Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Going Viral in a Pandemic + Why It's Not Too Late to be Big on Social Media with Pinky Patel,  Dom Roberts, Corporate Natalie

Transcript

Going Viral in a Pandemic + Why It's Not Too Late to be Big on Social Media with Pinky Patel,  Dom Roberts, Corporate Natalie · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and I have conversations that.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Put a new spin on pretty this is pretty smart.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: When the pandemic started, many of us needed an escape
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to remember those days when we all were on social
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: media for hours. Well, during that time, I saw a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: lot of new influencers emerge online, especially via Instagram and TikTok. Today,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I'm chatting with three of those well known influencers who
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: rose to fame during the pandemic, Corporate, Natalie dom Roberts,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and Pinky Patel. All three have their own specialties and
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: stories of how and why they went viral and what
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: they're doing with their Internet fame. Now, I'm going to
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: do a separate intro for each of them as we
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: run through the pod. First up, Pinky Patel. Now, sometime
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: in between working at nine to five and taking care
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of her roommates aka her husband and kids, Pinky has
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: managed to amass over four point three million TikTok followers
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and nine hundred and forty five million views on her videos.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: She also has a huge following on Instagram. Now, so
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: who's the funny woman behind the crown, be dazzled, microphone,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: pink chapstick and feminist rhetoric.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Let's find that all right, So, Pinky, I love you.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Your videos make me laugh so hard, especially when I'm
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: like not in a great mood.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I'll go to your page just to put me in
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: a good mood. It's true.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And I found you through Kristin Bell, who I always
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: find good people and good things through. But I was
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: wondering if you had a celeb that was following you
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that you got so excited about.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I did. It was my very first celebrity that started
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: following me. I have two so different platforms, so and TikTok.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: It was Jenny McCarthy because I grew up watching her
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: on MTV and listen, I know people are like, oh
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: my god. I'm like, look, I have not talked to
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: her myself, so I don't know if she's a good
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: person or not. But all I know is I watched
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: her on my screen on MTV Live. All that bullshit.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Can I swear?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know totally. You could do whatever you have.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, good, but yeah, I watched her growing up and
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: so to have her follow me on TikTok and then
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: or first it was a comment on one of my videos,
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: and then then she started following me. So it was
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: just like I literally I literally saw it here because
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: I was waiting for my computer to process something. So
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: I just took a little break and I was like,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: I hyperventilated, ran up three flights up stairs with socks,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: and I'm the clumsiest person. So my forever Peop was like,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: are you okay? What's going on? Ran up to his
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: office on the on our second floor. He's like, what happened?
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Was like he.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Was just like, oh my god, you're serious. Like he
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: he does, don't show much expression, like we're completely opposites,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: and so he's stone called Steve Austin versus I'm like
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: and so for him to crack a smile and he's like, yeah,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: high five, be high five. That's what we do.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: And then on Instagram it was Kristen Bell. When I
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: when I found out she follows me, I was like,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: are you kidding me? Like, come on, she's hilarious.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: You know it's funny too.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Is when I moved to La from Chicago, I had
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the opportunity. I got so lucky I interviewed. It was
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I was working for free, but I interviewed all these
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: big stars like Tom Hanks and Martin Short, like big
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: name people. I was never nervous, never star struck. A
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: friend of mine said, hey, can you pick me up
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: at a house. Come in, there's some people over you.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: We'll hang for a little bit and then we'll go.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I said yeah, And I walk up to the house
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: and I don't even know his real name, but Nathan
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: from One Tree Hill opened the door, and I felt
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: like I couldn't breathe.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm at Nathan's house.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: It's always the people that you grow up watching that
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: hit you. So I get why Jenny McCarthy was a
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: big deal. And she's also a Chicagoan.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean I said, you know what, let's
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: let's hang out do hot girl shit. She never responded.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: So I'm still waiting for us to connect, have some coffee,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: do hot girl shit. We'll figure it out.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So I was so shocked to hear this because you
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: have a robust following on two platforms, Instagram and TikTok,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and you still you kept your day job, you work
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: in it. I want to like dial back to how
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: this started, because you really popped off during the pandemic
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: on TikTok originally, What happened?
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Why did you post your first video?
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: It's a funny story and it's part of my comedy
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: set now that I do, and so I'm not going
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: to get into too much detail, leave a little bit
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: of mystery. But long story short, I was never really
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: a social media poster, like I never got into my
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Space all that stuff, And so I opened Facebook after
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: I got married because I wanted to share, you know.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, I'm gonna have kids, duh. I'm Indian,
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: That's what we do. And so I was like, I
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: need to share pictures with my family that's in Connecticut,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: and I don't want to just snail mail and all that.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: So that was that's what I was using it for.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: But my best friend during the pandemic, I was doing
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: random thoughts of the day on Facebook, and that turned
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: into vlogs. So I would just turn the camera on
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: and just like spit my frustrations and whatever. And my
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: friends think it's hilarious when I like get really angry
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: and upset because I'm really expressed, Like I have a
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: lot of expression and just the personality comes out, and
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: my sarcasm comes out, my snarkiness, and it's not coming
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: from like a place of hatred or anything, just frustration, right,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: And so I started doing that and then I was
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: posting those on YouTube, and I had joined TikTok just
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: like everybody else in March, because I was like, okay,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: well I'm netflixed and not chilled and I'm done now,
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: and so what are we gonna do? And you know,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: we don't have all the streaming services, We're not made
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: of money, We're just like whatever. So I was bored.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Downloaded it in thirty seconds. I was like, absolutely not, Nope,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: absolutely not. I can't dance, I can't lip sync. What
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: is this for? Right back then, I didn't know that
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: it was. It was for everything. I didn't know that,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: And so I even went as far as uninstalling TikTok
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: for my phone. I uninstalled it did not go in.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: And then my friends started sending me tiktoks and text
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: text messages like we do now, right, like it's normal.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: A couple of years ago, it was memes, Now it's TikTok's,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: you know, same difference. And I was like, wait a minute,
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: this shit's funny, Like what since when is it funny now?
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Like I thought it was for music and all that shit.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: My friends were like, no, pinky, they're explaining it. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: I was like, I feel really old right now, but
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: we'll get over. And I asked my friend again, the
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: same friend that was like, turn your camera on and
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: start blogging, you know, I was like, okay, my first wog.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I didn't know where to look. Do I look at
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: the camera lens or do I look at myself? Like
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: I kept doing this and then asking, I was like,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I don't I don't know what to do. What happened
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: like and we're pretty dizzy. But the first video that
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: I took was I was bitching about grapes. You're kidding, No,
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: I was complaining about grapes.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Your what's your gripe? With the grape?
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Look, grapes. They have two they have two life choices. Okay,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: when they're on the vineyard, they have to make these
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: two important life choices. The first one is do I
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: want to be wine grapes wine wasted? Or do I
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: want to be eating grapes? Now, if you pick eating grapes,
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: what does that mean? You have to be ready? And
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: willing to come off the branches, but the fact that
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: they don't come off the branches, and then I have
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: to sit there and it's very hard to get the
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: little branch branch stem things off of the grapes with
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: nails and I'm sitting This is I to this day.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Every week I have to get a bag of grapes
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: because roommate number three loves grapes. That is one of
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: the fruits that he eats, and I have to get
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: it off. And I yell at him because I'm like,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: get the fucking stool. Come over here, use your tiny
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: fingers and get these stems off.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, Just for everybody who doesn't know who are your roommates, it's.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: My forever peop. He's roommate number one. That's my husband.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: It depends on how I'm feeling. If we're fighting, he's
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: roommate number one. If we're okay, he's my forever PEP.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Roommate number two is my fifteen year old son. I
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: always forget his age. Roommate number three is my nine
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: year old son, and room at number four is our
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: dog Nacho.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't know about Nacho. Yeah, so what did all
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: of your roommates think when you started posting.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: My husband, honestly, he just thought it. He was like, whatever,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: you're bored, it's a pandemic. What else are you gonna do?
