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Cancelled: The Dark Side of Wellness Culture with Lee Tilghman (Lee From America) and Leigh Stein · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask, what if, why not?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the conversation. It's time to question everything well well. The
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Internet giveth and the Internet taketh away. One minute. Lee Tillman,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: better known to hundreds of thousands as Lee from America,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: was one of Instagram's first wellness influencers. The face of
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: clean Living, Green Juice, sun Salutations, off Light, soft Life.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She didn't just post about self care, she helped invent
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the aesthetic until the crowd that built her decided it
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: was her turn to be undone.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I want to be the Kim Kardashian of wellness.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Let's I hit one hundred thousand, I wanted two hundred thousand,
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: hit two hundred thousand, I wanted three hundred thousand, and
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: then I remember, actually around three hundred thousand, and once
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: you hit around three hundred thousand, at least for me.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: You start to get a bunch of people who don't
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: even really like you. They're just following you because they
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: might hate you.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Lee was publicly canceled, accused of everything
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: from privilege to exploitation to hypocrisy for hosting wellness workshops
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: some thought were too expensive. Overnight, her name went from
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: aspiration to accusation. She cut her hair, retreated offline, deleted
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: her accounts, and left many followers and critics wondering where
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the hell she went. Well, now she's back. She's back
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: online and out with a new memoir titled If you
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Don't Like This, I Will Die, a raw look at
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the hies, the heartbreak, and the human cost of Internet fame.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Joining her today is Lee Stein. She's a best selling
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: author and cultural critic, one of the sharpest observers of
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: digital culture we have. You may recognize her voice. She
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: was actually one of the very first guests that I
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: interviewed back in twenty twenty one, and it was after
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I found her writing on girl Boss Culture. She understands
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: internet culture not as gossip, but as anthropology. What it
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: reveals about power, about belonging, and the stories we tell
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  Speaker 1: about women and if this all isn't interesting enough. In
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a wild twist, Lee Stein, cultural critic had a shocking
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: confession for Lee from America.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: I have been waiting for this opportunity because you don't
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: know this, Lee, but you were one of the wellness
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: influencers I followed when I was writing my novels. So
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: you inspired one of the main characters.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So together we unpack what it means to be canceled.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So the question we're circling today is what does it
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: mean to be canceled? Not as astag but as a human.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: It's time to question everything with Lee Tillman and Lee Stein.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Lee and Lee welcome.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to do because you're both named Lee.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Does anybody go by a nickname?
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: No, there's no way to shorten Lee.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: When I was growing up, people called me Lee Lee.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very cy You can for the interviews. That's
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: hardly kind.
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: I don't even feel like I can.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I might just use last names. You both are experts
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: on our topic today. You've both written books about it,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: but you have completely different vantage points because you lived
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the experience and Lee, you've studied it, and fictionalized it.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: What were some of your early brushes with wellness and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: influencer culture? Each of you, Lee, I'd love to start
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: with you.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, So I remember being in college and recently new
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: to recovery from any disorder. On that experience, it forced
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: me at a young age to start paying attention to
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: my body. Like we learned about hunger cues and any
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: sort of treatment inherently teaches you, in good ways and
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: not so good ways, to really focus on your body
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: and you. And so I got really into that. And
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, I went to college where
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: everyone's drinking and partying, and I had just gone through
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: like a very serious kind of life threatening scenario, and
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I was just like care about sororities.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: So I turned to the Internet to find other people
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: who maybe were on the same journey as me, and
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I found a very vibrant blogging community on WordPress and
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: later on Instagram. But it really started like in two
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  Speaker 3: thousand and eight and nine and finding like a bunch
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: of women who were going on runs and eating oatmeal, which.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Was new to me.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I found wellness culture, I think much later than you.
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  Speaker 4: It was like after the inauguration of President Trump in
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  Speaker 4: twenty seventeen, and there was so much outrage among the
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: women I knew at that time, and I was on Instagram,
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  Speaker 4: and I just noticed two things happening at once. There
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: would be these very aesthetic of like a woman in
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: a bathtub or woman applying a facial mask, with these
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: quotes from the black feminist poet Audrey Lord saying, caring
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: for myself is not self indulgence, it is self protection,
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: and that is an act of political warfare. And the
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: combination of like grooming rituals, like taking care of your
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: hair and skin, but telling yourself this is going to
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: prepare me for the long fight ahead. I thought, like,
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: this is so interesting, and the more that I thought
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: about it, the more I realized on these social media platforms,
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: we're being fed content that triggers feelings of outrage, feelings
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  Speaker 4: of helplessness, and then when we're in that highly activated state,
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: we're shown an advertisement for a new pair of shoes
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: or a new bikini or a new lip bomb, something
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: to soothe us. So we're trapped in this cycle of
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: feeling upset and then being offered solutions to shop our
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: way into feeling better, and so I thought that's interesting,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: and I want to write about that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And it's sort of the combination or where consumerism meets wellness,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: which is what you're book Self Care really satirizes. And Lee,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I've heard you talk a lot about consumerism and self
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: care or your past job as an influencer, because you
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: said you looked in the mirror one day and you
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: were like, my shorts are from this brand, my top
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: is from this brand. Everybody sent me my blender and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: my everything, and you didn't pick any of it. So
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about your experience as Lee from America.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: You were one of the very first influencers to make
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a career of it in the wellness space on Instagram,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and this was a very specific time that I think
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of us remember in Instagram history. What were
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the hallmarks of your page when you.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Started yoga smoothies, self reflection and introspection, which was around
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: the time of twenty sixteen that you were discussing earlier
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Abound the Bathtub, And I was also twenty six and
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: some of my followers might say that I was sharing
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of content about independence and non apologetic self care,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: wasn't sharing that exact quote. I definitely had lots of
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: bathtub photos, and I kind of made the act of
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: self care and taking care of yourself a very alluring
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: lifestyle through you know, farmers market halls, et cetera.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: You were getting thousands of likes on your Instagram photos.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: What do you think all of these people were connecting
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: to in you? What did they see or feel well?
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I wasn't just sharing, you know, my smoothies. I was
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: sharing my period journey. I was sharing about being single
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: and being very happily single. I was sharing about my
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: past with a neating disorder. I was sharing about body image.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I was sharing about getting out of my routine and
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: feeling out of whack.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: And I was sharing.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: About hair loss, just things that like nowadays, like everybody's
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: talking about pcos and I wasn't even trying, but I
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: was one of the first people to be talking about
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: those things without shame, and a lot of women felt seen,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: and so a lot of women were connecting and healing
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: from those things as well, or maybe knew that they
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: had to go from those subconsciously, so they were.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Following me and feeling like I was.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say a friend but like a sister,
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  Speaker 3: but like idolatry. Like if I do these things like her,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: I'll be like her. And that's what an influencer's job
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: is to do, is to sell a lifestyle. And I
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: always say, like, if you feel a little tinge of
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: jealousy or like not enough news when you see an influencer,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: if they're doing their job.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Wow, I've never heard that.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, even like writers, it's just like that's just how
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: you draw people in, because you make someone feel a
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  Speaker 3: lack and you fill it with a discount.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Like the gap between who I am and who she is,
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  Speaker 4: And if I just eat what she eats and do
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: the exercise that she does, I'll fill that void.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Do you remember watching Lee from America's videos or photos?
