‘Yo, you ever thought about taking an HIV test?’: Meet the HIV positive influencer whose activism starts at the corner store

As an influencer, Darby Borough’s Ciarra “Ci Ci” Brown educates her followers about living with HIV, and she does this using a mix of dance, humor, and reaction reels. But she’s not above responding to haters who slide into her DMs.

“If you’re going to take my HIV status and judge,” she said, “you’re the one missing out. I’m fire as hell, funny, and love to see the joy in life.”

With that, Brown, 38, who is the star of the Sheryl Lee Ralph-produced documentary Unexpected, breaks into a shimmy shake and gut-busting laugh on Zoom.

The film follows Brown as she makes care packages for pregnant women recently diagnosed with HIV.

In one of Brown’s most popular posts, she responds to the message, “You can’t have children if you’re living with HIV.” She hits a few moves and grooves off frame while her teenage son walks into the frame holding his little sister.

Another viral post features Brown grooving to an instrumental version of TLC’s “Creep” while explaining that sexually transmitted infections often travel in networks, meaning that people who test positive for chlamydia could very well acquire HIV in the future.

In another, she takes her HIV medications while staring at the camera in response to the question, “How you got HIV but your partner doesn’t?” Her post explains how her treatment and care help in keeping her children and partner HIV free.

“The science says that if I’m on effective treatment and that my viral load is undetectable, I cannot transmit it through intercourse,” her caption reads.

Brown lives with her husband, son, and daughter, who often guest star in her videos. The quartet’s dance routines are a reminder that people living with HIV can nurture families as long as they have access to their life-saving medications.

“I’ve always danced,” she said. “Having a Caribbean father from Jamaica, and always hearing that heavy beat, I just loved it!” As a kid, she recreated famous dance scenes from movies with her brother, like the lift at the end of Dirty Dancing.

Brown was born in Philadelphia but moved to a small town in Georgia when she was 11. The most shocking part of that move, she said, was enduring the lack of Black and brown entrepreneurs, community leaders, and others who had nurtured her in Philly.

In 2008, when she was 20, she contracted HIV from a partner. While still living in Georgia, she started a blog, Healing Is Voluntary, and began speaking about HIV prevention and living with the virus at churches, various Boys and Girls Clubs, and anywhere else that would have her.

“I’m very spiritual. My mom used to call me a rebel without a cause, so now I got a cause,” she said, reflecting on what empowered her to share her truth even in the face of Southern conservatism.

My mom used to call me a rebel without a cause, so now I got a cause.

In 2012, Brown returned to Philadelphia to look after her ailing grandparents. In 2018, she began posting on Instagram and transferred her blog to the Well Project, a resource site for women living with and affected by HIV (where Brown now serves as director of programs).

As people living with HIV are losing access to healthcare in 20 states, Brown is now working on creating explainers on what to do if one’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program insurance is eliminated.

“Philly definitely empowers me,” Brown said. “You can just be who you are. Everybody’s minding their business.”

Here, she said, she has been able to connect with men and women standing outside corner stores; “people that research folks would never dare go talk to. Like, ‘Yo, you ever thought about taking an HIV test?’”

Juan Michael Porter II is a health journalist who currently serves as the communications officer of the HIV Caucus.