Latest / Mini Scroll / Touching Grass with Zee Feed founder Crystal Andrews

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Touching Grass with Zee Feed founder Crystal Andrews · Mini Scroll

0:00
Welcome to Touchgrass, a miniseries where I chat with
0:03
creatives about staying sane while being chronically online.
0:07
I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, and Touchgrass is a miniseries
0:10
brought to you by Britta, where we explore the implications of
0:14
being chronically online with creatives who can't escape it.
0:17
One thing that keeps coming up in these conversations is how
0:20
important small grounding routines are offline.
0:24
And for me, one of those routines is drinking enough
0:27
water. Whether I'm refilling my water
0:29
bottle before a long walk or taking a break from scrolling my
0:32
For You page, Britta makes it easy for me to stay hydrated and
0:36
grounded with pure, fresh tasting filtered water straight
0:39
from any tap. Thank you to Britta for
0:40
supporting independent media and helping us take better care of
0:44
ourselves one refill at a time. Today I'm chatting with the
0:48
readers editor at Crikey and founder of feminist publication
0:52
Z Feed, Crystal Andrews. If you've listened to enough of
0:55
our podcast at Centennial World, then you will be familiar with
0:58
Crystal. She is one of the most
1:00
chronically online people that I know, and she's also one of my
1:03
closest friends. In our conversation, Crystal
1:06
talks about how she juggles an editor role while also building
1:09
her own media business, how complicated it feels to get
1:12
viral traction off bad news, and what the future of journalism
1:16
looks like amid the rise of rage bait content and AI slop.
1:20
Welcome Crystal to touch grass. Thank you for having me.
1:23
What a beautiful day to be outside touching grass in the
1:27
spirit of exactly what this series is about in Tasmania.
1:31
In Tasmania. As if this could not be a better
1:34
advertisement. No, literally.
1:36
Sean, my husband and I flew into Tassie last night.
1:39
We're staying with Crystal and her husband Pierre at their home
1:43
in Hobart and it's so beautiful. We literally picked the perfect
1:45
weekend and I'm so excited to chat with you about all things
1:49
being chronically online, mental health, touching grass.
1:52
Let's do it. All right, so we ask everyone a
1:55
version of this question, but can you tell me, do you consider
1:59
yourself I have chronically online?
2:01
Yes, I, I absolutely affirmatively do.
2:05
I think the interesting thing about being chronically online
2:08
is that you can be that in like very different spaces.
2:12
So like where I am the the spaces online that I spend my
2:15
time might be very different to the spaces that you spend your
2:18
time and like the next person. And sure, like there can be some
2:21
over, like I know that we have a very similar for you page a lot
2:24
of the time, but there are so many little like rabbit holes to
2:27
go down and niches to get into. Their truly like something on
2:31
the Internet to capture anyone's interest.
2:34
Like there's something to appeal to anyone.
2:35
So yeah, I spent a lot of time, a lot of time online in various
2:40
arenas. Yes, OK, so I wanted to talk
2:42
about those various arenas because just like all of the
2:45
arenas online, your career has been in many arenas.
2:49
So you have been a media girly through and through.
2:52
I would say your career is truly like the definition of a media
2:55
girly, but you have had so many different lives in media and
2:59
you've covered so many different areas.
3:01
So can you give us a little rundown on your career?
3:03
Yeah, it it has actually been a bit of a journey.
3:06
And it's one of those things that you don't think about so
3:08
much until someone in this sort of situation ask you like, oh,
3:12
like, you know, where did you start?
3:14
Like what did you do? So I actually started in media a
3:18
long time ago now in magazines. I worked for a magazine that was
3:22
based in Perth called Box Magazine.
3:24
That was my first like gig outside of like straight out of
3:27
uni. And it was a really small team.
3:30
And so it was a great place to learn like everything about
3:34
producing a media like publication.
3:37
It was a magazine. This was like really just at the
3:40
time where the digital like publishing space was starting to
3:44
like kick off, especially in Australia.
