Growing up as an Indian girl, I have not had many celebrity influences who I could relate to. In the rare instance that an Indian actor showed up on TV, they played a common stereotype rather than a real person.

According to Complex Magazine, Indians are usually portrayed as “a super nerd, a cab driver, or a store owner who speaks surprisingly good English.” In my experience, this is so true.

However, this has slowly been changing.

When I discovered two YouTubers: Lilly Singh and Liza Koshy my life was flipped upside down. Singh and Koshy are two young women who have powerful voices and are breaking down these stereotypes by giving an insider’s perspective rather than an outsider’s stereotype.

I first found Singh through a friend, and I started by watching her “parents react” videos — I could not relate to anything more. Singh dresses up to play herself, her mom and her dad. Not only do her videos remind me of my parents, but my grandparents, too. She confronts so many assumptions about Indians and Indian parents; she shows you her reality and makes it comical.

Not only is she funny, but Singh also values positivity. She most recently had a movie come out on YouTube Red called “A Trip to Unicorn Island.” The movie documents Singh’s worldwide tour, which proves that happiness is something worth fighting for. There are clips from her family, friends and celebrities that provide insight into Singh as a person.

Koshy, on the other hand, is what I would consider an up-and-rising YouTube sensation. She is half Indian and half white, and she really embraces her multiculturalism. Indians occasionally refer to themselves as “brown,” which suits Koshy’s bio on Instagram perfectly: “Little brown girl with big dreams.” She reminds me of the younger version of Singh, and I was so happy when my mom showed me her channel. Koshy started on Vine, but when her channel gained more and more views, she switched to YouTube.

She is someone I recently started watching over winter break, and I watched all of her videos. I must admit — my favorite is a video of her comparing things from the Dollar Store to Target to see which is cheaper — the most Indian thing to do. And something you usually don’t see on TV.

Even though Singh and Koshy do not appear on TV, their work is influential. However, I am also grateful for the increase of Indians in mainstream media.

Mindy Kaling who writes, produces and stars in her own show, The Mindy Project, has shed light on being an Indian in America. She is the clichéd smart Indian-American doctor, but the people around her are different. Her brother is a rapper, something you don’t see in the Indian stereotype, and she is dating an Italian boy. What?!

Aziz Ansari is one of the creators of the Netflix original, Master of None. Ansari is the lead actor and portrays a first generation Indian immigrant who is a struggling actor in New York. He has taken his real life experiences to address stereotypical portrayals of Indians magnificently.

Lastly, Priyanka Chopra is an actress that I am in awe of.  She started her career by making movies in India, but then she went on to portray FBI agent Alex Parish in Quantico. Even though her ethnicity has not played a dramatic role in the show, it is refreshing to see an Indian actress as the lead on a mainstream TV show.

So, thank you to these few people who are confronting stereotypes and portraying Indians as complex, real people. You are giving me someone to look up to and showing the world that Indians are more than a stereotype.