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: So he built this office for me. It was my
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: birthday gift that year. And so I've been down here
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: and he's He's like, as long as you're not spending
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: all day, every day in your cave, I could care
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: less what you do. I started, you know, and then
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: it just kind of morphed into this, all of this,
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: This is what it morphed into.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: The sweet that he helped build it. Yeah, Kristen Bell
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: got me to your page.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: But why I clicked follow and why I'm such a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: huge fan of yours is there's a huge tone of
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: female empowerment and feminism.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: In your in your videos.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: So for people that haven't seen your videos yet, how
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: would you describe them.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I'm super sarcastic. I am very snarky. My base nature
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: when I'm not like being cognized, like conscious of my
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: mental health or whatever is glass is half empty, Like
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: that's I'm a pessimist by nature. I'm a pessimist. I'm
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: always like this is horrible, and like I'm very I
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: come from that place, and so, like I said, it's
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: a conscious effort to meet for me to be in
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: a positive state all the time. Make content helps, Reading
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: positive comments helps tremendously with that, and so that's why
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: I keep going. But my stuff just comes from I
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: just I'm done with And I don't know if it's
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: female empowerment, if that's how people choose to see it,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: but I'm just dumb with people accepting the fact that
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: there are dummies out there. I'm done with that. Like
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I to me, it doesn't care if you're a man,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: you're a woman, whatever your terminologies are, whatever your pronouns are.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: If you're doing something stupid, it's hard for me not
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: to say something. And I'm never I'm never gonna be
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: the one that will, you know, shame you on how
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: you look because I'm not perfect. I wasn't born perfect, right, yeah,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: ratchet teeth, I probably I didn't remember Tainer after so
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: it's like, oh my god, Pinky, what are you doing?
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: You know, I had to have lasik, so I had
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: used to have glasses. Like I'm definitely very very fluffy,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So I'm not the last thing.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna do is shame you on your body, or
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: shame you on some sort of chronic illness you have
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: or some disease you have or not. Yeah, like I
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: don't know.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna shame you about your chronic illness.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Like if you have chronic dry lips, I'm not gonna
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: throw chapsticks at you, Like I'm gonna be like, hey,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: maybe do you want to drink water or go talk
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: to a doctor? You know, like serious stuff. But it's
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: just it's I want people to be comfortable with themselves
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: and to kind of I'm done. I'm done with just
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: people posting stupid shit on the Internet and thinking it's okay,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: that's that's where I come from.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And there's a lot of stupid stuff on the internet.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Believe me. So I think I'm gonna be pretty good
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: until out Like I'm one hundred.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: You don't do well.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite things that you do is when
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: you call men douche canoes, and you only do it
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: when they deserve it. You're not free with the word
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: no no, But what message are you trying to send
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to people?
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: The messages open your eyes. Don't take everything for face
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: value just because somebody on the Internet tells you something.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Don't be like, oh my god, it's totally true. It's
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: not true. This is the interwebs. Do your own research.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: And if you don't want and I know we've heard
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: that right past eighteen months, do your own research. If
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: you're not willing to do your own research, I'm not,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: I don't have the patience for it. Then don't come
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: on and be like, oh my god, vaccines are horrible
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: because I read an headline on Facebook about vaccines and
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: they're horrible. Did you do your own research, Brenda? No,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: don't do that.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: The whole thing is like, yeah, I pick random names.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: They're not pointed at people I try to stick from.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Stay away from Karen. It his hashtag, not all Karen's,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: you know, true, but it's it's mostly my whole thing,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: and it's just open your eyes.
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: People.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: Don't don't be so gullible. Like if if somebody who
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: completely looks like you would not be friends with them
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: in high school, because you would have, you would not
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: have gotten along, don't give them a clout. Now, don't
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: be like, don't hype them up. You know what I mean.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of people and again, like you said,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I'm not free with that word. I only I only
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: just can or twat waffle when it's deserved. Like, you're
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: being stupid? What are you doing? Why did you see
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: your mom's car, Kyle? Give it back to her and
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: go back to school. I don't understand. You don't need
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: to know about sex right now. That's not what this
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: is about. Go get an education.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: These numbers are wild.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: You have four point three million followers on TikTok over
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: almost one hundred million views on your videos. You have
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: seven hundred and forty something thousand followers on Instagram, and you.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Still have your day job in it.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, I know you've considered leaving. I've heard you talk
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: about it, but every day. Okay, So so why have
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you kept your job?
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Because I'm not stupid? Okay, because I'm an adult expand
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: that I'm not eighteen years old looking for an easy
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: career in becoming an influencer, because I have two kids
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: that I have to put through college. Because I'm hello
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Indian smart with my money, Like you can pick any
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: one of those. It's because if I ever do make
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: that decision to switch to be like okay, it's time
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: to pull the plug. Because I can't either mentally handle
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: it or physically handle it. There's not enough hours in
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: the day. Because everybody knows I love my sleep. I
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: need a minimum of eight to ten hours of sleep.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Me too, Like this, This is why I hate grapes,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: because fucking grapes. They're taking forty five minutes of my
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: time when I could be napping during that time. When
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: I do make that decision to quit my day job,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: it's because the two of us, my husband and I
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: have figured out, Okay, well, what have I done this
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: past year?
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: So I kind of sort of started making money in
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: February of this year, Right, So February of twenty twenty two,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: full year? What was I able to do on my own?
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: How much was I able to make on my own? Now,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: what do we think is going to happen in the
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: next year with a manager with a talent, like, with
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: all of like a full support system. Right, Ideally, you
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: should be better about it, right, you should. You should
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: be the money should increase, But I don't know that.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: And so it's like, again, I'm an adult. I'm not
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: going to just quit because it's like, oh my god,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: a famine forgin in La here I know, like, that's
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: not what it is.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: You know, is that the goal? Because I know that.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: One of the things I was excited to see is
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that you took your comedy from URL to IRL. You've
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: been doing comedy shows in real life and real time
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: at comedy clubs. Is that something you like doing? Would
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: you like to do more of that?
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: I've only done five shows so so far. I like it.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: Besides anxiety about being on scare on stage.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Your kids must be so inspired.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's really incredible for them to see.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: My younger son, I was in the family room and
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: dad was helping him with homework after school, and I
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: heard like he was he said something. My husband laughed
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: and he's like, oh, are you going to be a
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: comedian when you grow up? Like mom, He's like yeah,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: because I'm funny.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, like you're making him and see
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: that it's possible. Do your coworkers know that you have
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: viral fame?