3:46
Like that took a little bit longer to start happening here
3:50
than it did like in. It kicked off in the States
3:52
first early with like the likes of ICE and BuzzFeed, but that
3:54
took a little bit of time to filter down here.
3:57
So yeah, I started in like print.
3:59
I don't even think we didn't publish.
4:01
We actually didn't publish any of the articles to a website.
4:04
We actually got a website. I think like not long after I
4:07
was leaving, Oh my God, like right as I was leaving in 2016
4:13
or 2017 is when, yeah, this publication like just started to
4:16
get a website and just started to put articles up on there.
4:18
So it really was a completely different time, a completely
4:22
different landscape. And that magazine also was like
4:25
luxury lifestyle, like fashion. It was so different to what I do
4:31
now. It was not like Newsy.
4:32
It was not in the new space. Yeah, Yeah, at all.
4:35
So I started there and then from there I went into digital
4:38
publishing. I worked at some women's or what
4:40
we call in the business, women's lifestyle titles, which is like
4:44
beauty, fashion, lifestyle, home and interiors, that type of
4:47
thing. I worked at where, buddy?
4:49
I actually don't know if those sites are still around or in
4:52
what format. They're still around.
4:53
I don't think locally, but I think best ones, yes.
4:56
Yes, I worked at the Australian like outposts of those sites.
5:00
I had lost into the Daily Mail. I was at the Daily Mail during
5:04
like when COVID happened. So 2020 got made redundant got a
5:08
nice juicy little redundancy package.
5:11
Thank you, DMA and used that money to like pour into my
5:16
little my little baby business Z feed, which I've been doing now
5:19
since like earnestly since since then, since 2020, which is a
5:24
completely, well, almost completely digital news like
5:29
analysis and commentary publication for young people,
5:33
but particularly, you know, left-leaning progressives,
5:37
feminists, whatever, whatever we want to call ourselves on any
5:40
given day of the week. That's the perspective of that
5:42
publication. And I've been doing that now
5:43
since, yeah, since 2020. So like coming up to six years?
5:47
OK, so I wanted to talk about how you started Z Feed because
5:51
for context, actually how Crystal and I know each other is
5:54
when Centennial launched, I think you just followed us.
5:57
Like I think there might have been like industry news or like
5:59
someone posted us maybe and you found us through that, like our
6:01
Instagram and we were like, oh, this is really cool.
6:04
And then we had you on the podcast and it was remotely
6:07
because this would. Have been this was during like
6:10
it was lockdowns. There was nowhere to go into
6:13
yes. Because I was going to say you
6:14
were living in Sydney at the time, but it was a remote
6:16
recording because it would have been during lockdowns.
6:18
So that's when we first had like, I guess not face to face
6:23
contact, but when we first started like actually speaking
6:25
frequently. And then we just got so close
6:28
over the last like four or five years.
6:30
I guess actually six years. That's actually a crazy thing to
6:32
say. I can't believe it's been 6
6:33
years since 2020. That is the context of how we
6:35
know each other. But I wanted to hear cuz I don't
6:37
know if we've ever talked about this.
6:38
Like what sparked you to start Sea Feed?
6:41
Yeah. So this, I think I started like
6:43
a little bit after you had initially started Centennial
6:47
World, which the people who've been around a long time will
6:50
know that it was called Renegade.
6:51
Oh, my God. No, the podcast was called
6:53
Renegade. I'm outing this now on the pod.
6:57
So yeah, this was like 2018-2019.
7:01
You know, we've had like the digital publishinglikethe.com
7:05
news publication. Like, that is a very established
7:08
thing at this point. But what was much, much newer,
7:11
especially for young audiences, was getting news and media on
7:15
social platforms. Like BuzzFeed had admittedly
7:17
been doing that for like, quite some time, time with Facebook
7:19
and like, you know, the iconic BuzzFeed quizzes, like being
7:22
shared around on Facebook pages and getting lots of traffic that
7:24
way. But my sister is 10, young, 10
7:27
years younger than me. So I'm millennial and she's a
7:29
Gen. Z.