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  Speaker 4: Okay, so this is what's so crazy. So Danielle was like,
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: do you know Lee from America? Like I've start trying
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: to interview her. I was like, I have been waiting
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: for this opportunity because you don't know this Lee, but
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: you were one of the wellness of influencers I followed
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: when I was writing my novel. So you inspired one
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: of the main characters. Oh my, So I was definitely
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: following your content, and I wrote my book. I sold
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: it in March of twenty nineteen. In October, my editor
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: sends me an email with a link to a blog
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: post by Lee from America about going into treatment for
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: with thorexia, and I had written the character with orthorexia,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: and she's like, do you know who this is? I
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: was like, that is Devin. Like you weren't the only
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: influencer I followed, but your influence was all over the
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: other wellness accounts. Everyone was copying you. I read your
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: book yesterday.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I covered a cover.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: It was like tripping on Molly reading your book because
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: it was like I was reading a memoir by the
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: person that I thought I invented in my head, because
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: there are just so many eerie similarities, including one of
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: the things I gave the character was like she's perfect
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: and beautiful and beloved, and she's extremely lonely. And that's
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: something that really moved me about your book. It's just
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: how isolated you were, even as you had so many followers.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I remember someone writing once like I have these crazy
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: memories of some of the comments that affected me most,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: and they were always like some of the most random,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: sometimes from like a random guy, which is crazy because
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I had like ninety nine percent female followers. But I remember,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: towards the beginning of kind of my breakdown, I was
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: getting tons of likes and someone saw through it and
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: someone wrote it must be lonely at the top at
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: Lee from America, because I was like doing tons of
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: meditating and I was like posting these videos of meditating
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: in this like perfect little set, and they wrote it
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: must be lonely at the top.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: But I had never heard that, and I don't know.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: It was really eerie because I was like, oh my god,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: I had achieved everything I thought I wanted. Monetary success,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: like popularity success, which is also important in female circles,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: some level of fame, like a weird kind of new
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: level of fame, and material goods, everything taken care of.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: And yet I was like, oh my god, I feel
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: so empty.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: It was lonely.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Had you felt empty ahead of that? Or was the
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: emptiness a new experience?
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, it was a new experience, like going into that
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: becoming a wallness influencer. I think I thought I would
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: always like arrive, like I was like, Okay, once I
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: have this, I will feel so much better. Once I
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: hit one hundred thousand, I wanted two hundred thousand, and
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: once I hit two hundred thousand, I wanted three hundred thousand.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: And then I remember actually around thre hundred thousand, I
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: was like, actually I don't want a million.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Like this is way too many people.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: I think. Once you hit around three hundred thousand, at
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: least for me, you start to get a bunch of
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: people who don't even really like you.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: They're just following you because they might hate you.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: And it went from like a small, really cute, supportive,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: loving community, which often is the case with smaller Internet spaces,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: and then it was becoming kind of bigger than me,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: and I was like, there's only one of me, and
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: there's three hundred thousand of this. I'm feeling the power
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: dynamic shift. But also I just felt really overwhelmed by
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: the amount of like eyes on me.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: Something I've been thinking a lot about with influencers and
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: with content creators, Like on a platform like TikTok is like,
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: not only is your audience following you for advice or
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: entertainment or aesthetic lifestyle, but they're also watching you because
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: they want to judge you for fun, Like that's part
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: of the recreation. It's like a recreational judgment. The fact
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: that there are these like blog snarks subreddits, there are
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: entire communities dedicated to mocking influencers, adds this whole other
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: layer of participation. So it's not just adoring fandom, it's
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: also the anti fandom on top of them. You said
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: you had hate follows, and I just find it like
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: a really dark side of humanity that there's that additional
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: layer of judgment of people just doing their jobs in public.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: We don't judge other people for doing their jobs in
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: the same way we judge influencers because we don't see
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: it as real work.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Is it jealousy or you're saying it's we don't see
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: it as real work.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: I don't think we count it as labor. We don't
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: make fun of people who work in factories, and we
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: don't make fun of plumbers. We make fun of influencers.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: It's like fair game, and then we say they asked
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: for it.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: They're famous, right right, Because I think also we see
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: plumbers like people who are working more blue collar jobs
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: as like industrious, and influencers is like frivolous because they
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: and they're mostly womle that they're mostly male and listen,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: that's a totally okay opinion to have, but it doesn't
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: mean that anyone's job is more valuable. Like if we're
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: all an even playing field, it shouldn't be made fun of,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: just as a plumber should be made fun of. But
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I also understand that at least this is where I'm
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: at with the snark and everything, is that like it's
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: part of your job, it actually helps you, It really does.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: People are talking about you like that's will only help
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: you get your message out and get your book across
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: and literally, like every successful influencer has one. So once
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: you view it that way, it just changes it. And
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: like complaining about it's not going to change it. So
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I just say, okay, onto the next. Well, I just
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: to focus on what my messaging is and not like
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: catering to those people. And I know that those people
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: are going to exist, but this is not really any
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: of my business.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And there is this element though, of influencing that I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: see because now there are some influencers who are women
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: over fifty or sixty, and there's from my vantage point
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: less making fun of them. The making fun of happens
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: for young girls. Lee, you're nodding.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I never thought about it before until now, but
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: you're right they are. I don't see older women influencers
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: getting the same level of hate. Well, we know someone
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: in common, Lyn Slater, the accidental influencer. She's a perfect
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: example of this. She's very beloved. But you can like
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: hate Sydney Sweeney. Yes.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Like, also, there's youth and beauty and those things are
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: very coveted.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when you're youthful, you're more powerful. Yeah, so like
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: Sidney Sweeney has more.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Power, power than Lynn, and so like, you're not going
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: to take down someone who doesn't have any power. People
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: try to take on someone who's above them, so they
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: feel like Lynn's on their playing field.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: But the weird part about this, I agree with you,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: but when you're young, at least me, the older I get,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the more powerful I feel. When you're in your twenties,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: you actually feel like you have all the youth and beauty,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: but you feel powerless. You don't know how to navigate
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the world. People are harassing you. It's a weird dynamic.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: But you do have a power that you don't know
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: you have.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: That's why they say youth is wat youth, because you
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: have a power that you don't realize ye, and that
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: is in our society powerful because it's scarce.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about the entire journey of
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: what made you quit influencing. But I want to hold
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: up your book. If you don't like this, I will die.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Great title. It follows your career, your cancelation, and then
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: can I call it a comeback?
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Call it a comeback?
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: It gets very personal between all those things. Why did
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you feel like now was the right time to tell
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the story?