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: I didn't think so until one of them messaged me
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: on Microsoft teams doing work and they started the message
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: with hello, my prans and I was like, I went
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: into high alert. Oh oh my god. Security has been
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: reached and that's what I typed security has been breached,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: and then I, you know that was that was before
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: they were like you have to come in once a week.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Now it's like you have to come in twice a week.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: And then I went into the office and somebody that
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: I've worked with in the past, but like I work
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: with so many people, it's hard for me to like
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: put faces to names, like I have a really bad memory,
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: and I feel horrible. And it's not because I don't
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: like you or anything. It's just I've got a lot
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: going on in here. But she came up to me, like,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: she came to my desk and she lowered her mask,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: and I was just like, hi, Like I don't I know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: you look familiar, but I haven't seen anybody from work
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: in a year, and so I don't remember what your
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: face like. I couldn't put the face to the name,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: and I couldn't recall work. And she's like, I just
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: want to tell you I love your stuff.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: I was like, what, yeah, you know, that's nice.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: So slowly people are finding out now at work, and
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: like so the people I've told and have known since
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: the beginning that I've been doing this, so they've been
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: kind of along for the ride. Other people will come
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: up to them like, oh my god, did you know
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: me have a celebrity working here? And they're like, yeah,
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: do you mean Pinky. They're like, yeah, how come you
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: even tell me? It's like it wasn't their job to
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: tell you. This is not this is if you follow me,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: that's great, but it is what like, there's part of
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: people follow me.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: It's like part of their new uh new hire strategy.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: They're like, by the way, we have a celebrity here.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I learned that Pinky. Your character is sort of based
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: off your mom.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, she is the voice that lives in my head constantly.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: She's the one that tells me to calm down all
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: the time because she has always had to tell me
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: to calm down, you know, to be that demure Indian
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: girl that I'm supposed to be. And I'm like, but
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know what that is, and so she is.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: She's like when I go into stories about childhood, stories
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: of growing up with her, and I do the both
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: me and her, and it just it is what it is,
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: you know. And whenever I get into stressful situations, I
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: think of a lot of what my mom will say
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: and how she'll say it right because limited vocabulary, all
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: this stuff and how she'll say it in English as well,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: So there's like three part factor and nine out of
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: ten it will not make It will take me from
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: being pissed off or something to just be like it's
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: not that serious. We're done, We're done, and yeah, it
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: just makes me feel better. It makes me lighten my mood,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: It makes me just it makes me appreciate her and
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: just everything that we've been through. So like, I'm not
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: saying I had a like, oh my god, traumatic upbringing,
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: but being first generation raised here, it was definitely a
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: lot different than a lot of people. And so I
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: have an outlet to tell these stories and they're not
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: horrible stories. I'm not mad at her, but like, oh again,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: and you never let me go to Becky's party, Like
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: who the fuck cares? I don't even know where Becky
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: is now, Like I don't follow her on social media,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: it doesn't matter, but she is.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Does your mom find it funny? Does she see the videos?
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: And she is on TikTok and I am her only follower.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: She I'm the only one she follows. She will go,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: she gets that pin every day and she will go
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: and watch my videos.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: How did you land on Pinky Paateel.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: That's my name?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Pinky's your real name.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: No, No, Pinky is a nickname I've had since I've
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: grown up. Yeah, it's been tattooed on me for the
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: past seventeen years, so it is legit. Every time I
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: go home, I'm Pinky. Nobody uses my real name. I
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: blame my husband for nobody using my real like Pinky here,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: because when he introduced me, I was like, why would
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: you do that? Why everybody knows when people call you
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: by your nickname, that means that you were loved. And
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: He's like, how did I know that? And I was like,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: it's too late. Now we're here seventeen years later.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: That's really sweet. I didn't know that. I was looking
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: at your comments.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Some of them say, oh my goodness, friends, it's miss
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Pinky Patel.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I love her. She always makes me laugh.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: The world needs more Pinky, Like, there's just so much
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: love and support for you. What do you think it
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: is about you and your comedy that's resonating with people
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: like this.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of it is It is just
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: I say what I want to say. Right there's it's
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: in my career, my day job, yeah, and my mom
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: life pta all like in different aspects of my life,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: I always have to have a filter on, right, like
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: when I'm when I'm a room I'm a room parent,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: doing the Halloween party or doing a holiday party. I
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: can't just be like, you fuckers need to sit down,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Like I can't say that because you're there in first grade.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: That's not cool, you know. And so I think, because
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: I always have to have a filter in the rest
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: of my life, I use social media as like an
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: outlet where I don't necessarily have to have that filter.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: I will absolutely say things different ways because I think
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: it's hilarious when I net flanderism, things like I don't
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: say real words, and I think it's hilarious, like and
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: I have a dirty mind, you know, Like I laugh
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: when when my kids and they're just like I did
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: and they run away, you know, like, and it's funny,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: you like. And I think there's so many subjects that
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: we have been conditioned to think are taboo. Let's not
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: talk about it. But if we don't talk about it,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: then we won't know that what we're feeling, what we're
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: going through inside is normal. And so I try to
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: say things in just I guess hashtag relatable. I guess.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: I think that's what it is. People have told me
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: that I'm relatable, and I hope that I am, and
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: I hope that's where the sex ass is coming from.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: I mean a good majority of the comments, like you've seen,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: they're super positive, super like you know, oh my gosh.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: I watch your content when I'm doing my monthly chemo
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: sessions and helps me get through it. I'm like, girl,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: don't say that to me. That's when I'm gonna cry.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Like that's a serious thing, chemo, and I'm helping you
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: through that, little one, me and my vagina cave. Come on, now,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: that's amazing.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: I read something that you wrote that I really loved.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: You said.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping the more exposure I get, the more things
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: that I do, little Indian girls will see me on screen,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: because now, you know, is the opportunity Right in the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: nineties and two thousands, there was no way I could
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: have been an actress. There was no way I could
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: have done that. I would not have been accepted, I
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: would not have gotten roles. The mindset was not there
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: in Hollywood.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I stand by it. I'm going to stand by
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: it until I'm one hundred and a die.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: You know, I agree with you.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: When I was younger, I did that was one of
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: my like you know when you when you ask kids,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: what do you want to be when you grow up?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: I was like, I want to be that? And I
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: pointed to the TV and I was like, I want
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: I want to be that girl like who's on the
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Mickey Mouse Club dancing? I want to be I want
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: to be next to Christina I gue there because I
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: watched her on my screen and I was like, oh
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: my god, that's amazing. You know, I didn't realize. I mean,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: I obviously learned quickly that this does not match that,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: and I was like, well, there's not. There was never
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: going to be an opportunity for me back in the
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: eighties and nineties early two thousands to become as famous
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: as I wanted to. Now, yeah, we have Mindy Kaling
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: who is making it amazing for not only female writers,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: but female Indian writers. You know, she's definitely making it
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: so that brown girls everywhere can be like, no, no,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: we can do this now, Like if I can be
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: part of that gang, that girl gang, that would be amazing.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I think you're part of it.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: We'll see. We'll see if I can get to the
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: next d Valley party out there, We'll see.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I know that must have given you fomo, that would
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: have given me. Yeah.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: I was like, could I get on some sort of
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: pr list? I don't know. I'll make the simosas I
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: don't even know.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Back in May, you said you were a terrible famous person.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: I am Why is that.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Because I'm really awkward?
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: So prime example, I don't think you're awkward.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Oh I'm awkward, like I say things from the eighties.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, the only reason I'm not a
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: good famous person is because I don't expect it. I've
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: learned when someone's like, oh my god, are you pinky
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: to tell? I'm like, yeah, hey, what's up? And then
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: there's that awkward exchange of oh I love you, I'm like, dun't.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: You don't need to fangirl, It's just I'm just so.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: You don't like when people come up and ask you
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: for a photo.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: They don't ask, and so I offer, like only rare.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: They rarely ask because they're so terrified they don't want
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: to invade my privacy. It happens at like my roommate,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: like roommate number three places baseball, right, And so when
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I do make an appearance at a game, it's like,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: are you what? Who are you? You are hurt, aren't you?
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: I'm like yeah, And I don't even wear my glasses.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I don't wear my merch. I'm trying to go in
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: and be like Shu because you know, I'm here for him.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: And now these people know who my son is and
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: like where they connect the two, like he's the only
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: brown kid on the team. Oh my god. But I've
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: learned to offer. I so if somebody fangirls at the
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: airport or at the grocery store or at the post
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: office and I'm not running to do something, I will
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: take a minute and then hey, you want a picture
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: because you know pics or it didn't happen. That's awkward,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: And I just make jokes and it makes everybody feel
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: comfortable and we get through it.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I think you know you made it when
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you're a Halloween costume and I saw people dress up
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: like you this year.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: No wild that was amazingly insane. I'm like, people sent
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: me stuff at the end of the day on Halloween
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: and then the next day and I was just like,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: this is what this is insane, like the fact that
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: I'm a costume.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: What's been your biggest pinch me moment?
