Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Happy Hour #124: Video Made the Podcast Star

Transcript

Happy Hour #124: Video Made the Podcast Star · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and welcome to Steff. I'll never
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: told your production of iHeartRadio. And yes, I am going
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: solo today for this happy hour. Unfortunately, Samantha had a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: family thing come up, so sending all the best thoughts
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: her away, But for today it is just been as
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: always with these happy hours. Please drink responsibly if you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: choose to do so today, since I'm recording this a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: bit earlier and am solo. I am drinking water, which
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is I love. It's like my favorite drink. But yes,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: as you know, if you've been listening to the show
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: for a while, I have been in kind of a
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: reflective mood lately because because of anniversaries that have happened.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: The anniversary of Samantha coming on to this show, the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: anniversary of the other podcast I do called Savor just
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: happened and we did a couple of episodes around that.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: But there was one thing I forgot to mention, which
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: is there used to be a whole video aspect of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Sminty and Savor, and that used to be my primary
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: job and it's actually sort of how I became a
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: host in a strange, strange way. So I just wanted
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to revisit that because I actually am really shy. People
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: don't believe me when I say that, but I am.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But I'm also like, I have a post it note,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I have like post it notes everywhere that say be brave.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: So I'm very someone who's constantly trying to look that
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: shyness in the eye and go past it. But that
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: being said, I really don't like looking back at things
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: that I've done. I think that it is useful to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: do that to see where you've grown, like where you
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: could improve things like that, And for this podcast, we
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: do listen back to our episodes, though it's largely to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: make sure there aren't errors or curse words that escaped
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: being unbleeped. But other than that, I really don't like
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to look back. But for some reason, I just was
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: remembering that I used to make all of these videos,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and so I watched a couple of them, and I
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: was pleasantly surprised that I was like, oh, this was
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: pretty good. This was pretty good. And you know, it
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: has a lot of caveat which I'm going to get
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: into in a second, because I was like, this is
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: pretty good for XYZ, But it was nice that I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: was out right embarrassed or disgusted by this thing that
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I did for many, many years. Okay, so I know
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I've told this story before. I'm not going to go
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: into it again in depth. But essentially, the whole reason
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I have this job is because of a confluence of things.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: But one of them was I really wanted to make documentaries.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I was so into it. My parents thought I would
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: never succeed in that field, and they convinced me not
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: to pursue it. I've been thinking about that a lot
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: too lately, of like the times my parents sat me
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: down and we're like, you're never going to make it
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: in this but they did it in like such a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: nice way. But anyway, so I didn't go to school
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: for that, but I was doing it on the side.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I was trying to learn how to edit videos and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: produce videos and all of this stuff. It was always
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: in the back of my head that I liked this,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and then randomly I got this job interview for what
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: was then House Stuff Works, but it was owned by
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the Discovery Channel at the time, and of course me
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and my documentary brain, who didn't really know much much better,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: That's what I'll say. I was like, Yes, I let
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: me go in, but at the time, I was about
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: to move to China and I never thought I would
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: get the job. So my parents funnily enough convinced me
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to go in for this interview because they really didn't
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: want me to move to China, so now it was
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: their their best interest that I go and get this job.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And I got it, and in part I was told
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: because of pure enthusiasm, because if I'm being completely honest,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I was self but I was definitely not qualified. I
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: don't know how many other people they had coming in
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: for that specific role because it was an internship thing,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and it was an unpaid internship thing. Anyway, I got it,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: and I was commuting like an hour and thirty minutes
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: away every day at the time, so I would come
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: in at seven am and leave at three pm, which
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: was not most people's schedules. Again, I'm very lucky that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I have a flexible schedule at this job. But as
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: part of that, I would use like those early morning
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: morning hours before anyone was there, and I would try
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to learn more about what I would be doing, which
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: was primarily making videos to support the podcast. I was
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: also editing podcast, but primarily I was video which again
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: fits with the I wanted to be in documentary, so
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: I would show up and I'd be like Google knowing
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: how to do this, and Final Cup Pro or whatever.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Looking back, it was so intense. We had six videos
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: per week that would be published on top of the podcast.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: At the time, it was Stuff I Never Told You
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I was working on. I did a couple of other
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: shows as well, but those were much more like if
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: someone needed a substitute for a week, I would make
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: an episode of brain Stuff or something like that. But
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I was primarily on Stuff I've Never Told You. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: this was a YouTube series that really developed its own following.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: That was largely due to Kristin Conger, who was the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: past host the creator of this show, who you can
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: now find on Unladylike. She was the one that came
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: up with the ideas. She would give me an SD
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: card of everything she recorded, and then I would edit