7:30
And she was starting to come to that age where she's like,
7:33
interested in news, interested in what's going on.
7:35
Like, obviously at that time, there was a lot of stuff going
7:38
on, like the end of 2019 as well was the really bad Australian
7:41
bushfires in New South Wales. And that was like huge news.
7:45
And a lot of that was being shared on social media, like
7:48
about what was happening. Anyway, I'd had a discussion
7:51
with Chelsea and my sister, shout out to Chelsea about where
7:54
she and her peers, like we're getting their news and
7:57
information. And she said to me, like, we get
8:00
it on social media and we will see like something that
8:04
interests us and click on it and click on the link and like read
8:07
that article online, which is completely fine.
8:09
There's nothing wrong with that. But the interesting thing was,
8:12
is that they had no like they had no connection or loyalty is
8:17
not quite the right word, but like affiliation for what the
8:21
actual site. Right, like that was.
8:22
Publishing. Yeah.
8:23
So it would just like, come across your feed.
8:25
That could be from anywhere. And there was like no real
8:27
connection with like this is an article from the ABC or the
8:30
Sydney Morning Herald or like news.com dot AU or the Daily
8:33
Mail or even if it's like an Internet, you know, it's from
8:35
the BBC. Like there was very little
8:36
awareness of where that was coming from.
8:38
It's just like, this seems like an informative article.
8:41
I'll click the link because it's come across my feed.
8:44
So at that time, it seemed to me like, OK, this newer generation,
8:47
there seems to be like some space where we can take that
8:51
news and directly publish it on the platform.
8:54
Not only that, but fill in a lot of the blanks for like a younger
8:58
generation. Like obviously if you're reading
9:00
an article on the ABC or the BBC, you know, generally like
9:04
solid, trustworthy, established new sources.
9:08
There's nothing wrong with that. But there was heaps of assumed
9:10
knowledge, like if it's a story about the attorney General, like
9:13
that assumes that you know what an attorney general does, let
9:17
alone like who the current attorney general is.
9:20
And those little like bits and pieces of information were like
9:23
missing from the news at that time.
9:25
And it sounds silly almost to talk about now because explainer
9:27
journalism now is like everybody, like everybody does
9:32
that. Big publications do it, small
9:33
publications do it. Like certainly now it is not,
9:36
it's not innovative. It's nothing new.
9:38
But at that time it like was pretty new.
9:41
So they started out as producing these little like condensed and
9:45
not even explainers, but like providing some context around
9:50
what the biggest news story was that like week or that day or
9:52
whatever on Instagram was the was the focus at that time.
9:56
Again, does seem kind of obvious and outdated now to say that,
9:59
but like that was really where the motion was.
10:01
And so that's why I started it. But it has evolved as a
10:04
publication so far from that now because so much in the industry
10:09
has changed, not just the media industry, but like so much about
10:12
online life, like so, so many platforms have popped up in that
10:16
time. We're obviously now dealing with
10:17
AI as well. So that's where it started, but
10:21
I wouldn't say that that's where it is right now.
10:23
So where would you say it is right now?
10:25
So now it's much more what what we produce on Z feed is much
10:30
more commentary and analysis and going context heavy on those
10:36
things. Everybody does explain us now.
10:38
But not only that, like now you can just get a fairly decent
10:43
explainer from an AI chat bot or a Google summary.
10:47
Now, is that wrong a lot of the time, yeah.
10:49
But I think we're silly to pretend that that's always going
10:51
to be the case. Like the more money that gets
10:54
invested in these things and the more that like people, powerful
10:57
people in the tech industry are invested in making that a really
11:00
good alternative source of information.
11:02
It's going to be pretty hard to compete with that.
11:04
Certainly as like a teeny tiny, like a micro publication in
11:08
Australia, It's hard to compete with that.