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: So far?
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: There's not one right now because it's so new. It
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: is when like I'm walking down New York City from
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: the Empire State Building to Bryant Park with my friends,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: and again, I wore my merch because if I don't
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: wear it, who's nowhere? Right, no crown? But I have
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: my glasses. But unless you're like this close to me,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: you can't really read pinky Ptel. You just kind of know, Hey,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: I know those shapes, I know that bedazzle, and I
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: know those beads. It must be her. But I was walking,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: we were walking from Empire State Building my friends and
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: in passing three girls were like they did a double take.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: They're like, oh my god, that and they screamed it
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: as we were crossing the street, and I was just like,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: what is life right now? Like what has happened? What?
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: How is this even a thing? So do I love
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: getting fangirled over? Absolutely? It doesn't. I'm not gonna lie
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: to you. You know, like everybody wants to be famous,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: and if they tell you, they don't they they're being
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: they're lying to themselves, right, But it's how you deal
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: with that fame. It's how I think everybody wants to
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: be famous. Everybody he wants to I I feel like like,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: if you're on social media, you want to be famous,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: you want to be recognized, you want you're You're putting
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: yourself out there first of all, for strangers to judge you,
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: for people to leave comments, whether they are good bad,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: and they don't care about your mental state, they don't
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: care about you know, can you handle these comments that
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I'm putting out there? So you are definitely putting yourself
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: out there for attention. Dup. I know. I am like,
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: look at me, come commiserate the crazy with me, Like
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: that's what my deal is. And absolutely I said it
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: in my first podcast with Matt Perlman. I definitely want
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: to be famous, like, but also I'm not going to
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: be a twat waffle whenever I am famous.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: What do you think real influence is?
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: So for me, influences, I want to be able to
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: show people who watch my content, who read my posts,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: my comments, whatever my tweets, whatever it is. I want
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: them to be like, you know, don't be scared to
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: say what you're feeling, say what you're thinking, but do
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: it in a respectful way, like that is what I want.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: Like the fact that a lot of people don't say
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: things because they don't want to hurt someone's feelings is
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: is insane to me. I do it too. I'm not
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: saying I don't do it. I'm not like I can't
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: be a hypocritme be like, no, I say everything that's
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: on my mind. Absolutely not. I filter based on my audience,
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: based on if the person can hand alert or not.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: But you you have to. And it's not because I'm
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: managing somebody else's triggers or anything like that. It's I'm
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: respecting you as a human. So real influence, it's not
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I don't I don't care if you buy the same
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: crown as me. That's to me, that's not being an influencer.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: I don't care if you wear the same clothes as me.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: I don't care if you have the same paint color
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: on your wall as me, or the same I Kia bookcases,
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: therefrom my Kia, but the same bookcase. That's not influence
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: to me. To me, influences, did I make you a
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: better person? Did I make you like, did you go
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: from being a twat waffle to being a pillar of society?
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: That is true influence.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Wow, that is a huge order.
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: I love that.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: So I think a lot of a lot more people
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: need to have that, as that's what a true influencer is.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: There's a reason why I always have a messyvon There's
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: a reason why I am always in sweatshirts or T
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: shirt and swatpants. There's a reason why when I dance,
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: I dance like an idiot, because that's the real meat.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: So when I'm when I'm out like this with my
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: hair actually done because I had to go into the
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: office at work and look presentable.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, I do some rapid fire Are you ready?
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Fans send you crowns, amongst other things. What is the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: strangest gift you've received from a fan?
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: A couple of weeks ago, I got a potato in
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: the mail and it said will you be my brand?
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: And I was like, what is this potato? I don't
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: there's some day.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, what book should everybody read?
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Fifty Shades of Gray? Either one.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I actually wrote a blog
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: post one time about how much I hate fifty shades
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of gray.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so terrible, it's amazing. That's what it is.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: It is audacity. Like if my husband into a room
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: and said this is my playroom, I absolutely would be like,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: where's your Xbox and PlayStation? Are the board games?
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: This? Like?
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: How is this bitch? Gonna just bring in some woman
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: who's never had sex in her whole entire her life,
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: just graduated with a lit degree. She's the most innocent
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: of innocence and take her to a room where it's
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: coded and read my ultimate ultimate favorite in all seriousness,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: and you will laugh because it was the first book
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: I ever completely finished reading after I learned English, and
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: it is the Disney's Cinderella. That is my favorite book
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: of all time. That is where my love of romance
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: books started was with Cinderella.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: That's really sweet. I would have not expected that.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: No, No, fifty shades absolutely that.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: No.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, So I have a card deck with fifty two questions.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: You have to tell me when to stop stop? Okay,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: this is good. Do plants thrive or die in your care?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Die? Absolutely? They die because look, let me tell you this,
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: plants are just like grapes and avocados. In my opinion.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: They require a lot of maintenance. You have to remember
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: to water them. They don't when they're hungry like children do.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: They don't whine and powther bowls like doggies and animals do.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: They don't tell you anything. They just sit there. They
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: take up space. I don't even know if they're giving
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: me any photosynth This is bullshit. I have no idea.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: There's and then there's like fruit flies everywhere. There's little
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: gnats at all. No, absolutely me too.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I killed succulents twice. I don't know what happened. Nobody
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: kills succulents.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Pinky.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I ask everybody this at the end of the interview,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: what is the smartest decision you've ever made?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: The smartest decision is to not be scared to put
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: myself in front of the camera. Up until now, I
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: was always the one taking the pictures. I was always
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: the one recording the events because I was never comfortable
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: with myself on the screen. Even to this day. It
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: takes I just choose to ignore the insecurities, and I
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: think the fake it till you make it method has
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: worked for me so far, and so I will kind
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: of continue with that method. But the best decision was
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: to take my friend's advice and to start putting myself
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: out there and not keeping myself in this small part
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: of the world.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: I guess what a great note to end on.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you, It's amazing.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Corporate Natalie is a different kind of influencer. She's the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: CEO of work from home jokes. Natalie isn't even her
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: real name, it's her social media persona. She created it
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: as remote work took over during the pandemic and zoom
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: became the new norm for.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Many of us.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Corporate Natalie creates content about the weirdness that is corporate
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: culture and pokes fun at her work from home pet
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Peeves don't even think about saying the word mute to her.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Her content is relatable in a time where so many
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: of us have that need to relate.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about corporate culture, side hustles, and the
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: art and business of influencer life.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Natalie, I know you.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Can't talk about your current job, but I want to
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: talk to you about your former job because you started
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: this persona Corporate Natalie during COVID while you were at
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: your last corporate gigs. So for people who don't know
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: who is corporate Natalie.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: Corporate Natalie is me, but I guess she is a
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: character I built amidst the twenty twenty pandemic work from
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: home life of just seeing all these strange zoom nuances
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: that we were all facing, and I just I downloaded TikTok.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: I wasn't even a user of TikTok. Actually I downloaded
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: it and started watching, and then I immediately started creating
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: videos because I love comedy and whatever. I gave it
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: a try. But I am just an average I'm actually
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: I'm twenty four years old, which I think people are
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: normally shocked to hear because I think I have this
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: kind of wisdom and advice on corporate America when truly
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: I don't. I don't know anything. Been working for three years,
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: if not less, so that's always fun. But yeah, just
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: was working. I was actually I was a consultant, so
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: I was traveling across the country, being staffed everywhere, wearing
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: a bunch of different hats, as I like to say
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: in my videos. And then now I work in tech
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: a little more relaxed. But Corpornatalie was just from like
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: all these super buttoned up consultant type people coming on
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: Zoom and I just was. It was so hilarious in
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: the beginning, no one knew how to operate. Now we're
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: totally fine with the home studio the work from home life,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: but it was quite revolutionary back then of making fun
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: of this thing because no one had done it before.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Well how did she come to life? Like where did
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the idea to create her come from?
