Talk:Brené Brown

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The article is a blatant advertisement and should be deleted immediately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.126.243.223 (talk) 04:51, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article is based primarily on self-serving and self-published sources of a relatively unknown person. It should be rewritten or removed. Uffe (talk) 17:06, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that she has written four bestsellers may be notable but the rest of the page reads (to me) like an advertisement. This article needs, at the very least, a major overhaul but I lack the skill to undertake such a task. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.182.228.246 (talk) 10:56, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I do see that there has been a history of COI editors - lots of PR speak and linking to her website. Adding a note here in case this issue persists. 22:57, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I've now made some efforts in the direction of NPOV, removing some tedious repetitiveness, while adding some Wikilinks and the missing ISBN numbers to the list of her published works Objectivesea (talk) 00:11, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The article still seems clearly written by the subject or her staff. Having done a Ted talk doesn't necessarily qualify as notability for wikipedia. The article looks to be written to increase the subjects online profile. Ashmoo (talk) 09:01, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is no serious argument to be made that Brené Brown falls below the threshold for Wikipedia notability. She is a highly influential public figure in the United States and in the English-speaking world more broadly.

For example, she hasn't just given a TED Talk; her TED Talk on vulnerability is the 4th most popular TED Talk of all time with 68.4 million views. Her other TED Talk, on shame, has 20.3 million views. It's the 53rd most viewed TED Talk of all time.

Similarly, she is most likely one of the most popular living non-fiction authors in the United States. Figures for sales of non-fiction books in the U.S. are not easy to come by, but from what I can discern from cobbling together various figures reported online, Brown's books have likely sold over 10 million copies cumulatively. As the article notes, six of her books are #1 New York Times best-sellers.

It's hard to know for sure, since, as I said, figures are hard to come by, but I think she would fall into the top 10 or top 20 of living American authors of non-fiction by copies sold, with a total number of sales probably within ~2-3x of former U.S. president Barack Obama, who I believe has sold over 20 million copies cumulatively. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to get hard, reliable numbers on this. Typically, we hear milestones such as when the book reaches 1 million copies sold or how many copies have sold as of a certain point in time.

Additionally, in terms of television, Brown had a Netflix special and an HBO Max series. We don't have access to viewership numbers or ratings for streaming TV, but these were covered in mainstream, widely read, high-quality publications like Vanity Fair, Vulture, and USA Today.

Brown's podcast Unlocking Us is popular and notable in itself. For instance, former U.S. vice president Kamala Harris appeared on the podcast on October 28, 2024, during the last two weeks of her U.S. presidential campaign. In terms of popularity, it is hard to get an overall, cumulative quantification, but I can find snapshots in time. For example, according to iTunesCharts.net, on March 23, 2020, Unlocking Us was the most popular podcast in the United States, as ranked by the iTunes/Apple Podcasts charts. A press release on PodNews.net confirms this.

So, putting together what I have said so far, Brené Brown is:

-One of the most widely viewed TED speakers of all time.

-One of the most widely read living American authors of non-fiction.

-Someone who has created and starred in a streaming TV special and a streaming TV show that reputable secondary sources that Wikipedia deems worthy of citation found worthy of coverage.

-At least at certain times in the past, one of the most popular podcasters in the United States, whose show a U.S. presidential candidate decided was important enough to appear on during the last two weeks of a U.S. presidential campaign.

Let me go even further. I used the search tool from Media Cloud, a project of academics from institutions like Harvard and MIT, to track coverage of Brené Brown in the U.S. mainstream national press. According to Media Cloud Search, from January 1, 2019 (the search tool advises that currently accessible records only go back to 2019 while older data is ingested) to July 22, 2025 (the current date), Brown was mentioned 1,456 times.

As a point of comparison, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind who won a Nobel Prize in 2024, was mentioned 1,174 times during the same span of time, which is 19% fewer mentions than for Brown.

The comedian Pete Holmes, who released a comedy special on Netflix in 2023, was mentioned 843 times, 42% fewer than Brown.

The musician Fred again.., who won two Grammys and was nominated for five others during that timeframe, was mentioned 1,259 times, 13% fewer than Brown.