11:10
But what AI can't do is have an opinion.
11:13
What it can't do is like really properly analyze it can't
11:16
understand where it's audience is coming from, what their
11:20
perspective is and like bringing them information that kind of
11:23
like matches what their perspective is and what the gaps
11:26
in their information in their knowledge might be.
11:28
So I think that's what we do right now.
11:31
And then also in Australia, I mean, the mainstream media here
11:34
is has such a serious conservative lens.
11:38
I mean, even through like big trustworthy news organizations
11:41
like the ABC, there is like, I'll say centrist, like a
11:44
centrist at best. Yeah, yeah.
11:46
You know, lens on on things. So Z feed is like unashamedly
11:52
feminist, intersectional, like everything we look at is through
11:55
that lens. And we're, you know, out loud
11:58
and proud about that. So that might mean that some
12:00
people go, OK, well, I don't like what you're saying because
12:04
you're looking at it through this lens and that I'm OK with
12:06
that. It's not going to be for
12:07
everyone. But the the difference is it's
12:09
like at least I'm telling you, I'm saying we are looking at
12:11
this through a feminist lens. You can take that or leave that.
12:14
Other organizations will say when neutral, when not having
12:17
like a bias on this, when not having a bent on this, but it's
12:20
impossible to produce any kind of like a news or journalism
12:22
that way. It's just, it's just simply not,
12:24
not possible. So yeah, that's where it is now.
12:27
Very, very different to like, who is the attorney general on
12:31
Instagram in like 20, 2019. It's a very different place.
12:34
No, I love it though. And that's just what this
12:36
industry is all about. Like it's crazy to say that, you
12:39
know, six years ago, like we were so different to like Sean
12:42
and I did a Patreon episode yesterday and we were talking
12:44
about how when we started on TikTok, like he gave us the idea
12:49
to put our stories on TikTok. And I had not seen anyone do
12:53
that up until that point. And this was 2019.
12:55
So it was very early in Tik Tok's kind of journey, but
12:58
regardless, and it sounded crazy on the Patreon to say, I feel
13:02
like Sean made-up that idea. He literally created this idea.
13:07
He hadn't even crossed my mind. And it was only six years ago.
13:10
Where are we gonna be in six years from now?
13:12
It's. It moved honestly so quickly,
13:15
even just from, you know, if we talk about a lot of youth
13:19
publishing through the same period that we've been doing,
13:21
this was like platform first. So it wasn't even necessarily a
13:25
website or or even a sub stack, which again, wasn't true at that
13:29
point, but it was like a going to Instagram posting directly.
13:33
Even on Instagram, it was static.
13:35
It was like images and like the the classic Canva, like textile.
13:40
Then Tik Tok's rise and rise and rise meant that there was such
13:45
this big pivot to video, which is the second pivot to video
13:48
that I have survived in my media career.
13:52
The first pivot to video was Facebook video.
13:54
Oh yeah. We're not going to talk about.
13:56
That's like that's a whole discussion and of itself.
13:59
But TikTok, like it was a new way of producing that type of
14:04
content. And also I think really
14:07
solidified the person first, creator first, you know, mode of
14:12
disseminating journalism and information, which now again,
14:15
like a lot of the big publications have taken on
14:17
board. And I actually think is
14:19
generally like a good, there are some pitfalls, but I think it's
14:22
a good thing. Like, I think you should know,
14:25
Yeah, is giving you the news that they're giving you.
14:27
So you can have a little bit of understanding of the
14:29
circumstances around that. It's not all been good.
14:32
Yeah, yeah. And it's really difficult,
14:33
especially like as a smaller publication, it's really hard to
14:38
make good enough quality video content That's like what you've
14:41
done so, so well is adapt to that.
14:44
But it's not easy. You can't necessarily just like,
14:46
stick up a phone and start not recording videos.
