SBSK is The Most Important Channel on YouTube
Special Books by Special Kids is the most important channel on YouTube. Chris Ulmer and Alyssa Porter's decade-long project interviewing neurodiverse individuals and people with disabilities has created a more inclusive world through radical equality, unconditional positive regard, and the belief that all communication is valid. On the channel's origins, its tangible impact on real lives, and why treating disabled people with dignity is ordinary rather than heroic.
love YouTube, I confess I love watching dozens, if not hundreds, of channels regularly. Despite its many flaws, and the numerous qualms and criticisms you could have with its parent company, it has been a beacon of creativity and connection for endless amounts of subcultures.
But if I had to choose a single channel that I would deem the most important and meaningful? I have an answer instantly and without hesitation: [Special Books for Special Kids](https://www.youtube.com/@SpecialBooksbySpecialKids).
Why? Good question. If you aren't already aware, the premise of the channel is rather simple: Special Books by Special Kids (SBSK) is a non-profit dedicated to creating long-form interview videos to share the stories of neurodiverse individuals and people living with disabilities, with the mission of creating "a more inclusive world."
Chris Ulmer and his wife Alyssa Porter have devoted their lives to interviewing a wide range of diverse people with mental and physical disabilities and differences. His channel allows those who are often marginalized by society—and those who go ignored, unseen, and uncared for—to have a voice and a platform. Ulmer sits with the interviewee, and often their family as well, and listens compassionately to their story and what they want to share and offer the world.
## Origins
Chris Ulmer studied media effects/communications at Penn State and earned a master's in special education from the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky while student teaching, then moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where he'd been offered a free special-ed degree in exchange for coaching soccer. He began teaching students ages 7–10 with autism, agenesis of the corpus callosum, and traumatic brain injury.
Ulmer taught the same group of seven students for three years, and in that third year, around 2015, he and the students' families decided to collaborate on a book. Each student would get a chapter describing life from their own perspective. The goal was for the students to become self-advocates and storytellers.
The proposal was turned down 50 times. [No publisher wanted it](https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/citizen-of-the-week-chris-ulmer-special-books-by-special-kids/). Rather than give up, though, Ulmer started filming short interviews with his students on his phone and posting them to a new Facebook page, initially just to let the local community see the students' progress.
In December 2015, Ulmer got a call from an ABC News producer, and a segment on his classroom's morning routine aired on ABC World News, becoming one of the most-viewed videos of that year with hundreds of millions of views in a week. The SBSK Facebook page jumped from a few thousand followers to 150,000 within days.
That flood of attention brought emails from disab
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