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: To be honest, five years ago, it would have been
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: the right time to tell this story. I think this
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: is a story that needed to be told. When I
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: stepped away from influencing, I was like, there's nobody that
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: I can talk to because nobody has stepped away.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: If they have set away, they've completely gone off the grid.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to reach them because.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: They're not online, they've gone to the Witness Protection program.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: And why isn't there a memoir out there, like a
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: book that's about a woman going through something online and
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: stepping away, like I Pray, Love Educated. All those books
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: were like huge parts of my upbringing in Glass Castle,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: and I've always turned to memoir even if I haven't
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: been through it.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: I always just find relation to the feelings and the thoughts.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: And I thought, Okay, if I've gone through this, other
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: people will and if they haven't yet, they will. And
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: I also was like this needs to go down and
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I need to write this in history because this is
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: such a new thing. I mean, the whole experience was
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: so new. Like I didn't have a mentor when I
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: was an influencer.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: I could say twenty years ago when I was.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: On Instagram a film and I was reaching out to
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: brand saying, hey, you know, I've got thirty thousand followers.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Can you send me your yogurt? And they were like, okay,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: why And I was like, oh, I have thirty thousand followers.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: And then I would sell it out overnight and they'd go,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: can we send you more yogurt? And they didn't even
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: know what, Like influencer gifting wasn't even a thing. Sometimes
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: I had imagine, yeah, it was the founder sometimes that
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: I was dming with and they did because the didn't
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: have social.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Media managers yet. It was twenty sixteen. Social media managers now.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Is a very important job. But back then during PR
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: and you did social media. But now it's like it's
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: a totally separate job and sometimes you need five social
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: media managers, you.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Know, a big company. But it was so new, there
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: was no blueprint. It wasn't acting, it wasn't comedy, it
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: wasn't singing.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: It wasn't exactly art, although I really do think of
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: it as an art, but it wasn't like I would
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: like going into an artist residency.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: I was like, this is crazy, and.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: I just wanted this book to be out there so
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: that other people could find solace and help and motivation
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: in it.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I can tell you one of the things that struck
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: me the most, both in your book and hearing you
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: talk about it live, is that you got on the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: internet to find belonging. You want a community, and in
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the end, what is cancelation. Cancelation is really saying you
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: don't belong. It's outcasting somebody. So it was almost like
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: your worst nightmare had happened.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: The cancelation was my favorite part of the book to write,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: because I think that a lot of people, even non influencers,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: everybody's afraid of getting canceled, because cancelation gets at that
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: core human need to belong and so I was so
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: excited to write it.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: It just poured out of me.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I want to catch everyone up in case they don't
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: know why you got canceled. Basically, you would do these retreats.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Would you call the shops workshops. You would do workshops
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: so that you could meet your community in person, and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: they became really popular. Eventually you raised the ticket price.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: One VIP ticket was seven hundred and fifty dollars, and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: as soon as there was one negative comment, all of
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: a sudden, there were more. And that's actually the part
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: that was interesting to me because it was almost like
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: watching mob mentality online. Do you ever look back at
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: that time and think why me? Like there was probably
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: twenty maybe more influencers sort of doing the same thing
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: you were doing because I.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Was the most popular one. I was definitely like the
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: biggest one at the top. And it's easy to take
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: someone down, you know, at the top, because like also
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: women watching other women continue to gain power.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: It was at the beginning of you know, the tearing.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Down of the Girl Boss, and it was like we
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: were all go women and all of a sudden, all
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: these women are watching women gain power and were like, no,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: too much power, too much power, too much bring her down.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Bring her down, and.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Then I watched it happen in twenty twenty, like eleven
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: months after me. I watched Ty Haney, Audrey Gellman, The
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Woman the Hand, Yeah, Leandropando.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: It was like, Oh my god.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: This is what Lee's Peace talks about. When I found
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: lye from the end of Girl Boss.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: What I would add to this conversation is that from
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: twenty fourteen to twenty seventeen, I was leading a feminist
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: nonprofit organization with a Facebook group of forty thousand women.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Oh God, and we had a conference. We did everything right,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: We had a scholarship program, we had affordable tickets. Everything
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: that you were accused of we did correctly. And our
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: conference was destroyed by online infighting between women. So we
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: built it and they tore it down. So you could
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: have done everything correctly and it wouldn't have mattered. And
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: so that was my lesson. It's like, it's not about
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: the capitalism, it's not that you were charging too much money.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: There's no way to satisfy all the critics. Our conference
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: was ultimately torn apart over a conflict over whether or
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: not we should allow babies.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: That's what destroys Yeah, it goes to so that it's
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: not about the babies or the price, it's just about
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: like maybe the community.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: It's the community, and it's like there's this genuine like boiling,
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: Like I think women have a lot of anger and
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: they have villains, they have targets, but those targets are
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: like so far away that it's like who's close by? Yeah,
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: and they end up turning on each other. Did you
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: ever read that Joe Freeman essay from like nineteen seventy
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: six on trashing that was in this magazine.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: No, I'm gonna send it to you.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: It's like a classic second wave feminism essay about women,
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: just like icing this one woman out. She doesn't even
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: know what she's done wrong. It's like a pre cancelation. Yeah,
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: how they all turned on her and she has no
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: idea what she did, but they isolated her from the group.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Once someone's already made up their like mind about you,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: you can't argue with that. And it's so funny, like
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: because watching so many different women get canceled since my cancelation,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: it's wild because nobody can actually all agree on.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Why they hate the woman.
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: They just hate the woman, and like they think that
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: they are all behind the same cause, but instead of
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: outpouring of support, its outpouring. Yeah, it's like they've been
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: keeping it in, whether it's jealousy or feeling.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Unfulfilled in their life, or feeling.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: A little uncomfortable by maybe this woman has something that
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: they don't. I don't always just want to say it's jealousy,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: but just like when I'm not doing something in my
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: flow and this might sound so wo or like being creative,
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: I can start to feel a little bit like why
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: is that? Like the inner critic of other women comes out,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: and so as long as I'm moving forward, it's very quelled.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: And so I feel like if I'm focusing on myself
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: and my craft and my creativity, then I'm not feeling
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: that hate to me. It just shows that maybe those
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: men are not focused on that, and it's like so.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Easy to hate.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: Then you tell yourself, I'm standing up for what's right. Yeah,
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: I'm letting Lee know. Yeah, this is a structural injustice
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: that she is committing.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: And like, oh my god, I can go on this
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: for hours, but like it's like moral purity and like
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Lee has power. I want power me and all these
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: girls are going to hate on her, and as a group,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: we were going to be more powerful than her. The
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: criticism was coming from so many different areas, and they
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: all eventually were like, oh my god, Lee has other
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: haters too.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Before then I didn't have them, and they all kind
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: found it.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were more powerful together.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So they found a community through hating the same thing.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: It's like I see this on book talk with like
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: Colleen Hoover, Like there's the Colleen Hoover fans and then
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: there's the anti Colleen Hoover fans that like have their
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: own strong anti fandom.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think as I'm listening to you guys,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what's the male equivalent? Like on ESPN, I
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: see them all talking about who's better Lebron or Michael
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Jordan and it's not.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: I think this is how women exert power. Like I
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: think this is what we learned as girls and teenagers,
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: Like if you want to hurt someone's feelings, you exclude them,
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: like you don't punch them.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: It's giving I had on matured since high school.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: But I just think it's the way we learned to
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: engage in conflict. Instead of punching someone in the nose,
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: we don't invite you to the sleepover bite everyone else.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Has this changed either of you like being critical or
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: writing satire about this community? And Lee having seen it
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: from both sides, has it changed your view on feminism
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: or women? Yes? Interesting, please same way.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: I don't call myself a femine anymore. I do not
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: know if that's what feminism is. I want nothing about it.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: I want absolutely nothing about it. Like I used to be,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: like women, all women, support women. I had such a
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: naive view of women. Also, what's so funny is I
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: think that because I was healing myself and sharing about
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: my healing journey, I attracted a lot of unhealed women.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I think Ali Kreedsman.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: She said that she's also a writer, and yeah, she
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: was like, you know, what's so interesting about your community specifically,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: is that because you were talking about body image and healing,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: you attracted a lot of women who were struggling with that,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: and they looked you as a kind of a projection
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: of their own desires and how they wanted to be
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: and how they wanted to look or how a healed
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: woman should look. And I attracted a lot of very
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: unhealthy people. And that's just what happens when I guess
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: you were talking about the things that I was talking about.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: But if that's what a feminist online community is or does,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: then I'm not a feminist.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: My dream of.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Womanhood and the female community and women spporting women is
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: and will forever be broken.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: And once you've been torn down by other.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Women to the degree that I was, you will start
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: to be like, Wow, it's really women who actually are
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: tearing each other down.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: It's not men.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Like there was not a single man in my comments
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: caring about this if anything, Like all the men in
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: my life have been like they're busy doing what Like.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: They just don't understand, they don't have time for that.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: Well, Also, we talk about Audrey Gellman so much, and
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: how much we talk about Adam Newman, Like are people
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: making TikTok videos about Adam Newman? No, they make videos
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: about Audrey Gillman's new hotel. Like, are they supposed to
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: go away and never come back?