14:49
It's not that simple anymore. I know, but I mean to to
14:52
properly adapt to video from podcast perspective and also a
14:56
TikTok perspective. Like we had to get rid of so
14:59
many ways that we published for me to actually be able to like
15:01
make that work. It's so crazy.
15:03
And I think, you know, starting a publication, even if we
15:05
started, I don't know, five years before when we started
15:08
ours, like we would have been publishing on a.com and like
15:12
maybe on Facebook. And, you know, when we launched,
15:14
we already had to have 4 platforms or whatever that we're
15:17
publishing. And now it's even more.
15:18
It's so exhausting. It's impossible to keep up.
15:22
And even like now, I still feel quite old school in this segment
15:26
of the industry because I, I am a writer.
15:30
Like that is what I am. I remain true to the written
15:32
word. And so, you know, whether that
15:34
isn't like a print publication less and less so these days, but
15:38
like an article, sub stack or a blog post or something that is
15:42
written. I maybe it's ill advised.
15:45
You know, maybe we're all going to laugh at this in like 10
15:47
years when it was, you know, just down downhill from me from
15:51
from here. But I still think there needs to
15:53
be a lot of journalism and, you know, essays and analysis and
15:58
opinion or whatever it may be in the written form.
16:00
Because the thing for me, especially with like online
16:03
information, it's so important to be able to link where I got,
16:07
if I'm making a claim, if I'm sourcing, like if I'm citing A
16:10
statistic, if I'm citing even something that somebody else has
16:14
said, like I'm quoting it in my piece.
16:16
I think it's really important to be able to very easily link
16:19
anyone who's reading it back through that source to see it
16:22
for themselves. That is very, very important.
16:24
And it is difficult to do with static imagery like Instagram
16:27
captions don't link. Like it's just a little bit more
16:29
tricky to do. And in video, it's like, OK,
16:31
well, I can put those in the caption and I can put those on
16:33
the screen. Like, you know, we can do as
16:35
much as we can, but copying, pasting and that taking that
16:39
information into a search engine to go and like verify it is just
16:42
not that easy for the person who's reading it or consuming it
16:46
or watching it or whatever. There's still something
16:48
beautifully simple, simple to me about like that is the number
16:52
that she cited. She said it was from here.
16:54
I'm going to click the link and see it for myself.
16:56
And I think it is really, really important to preserve that as
17:01
much as we as we can. So I'm old school about it.
17:04
Even in the video, even in the video journalism era, I still
17:07
think we need to write some shit down, guys.
17:10
Well, I don't think that's even a hot take.
17:12
Like, I think that's why Sub Stack has become so popular,
17:15
partly because of that, right? And also I think video fatigue
17:19
has really helped with the rise of platforms like Sub Stack and
17:22
newsletters and all of that. OK.
17:24
So I wanted to talk to you about a topic we discuss here and
17:28
there in our friendship offline about kind of the friction that
17:33
we can feel finding growth or success even in a single piece
17:39
of content, but sometimes off the back of someone else's
17:42
misfortune. So can you talk to me about how
17:45
you reconcile with that? Because obviously covering the
17:48
topics that you cover, politics, commentary, women's issues, race
17:52
issues, I'm sure you feel that. Often, yeah, it is like, can be
17:56
a really horrible business to be in because all day, every day
18:01
you are learning about awful circumstances that people are
18:05
in. And that can be the important
18:06
stuff. It's, it's important to shine
18:09
light on these things and make sure that doesn't slip under the
18:11
radar. But yeah, it's tough to be in
18:13
that immersed in that all the time.
18:15
And I think that trying to do that as like thoughtfully and
18:20
carefully and ethically as possible has always been really
18:23
important to me because, like, why I do this is I'm interested,
18:26
I'm curious, I'm interested in people, why things are the way
18:29
they are, like how we all live our lives.
18:31
There can be a tendency at the moment to go kind of like
18:34
crashing and bashing into these issues and like trying to, you
18:38
know, stick your flag in the ground and stake a claim and
18:40
like own an issue, you know, an issue of like injustice or, you
18:46
know, someone being done wrong by or some sort of scandal.