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: I started making jokes about the whole zoom thing, and
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: then I got the Corpornatalie name just kind of like
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: locked it down on TikTok and Instagram and it grew
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: from there. And now people recognize me. They're like Corporatenatalie Corp.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's just so funny. They recognize you, yeah,
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: bars like whatever in the city, Like I think it
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: GEO locates where your city is. So like, people in
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: my city probably see my face a lot more than
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: they would probably like, and they recognize me from there.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: Was like, are you that girl on TikTok?
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Like, how does it feel for when people come up
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: to you?
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: It's pretty surreal. I mean, I don't I don't think
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: I'm famous, like I think I just I tell a
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: couple jokes and then I have these experiences of getting
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: recognized or being invited to the super Bowl or just
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: these crazy things that I never what have you even
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: had access to or even new existed, And so I
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: get actually like emotionally then thinking about it because I'm like,
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: I don't know how I deserve this, Like there are
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: people with actual talent. I'm just telling a couple jokes,
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: like I have such imposter syndrome about it, But it's
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: an honor. I mean, it's such an honor. Like I
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: it's crazy that you can become go from one day
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: no One to an influencer of influencing people with their
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: buying decisions and all these crazy things that just I mean,
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: it holds a lot of power and it's crazy, but
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: I'm honored.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Have you seen the power of it firsthand? Like what
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: was the first time that you really saw the impact
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: that you were able to make?
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: I think just the way sort of the corporate Natalie
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: community dare I say spawns, but just like super positive
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: and I think I really try to keep my platforms
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: like I'm not trying to be malicious or hurt anyone
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: and keep it super positive. And I think people are
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: really supportive of that. Obviously there's hate comments and stuff,
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: but I think, you know, doing an AD and getting
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: the comments of like, I didn't even realize this was
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: an ad, this was awesome, like just bought. I'm like
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: really like, okay, cool, I didn't. Wow. I guess that worked,
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: you know, And just seeing that, I think as it's
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: become more of a business now as opposed to just
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: like kind of a hobby or side thing, it's now,
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: you know, really really changing my life and the way
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: I live and the person I am and the decisions
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: I make and stuff like that. So it's crazy.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Do you foresee yourself leaving Corporate America at any point
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: to do this full time?
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I think I think Corporatenatalie has opened
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: up doors for me even in my full time job,
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: of you know, trying a more creative role in people
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: in my own company noticing me and offering me positions
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: that I would have never been offered before, and a
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: seat at the table and conversations related to marketing and
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: social media. And I think that's incredible. I think that's
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: so cool. I think I need to be sort of
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: an active participant in corporate America. To be corporate Natalie
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: would feel a bit, you know, disingenuine to not be like,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: have a full time job and make all these corporate jokes,
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: I would feel a little bit detached from that. But
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: I think there is in my ideal world, it would
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: be a marrying of the two of I am corporate
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Natalie on the side, and at work, I do things
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: related to you know, social media marketing, you know, maybe
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: influencing things like that. So I think trying to figure
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: out that balance right now is where I'm at in life.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: But because what I do in my full time job
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: is incredibly different from anything related to marketing, social media
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: influencing stuff like that.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Have you seen crossover from TikTok to Instagram or how
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: does that work for you?
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: So I think I'm a little unique in that way. Actually,
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of really big TikTok stars
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: that have millions of followers on TikTok that it doesn't
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: really translate to Instagram and hopefully less than fifty k.
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: And I think for me, my audience is actually very
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: nuanced on each platform. I think I have a little
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: younger audience on TikTok and kind of like my audience
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: on Instagram are like to say, are the people who
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: are like too cool for TikTok, like won't download it,
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: and they see my reels and it's like they've never
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: seen it on another platform. So I think I'm able
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: to actually have a bigger following on Instagram through reels,
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: which is weird. So I think I'm I sort of
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: am the inverse of the typical TikTok creator. I think
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: TikTok's getting sick of the work from home jokes, gonna
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: have to rebrand on that platform eventually, We'll see.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: What do you think when you look back at your
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: early videos one like turn a Light On.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I was filming in a dark
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: closet or how the quality was so bad, but it
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: was horrible. No, I just think I think I'm proud
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: of myself, really, like of just for putting myself out there.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: I think it takes a lot of courage. And there's
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: a lot of people who have a bunch of drafts
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: in their TikTok and are just like waiting to press
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: post and have these thoughts that are preventing them from
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: really pulling the trigger on it. And I think I'm
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: really proud of myself for doing that and trying and
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: not caring if I got ten yews and still posting
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: and putting my pride aside, and now it's become something incredible.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: So I've become something I'm really proud of now. So
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: to anyone out there who is just sitting on those
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: drafts or waiting or thinking you'll get hate or whatever,
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: I think it's a super as long as you're not
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: being malicious. Like TikTok is a welcome, mean community. I mean,
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: there's a very dark side to it, but anyone can
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: go viral. Like the way the algorithm is built is
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: you don't have to be an a less celebrity to
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: have a platform. You can have a video that has
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: viral potential, do incredibly well, and then it changes your life.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: So I don't know, I would say I'm proud and
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: then turn on the light.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: For people who don't even have drafts in their TikTok
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: yet but have an interest and just kind of don't
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: know where to start with two plus years of experience, Now,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: what do you think?
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: What would you say to that?
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: How do you think that they can sort of brand themselves?
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think building your personal brand isn't necessarily
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: married to social media It can be you know, making
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: a name for yourself in your office or in your
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: workplace of you make amazing brownies and everyone knows Natalie
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: for bringing these incredible brownies to the office or something,
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: or you know, you have a skill set that no
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: one else has and you become sort of that single
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: point of failure. Without me, this process or this operation
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: wouldn't run. I talk about this in my talks that
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: I give, But just you know, finding that thing that
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: makes you super unique. I think this work from home
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: and this new way of work is allowing us to
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: find those passions and find what we're excited about and
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: really try it out. So I think, you know, when
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: you find something that you love or something that you're
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: proud of, just put it out there and not again,
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: not even on social media, with your friends, with your family,
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: with your team, whatever it is, I would say, just
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: put it out there on the flip. If you're interested
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: in getting into the influencer economy, are the sort of
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: social media world there's so many participants in it. You
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: don't have to be the creator. You can be, you know,
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: someone who's helping run an Instagram account, run a TikTok account,
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: on those social media teams do influencer partnerships, and people
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: do this on the side, like people are running TikTok
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: accounts as a side hustle and you know, maybe their
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: name isn't even tied to it. So I think there's
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: a lot of ways to get involved in this world
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: or any world of sort of personal branding in general.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: I think that's great advice.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: You work with quite a few brands now, and something
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: that I have people write to me often about the
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: podcast is how do you start working with brands and
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: what is that experience like? And so in your experience,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: have the brands come to you or do you do
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: any cold reach out?
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: So for me, the brands come to me, and this
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: isn't this isn't the same for everyone. I'm not saying
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: when you start going viral on a platform, you're automatically
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: going to get reached out to. But because I'm in
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: this niche of corporate America, all these companies that you know,
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: maybe haven't considered a social media strategy before, like Dell
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: is one of my biggest partners, are now jumping on
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: that and being like, oh my god, we want to
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: get on TikTok. And this is the perfect avenue to
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: reach our audience of millennials with buying power. I think, I,
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: as you said, I have a full time job, so
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, doing outbound leads would be incredible
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: and you know, definitely be great for me, but I
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: just don't have time or the bandwidth for lack of
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: a better word. So I think, yeah, and it's actually crazy.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: I mean I started getting reached out to when I
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: had less than ten thousand followers. Like it's brands are
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: super inched in this micro creator, micro influencer space and
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: so you know, I think just when that starts happening,
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: because it will. It's it's like, know you're worth and
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: know that, Like you know, if they offer you two
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: hundred bucks for a video for five TikTok videos, that like,
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: you can probably get more out of that because it's
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: such an unexplored territory. No one, there's no like you
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: have X followers, therefore you will get this for a
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: brand deal. And so just be confident in your rates
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: and who you are and your messaging, your story and
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: why you deserve a certain rate, and I think that's
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: it'll get you very far.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: How did you determine your rates?