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: With the visibility women being visible is a threat?
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we do.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Like that's exactly I think what people want is for
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: the canceled women to disappear and to never like you
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: got your chance.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I'm having this interesting reaction. I should just be an interviewer,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: but I'm having this interesting reaction because my experience of
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: feminist communities has been largely positive. And it's not to
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: deny your experience, but I'm like, how could my experience
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: of women be so different from your experience of women?
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: And I see, like, it's this visceral pain. I can
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: tell you've talked about it differently than you talked about
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: anything else here. I think you're kind of in the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: same camp.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: Unfortunately, I'm not going to offer a different No, you
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: don't have to.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: That was what it was, the betrayal of the lie
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: we were sold of girlhood and friendship, and growing up,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: I was always told by the older women in my life,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: it's the girls that are always going to hold your
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: back and have your back and your best friend. Listen,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: my best girlfriends are like my sisters. But it's like
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: the girls that I didn't realize I had to be
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: more cautious of, which is these girls who think that
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: they know me online and for me and watched me
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: and praying for my downfall.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So you didn't feel betrayed by your real life IRL friends.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: And now I've learned that those are the only people
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: that I need to be paying attention to and.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Giving love and care to.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: But back then, I put a lot of care and
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: weight to what the opinion of random people in line
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: thought of me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: What were your largest critics.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: Saying that you are harming others with your content because
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: of your cost prohibited, so you're clearly only for white people,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: and that you're culturally appropriate racist.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: I mean that assumes only white people have money, which
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: I think is racist.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, it's so many things cultural appropriation because
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: you're doing macha and Ireveda. And I was working actually
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: with another Iravedic influencer who was Vendean descent, Like she
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: was like, can you talk about my stuff? And I
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: was like sure, I'll promote you, and she wanted to
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: be in my workshop. And I was accused of stealing
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Aravedic ideas, which is crazy, like no context at all
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: before I left, That's really what they were accusing me of,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: and just being like privileged white girl from Connecticut.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, of course I'm white and I'm from Conneticut. Are
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: you insulting me from that?
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Like I'm proud to be from Connecticut and yes I'm white,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Like that's not a secret. Like I don't have shame.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: Another party book I really like is like there's all
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: these moments where you're learning the changes in instagram sters,
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: like now we're going to do stories instead of good quotes.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: I'll adapt to that, and now we're gonna do this.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: Now we're gonna debt. And then there's one moment where
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: you're like, are we all pivoting to social justice content?
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: And do I need to pivot too? But that's really
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: real because there was this kind of peer pressure and
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: it's just a hilarious moment where you're like on a
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: plane doing a face mask and you realize it's MLK Day,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: and so you decide to post the face masks selfie
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: with a Martin Luther King junior quote and that is peak.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, no, but exactly. But what's so funny too
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: is how I got all these messages being like thank
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: you for posting a fist with your smoothie.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: But the funniest thing though, still like we're also indoctrinated,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Like if a brand does an Mlkday sale to like
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: sell mattresses, were like, they're a good one.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: They're selling mattresses, and they've acknowledged Mlkday.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: It's like you, guys, they don't care, they want your money,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: they don't care.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: They're doing it so that you come to them because
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: you think they're good.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Do you feel like the vibe has shifted though with
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: this in terms of the intersection of social justice activism
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: and just content online and entertaining wellness other content that's
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: not after this content, Like I feel like it's less.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: It's such a deep question, ly too deep, no ask it,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: but it's not one pronged.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Like I don't see the same culture online now where
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: it's like Indigenous People's Day and I don't see people
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: in the comment Do you know what day it is
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: today you're posting this. I don't see that anymore.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, because I think people realize that it's been
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: taken by consumerism.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Is that it though it's like cynicism about consumerism or
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: is the public fatigued of every single thing we look
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: on online has to also be political in some way,
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Like maybe we want to follow politics, maybe we want
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: to read the New York Times, we well informed citizens,
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: and then maybe we want to like get a recipe
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: for something and not have the recipe be democratic Republicans.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I think it just went a little too far. I
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: really do. I agree.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you're touching on something that was a
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: big question mark during the time of your cancelation, which
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: was what is the responsibility of influencers to speak on
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: social justice and or political issues? Because we were requiring
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: influencers to talk about all these things.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: Some of them are twenty one years old.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know what a lot.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Of them know of.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: That was a big flashpoint civil liberties and things.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and my belief, this is just my belief, is
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: that it's okay if they don't.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: There was this pressure, at least for me.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I remember like feeling that pressure to post on Mlkday
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: because I was watching other influencers just post their smoothie.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: You'll be like silent on MLK Day, unfollowed, And I
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: was like, I don't want to be unfollowed.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: I want to be good, So I'm going to post
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: about MLK.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: But I do believe in my heart of hearts that
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: it's okay to have just a smoothie page.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Here's the flip side of that, though, And I don't
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: know how to make sense of it, but I think
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: what the flip side is that a lot of people's
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: lived experiences don't allow them to be apolitical, and that's
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the feeling, and so I don't know the answer.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but then they can go follow a political person,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: like there's totally free will.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Like there's thousands of smoothie people follow one that talks
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: about politics and smoothies. Right, April in Florida doesn't have to,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: she can just post her smoothies.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: It's the intersection that I feel like we've entangled.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really weird.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: And also like one thing that I felt is, like
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: I talk about in my book, by my feelings around politics,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: I wasn't like a political child, rarely is one. And
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, now I've got hundreds of thousand
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: followers and there's a shooting and people are dming me,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: you know, feverishly saying what is your stance on gun
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: control laws in the state of Las Vegas? And I
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: have an event in three hours, but I'm spending hours
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: researching gun control, the history of gun control laws in
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Las Vegas, and I'm thinking my passion is not guns,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: and something that is many people's passions.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: The Las Vegas shooting was.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Very sad, but it just goes to show like I
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: didn't even know about it. I posted like my oatmeal,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: and people were like so mad that I didn't post
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: about gun control laws. And I think to try to
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: speak from the fans point of view.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: It's like they see you as a public figure with
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: a huge platform, and they're like, she has a huge audience.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: She could make a difference. She could say something about
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: gun control, So they want that from you. And as
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: soon as you do that, they say, well, aren't you
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: going to speak up about an abortion? But well aren't
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: you going to tell us who you voted for? Like
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: it's never enough. But also every issue.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: People said that to Taylor Swift, like she backed Kamala
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: and Kamala didn't win, so if she is the most influenced,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: it's interesting the world and she backed Kamala and Trump won, Like,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: listen me talking about gun control. I'm sorry, but it's
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: not going to help anything. And like the mattress store
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: down the street doing it MLK, like is it really
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: helping m okay day, I don't know. It sounds like
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: they're just trying to sell a couple more mattresses. There's
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: this performative activism that I just find really disingenuous.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I think some of your critics and things that I've read,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: it's like a tension between your public image and your
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: private truth. In some ways in your book you talk
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: about like manufacturing this persona leaf from America, and even
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: though it is parts of you, this curated version of Lee.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: And then there's Lee Tilman, the person right who goes
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: home at night and makes her bed in the morning
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and calls her mom. And how do you look back
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: on the dissonance between those two people.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Well, that private self is only for the people in
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: my life. Like the public doesn't get that, and that's
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: a very safe and normal and healthy thing to do.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: They were never going to get the holy. They can't
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: handle the holy. Like I tried to come back and
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: pivot to this goofy selfie girl with a bowl cut,
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: people were like, we don't want that. So I think
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: actually the audience has this projection of who I am.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: It's like the same old story with women. It's like
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: she's to this, she's not enough this. You know, there's
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: always critique there. So I just think I represented and
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: still do like represent, a projection of like how I
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: want her to be, showing up, and even if I
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: showed up exactly how they think they want me to
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: show up, there would still be critique. And that's what
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: I am here to talk about. This is what the
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: book is about. It's funny because we're never truly able
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: to fully understand someone, even when we read their memoir,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: even if we see their social media, all their reels,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: and even get to talk to them for two hours,
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: we don't know.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: The whole person.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Getting to know someone is a very intimate experience that
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: happens over months, years, a lifetime, and that's a privilege
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: to be able to get to know someone. And I
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: think think people need to realize that you're never going
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: to know who your favorite celebrities truly are.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Deep down. You're never going to know them.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: You're going to see one side of them, whether that
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: they're manufacturing, I don't know, or maybe just that like
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: feedback cycle between their audience and them and they're sharing
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: a little bit and hearing kind of how it goes
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: and then they'll pivot or whatever. But you're never going
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: to get to know the whole person, because that's for
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: their private life.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: They deserve to have that.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Do you identify as a content creator?
