Abigail Thorn

Abigail Thorn (born 24 April 1993) is an English YouTuber, actress, and playwright, best known for producing the YouTube channel Philosophy Tube.

Philosophy Tube began in 2013 when Thorn sought to provide free lessons in philosophy in the wake of the 2012 increase in university tuition fees in England.

Thorn began her YouTube channel, Philosophy Tube, as an educational channel in 2013 in response to the English university tuition fees tripling in 2012, rendering higher education less accessible.

Thorn made it her mission statement to "[give] away a philosophy degree for free".

Thorn originally planned to record her lectures and upload them, rather than appearing in videos, but her university would not allow this.

Her first video titled "I think therefore I am" about René Descartes was uploaded in May 2013.

Her first subscriber unsubscribed in protest when she first voiced feminist opinions.

Prior to transition, Thorn presented the channel under the name Oliver Thorn and was commonly known as Olly.

Thorn makes money from both YouTube advertisement revenue and crowdfunding on Patreon.

The channel's style progressed over a period of years from a direct style of talking to the camera about the works of philosophers such as René Descartes and Immanuel Kant, to more theatrical productions.

Thorn graduated with a Scottish Master of Arts in Philosophy in 2015, coming top of her year.

In 2016, Thorn took part in the YouTube NextUp, a week-long training programme for YouTubers with under 100,000 subscribers.

She then trained at East 15 Acting School, completing a Master of Arts awarded by the University of Essex in 2017 before moving to London.

In 2018, her videos became more theatrical, beginning to incorporate dramatic studio sets, lighting, costuming and makeup.

The channel has been positively received by critics and has over one million subscribers.

In 2018, Thorn decided to change her content creation, beginning to film at a studio with costumes and makeup.

She was inspired by the 2018 conference VidCon, the channel ContraPoints, and the ending of an abusive relationship.

She also used props such as snakes and horses.

Characters and music began to feature.

Joel Burrows of The Latch said that these videos were characterised by their narratives, set design and monologues.

Kayleigh Donaldson of Pajiba described the works as "long-form think-pieces" with "detailed production design" that use aspects of sketch comedy.

Emily St. James of Vox summarised that the channel covers both philosophical topics and "sociopolitical ideas of the current era from a leftist point of view".

For instance, a video about the former Trump advisor and Breitbart News co-founder Steve Bannon features Thorn performing a cover of a Hadestown song, with lyrics about Bannon.

Food, Beauty, Mind features Kelly Slaughter, an exploitative technology company CEO.

In 2019, Thorn hosted a livestream on Twitch in which she read plays from the Complete Works of Shakespeare for the mental health charity Samaritans.

The stream lasted five days, featured a number of guests, and raised over £100,000 for the charity.

In September and October 2022, The Prince—a play written by and starring Thorn—ran Off West End.

The transgender-themed work is based on characters in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 becoming self-aware.

Thorn publicly came out as a transgender woman in January 2021, with the video Coming Out As Trans – A Little Public Statement and the more theatrical Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story.

Thorn is from Newcastle upon Tyne and has two older brothers.

She attended the Royal Grammar School, where she was a member of an army cadets group.

Thorn credits her discovery of philosophy to her teacher, as well as having taken the subject as an A-level course.

She later studied Philosophy and Theology at the University of St. Andrews, where she also participated in Mermaids and the St Andrews Revue.

In October 2019, Thorn discussed her sexuality in her YouTube video Queer✨, where she came out as bisexual.

On 30 January 2021, Thorn came out as a trans woman.

She has spoken at protests in favour of transgender health care and said that transgender liberation is a more important goal than transgender representation among fictional characters or celebrities.

Thorn cited the trans singer Kim Petras and the feminist Audre Lorde as influences in understanding her femininity.

Thorn identifies as a lesbian, as of February 2022.

In January 2020, Dmitry Kuznetsov and Milan Ismangil, writing for tripleC, reported that the channel is a focus of an internet fan community centered around leftist YouTubers categorised as "BreadTube".

The authors note fan crowdfunding, production value, criticism of the alt-right, use of citation and videos about broad topics as common BreadTube attributes that are employed by Philosophy Tube.