18:50
That's not really how I like to approach it.
18:53
Like there's been mental health benefits to me for that to not
18:56
feel like I have to rush into things really quickly and like
18:59
claim my space. And also I think people really
19:01
respect that I don't do that, that safe feed doesn't do that,
19:05
that we take out time with things because it a lot of it is
19:09
so just like big and heavy. You can't always just like a run
19:12
into it head 1st and especially again, being like so small
19:17
limited resources, like, you know, I'm not trying to compete
19:20
with big mainstream publications.
19:21
And so why would I try to run head first into it like they
19:24
like they can because they're better equipped to do that.
19:26
But sometimes I think there's a tendency when when we're talking
19:30
about an issue where something bad and injustice has happened
19:33
to a specific person or a specific group of people.
19:36
And you know, you'll see it like online on social platforms, like
19:40
people will want to really run in there and in like a, a way of
19:43
wanting to do good. They're like, they want to go in
19:45
and stand up and like, make a statement, have their take on
19:47
it. Like discussion about all these
19:48
things are good. But the thing that really
19:49
strikes me is like when they don't first reach out to like
19:52
the person who it happened to or the group who it happened to.
19:55
Just this week, I'm not sure when this episode will be out,
19:58
but like just this week, we've had a big new story in Australia
20:02
where the Prime Minister has said something really horrible
20:05
about Grace Tame, who's a, you know, a famous advocate,
20:09
activist, a really inspiring woman, former Australian of the
20:13
year. And there's been like a lot of
20:17
news around that, a lot of people having takes about that,
20:20
you know, like it is part of the discourse and I will be
20:24
publishing something about that on Z feed, but core to that.
20:27
And before I'm going to write about that, crucial to that was
20:30
reaching out to her and being like, hey, letting you know I'm
20:32
going to be writing about this also, like some questions of
20:35
clarification is like a journalistic practice that you
20:38
learn when you do come up through these mainstream
20:40
publications, like you need to go to people for comment.
20:43
You need to like reach out and let people know that you're
20:46
going to be like weighing in on this.
20:47
I think that has been a practice that is not always it's, it's
20:51
not so common all the time, but it's something that I'm going to
20:57
stick to. And I think is what has made our
20:58
stuff a little bit more, yeah, a little bit more thoughtful and
21:01
careful about who we're, you know, who we're talking about
21:04
and the way that that we are talking about them.
21:05
And that's not saying formal training is the be all and end
21:08
all. Like I'm not.
21:09
There are loads of very unethical journalists who work
21:13
for big publications. Like that is by no means to say
21:16
that you that there aren't heaps of news creators and news
21:20
influencers And also just like people who are, you know, who
21:22
are in these communities having their say that aren't doing it
21:25
correctly. Like I think there is a lot of
21:27
care out there and that's the stuff that I tend to gravitate
21:30
towards where you can see that there's been like an effort and
21:32
some consideration and that's been part of the process, yeah.
21:35
OK, something that I feel like is unique about you is no matter
21:38
how immersed in this space you are, it seems like you never
21:43
lose your passion for it. So on top of Z feed, you're also
21:46
readers editor at Crikey. And the fact that you can do
21:49
basically 2 journalism jobs at once is so impressive to me.
21:54
Thank you. That's very kind.
21:55
It must take such, I imagine for me at least, it would take a
21:59
huge toll and it would lead me, I believe, to lose a lot of that
22:03
spark. So how do you keep that passion
22:06
for what you're doing? I don't think my answer to this
22:09
is going to be particularly satisfying, but I just love it.
22:13
Like I just, it is hard for me to not to, to switch off from
22:19
following the news and like what is going on and feeling like I
22:22
have my finger on the pulse. Like we, my husband and I went
22:26
away on a holiday at the end of the year, right after, right
22:29
after Christmas and we'd spent Christmas with my family and
22:32
everyone was like, you need to switch off.