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Now yeah, I would say a creator, Yeah, content creator, influencer,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: you would still use the word influencer, yeah, because I
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: guess I'm influencing people to buy my book.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: But this is still okay, this is the thing that
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: I'm so interested in. It's like I would argue, there's
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: a difference between influencer and content creator, and it's part
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: where your income comes from. So if you're an influencer
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: and you're earning income from brands, the brand is your customer,
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: so you want to please the brand so you can
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: continue working with that brand. And then you're selling that
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: you're a human magazine. You're selling that to your audience.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: And the way I think of content creator is like
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: you have a sub stack, right, You're directly earning income
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: from your audience. It still has its upsides and downsides
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: because if your audience is paying five dollars a month,
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: react entitled, right. But that's how I see the difference
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: influencer and content creator.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: But I think a lot of people think of influencer
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: as someone who's just influencing. Who's influential, Yeah, and like
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: you don't even need to be selling products, Like right now,
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not selling products from my book.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: But I'm still called an influencer and that's fine. You're
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: okay with it totally.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Do you still do brand deals?
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I'm curious.
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: No, but on purpose. Oh, you're open to it. I
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: know That's what I was.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Listen. My fiance is like, you're on Instagram way too
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: much to not be making anybody for nothing.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm selling my book to me.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: You're a creator because the book is something you created. Yeah,
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: and you're selling it to your own audience.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you identify as?
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: Content creator? Okay, I don't make any money from influencing.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Would you be open to it?
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: That would be the weirdest plot twist in my life.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: I don't think I could. I don't think it would
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: be really like meta, it would be true. I think
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: it would be true. That would be true.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Is there a number those there's a number for us.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking of offering some expensive workshops.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Do it.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I'll support Lee Tillman. Is there something you lost during
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that time that you'll never get back?
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: No, because I would say I lost myself, but I
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: definitely got myself back and I have like no regrets
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: about the whole experience. I got to live this crazy experience.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: I was able to put it in a book and
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: now it's out there. I think that's a gift. I
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: also believe that everything happens for a reason and have
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: no regrets that. I'm so glad that I was able
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: to put it into a book and that it's helping people.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Have you had other people who have been canceled so
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: to speak reach out to you?
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, and I have reached out to be canceled and
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: had coffee with them or soon. It's always such an
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: awesome experience because we get to like bond over it,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: and it's such a rare thing to be canceled, so
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: oftentimes they don't really know who to speak to.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: So it's one of your things is to like reach
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: out when they're canceled and be like, I'm here.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Do you ever feel like they deserve to be canceled? No?
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone deserves to be canceled.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: No, it's like a public death.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: It's a public death.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, what's the saying Every saint has a past
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: and every sinner has a future, Like when Matilda Jerk
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: was canceled, or like not letting her employees use her bathroom,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: like okay, yeah, just like me and her employees. All
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: the things that women are canceled like men do every day.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Don't even get me started.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: But I pride myself on reaching out to canceled women
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: and supporting them in any way I can.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: It's interesting too, because you went through it during a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: time it was sort of new. There was no one
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: to call to be like, hey, how did you handle this?
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Or if I apologize, how does it go? You were
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: navigating in real time?
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: I was, but I was lucky enough to be connected
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: to a couple people in the music industry who deal
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: with the PR Firm their crisis PR forever. They deal
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: with like you know, rappers who get to drunk driving
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: accidents have to make public statements and they're like, well,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: your time is comely. Everyone has it. Anyone in your
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: shoes has it. Like basically what they're saying is everyone
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: has like a little scandal.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: It's part interesting being in the public.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: So I was reading that fifty seven percent of gen
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Z individuals which choose to be an influencer given the opportunity,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and now even the generation below them, I think the
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: number one profession that they want to be is like
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a YouTuber influencer. Your book really highlights the truth of it.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: What do you think those seeking a life online should know?
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I would say, if you're like in your
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: late teens or early twenties, to really make sure that
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: you have a solid in person support system because it
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: can get really murky when you start to lose sight
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: of reality, which is what we're talking about before with
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: that private persona and then your public self, Like they are.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Two separate things, and it's very important to keep the boundary.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: And I think that like anyone who tries to meld
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: them is in or maybe burnout and loss.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Of identity, loss of self. It's work, it's a job.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: So you're going to show up and you have to
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: be able to turn it off and go home to
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: your family and cook dinner and show up and good
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: boundaries and maybe like write down a list of things
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: that you don't want to share and why and you
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: have good boundaries with that because once you share, you
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: can never unshare.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Can you say more about that? Because there's this protective
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: layer that I've heard you talk about. It actually really
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: hit me personally because somebody said to me in like
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a high up position at a digital media company, and
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: she said, Danielle, you're doing this backwards. You're building a
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: podcast and hoping that people will follow you, and you
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: need to build a following and then they'll listen to
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: your podcast. And she's not wrong, but I don't want
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: to be an influencer. That's not where my joy is.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: And so after her conversation, she was like, film, I
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: get on Ready with me and see how you feel.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: So that night, I'm in the mirror, I'm taking off
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: my makeup, I put the phone. You're looking like you're
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: either so what? And I'm thinking, like, how can I
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: do this in a way that feels like me? I
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: got on Ready six times? Yeah, and I was like,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: this is just not for me, And it's that protective layer,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: and everybody's is different of what is comfortable to share
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: and what's not. That video has been deleted and will
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: never be posted.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: On the internet.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: But I've heard you talk about how that protective layer
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: is something that you felt early on and you just
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: purposely ignored.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, very intuitive with you to say that a lot
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: of people are like, how did you get to where
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: you were? The key to my success was to purposely
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: ignore that natural human intuition to protect and preserve personal details,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: your private life. You know, things that we keep private
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: and we show up at work. We're not airing our
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: dirty laundry. So to speak to everybody, you have, you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: discernment with who and what we share. And I purposely
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: learned to quell and shut that up because it was
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: helping me succeed because then, you know, people are seeing
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: me talk about my period coming.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Back and they're like, oh my god.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm talking to my best f friend
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: because she's sharing about her period and I was sharing my.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: You're getting positive reinforcement for disclosing.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Oversharing, Yeah, oversharing and brands love it.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Brands love it.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: Like I hate to say it. It's like fast, cheap love.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: But just as quickly as it can be given to you,
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: it can be taken away. So luckily that muscle has
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: regrown and I listen to it now.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: If you look at things online in terms of what
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: is most popular, horoscopes are very popular. Wellness is up
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: there on every single platform. It's growing, it's not decreasing.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Where do you guys think the wellness community and culture
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: is going well?
