Diamond and Silk speaking to camera, one holding a green cocktail glass

Diamond And Silk

2015internet personalityclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Diamond and Silk are sisters Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, whose YouTube vlogs backing Donald Trump made them into recognizable Black conservative commentators between 2015 and 2018. Their April 2018 Congressional testimony on alleged social media bias pushed the pair from YouTube into the center of a national argument about tech companies and conservative speech.

political satire memes trump memes culture war memes platform censorship memes call and response memes

Overview

Diamond and Silk are the on-camera names of Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, two sisters from North Carolina who built a following as Black conservative vloggers during the 2016 US presidential campaign1. They run a YouTube channel called The Viewers View, where they film themselves reacting to politics, cable news coverage, and their support for Donald Trump2. Their signature format is call-and-response commentary, with the two sisters finishing each other's sentences while riffing on the day's headlines.

The duo's name reached a much wider public when their complaints about tech censorship pulled them into Congress, making Diamond and Silk a shorthand in Republican messaging about alleged social media bias against conservative voices1.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (channel launch) / cable news and Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson
Date
2015

The Viewers YouTube channel published its first video, titled BLACK LIVES MATTER, on January 2, 20152. On July 5, 2015, Lynette Hardaway posted a solo vlog explaining her support for then-candidate Donald Trump2. Rochelle Richardson joined her three weeks later, on July 23, 2015, in a clip discussing the death of Sandra Bland2. From that upload onward, they worked as a duo using the on-camera names Diamond and Silk. Their earliest videos pulled tens of thousands of views before the Trump-focused content moved them toward a much larger audience.

How It Spread

The August 7, 2015 upload MEGYN KELLY STARTS A WAR WITH DONALD TRUMP AT THE DEBATE was the first Diamond and Silk video to break one million views2. Months later, on December 4, 2015, they appeared on stage with Trump at a rally in a clip published by Fox 10 Phoenix that drew more than 780,000 views3. Trump later retweeted the pair, boosting their reach inside his base.

By 2016 they were sharing platforms with other Trump-aligned figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos, appearing on his channel during the Republican National Convention2. Friction with tech platforms followed. In August 2017 they said YouTube had demonetized 95% of their videos, and on April 6, 2018, Facebook flagged their page as unsafe to the community2. Weeks later, on April 26, 2018, Diamond and Silk testified before the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing on social media censorship that The Verge described as depressingly, almost deliriously bad1.

Frequently Asked Questions