LOUISIANA: YouTube channel Louisiana Dread preserves Southern culture by sharing history, folktales
Bayou-born YouTube channel Louisiana Dread is serving up swamp monsters, gumbo reviews and history lessons in an effort to preserve a dying Southern culture.
From the Rougarou to the Wild Girl of Catahoula, Louisiana has no shortage of horror stories to go around. The scariest thing for Louisiana Dread creator Kyle Crosby, however, is the lack of preservation for a lot of these stories.
“Where I’m from, the culture down here, it’s dying,” Crosby said. “Slowly, you know, but it is dying.”
Crosby was born and raised in Larose, Louisiana. Wanting to work in film and TV, he moved out to Los Angeles in the mid 2010s. After three years of gaining experience, he moved back home when he received some unfortunate news.
“My dad got sick in 2017. He was diagnosed with dementia,” said Crosby. “And so I dropped everything and I moved back home to help my mom take care of him because I’m an only child.”
Despite this, moving back home offered Crosby a new chance to immerse himself back in Louisiana history and culture. After taking up a history tourism job, he began to read the stories he learned to his father in the hospital. He was taken aback to find that not even his father knew many of these tales.
“I’m like, ‘You’ve never heard of this before?’ And he’d be like, ‘Hell no,’” said Crosby. “He’s a local. Born and raised in Grand Isle his whole life. It’s like, ‘Hey, if you’ve never heard these stories, I wonder if there’s other people obviously who haven’t.’”
This is what ultimately inspired the creation of his YouTube channel, Louisiana Dread. That, and a genuine passion for the preservation of the culture he grew up in.
The channel was started in 2020 and has since amassed a following of over 18,900 subscribers across almost 500 videos. Crosby has videos detailing everything, including parish and city history, native tribes, folktales, famous building highlights and even gumbo reviews.
“It’s meant to capture our culture, capture the language we speak, capture the stories that we tell, capture the history that made us who we are today as America’s most unique culture,” he said.
There seems to be no end in sight for Louisiana Dread. This is a large state with many unique people across it. Even at over hundreds of videos, Crosby has only covered a small chunk. He believes — and hopes — that he will be doing this for the rest of his life.
“It’s just something that you live or you kill,” Crosby said. “There’s no in-between. So you either actively live out that culture every day — about what you cook, what you say, what you do — or you end up killing it. You assimilate into the typical American culture.”
This is not a task Crosby takes lightly. People are used to having answers instantly in the internet age, but due to the lack of preservation for a lot of his subjects, learning is not as accessible as just a click away.
“I always use the Montague example,” said Crosby. “I tried looking up the history of Montague on Google and it had nothing. Nothing. And so I just went to the Terrebonne Parish Library and, sure enough, they had a bunch of books on the history of Montague.”
Luckily, he is not by himself in this mission. While Crosby does all of the research and the writing, he has always had a team with him. He doesn’t believe he could do it alone.
His crew has helped him with filming and editing much in the past, but the editing is still the bane of his existence, he said.
“We are always looking for editors. I have about 20 videos that I have filmed already — they’re just in the editing dock waiting to get edited,” he explained.
If a job offer is not enough, Crosby has your next lunch stop planned for you as well. You can trust the man who has reviewed over 162 gumbos.
“There’s two places that I’d recommend more than any other, and that’s Chris’ Poboys in Lafayette and the Balcony Restaurant in Larose,” suggested Crosby.
If you are interested in interning with Louisiana Dread, or if you just want to see more, you can visit the channel’s website.
–lsureveille.com