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: I think right now we're in a very low trust society,
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: and we have lost trust in a lot of institutions
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: that our parents or our grandparents believed in, like the
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: mainstream media, medical institutions, public health experts. And so I
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: think when people feel the trade confused, curious, they'll look
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: for alternative sources of information. So I think this explains
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: why people would turn to an influencer for health and
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: wellness information. I think they want some kind of alternative.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say there's that.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: But also I think the pendulum swing again in the
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: opposite way because like when Make America Healthy Again and
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: RFK Junior kind of became part of the cultural dialect
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: earlier this year and he's kind of proposing, you know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: going back to alternative medicines, and a lot of people
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: because they don't like Trump, they don't like that, and
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: so they're pro doctor of pro science, pro everything again
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: and like pro red dye, like just to be like
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: an fu to RFKJ and White thinking, yeah, that's a
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: MAHAP pipeline.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I see all these videos being like going on a
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: WEEOVA workshop from the MAHAP pipeline. Like raw Butter.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you follow snack shots on Instagram,
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: she does a lot of really funny memes about beef
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: tallow and just like the latest trends, I think it
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: kind of continues to get crazier and crazier.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Like a lot of people are using beef tallow as sunscreen.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: I have not done that, but listen, if I was
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: a wellness influencer, I would probably be doing that. I
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: was down to clown everything.
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: I was like, you have to have a human guinea pig.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, so you have to have an experimenter's mindset, and
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: I think in many ways that can help you. Like
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: I turned to wellness because I felt like the medical
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: system had failed me. Yeah, I was diagnosed with PCOS
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: and they said you got to go on birth control
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: and I was like, I don't want to go back
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: on birth control.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: I'm off of it.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: My actor was like, well, sorry, next, and I was like, okay,
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: of course, I'm going to go to holistic health after that.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: There's a book I could read about how to heal
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: PCUS in thirty days. If you eat this way, sure,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: sign me up. Got to eat anyway. There's something very
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: alluring about these quick fixes, or like these life.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: Anything that gives you the idea that you're in control.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: You can control what you eat for thirty days, Yeah, exactly.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: You can't even control when you can get your Oggian appointment.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: No, I know, Lee Stein. I'd like to start with
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: you on this one. What do you think the ultimate
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: cost is of turning your personal life into a public brand?
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: What have you seen?
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: I think relationships can become transactional as you grow instatus
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: or influence. You wonder if the people around you just
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: want something from you. So I think this is what
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: creates this loneliness effect that we were talking about earlier.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: It can also be impossible to turn off the part
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: of you that's the creator. It's like very hard to
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: separate work in personal life and find that balance. If
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: your job and your personal life are like in the
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: same little computer that you carry around in your pocket,
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: it's very hard to leave and take a vacation. Like
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: it's very hard to sign off. I think that's a
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: fantasy because I work with so many writers and writers
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: are like but I don't want to be on social media,
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: or they want to take a break from social media.
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: You can leave for a short time, but you have
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: to live online. And I've lived online since the late nineties.
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: It's my second home. I have a lot of joyful,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: happy memories of being on the Internet. It's not a
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: place that I want to leave. I think in general,
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: whether you're an influencer, you're just a user. I think
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: people right now feel this intense ambivalence about the Internet
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: where they want to sign off and they can't, and
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: so that's causing a lot of inner conflict.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Already feeling this self bitchio when I log on, I
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: don't want to belogging on, and so I'm lugging on
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: even though I don't want to be on. So I'm
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: anger at myself when I see content that I'm not
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: happy about, you know.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: And you're overwriting your time live it, you know, like
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: we try to set boundaries, like we're like I'm only
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: going to do this for.
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: X number, and then we're like password, Lee, what do
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: you think I think that you sacrifice your inner peace
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: and knowing that, like there's a life beyond the Internet, you.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Can just get too lost in the sauce, Lee Stein,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Who do you think ultimately benefits from the wellness industry?
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: Who benefits from the wellness industry as it exists now?
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: I think I once said, no one has ever lost
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: money by making women feel bad about themselves. So as
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: long as there continue to be cultural conversations about flaws
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: that women have and how they could be better, whether
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: that's at money, at business, their weight, their skincare, their hair,
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: there's going to be a company to fill that void.
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: And I just feel like wellness and the beauty industry
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: are so connected at this point, you know, like what
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: are you buying from moon juice? And what are you
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: buy from drunk Elephant? And like who's the one making
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: the vitamins? And it's all tangled up together, so companies
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: continue to benefit from us.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Trying to improve.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: I was just gonna say that, Like I agree, and
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: what's wrong with trying to improve too? Like, there's also
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: nothing wrong with trying to improve any of this critique
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: of wellness and beauty can be really like swing to
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: the other end of the bedroom, where like any time
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: you care about what you look like, you're engaging in
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: the patriots And that's like just as extreme and harmful
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: and judgmental as someone deciding that they want to use retinol.
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: I might be the oldest one here, I'm forty, but
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: what I'm noticing in my pure group is like a
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: lot of my friends are getting botox. My cousin who's
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: younger than me is getting botox or using retinol, And
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: I have no interest in using these products. And I'm
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: interested in my lack of interest in using these products.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: But I realized, like, I don't have a fear of
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: like losing my beauty. I don't have a fear of
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: people looking at me being like that woman is in
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: her forties. That's not my fear. My fear is losing
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: my relevance culturally, like becoming irrelevant, not being invited to
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: have this conversation. Let's invite someone younger than the lead.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: That's my fear. And so I can relate and sympathize
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: with my friends who want to use these products to
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: look younger, because I understand their fear, even if my
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: fear is like a different shade of the.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: Same Yes, it's a different fear to the exact same thing.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. It's a very vulnerable
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: thing to share. And I think it's interesting your fear
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: initially was not belonging. Do you still have that same fear?
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: No, because I know where I belong and I'm just
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: here to share online and like I believe that my
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: content will resonate with the people who are supposed to
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: get it, and once I get it, and the ones
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: I don't don't And I'm not here to please.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: Everyone, Like I used to be.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: The one thing nobody's asking you in interviews that I'm
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: very curious about is what did your parents think about
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: all of this?