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I know when I started on Instagram, I'm forever indebted
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: to this woman, Melissa Mitrono, because she was the only
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: person who was really honest and transparent with me, and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: she shared emails that she had sent to brands and
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: kind of how she went about giving her rates because
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I had no idea and I felt so grateful to her.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Where did How did you go about it?
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean it's weird because people it's so hush hush,
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: like no one wants to talk about it, no one
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: wants to bring transparency to it.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is silly.
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: It's silly. Yeah, I mean it's sort of like you
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: don't go announcing your salary at a bar, right. It's
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: the same with sort of rates and stuff like that.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: But I think I also had kind of friends in
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: this world who really helped me and kind of mentored
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: me through it. Rod was one of them, still a
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: really good friend, and he helped me. We kind of
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: were we're both just getting into it. This is before
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: he had his whole management team, an agent and all that,
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: and we're just like what we charge more, which we do,
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: and we just kind of work through it that way.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: I think you just keep pushing the boundaries on it
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: until someone's like, no, it's crazy. How if you say
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: a number they agree immediately right next time I'm an
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: up it like that. You know, there should never be
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: an immediate degree. There should always be some sort of negotiation.
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: So I'm still working out my rates. You know, it
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: changes to I'm like, oh, well, I just got published
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: in Business Insider. Maybe this changes things. Maybe I can
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: you know, who knows I'm on this podcast? Like whatever,
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: No, that's smart to think about it that way. I
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: think people don't take all those different things into consideration.
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: It does matter.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: It's not just a number of people following you, And
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: it's also the type of content you're making. You know,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: what is the quality, how long does it take you
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: to make and all of that. As you evolve and
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: as people head back into the office, where do you
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: see your content going?
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: I am just so happy to ride the wave right now.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: I think when people get sick and tired of corporate jokes,
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: I might just retire. Like I'm not really sure, but
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: I'm starting to introduce sort of new characters and new
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: sides to me and really showing my followers, like, you know,
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: different types of comedy because of course, like I'm I
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: like to say, I'm more of a comedian, Like I'm
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: a funny person. I like telling jokes. Like with my friends,
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: I'm constantly, you know, the loudest one at the table
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: telling the stories whatever. So it's like there is there
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: are other things I'm able to joke about. But I
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: think because of the way the algorithm works, and just
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: like the following has obviously grown just through corporate America
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: and corporate content that when like my random male follower
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: in the Midwest who doesn't want to see my fashion
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: hall sees that video, he's like super turned off to it.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: So I think it's sort of a balance of how
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: do I how do I break into these new niches
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: without you know, offending the true home base of the
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: corporate nilly fans.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: That's really funny.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Also, it sounds like you have a really healthy outlook
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: on it all and a very present one too, which
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: is hard to do. What is your favorite thing about
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: the type of content that you create?
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: I just love being I love that it's funny, Like
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: I love telling jokes. I think poking fun at anything
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: it just brings people together, Like people are able to
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: send my videos to their coworkers and be like, oh
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: my god, this was me on our last call. I
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: was totally snacking whatever. And I think Corver Natalie has
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: really like brought people together. That's so I don't want
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: to like hype myself up too much. How funny it
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: is that for honestly years we've been saying these things
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: and doing these things, and like now that we're seeing
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: our homes and in a super vulnerable position of you
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: see your coworkers in this like this light that you've
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: never seen them before, you see their significant others, you
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: see all this stuff. It allows you to get closer.
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, I think that's the most exciting part
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: about it.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Have you had a bad day on social media?
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: Of course? Yeah?
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: What do you mean?
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, all the time?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: I mean I've had like viral hate videos about my
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: weight going around. I've had really like you know, bad
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: hate comments and things and stuff that you know, I
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: just have to kind of like shut off. I just
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: I really try to not let it affect me. It
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: does for a moment, of course.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of shocked to hear that, particularly because like you,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you have a role, it's like a persona so it's
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: even weird.
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: It makes totally totally, and I think, yeah, I think
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: like female comedians, it's a weird space to be in.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: Like a lot of men comment like, why are you
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: trying to be funny? It's not trying to be funny,
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: which is fine. It's like, I don't care, but I
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: think it's not to be like it's it's such a
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: struggle as a woman telling jokes, but like it is,
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: it is an uphill battle. I mean, I think, yeah,
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: we'll say that, and I mean, I'm proud of the
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: jokes I tell. So that's me.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I do a little rapid fire before we end. What's
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: the best thing you've ever quit? Interpreted how you are? Like,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: I quit a job one time, and I'm like, that's
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: the best thing I ever quit?
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe my last job. I think it's the only
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: job I've ever quit to move on to my current job.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: I think I would have never been able to do
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: corporate Natalie in that environment and not be fired. So
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: it was good to be the one to pull to
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: pull the plug.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Was there a time that you were doing corporate Natalie
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: without them knowing?
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: It kind of started when I just started with this
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: company that I'm at now, and I think, yeah, it's
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: been slowly, like the awareness has grown now, like of
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: course my my ethics team and legal department, like everyone knows,
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: like we're all we're all aligned here. But yeah, it's
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: funny when people are like your did you do your
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: coworkers know? It's like, yeah, I have like seven hundred
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: thouand followers across platform like yes they've seen like, yes,
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: they know. You think I can do that? Please?
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Who is a last follow on social media besides you?
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Erica Priscilla hilarious comedian on TikTok and Instagram. She has
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: this persona Kelsey who's this like want to be influencer
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: and chance it's she's so funny. Yeah, cool, I.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Agree with you. I have a card deck, so tell
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: me when to stop.
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, okay stop, okay.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: One thing you really dislike that most other people love seaweed.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: I don't eat seaweed on my sushi.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: What is the smartest decision you've ever made?
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: Posting my first TikTok and starting this It is, like
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: I said before, it's opened so many doors. I'm like,
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: this world, in this creator space is growing so fast
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: that like if you're not jumping on and becoming a
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: part of it. In some way, I think you're missing out,
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: Like I'm just I'm lucky I did it when I
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: did it.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Awesome. Thanks for your time today.
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much. This is great.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Don Roberts is a TikTok and insta star and a
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: graphic designer. Her images went viral last summer in the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: wake of George Floyd's murder and the BLM protests. They
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: were shared by tons of celebrities, and since them, Dom
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: has continued to create and share impactful commentary through her designs.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Today we talk about how she took a risk left school,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: the real pressures of social media, and the realistic effects
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: it has on mental health.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Easy start, Dom, where'd you grow up?
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: I grew up in the suburbs of Arizona Chandler to
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: be specific. It's like right outside of Metro Phoenix.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, So what did you want to be when you
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: were a kid?
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: I wanted to be a comedian honestly, or an actress.
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: It's so funny when emails like first came out. My
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: dad gave me an email when I was ten years old.
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: I was like on the family plan, you know, like
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: he had to set it up and my email was
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: drama Queen drama Queen at coox dot net.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: First of all, I've never heard of that server.
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: And second, no, that's what I'm saying. It's like ancient.
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: Everyone's like, what is that?