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: it and ad effects and then do all of the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: like writing of the title and the description and finding
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the thumbnail and all of that, and like, I'm not
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: going to go into this but YouTube, because these were
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: going up on YouTube mostly, but YouTube had such a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: very specific this is how you get people to stay
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: until the end, while also advertising your other episodes that
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: you have and I have a YouTube award that I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: won listeners. I'm not sure how it just showed up
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: in the mail one day, but anyway, so I had
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: to learn all of those things, and it was a
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: very grueling schedule, and if you're like me, I was
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: constantly second guessing myself, especially because I was self taught.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I was learning this in the early morning hours before
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: anyone showed up. I was practicing like outside of work.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I had a really difficult time with color correction, which
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: which if anybody knows, color correction is a pain. But
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: also at this time, this was when there was a
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: lot of pressure to go viral. I remember specifically having
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: a meeting with a boss about that here's how you
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: go viral, which is really silly because it's difficult to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: predict what will go viral, and so I would get well.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I had these really intense deadlines, like if something hadn't
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: gone up by three pm, which they determined was the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: best chance of maybe you'll go viral, I would get
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: a call from my boss like it was very, very intense.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I have a photograph that I took of the schedule
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: that I had at the time, and I took a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: picture of it because it was ridiculous. But anyway, it
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: was kind of like the driver was supposed to be,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: if you post constantly and consistently enough, then you will
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: get this following and maybe go go viral. And this
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: was also the age when videos were meant to look
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: self produced. I think that is still going on, but
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it's much less so, so I'm never credited in any
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: of them, which I don't have any bitterness about, but
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: like looking back and kind of like, huh, but yeah,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: it was supposed to look sort of like a vlog
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of you know, this person just making this thing, which
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Kristin largely did do. This is also where my knowledge
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: of thoughts came from, because I really wanted it to
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: look like like a diary entry of something that you know,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: you're mom never told you and you're writing about it
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: in your diary. So I had a lot of that
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: stuff going on. Something else that I ran into while
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: doing this was a lot of sexism around because we
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: weren't the only show doing this by any means, but
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: we were like the feminist show with women on it
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: doing it, uh, where like male bosses would tell us,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: you know, Kristin needs to wear more makeup, the thumbnails
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: need to be sexier, things like that, which we fought
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: back against. But I still I know Kristin was putting
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: on like it was a process. It's not like something
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: you just do. She was putting on makeup. She has
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a whole episode on there that we did where she
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: didn't wear any makeup and she was talking about how
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: insecure it made her feel. But it was wild to
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: be in a meeting where they were actually like, maybe
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: show more cleavage, huh okay, And I'm just this young
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: intern who is trying to figure things out and navigate.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I want to be successful and I want to do
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the things that will make this successful, but also I'm
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: not going to put like cleavage in a thumbnail. I
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: was very I As I've said before, I learned a
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: lot through this show, because I think at the time,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I was still like not comfortable and not sure about
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: speaking up for myself and about feminism and about like
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: what I could do and what I could contribute. And
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: looking back, I'm glad, but at the time I was
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: really angry because they put me on the show because
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I was the only female editor. I was the only woman,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: and they were like, stuff, want ever told you should
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: probably have a woman. I agree, but I was only one,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and I was kind of like, I want to work
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: on the science show and they're like, no, you're working
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: on this show again. I'm very happy it turned out great.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I learned so much and I'm very happy about it,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: but it was just sort of frustrating at the time,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: and I felt I was nervous. I think when you
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: work on something feminist, I guess it's true just being
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: a woman on the internet in general, but when you're
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: working on something feminist and you feel like you're still
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: coming to terms with what that means to you at
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a young age, it's scary. So it took a while
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: for me to get my footing, and then I really
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: got good editing. I got really good at editing, and
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I would try like new things, and I was still
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: stressed about it, and I was still in my head
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: about it because I never I mean, we were producing
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: so much, but I never got like the color correction
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: quite down. There was one time where my boss made
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: me sit with the rest of the team, who were
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: all men, who had all been doing this much longer
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: than I had been and they watched a video I
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: had made, and my boss was very like, see, she's
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: on the cutting edge, she's the youth, all this stuff.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: But I was just embarrassed and horrified that he made
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: them watch it, and I knew they were all of
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: these things they could do better in it, like with
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the color correction and everything. And I felt like they
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: kind of resented me for a minute after that because
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: they were like, Okay, so it was. It was a
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: strange thing. It was a strange environment, but I did.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I learned so much, and we did so many cool,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: like goofy things. There's so many episodes that I look