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: When I first went to LA, I was like, I'm
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: going to try to monetize my Instagram. They're like what,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: And I was like, I save the money, I'm going
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: to do it. I'm biking this decision, packed up my vitamins,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: floo to LA and within a year and a half,
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: like had quit my waitressing job and was full time influencing.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: And they were like really proud. They didn't fully understand
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: something like they were unsupportive.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: They just like were like, whoa, what You're going to
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: Hawaii with lu lulam okay okay. And then all of
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: a sudden, like you know, my mom was from a
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: Mother's Day campaign with Athleta, Like I got to start
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: flying my mom out and she got her makeup down.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: I mean she was like this is so cool, Like
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: my daughter is doing so well.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: And then once it started to get hard. They started
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: to hear a lot of it, and they were really
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: excited for me to step back because they just were
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: like WHOA, Like she's deep in this and it's not healthy.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: I remember, like, I'm so grateful because when I was
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: ready to walk away, I think some parents will be like, no,
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: you have to keep doing it, like you're making so
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: much money, and they were just like, pro taking care
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: of yourself before putting yourself out there.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: Can I circle back to you gave this great stat
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: about how many gen z want to be content creators,
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: and I've ccited that stat to It shocks people when
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: I tell them, But I have a lot of sympathy
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: for this younger generation because it's like we told everyone
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: to go get a bachelor's degree. They took out six
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: figures in dead to get their bachelors. You can't get hired,
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: and now we're telling them that AI is replacing all
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: the skilled labor that they learned to do with an
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: undergraduate degree. So I can understand the point of view
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: that's like I'm going to hustle like that YouTube star.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: I'm going to build an audience. I can take my
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: audience with me if I build this loyal fan base,
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: and that's how I'm going to earn income.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Like internships are getting slashed just as much as like
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: the influencing industry, you can.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Lose it an instance, you can lose the corporate job
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: in an instant too.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Work is work, yes, like some work is different and harder,
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, I think like
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: work is work, and like the lie of like love a.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Job and you never work a day in your life,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: And I was almost kind of chasing that and like
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: being like, maybe I'll do intere your design.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: It's like listen, no, Like the work is work.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: But I think until everyone recognizes that contact creating is labor,
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: they're going to keep being surprised that so many young
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: people would want to be Like, there's still this disconnect
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: that it's not a real job. Andrew Yang just wrote
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: this piece about what AI is doing to the job
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: mark or whatever, and he's like, we need to train
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: young people for jobs in the real world with valuable skills.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: My kids want to be YouTube of creators. I'm trying
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: to talk them out of that, and I'm like, Okay,
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: you don't think that's a real job in the real world.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Oh I know means yeah, he's a technologically savvy person.
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but to him, that's not a real job. And
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: I understand, like, not everyone's going to become an Oscar
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: winning actress, not everyone's gonna become Taylor Swipt, not everyone's
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: going to become a YouTube star, But like, can't we
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: acknowledge that this is a real job? Can I just
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: start there?
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: There's a misunderstanding when people talk like that, like you
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: create a real job, like go become a plumber, Like
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: we don't have enough plumber.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Yes we do. I don't think there's like a shortage.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: Of But also, like, who is Andrew Yang watching on Instagram?
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: Andrew Yang is on Instagram watching content that's created by creators.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he creates content.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, something just kind of happened this morning, Like the
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: Christian Girl Autumn.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Did you guys see that?
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, So she posted a video yesterday crying saying that she's.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: Burnt out, she needs to take a break this fall,
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: crying because she needs to take a break this fall,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: and she's feeling the pressure and that every video needs
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: to be better than the last.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: And she's crying. And I saw it and I was like,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: oh my god.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Immediately reposted it, put it to stories and was like,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: influencer burnout is real.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: This is what I want my book to but it
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: was fake. And then today she posted just kidding it's.
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: Full moments on the TikTok video. Work is the satire?
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: Is the satire? People trying to figure it out?
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah? So that was so Yeah, exactly. So she drove
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of engagement time him doing this fake cry video.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: But my comment still stands that, like there is so
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: much burnout. This is a real job. The comments that
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: I was seeing because right TikTok shows you comments pretending
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: to what you see, what your algorithm is comments I
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: was seeing is get a real job.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: This is real. There are people dying.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: As if a woman in the South crying about her
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: job isn't worthy because someone else is dying, Like she's
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: allowed to be burnt out. This is a real job,
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: Like influencers, jobs are real. They're really hard. Like even
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: if that video was I would be surprised if she
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: didn't feel a little bit of that, Like, I better
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: do it bigger and better this year than last year.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: I'm going to do this pr stunt to raise myself
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: even higher. Because you got to outdo yourself as an influence.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: Your analytics are the most important thing.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: How can you be.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: Bigger, better and not lose relevance because everybody online is
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: afraid of losing relevance.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: You reinvent yourself and stay relevant to.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: Being a pop stars to change, you have to stay
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: relevant and you have to like adapt to the change
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: in the algorithm and adapt to culture.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when people pull stunts like that online, as a viewer,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: I lose trust. I don't know if that's me being old.
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: If you feel like you're left out of the joke,
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: if you feel like you're in on the joke, like
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: when I did my prank, you were in on the joke,
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: right right, Yeah, So I think it's a matter of
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: whether you feel included or excluded.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Interestingly, that's a great point. I'm curious how you think
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: AI will or won't impact influencer culture.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: I'm one of the only writers in America who's not
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: afraid of AI. Everyone's so afraid of it. I love
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: AI too, I don't even know. I didn't say I
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: loved it. I said I wasn't afraid of it because
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: I think as AI gets more and more sophisticated. We're
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: going to increasingly crave human connection, and so anything that's
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: providing like a high touch personal service, Like I think
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: people are going to want to go to a therapist,
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: not use a therapist chatbot. So I think if you're
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: a writer and you build a fandom an audience for
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: your writing, I don't think people want the robot version
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: of elistine novel, like I think they want my novel.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: As long as you're a writer who has your audience, like,
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: AI can't replace you, So I don't have a fear
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: of AI.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: So about six months ago, I got an email from
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: an AI company saying, high Lee, we can make an
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: AI of you and you can start work with brands.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: So if Dove wants to work with you, we can
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: just type in a script and it will be an
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: AI AD and you can post it and make like,
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Three grand and I got interesting for the future.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: But right now, no, But how crazy is that they'll
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: make AI ads like using my likeness, using this blazer
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: and he's talking about soap.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: But you wouldn't feel that's breaking a contract with your audience.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: No, of course, Okay, so I was kind of kidding.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: No, And also by the way, like Dove, I'm not
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: saying that Dove's working with them. They're using an example
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: that's crazy, but also like that's already being happening. H
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: and M is using AI models. They're talking about it,
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: but like, I don't think we're that far away from
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: that happening.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: But then I think people will stop following them, Like
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: don't you think people will know? Don't you think your
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: spidery sense will tingle? Like there's something weird about this?