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: But maybe you were ahead of the gang with the interweb.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: But that's interesting because I feel like if you ask
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: kids nowadays, everybody says want to be an influencer.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: I want to be a YouTuber. It's the number one
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: job that kids want. So you're really living the dream.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: Yes, And it feels weird because it wasn't something that
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: I planned to ever get into, like the digital space
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: at all.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Can you tell me how it happened?
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: So it definitely started during last summer with everything happening
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: with the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, specifically
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: with George Floyd.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: Wait, I thought that you were on the internet before then.
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: No, So that's what's so crazy. It happened like very fast,
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: like legitimately overnight. Wow, like woke up with like thirty
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: thousand followers.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: So what happened you? What did you post?
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: I posted a graphic and so that's kind of where
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: every like my stuff started circulating the Internet was with
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: graphic design and just like infographics or videos. I'm like
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: laughing because not that the topic's funny, but the videos were.
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: So I was looking back at them and I was like,
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: oh my gosh, I'm so awkward.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: No, I you know, someone said to me one time,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: if you don't look back at your old emails and cringe,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: then you haven't grown at all. And it's the same
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: thing with videos and Instagram and all that.
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: Totally. I was like, I posted that and like so
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: many people saw it, but yes, that's kind of where
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: I first got my name circulating around. But at that
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: time I had like.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: No, you didn't have followers.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and so how do you feel when you
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: woke up the next morning, because it's also kind of
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: a confusing moment, I'm sure as well.
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a very interesting time for me because
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: it was just very unexpected. Plus going viral feels weird.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: How like, if you can explain it, what's weird? Like
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: are you excited?
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: Are you nervous?
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: I went up to like I had like eight thousand followers,
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: and I was like, oh, dang, like so many people
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: are really feeling what I'm saying, and then people were
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: setting me like, oh, do you see so and so
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: posted to this, so and so posed to that, and
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: I was like, wait, what your graphic got reached? Yeah,
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: my graphic was like getting reposted a lot and shared.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Did you feel pressure to keep posting?
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: Yes, which is kind of the struggle that I'm in
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: now with rebranding and all of that, just because at
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: that time I'm so blessed and lucky to be a
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: part of the movement and still am, of course, but
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: I think it definitely took a toll on me and
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: my relationship with the Internet, because now it's a very
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: anxiety induced relationship where if something culturally is happening and
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: I don't speak out on it, I feel like I'm
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: letting everyone down. But at the same time, it's this
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: weird dynamic that I have where sometimes posting and speaking
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: out because I feel like I need to causes me
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: to kind of like digress back into that mindset of
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: where I felt I needed to post out of necessity
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: during that time.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard I this is something that you posted
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: that really hit me. You said, I'm putting myself on
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: the line for the sake of progress. I'm spending a
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: lot of money on therapy and holistic health care to
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: take care of myself because I put myself on the
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: chopping black last year for the sake of progress. So
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: you feel like you put yourself at risk your mental health. One,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: do you mind talking about how that manifested?
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: No, one hundred percent. I think I was realizing that
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: there was a really big gap starting to build in
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: the movement. It was like a very US versus them.
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: It was like you either were following and you knew
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: and you've been this way this whole time.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: And just so we're clear, it's black lives matter.
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, black lives matter, or and this can go into
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: really any topic, but specifically, yes, black lives matter. And
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: it was just this US versus them. It was like
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: our allies and the people who were like supporting the
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: movement and all these things, and then there wasn't really
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: any room. I was noticing for people who were in
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: the in between.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: What's the in between?
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: I call the in between just lack of knowledge and ignorance.
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: Is bliss really is that in between? It's maybe the
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: ignorance of Okay, you grew up predominantly white, neighborhood, little
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: to know financial problems, So you're not seeing the disparities
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: as clear as someone who like lives through it. Yeah,
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: you're just not seeing it as clear. So I think
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: that in between those in between people, honestly I was noticing,
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: really wanted to support the movement but just didn't know how.
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: And because it was turning to this US versus them,
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: they were more likely to kind of go to the
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: other side and not want to be a part of
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: the solution because they felt there was no place for them.
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: And I was like, okay, I held them. Yeah, I
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: was like, I have this really awesome opportunity to create
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: these very surface level, basic ground level what I think
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: is surface basic ground level like way of sharing information
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: talking about topics that make you feel weird or uncomfortable
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: because they're hard and they're complex and there's more gray
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: area than black and white, if we're being honest.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Is that where the name for your podcast came out?
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: It is it's the Uncomfortable Podcast.
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think having and hosting those uncomfortable conversations
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: online is really what sparked I think my platform and
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: people having an appreciation. But what people also weren't seeing
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: was how detrimental it was to me because while all
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: of this is happening and we see like, oh my gosh,
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: I would get like cool texts like I showed my
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: mom this video you made, or I sat down with
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: my parents and they are starting to have an understanding.
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much for everything you do. And of
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: course that like moves you. There's no words that can
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: explain how that makes you feel. On the other end,
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: I was getting like death threats, crazy just crazy people.
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: Is the internet was really crazy at that time. Yeah,
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: and a lot of you're not doing enough, you're doing
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: too little. Why are you helping them? And it was
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: just weird because.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: Is that coming Who are those coming from that?
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: It was coming from both sides. So that's what was
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: hard was I found myself in the middle, and which is.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: Where you put yourself, which is also confusing.
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: Yes, And I think what a lot of people fail
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: to recognize, if we're being brutally honest with ourselves, is
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: a lot of us just exist in the middle, like
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: we just do. And I do think there's a time to,
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: you know, choose right and wrong. There's a very clear
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: like yes and no. But for most of our days
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: we just exists in the middle. And I think understanding
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: that that that middle space exists was really hard for
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: people to comprehend at that time because everything was either
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: yes or no. And I kind of I feel like
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: where I made my den in the movement was kind
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: of this bridge to like, hey, like, if you're on
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: this side or you're so far on this side, I
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: would say I hate extremes. I do, and that might
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: come across problematic in ways, but I hate any extreme
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: on any side. And so I was just like, Okay,
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: but I think we exist more here.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: So you were in the messy middle, the messy middle, very.
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: Clear on my stances and right and wrong, but for
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: the gray middle.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Interesting, I think people look at influencers and think, wow,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: that is the life. You know, Yeah, because and in
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: some ways it is. If you could really kind of
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: pull the curtain back and explain, we've seen so many
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: YouTubers and instagram personalities have like mental breakdowns. We've seen
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: them have nervous breakdowns. Why is that, Like, what do
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: you experience that people aren't seeing.
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: The interesting thing about influencing it's directly tied how you
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: present yourself on the internet, what you do it's you.
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: You are the front facing person.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: You're the product.
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: You are the product that is being sold to people
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: in whatever capacity, whether that's like sharing information, sharing a product,
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: it's you. You are the vessel being used and front
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: facing on camera, Instagram, whatever platform. And so if something
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: doesn't perform well, or if you start to see a
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: dip or a drop, how could you not take that personal?