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: back on and I'm like, legitimately proud, and I think
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: are really funny. I mean, overall, I'm proud of it,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: but certainly with all of the disclaimers I could put
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: in here with we were producing this much, we had
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: this much resources. It was just me and her like,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: but we developed a real following from YouTube. And it's
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: kind of funny because it's separate, or it was separate
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: from our following in the podcast. So some people on
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: who would be huge fans on YouTube didn't realize that
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: there was a podcast about someone ever told you and
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: that was interesting. And they were also so many like
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: heartfelt comments that we would get that I would read
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and really personal stuff and fans would shut down YouTube
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: comments are notoriously terrible, and they would come in and
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: shut that down, and that was It's amazing. This is
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: also when I got doxed, was a video on YouTube.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Funnily enough, that was that topic was a suggestion of
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: my boss. Anyway, it was such a big part of
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: my life. It was such a big part of my life,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: and it's strange to me that it feels so removed
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: now because, as you listeners probably know, companies are always
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: trying to look to capitalize in any way that they can.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: So it was like, at first it was a podcast
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: that was the accompaniment to a blog, and then they
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: were like, blogs aren't making money, so now it's videos
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: is the accompaniment to the podcast. And then they were like, Okay,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: these videos aren't making money, and now they're coming back
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to videos again. So it's always kind of influx that way.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: But I just feel so far removed from this thing
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: that was literally my entire job almost for many years.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And the fact that I'm on this show now is
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: because when Kristen and Caroline, the past host, left to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: do unladylike I didn't really have a job anymore, but
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the vacuum was filled by being a host is I
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: was asked by host, So it has really been the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: whole video aspect really did change my life in a
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: lot of ways, and I was really sad to see
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: it end, and Kristen did like a farewell that had
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: me in tears and was like just looking back, it
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: was very retrospective and very acknowledging the work that we
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: had done to make these and that meant so much
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: to me because again I had so much imposter syndrome.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I felt so inadequate. I I just was so on
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: my head about it, and like any any comment I
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: would get from either a coworker or a commenter that
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: was negative, it would just send me in a spiral
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: because I felt like, yeah, I don't I'm self taught.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I'm largely self taught. That being said, I also want
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: to shout out for the other podcast I do, Saver.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: We used to have a video aspect of those as well.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I think there's only like five or six episodes, but
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: there I went back to them and I was like,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: these are pretty good I also produced those. I was
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: not the person behind the camera. That was friend of
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the show Tyler Klang and Casey Pegram and also Paul Dickentt.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: We had a lot of people, it was. It had
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: more people than this Minty video series did. But they
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: look really good and I was very happy. I was
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: expecting to be like, oh, look, what a terrible job
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: you did. There's always room for improvement, but it was
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: nice to look back on something I did and think,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: all right, this is not bad, this is not bad.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: So those all of that stuff is still up. All
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of those videos that Kristin and I made together are
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: still up on YouTube. You can find them under stuff
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: We've Never told you. There are new videos that are
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: going up I think daily that are just pretty much
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the audio of the podcast with the background to it,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: which is if that's how you prefer to listen to podcasts,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: totally get you. But there were like videos that we
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: used to do and shout out to Kristen because she
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they planned them, acted them on top of still doing
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the podcast and everyally thing that she had to do
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: so had segments, many segments we did. I liked the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Our Kind of Herstory series where it was women in History.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I liked that one a lot, But there was a bunch.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: There was a bunch of stuff that we tried and
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: did and some of it worked out and so it
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: did it. But yeah, it was just kind of a
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: pleasant looking back. And also I did want to shout
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: out just because I think you listeners might like it.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: There's a recent episode we did on the Savor podcast
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: with Michelle Norris, who is an amazing award winning journalist
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: from NPR amongst a bunch of other things, and also
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the host of the podcast or Mama's Kitchen, And I
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: really think a lot of you would like it. It
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: was really good and it got me thinking about a lot.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: So check all of this out. If you would like,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: please join me in sending all of the best thoughts
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and wishes to Samantha. But yeah, thank you for going
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: down this journey. And if anyone has been here and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: has like seen the videos, I would love to hear
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: from you. If you've been part of this evolution of mine,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear from you. But yes, you
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: can email us at Stephanie and mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Stuff podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Never Told You. Yes, you can find us on YouTube. Also,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: we have a tea public store and a book you
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: can find wherever you get your books. Thanks as always
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: too our super producer Christina, our exective producer Maya, and
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: our contributor Joey. And thanks to you for listening. Stephan
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Never Told You is production of iHeart Radio. For more
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check out the
• 20:58
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• 21:00
  Speaker 1: favorite shows m