22:34
Everyone's like, it was like an intervention.
22:36
They were telling me off. They're like, you need to just
22:38
log off, disconnect. You need to just take this time.
22:42
We're going on quite a long holiday as well.
22:44
It was like three weeks away and that probably doesn't sound that
22:48
long, but that's long. Oh.
22:49
It's long, yeah. You know, it's a long holiday,
22:51
overseas holiday. They're like, you need to switch
22:53
off. You need to not look at the
22:54
news. And they were like to my
22:56
husband, don't let her look at the news.
22:57
And he was like policing me every day.
22:59
He's like, don't look at it. You're going to you're going to
23:01
be in a bad mood, you're going to ruin your day.
23:03
And look, I did very much stay offline as much as I could at
23:07
that time. And I did feel like great for
23:09
it. But I think that just speaks to
23:10
like how much I want to know. I'm just curious.
23:15
I like to know why things happen.
23:17
It's like I think that's what it is.
23:19
It's not just about, oh, this is happening and what is happening.
23:22
It's not the news of the day now, now, now, minute to minute
23:26
to minute. But I like to know why things
23:28
are happening. I think about history a lot and
23:31
like how these cycles repeat. This is sounding so weird, but
23:34
it's like when you're in it and you're feeling the rhythms and
23:37
you can see where things go. And it all helps to have an
23:40
understanding about the world that we're in.
23:43
And I would like to think that I'm having a positive impact on
23:47
the world with the work that I produce.
23:49
And that obviously means if you think you're having a positive
23:51
impact, you you want to make more of it.
23:53
So that's kind of what keeps me in it, but I don't know that
23:56
that's like a particularly useful answer.
23:59
I feel like the answer there is you.
24:03
I mean, it's so core to who you are.
24:05
Yeah, it is. It is.
24:07
It's like there's been times when I've dabbled in, like,
24:10
trying to get out and do something else and I just can't.
24:13
I just can't. I just can't do it.
24:15
I know this is getting dangerously close to that
24:17
bullshit of like, do what you love and you'll never work it
24:20
out in your life. And I want to be clear, it is
24:22
work. Like, it's not that it doesn't
24:24
feel like work. It fucking feels like work every
24:26
second of the day. It's just, I'm just curious.
24:29
Yeah. I just want to know what is
24:30
going on. Yeah, you were born for this
24:33
industry. I think so.
24:34
I think so. I knew I wanted to be a
24:35
journalist when I was like in high school.
24:38
That's just all I ever really wanted to do.
24:39
And then I started doing it and my career now looks like totally
24:43
different to what I imagined you would look at that at that time.
24:46
Like, it's not, it's not like I brought to life the vision I had
24:49
when I was 16. But I mean, it's pretty cool.
24:52
Yeah, it's a very cool career. So something else that I feel
24:55
like you are acutely plugged into is the culture of
25:00
inflammatory content online. Given the spaces that you
25:04
reported, can you tell me how you feel the rise in rage bait
25:10
is influencing journalism? It's currency, like rage bait is
25:15
currency. We do definitely live in like an
25:17
outrage culture right now. And it's coming from all this is
25:22
like something I think that often gets characterized as
25:24
being of like a, a feature or function of content from the the
25:30
new right to the alt right or, you know, those kind of spaces.
25:33
But it really is across the board.
25:36
And I think it's because like that is what grabs people's
25:39
attention. Attention is currency with this
25:41
is like friggin cliche bingo, but it grabs people's attention.
25:46
It's become like a new hook. I think to say something
25:49
contrarian is like really the spirit that it's in.
25:51
It's like, I'm going to say something that most people would
25:54
disagree with to get them to listen to what I'm saying, to
25:57
interact with my platform for the sake of it.
26:01
Just to have like size, just to have numbers.
26:03
I don't think there's always necessarily even an interest in
26:06
a broader layer of discourse. It just is, you know, that's the
26:09
way to like get yourself seen, whether you have ambitions to be
26:14
like a journalist or whether you have ambitions to be like a
26:17
different type of creator or voice online or just like known
26:20
people also just like to be seen and heard.
