Roomie Diaries was built on a simple but powerful idea: real conversations lead to real change. In communities where stigma and silence often surround sex, relationships, and identity, especially for Black and LGBTQ+ audiences, we set out to create a space where people could speak freely, laugh loudly, and learn without shame.
In partnership with Gilead’s Healthysexual initiative, The Shade Room developed a four-part video series designed to make sexual health feel culturally relevant and emotionally resonant. Hosted by rapper and social figure NLE Choppa, and featuring bold voices like YG, Dreezy, Vic Mensa, and Sukihana, each episode delivered candid dialogue wrapped in entertainment, breaking down taboos, debunking myths, and encouraging personal agency.
Our specific goals were to:
Destigmatize conversations around sexual health
Reach and engage Black Gen Z and Millennial audiences
Drive awareness to Healthysexual.com via custom content and landing pages
Create a sustainable, scalable content format that audiences would trust
We knew traditional health campaigns often missed the mark by lacking cultural nuance or using a top-down tone. Roomie Diaries flipped that script, centering community, storytelling, and fun as the gateway to deeper understanding.
The result was a fresh, unapologetic approach to public health that worked because it felt like us.
Roomie Diaries came to life with one mission: to normalize sexual health conversations within Black and LGBTQ+ communities through culturally grounded, entertainment-first storytelling.
Our plan of action began with a key insight—our audience doesn’t want lectures, they want real talk. So we asked ourselves: what if sexual wellness education looked like a group chat? A podcast? A vibe? That’s when the format was born, a candid, living room-style video series hosted by NLE Choppa, with guests rotating through for games, stories, and unfiltered discussions on sex, dating, and identity.
From concept to launch, the campaign came together in less than four months. We built everything around mobile-first, socially optimized video, knowing The Shade Room’s core audience engages primarily on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. We cast a mix of talent who could authentically speak to different aspects of sexual health from STI stigma and testing to consent and emotional vulnerability.
Each episode followed a structured format:
Real Talk — authentic storytelling and personal experiences
Game Segment — playful, viral-ready interactions rooted in health education
Emotional Takeaway — always ending with a punch of honesty or clarity
We supported the series with a custom landing page (RoomieDiaries.com), full-length videos, vertical cutdowns, and creative prompts that encouraged audience participation across platforms. The entire campaign was distributed organically, no paid media support.
Challenges
We faced three major challenges. First, tackling taboo topics in a way that didn’t feel heavy-handed or clinical. To overcome this, we leaned into humor, storytelling, and talent who already had trust with our audience. Second, we were under a tight timeline and had to balance creative production with legal, compliance, and educational integrity. Lastly, launching a sexual health campaign without paid media meant we had to rely on creative excellence and deep audience understanding to break through.
What Made It Unique
What made Roomie Diaries stand out was how seamlessly it blended health messaging into content that felt entertaining, not preachy. We didn’t interrupt culture, we became part of it. This wasn’t a campaign that told people what to do; it showed people who looked and spoke like them navigating the same topics they were often afraid to discuss. The tone was safe, smart, and real.
This wasn’t just a campaign. It was proof that when you speak the culture’s language, you earn the culture’s attention, and their trust.
Roomie Diaries exceeded every major objective—engagement, reach, and cultural resonance, without relying on traditional media spend.
The campaign generated over 22 million video views, 25 million+ impressions, and more than 377,000 engagements across Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook. The average engagement rate reached 1.71%, surpassing industry benchmarks for organic branded video.
Beyond the numbers, the campaign struck a cultural chord. Audiences responded in real time, flooding comments with appreciation for the unfiltered honesty and relatability. Viewers shared personal experiences, tagged friends, and amplified key messages, proving we had created not just content, but community conversation.
From an education standpoint, we successfully deconstructed taboo topics like STI testing, consent, post-sex emotions, and sexual identity by wrapping them in humor, storytelling, and authenticity. Traffic to the campaign’s custom landing page, RoomieDiaries.com, reflected user curiosity and follow-through, further connecting audiences to Healthysexual’s core mission.
Most importantly, Roomie Diaries earned enough trust and traction to become a sustainable series. Gilead re-signed for Season 2 with an LGBTQ+ focus, turning a one-time campaign into an ongoing cultural franchise.
By meeting audiences where they are and how they talk, we proved that sexual health doesn’t have to be a hard conversation, it just has to be the right one.