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: And I think that's kind of some thing that I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: personally am like working through right now in my career
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: because I was so blessed and so lucky, like I
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: was saying earlier to be a part of the movement
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: and still am. But I realized, for the sake of
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: my mental health, I have to take a step back
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: and I can't be that person who's just posting trauma
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: porn twenty four to seven and trying to get people
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: riled up and fired up and their cortisol level is
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: up to god knows where over information. Yeah, Like, I'll
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: never be that person. And I think building out longevity
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: of I like my career, I love what I do,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 5: and seeing kind of making a shift in how I
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: post and what I do, it's been really hard to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: see kind of the dip and people being like, oh so,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: oh so now you don't care anymore, or why aren't
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: you speaking out about this? Why are you posting about
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: watching the Bachelor instead of talking about a crisis that's
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: happening in a country that I don't live in that
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: I have no cultural understanding, like just and that that's
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: all hard to hear, yeah, as well as just comments
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: you know, your you're front facing and you read them
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: like you are a person, so hearing people that don't
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: know you and honestly probably just want to get you down,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: like saying horrible, mean things like I was getting a
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: lot of death threats and randomly I'll just open my
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: inbox and someone will send me one, as well as Yeah,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: I think I think the dip. The dip is really
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: what starts to get people down.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know if this makes you feel any better,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: but for a while, when I started posting about the podcast,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: I would lose followers every single time.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then it kind of switched and now I.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Gain followers, but it's from a it's from like the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: people that care about what I'm talking about. Yeah, So
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: it's just about like moving through that transition. You almost
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: have to have the stamina and it'll happen.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: Yes, And I think right now, I think that's the
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: other thing with my platform being being started from going viral,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: is it happened really fast. And so people like I
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: have friends who have been doing this for ten years
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: or started when they were teenagers, and for me, it's like,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: oh yo, I just started last. I just started last here.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: So I'm trying to build an audience and a community really,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: and so some people are like quick to leave, and
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 5: so I've noticed that I've just lost like ten thousand
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: followers and it's really sucked and it's been a huge
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: existential crisis for me because I'm like, damn, do I
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: still want to do this?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: Like do you? I do?
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: I do? I think it's just hard because it affects everything,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: Like your friend see that and or you think your
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: friends are seeing that, and You're like, damn, I wonder
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: if they think I'm a flop? Am I my quote
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: unquote flop?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: Era?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: I'm like, do people like not care about what I
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: have to say anymore? Because I'm not talking about these things?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: Like do brands still want to work with me? Just
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: a lot that runs through your mind, So.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: What do you hope people take from your content.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: Now, I think I more so want people to just
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: see me like I'm a person just experiencing hum like
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: the human experience. I'm going through the human experience, and
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: I want people to just take away like encouragement. I'm
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: going like I'm going through the process and I'm I'm
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: working it out just like you are. So Yeah, sometimes
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: I'm posting like yo, I scored a deal on this outfit.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: And sometimes it's a little more serious where I'm talking
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: about more an existential crisis or mental health whatever there
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: it is. And sometimes I'm just being petty about reality TV.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: I think I'm just trying to share myself yeah with everyone,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: and it's been fun. I love it so much. But
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: at the same time, there's the ebbs and flows of it.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: So I remember towards the end of March last year,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: I went to the Nike store at the Grove, which
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: it's like, I don't really I haven't shopped in like
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: two years, and that's.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: The only place I would go.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: And I saw huge posters of you on the Nike
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: walls and you did a campaign with them for Airmax Day,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: and I guess there was also a billboard across from
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the Staples Center, which is like our big auditorium here.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: That was such a major moment. If you can take
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: me back to that and seeing the poster, how did
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: you feel?
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: What did that mean to you?
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: It was the most humbling experience ever. I kind of
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: always make the joke so I'm half black, half Filipino,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: and my mom, both my parents are just very boomer.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: The very boomer. The idea of digital media and this
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: new wave and this whole new world that we have
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: access to online they know nothing about, right, So I'm like, yeah,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: I have a podcast or you know, my work exists
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: on Instagram, and they're like, you's all drugs, drug dealer.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: I came home right before I wrapped up that campaign
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: with Nike, and my mom sat me down because when
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: I went to go pursue kind of digital media online
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: and Instagram and all these different things, I told my
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: parents I didn't want to go back to school. So
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: I never finished college. I was like two years in
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: and I was like it's not for me, and they're like, okay,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: we love you. We respect your decision. We think it's dumb,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: but we respect your decision. And I was like, okay, peace,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: So right, after I finished wrapping up this campaign, my
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: mom sat me down and she was like, hey, I
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: really think you would be a great massage therapist. Like
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: she really didn't believe. She just can't wrap her mind
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: around what I do. So I invited them to come
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: to La to go see everything, like the.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: Day of Airmax Day and they're in Arizona.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and they're in Arizona, so they kind of road
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: tripped out it's amazing, got a hotel and I picked
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: them up and I was like, all right, guys, like
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: let's go see it. And it was like this crazy
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: moment where I was just looking at my parents and
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: they were just taking in what I I think, trying
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: to take in what I do and the cool projects
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 5: that I've been able to be a part of. Yeah,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: and it was just really cool full circle moment where
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: even though in that time they didn't believe in my
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: choices of like not finishing school, they knew they had
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 5: to like let me go and they had that trusted me.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 5: So it was it was a really cool experience where
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: I kind of got to show my mom like I
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: swear it wasn't selling drugs, like I was doing good.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: And also, yeah, it was just this really crazy experience
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: where it almost fell out of body. Like every time
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: I would look at it, I was I felt like
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: I was looking at it from a six year old perspective. Yeah,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: like six year old me looking at that and being
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 5: like WHOA, Like, who is that?
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine what that feels like, Like I was
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: because I remember following you during the Black Lives Matter
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: movement and then seeing that poster and being like WHOA,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Like it all happened so quickly.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: Yes, so quickly, And I think that's what was so
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: crazy too. It's like that was happening in LA And
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: then I took a trip to New York because there
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: was another billboard in Times Square and I was looking
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: at it and I was just like, what is happening.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: That's a wild experience, Like that's my face.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: That's so weird. Yeah, and it was. Yeah, it was.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: Nike's amazing.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: It's not like a little unknown brand like Nike's like
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest brands in the world.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and they really are genuinely such a great company
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: to have done that project with the whole time, they
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: had like my best interest in mine and it was
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: really cool that I got to be so authentically myself
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: that whole time, and it was just the most humbling
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: experience ever where I think it was one of those
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: grounding moments in my career where I was just like, Wow,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: this really is worth it.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I have some rapid fires. Yes, your podcast,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: I really I binged it. Oh my god, it's really good.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: If people were to go and listen to one episode,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: which one would you point them to?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: Any of my five Uncomfortable Truth episodes?
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Those are my favorites. Okay. One thing you have to
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: do during the day that makes you happy brings you joy,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: no exception.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: Shower.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: I know that sounds fun, No, it's good. It changes
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: your state real quick, real quick.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Sometimes if I'm like in a bad mood and I've
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: already showered that day, I'll take another shower because I'm like,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: I'll feel better.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it'll something to you.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: You share a lot on social media, But what's something
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: that not even your followers would know about you.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: I think they don't realize how much TV I consume.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 5: I don't think anyone how many hours a day at
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: least like four wow, yeah a lot? And I keep
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: it like running It's kind of how I do my research.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: So I'm so glad you said this.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: When I was growing up, I watched hours of TV
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: and I ended up moving to LA and becoming an
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: entertainment journalist. Yes, and my dad called me one day
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: and he was like, I'm sorry I yelled at you
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: all those years about watching TV.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: You were just doing research.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: See that's beautiful and at least your parents can recognize that.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: Yours. Well, it took a few years. What should be
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: required reading for every human being?
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: Hood?
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 5: Feminism? Really good and really good book.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, I made a card deck fifty two questions for
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: deeper conversation. Pick a card, any card.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 5: I'm like, acting like it's a Tarot card, reading like intuition. Okay,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: am I asking you this?
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: No, it's you. You have to answer.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: Okay. What's the one song that, without fail gets you
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: out of your chair? Work It by Missy Elliott.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: It's a good one.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Last question, I ask everybody, what is the smartest decision
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: you've ever made?
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 5: Leaving school and taking a risk?
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: Dom Roberts, where can everybody find you?
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: You can find me on Instagram at dom Roberts instead
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: of an e It is an X and I have
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: a podcast with Drew Media called The Uncomfortable Podcast and
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 5: it's on all streaming platforms.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: And let's get her ten thousand followers that she lost up.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Let's replace them with good, awesome people that listen to
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: this pod.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: Shout out, guys.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: All Right, today is a good day. To have a
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: good day.