[7] Since 2011, Rae has continued to develop her YouTube channel, which features various short films, web series, and other content created by black people.

[19] She was raised mostly in Potomac, Maryland, where she grew up with "things that aren't considered 'black,' like the swim team and street hockey and Passover dinners with Jewish best friends.

[21] When Rae was in sixth grade, her family moved to the affluent View Park-Windsor Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, where she attended a predominantly black middle school.

Rae graduated from King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science, where she started acting.

As a college student, she made music videos, wrote and directed plays, and created a mock reality series called Dorm Diaries for fun.

At Stanford, Rae met Tracy Oliver, who helped produce Awkward Black Girl and starred on the show as Nina.

[24][25][26] In an effort to fund the rest of the first season, Rae and producer Tracy Oliver decided to raise money for the series through Kickstarter.

Rae's other shows—Ratchet Piece Theater, The "F" Word, Roomieloverfriends, and The Choir, among others—also focus on African-American experiences that are often not portrayed in the mainstream media.

[31] Rae's YouTube series often imitate the production style of network television comedies, including "cut-away scenes" showing imagined behavior, similar to those seen in Scrubs and How I Met Your Mother.

In 2018, at the 77th annual Peabody Awards, Insecure was honored for "creating a series that authentically captures the lives of everyday young, black people in modern society.

Rae's first book, a memoir titled The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, was released in 2015 and became a New York Times bestseller.

[45] In the book, she chronicles her life through a series of humorous anecdotes and opens up about her personal struggle with not fitting in, and not being considered "black enough" at times.

[48] In March 2021, Rae's production company, Hoorae, signed a five-year film and television deal with WarnerMedia.

[49] In 2021, Sweet Life: Los Angeles, a reality television program created by Rae, was produced as part of this deal.

[20] Rae married her longtime boyfriend, Louis Diame, a Senegalese businessman, in a private ceremony in France in July 2021.

In May 2015, Rae appeared on the cover of Essence magazine's Game Changers issue, alongside Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, Debbie Allen, and Mara Brock Akil.

Rae expressed her desire for more people of color working in production behind the scenes to make a lasting impact in the television industry.

[58] Her show Insecure has changed the public perception of the South Los Angeles community by highlighting Black businesses.