YouTube sex edutainment: are influencers the new peer educators?

There has been mixed academic reception to classroom-based peer education pedagogy for sexual health, with criticism of limitations and logistical challenges of the method. However, as the sexuality education landscape grows to include social media interventions, this may create alternative opportunities for the future use of peer education. In this paper, we interrogate YouTube Sex Edutainment, where influencers create educational videos using entertainment tropes, to explore the pedagogical potential of sex edutainment influencers. Our novel methodology involved the analysis of 60,070 public YouTube comments, an online survey with 85 UK 13–24-year-olds, and email interviews with three YouTube Sex Edutainment influencers. Using this dataset, we examined the extent to which, if at all, social media influencers can operate as a new form of digital peer educator through the formation of parasocial trust relationships. Our findings suggest that YouTube Sex Edutainment influencers can leverage parasocial interactions and audience trust to influence sexual health behaviours. We argue that this data supports critical debate on new forms of peer education pedagogy, mirroring the social process of peer education virtually, addressing some limitations of the method, and encouraging reflection on the future of peer education as a pedagogical method in social media landscapes.