The game designer Toby Fox, who released popular and critically acclaimed games in 2021 and 2025, was mentioned 111 times, 92% fewer than Brown.

The U.S. congresswoman Jill Tokuda from Hawaii, who has served in Congress since January 2023, was mentioned 429 times, 70% fewer than Brown.

If you combine the information I have presented so far with Wikipedia's criteria for the notability of authors and other creative professionals, which you can find at WP:AUTHOR, there is no question Brené Brown meets the threshold of notability. The criteria say it is sufficient for notability if a person has produced a "well-known work or collective body of work" which is the "primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews". Brown's books easily clear that bar.

Brown's work in television, podcasting, and her speaking (e.g., TED) also clear the "well-known" bar and the "multiple independent periodical articles or reviews" bar. See, for example, the Vanity Fair, Vulture, and USA Today articles I linked above about her Netflix special and her HBO Max show.

Simply meeting this one criterion is sufficient for notability, according to Wikipedia's standards, so Brené Brown is notable, conclusively.

Brown also meets the threshold for notability in other ways.

Under the WP:AUTHOR criteria, another criterion which on its own is sufficient is "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers".

For "regarded as an important figure", take as one example the Time article titled "America’s Reigning Expert on Feelings, Brené Brown Now Takes on Leadership", written by Time editor-at-large Belinda Luscombe (who is apparently notable enough to have her own Wikipedia article). A Variety article calls her "a renowned researcher, author and speaker". A New Yorker profile mentions that "her renown has grown", and the New Yorker writing a profile about someone is in itself an indicator that they are regarded as an important figure.

For "widely cited by peers", there are many examples. Notable people who have publicly cited Brown's work include Oprah Winfrey and the psychologist Angela Duckworth (here).

Beyond just citation, Brown collaborated on an anthology of essays with activist and author Tarana Burke. She also collaborated on online courses with the psychologists and authors Harriet Lerner and Kristin Neff.

Independently from the author/creative professional criteria, there are also the notability criteria for academics, WP:NACADEMIC. Brown meets the criterion "The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity", which on its own is sufficient for notability. Brown clearly has had a substantial impact outside academia in communicating her research and others' to the general public.

So, it is impossible to make a reasonable case that Brené Brown is not notable by Wikipedia's standards. She clearly is. YarrowFlower (talk) 08:27, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to the article itself, she was born in Bexar County; she lives and works in Harris County. I chose the latter, as my understanding of the category is "people associated with", rather than "people born in" the given county. Houston County was certainly incorrect (it's a common mistake to assume that the City of Houston is in Houston County, Texas).

I have no opinion regarding the significance or quality of the article--just correcting a minor mistake.

LineChaser (talk) 23:39, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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What's poppin' players? Sorry I'm not good at Wikipedia ettiquette and chet, but I just wanted to let y'all know that the link for Brene Brown's blog "https://brenebrown.com/my-blog/" is incorrect; the correct link is "https://brenebrown.com/blog/". Just thought I'd help you kind folk out. :)

This page has a lot of COI problems. A majority of the sources link directly to her websites about page or a PDF #11 "Brené Brown's Biography" (PDF). or no longer have the reference available for example number 15 "Dr. Brené Brown on Daring Greatly". OWN. 2013-11-03. This page should be reviewed for deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justin30995 (talk • contribs) 00:33, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Controversy section did not seem well supported.
There were three items: one about how she uses profanity in her books, but it only cited a source about therapists using profanity that made no mention of Brown or her work (WP:SYNTH). One item was that she has been criticized for not understanding the experience of African Americans, and the final one was criticism of her both-sides-ism on the war in Gaza. These final two do not appear to have any significant traction (WP:DUE), and I could not find any additional quality sources that made the same critiques. With the Gaza situation, it may be so recent that there isn't much out there, but with the one relating to the black experience, I only found a few tiktoks and blog posts, and they invariably go back to the single article cited already about the dangers of "Courage Culture" by Carey Yazeed. I came to the section thinking that with three items of one line each (and typos), it should be either expanded if possible or deleted, but I think deletion is the best option for now.--MattMauler (talk) 13:07, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]