
growth to attract the attention of potential suitors in the
media industry. The ensuing conversations, however, didn't go particularly well.

(09:00):
I would get out of a meeting where nobody mentioned education,
Accurso says it was a meeting about being a franchiser.
Words that don't excite me. Instead of selling their channel,
they decided to go it alone and build an independent
media company, ultimately enlisting Ali Shuster, a New York based
agent with Creative Artists Agency to help them find partners

(09:23):
who better jibed with their worldview. It's not all about
building and making the most just to be bigger and
bigger and bigger, Accurso says, it's about having opportunities to
serve others. On average, kids today spend about four hours
a day watching screens, according to the American Academy of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which warns that too much of

(09:45):
the wrong type of content can lead to developmental problems.
Mindful of the ever present hazard, the Accursos looked for
opportunities to engage with children beyond the digital realm. Last fall,
the Accursos published their first children book, Miss Rachel and
the Special Surprise, which is filled with speech milestone tips
for children. In the first week, the book sold sixty

(10:09):
thousand copies, becoming an instant New York Times bestseller and
setting the single day pre order record for their publisher,
Random House Children's Books. Since then, Miss Rachel has published
six more books, covering subjects such as potty training and
emotional expression, which she and Aaron write themselves. Last year,
the Accursos also launched a line of toys with Spinmaster,

(10:32):
The children's entertainment company behind the popular animated series Paul Patrol.
The toys range from puzzles, to mini cars to learning aids.
One singing doll is modeled after a Curso's likeness. It's
all developed with Miss Rachel and a team of child
development experts to support development through hands on skill building play,

(10:52):
Laura Henderson, a Spinmaster executive, said in an email. Meanwhile,
in January, the Accursos announced a license deal with Netflix
that has so far brought eight new episodes of Miss
Rachel to the service's more than three hundred million subscribers.
Since first airing, the show has consistently been one of
Netflix's top ten most watched shows globally. Elsewhere, Miss Rachel

(11:16):
is now routinely rubbing elbows with Elmo. Over the past year,
she's starred in a series of videos with the famous
muppets of Sesame Street. It would be a big deal
for any children's performer, but it has special resonance for Curso. Once,
when she was in her twenties, she applied to be
an intern in the writing room at Sesame Street. She
didn't get the job. In the years since then, Sesame Workshop,

(11:40):
the nonprofit behind the long running show has been struggling
to adapt to the streaming age, cutting costs and laying
off staff. A Curso is now perfectly positioned to help
bolster the illustrious Muppets with a fresh generation of viewers
on YouTube. The show's library will arrive on the video
sharing site early next year. It's an improbable story that

(12:02):
can sound when a Curso describes it, like something out
of a fairy tale. Dancing around with Elmo and Cookie
and being silly and happy, Accurso says, all our dreams
have come true. In April, the Accursos announced the recent
arrival of their second child, a daughter named Susannah, born

(12:22):
through a surrogate. Each day of their lives in New
York is now a juggling act between their growing business
and family. Even as Miss Rachel's audience has ballooned, the
Accurso's media company, Songs for Little's, has remained small. Currently,
it employs fewer than ten full time staffers, plus a
few freelancers who work on animation and visual effects. The

(12:44):
couple declined to say how much money their company is generating.
Forbes estimated recently that it's bringing in twenty three million
dollars annually. These days, Accurso prefers to let Aaron handle
more of their business affairs, things such as trademark negotiations
and taxes. In turn, she's spending a growing amount of
time on activism. I am in my advocacy era right now,

(13:08):
she says, I'm passionate about children's human rights, hunger housing.
While her YouTube channel is a space for kids, social
media is a place for her to communicate with their
parents and other adults. On her Instagram and TikTok accounts,
a Curso regularly talks about her Christian faith and speaks
up about current events that affect children. She posts almost

(13:30):
every day, increasingly about Gaza. Her feed includes footage of
bombing sites, reposts from activists working in the region, and
graphic images of young people suffering. If you think Jesus
approves of the starvation of Gaza, you need to reread
your Bible, she wrote in a post on Instagram in August.

(13:51):
Her activism has caused to backlash. The advocacy group Stop
Anti Semitism accused a Curso of ignoring the suffering of
Israeli kids, and urged US Attorney General Pam Bondi to
investigate whether she has ties to Hamas. Despite Accurso's having
posted in support of Israeli children, including those who were
taken hostage by Hamas, and condemned anti Semitism on social media,

(14:15):
Various conservative pundits have attacked her for featuring a non
binary performer on her show and for wishing a Happy
Pride Month to her followers on TikTok. Acurso says her
advocacy for Palestinian children hasn't shrunk her audience, nor has
it damaged any of her business relationships. I think we
made clear our positions and that if anyone had a

(14:36):
problem with how we want to advocate for people, she explains,
they don't have to work with us. Despite the harassment
and threats she's received, Accurso recently sat for interviews with
CNN and PBS News Hour to talk about the plight
of Gaza's children. Over the summer, she advocated for kids
suffering from famine in Sudan and orphans in Uganda. Not

(14:58):
long ago, she and Aaron met with the World Food
Program USA, an organization that provides food assistance to places
where kids are suffering most, and pledged one million dollars.
The Accursos plan to keep expanding their empire online and off.
Among other things, they're interested in writing movies and putting
on live shows. Right now, they're working to bring some

(15:21):
of their most popular songs to streaming services such as
Apple Music and Spotify. They're also planning to launch a
line of training pants with a diaper company. We're not
at this point looking to slow down or exit, Aaron says.
While there are some obvious downsides to a successful career
as an online creator, including the drudgery of endless self

(15:42):
promotion and constant menacing from ragemongers online, there are some
underappreciated benefits as well. What's been amazing about being independent,
ac Curso says, was that this was our company and
our choice. If she wants to make a show about
friendship and diverse and include a young amputee from Gaza,

(16:03):
who can stop her in the creator economy, there's this autonomy,
u Curso says, you can keep your morals and ethics