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like like sometimes when I watch like a commercial,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh my god, this was made with AI.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: You can kind of tell.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: But if it gets so good that you can't tell,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: who knows.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not so concerned about, like you know, whether or
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: not we can tell.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: I think to get to your first question, I think
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: the future of AI or of influencing is like I
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: think we're gonna give deeper into like virtual reality with
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: it onnswers, we'll like be in the room with them
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: or like we can put on goggles and be watching
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: them as they like get writy with me. I mean,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: it's really creepy, But why.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: Would that was such a funny scene in your book
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: where a husband bought his wife you and you showed
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: up to make breakfast and she was like, can we
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: take a selfie? And you're like, you have me by
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: the hour, Like, yes.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: We can take a selfie.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: That was so surreal. But you're saying like that could
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: happen with like putting on goggles.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe like pay fifty dollars to get into Emma
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Chamberlain's room.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: Like I was at a tech conference and that's what
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: they were like saying, like that's the future of Instagram.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: But at the beginning of this conversation, Lee Stein, you
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: turned to Lee Tillman and said, the end of her
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: book made you emotional. Yeah, can you explain why?
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't want to spoil the ending, but there's
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: this hard choice at the end between doing something that
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: would show your parents that this was a real job
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: that would impress them some kind of milestone that would
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: be meaningful to them, and going into treatment for your
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: eating disorder. And you have this hard choice to make,
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: and it just made me real emotional because it was
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: like a genuinely hard choice to make.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Was it emotional for you to write Yes.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: The flood scene?
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: Every time I read that or talk about it, or
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: think about it in my head, just like looking around
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: and being.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Like I want this, and just like picking up stands
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: in and leaving.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this thing that I had spent years building, this
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: online world and this brand, and this thing that had
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: the potential to make millions of dollars. I mean I
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: had a staff of people that I was working with,
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: and I had just talking about doing a TV show,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: Like there was so much potential and it was so
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: easy to walk away from.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Just goes to show me like I trust myself.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: I have so much self respect for that that I
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: was like able to walk the walk and talk the
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: talk too, Like I had the courage to walk away
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: and the courage to return.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: My last question is can wellness exists outside of capitalism?
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: It inherently tied to something.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: My book Self Care came out in twenty twenty, so
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: people would ask me, like, what are your favorite self
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: care rituals? Of course, and I would just say, like, honestly,
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: self care is free, Like self care is like sleeping
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: and drinking water and like getting outside and getting sunlight,
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: like all these things are free. But because you can't
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: sell them, like you don't see them marketed to you
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: all the time.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: So you see it's like buy the Stanley for your water, right,
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: your water track by this oil for sleep, like they're
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: trying to Yeah.
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: So I think, yes, wellness, how you take care of
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: yourself does not have to be attached to any products.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: I have a really good role model in my mom,
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: Like she is a very kind of put this like
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: non capitalistic, restrained and takes care of herself just engauge
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: and kind of like the.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Bengals and whatever. You know, the hokah is like it's
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: always been very.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Simple, but she does a really good job of taking
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: care of herself through just daily movement, which has always
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: been like free either running and now that she's older, walking,
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: like playing sports with friends.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: She plays tennis with her friends. Community is free and listen.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: The reason that so many people, I think turn to
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: capitalists wellness is because finding a group of friends.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: And support system is really hard. A lot of people
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: just want to be at home like this.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: They don't want that in person intimacy that comes from
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: being vulnerable and sharing and dating, you know, all these
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: things that a lot of people are dealing with in
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: post COVID twenty twenty five.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: They're hard and uncomfortable.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: So it's kind of easy to just go on Pinterest
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: and look at this like mood board of like, you know,
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: fifteen different things I use to change my life and
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: buy everything and think I can just buy this.
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, this is very American.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very American.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, change my life by buying something.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: But I do believe that like wellness doesn't need to
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: be tied to capitalism.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all about like your spiritual wellness.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: This is for me taking care of my mental and
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: spiritual wellness, which to me is like meditation, journalism, talking
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: to people, community, which is very important for social support.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: You need a social network and movement and hydration.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: And basic foundational things.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we just find ways to make money from them.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Is there a line and here that you feel really
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: proud of or like something that in weeks when this
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: all dies down, that sort of like outlives you.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, so it's from the epilog. Okay. As far as
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: jobs go, it influencing can be a pretty good one.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: I'm not denying that so long as it stays a job,
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: So long as it doesn't blur the line between professional
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: and personal so much that you jeopardize your sanity. I'm
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: not against influencing as a career. What I'm against is
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: not being aware of the dangers and completely losing yourself
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: online the way I did, and forgetting all the joy
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: and beauty of the real world. Finding that balance isn't
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: easy when using a technology that was designed to be addictive,
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: but I feel that given my experience, I'm perfectly positioned
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: to help people try. I think a lot of people
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: want an all or nothing stance with this book. They
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: want me to be offline forever and be like Instagram,
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: and people are uncomfortable with the gray. But if I
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: was truly going to be anti I probably wouldn't have
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: done this press. But what's the point of working on
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: work and sharing your art if you're not going to
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: talk about it and try to get it out in front.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Of as many people as possibly. It's a very natural
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: human thing.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm really proud of where I am now,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: and I want.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: This book to reach all the people that it needs to.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: And many of them had disappeared and the influencers have
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: gone into the darkness and burnt out, So find them
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: and give them this book.
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: I gotta say this week on TikTok, I don't get
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: a lot of hate comments. I'm not as famous as
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: the otherly, but I got the meanest comment I've ever
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: gotten on TikTok this week. I made a video of
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: good news and I lip synced a song and kind
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: of danced for seven seconds. That was a video, and
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: the person wrote, embarrassing. I think you're a brilliant writer,
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: and I think it's embarrassing for you to be dancing
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: like a teenage girl on TikTok to promote your book.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: I think all writers should staff doing self promotion on
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: social media. And this comment was like so triggering to me,
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: and it reminded me what you just said, because it's
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: like I worked three and a half years on my
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: novel and I shouldn't be on camera with my face
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: smiling and lip syncing to a song.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: But also that tells more about them and what they
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: believe and how they want you to show.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Up than you.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: Like. That's the one thing that I've realized is like
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: it's all projections.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: This person doesn't know you.
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: They're just seeing a slice, yeah, and they're just like,
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: this is how I expect you as a woman to
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: show up.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: You're not showing up the way I see you. This
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: is triggering me. This is no. No, she's basically trying
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: to believe you.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: You also have a new I do but coming out.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Will you tell us about it?
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: This is a gothic mystery set in a TikTok hyphe house.
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: A aging millennial woman who can't get a new job
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: takes a job managing a hyph post of gen Z
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: content creators, and one of them is a Tarot card
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: reader who has gone missing from the house. So it's
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: partly a satire of TikTok culture.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think about these things. I don't know how
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: you come up with these and also tell me if
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I'm right or wrong. But the title is if you're
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: seeing this, It's meant for you, which to me feels
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: like a play on the Drake quote if you're seeing
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: this it's too late, which went everywhere in a culture.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: I don't know that cultural moment. The title comes from
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: Tarot TikTok, so as you're scrolling TikTok, a video will
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: come up and say this video was meant to find you.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: If you're seeing this, it's meant for you, and you're like, oh,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: what is it? And then you click on it and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: it's like someone's thinking about you. It's always the message
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: you want to hear.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: And then it's like comment babblah blah blah blah, if
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: you want my.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: Comment, my claim. Yeah, so that's where the title comes from.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I really thought I had it figured
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: out that there was this like double on time.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: No, I'll take it.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Lee and Lee, thank you both for your time. This
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: was really fun and interesting, so fun.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Dan, thank you, thank you.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: to have a good day. I'll see you next week.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: You can shut the thing.