26:23
So yeah, it's, it's everywhere. And I find it really exhausting.
26:27
I don't know about you. I don't know if it's just like
26:29
we're hitting really peak rage culture right now and like rage
26:34
based rage based content, like saturation, it's just
26:37
everywhere. It's like doesn't matter what
26:39
you're into. Like, obviously it happens in
26:40
the new space A lot. And like people talking about
26:43
politics, like those things are quite natural.
26:45
But even like entertainment, pop culture, beauty, fashion,
26:49
discourse, like any community that you're into, it seems
26:52
there, there are these people who have an impulse to make
26:54
contrarian takes, put it out there and just like, you know,
26:57
set, set the match, like the match, throw it on, throw it on
27:00
the haystack and just watch the flames go up.
27:03
Sometimes I feel like people do it as well, not just to be
27:08
contrarian for attention, but also to feed their ego.
27:12
I feel like everybody is constantly looking for the right
27:15
take. They want to have that hot take
27:16
that everyone says, Oh my God, you're so smart.
27:18
Like, I never thought of it like that.
27:20
And now we're all going to make think pieces off the back of
27:22
your think piece. Yeah, absolutely.
27:24
OK. So how would you say that it's
27:25
impacting audiences? I don't think it's good for
27:29
anybody. I think it's like really bad.
27:31
It's like training our brains to look for that and have that
27:35
reaction. I think you can feel it when
27:37
the, when they're like the take or the content is reactionary
27:41
for the sake of it. And it's not kind of like
27:42
genuine. There's like a kind of holiness
27:44
to it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.
27:46
Yeah, yeah. You know, like it's not.
27:48
I don't think it's good for anyone to exist in this like
27:51
constant state of being like activated and enraged is
27:55
probably too strong of a word. But like always reacting to
27:58
something like every single thing that you see is like
28:01
trying to provoke something emotional from you.
28:04
I don't think that's very healthy.
28:06
And I think that it then dulls when there is something really,
28:11
really serious and really important that does deserve a
28:13
strong reaction from, you know, from the public, from us, from
28:18
from us as like human beings. Because everything is like at
28:22
this level of like 8-9 or ten, the things that do deserve that
28:26
get like, they just become the same as everything else.
28:28
And so I feel like it's almost dulling people's ability to
28:32
perceive like what is really worth their time and attention
28:37
and their emotional investment and what is just activating them
28:40
for like no real purpose other than numbers in an algorithm.
28:45
It's a very odd feeling. I feel like the Epstein files
28:50
stuff is a good indicator of that, not us getting into C
28:55
files on A on a touch cross. You're not the first.
29:00
But because of the volume of just like horrific revelations
29:06
in that and just how much the conspiracy theories around that
29:11
like seem to be validated and like, yeah, they're really, I
29:14
mean, yes, not to not to get into it, but it's like, yeah, it
29:17
was real. It was happening.
29:19
And every story that comes out of it is like more and more
29:21
horrible than the next, which almost LED some people, I think
29:25
to go digging for like further level of conspiracy where there
29:30
it's like all there for us already.
29:33
What's happened is awful enough already that some people I think
29:36
are looking for another level of like, but what if it was even
29:39
more more awful for that? Like, as if the abuse of these
29:45
vulnerable young girls and women, it was like, not enough
29:49
in some way. I don't know if that's a good
29:52
way of explaining it, but to me that that's just something where
29:54
it's like you're. So you're just hit with so many
29:56
awful things at once. Yeah.
29:58
None of them kind of seem that bad.
30:00
And some people go looking for them something like even worse.
30:02
Yeah, No, I, I talked about that.
30:04
I mean, it was in relation to the Selena Gomez like conspiracy
30:08
theories that are happening on TikTok right now.
30:10
And I brought up the Epstein files.
30:11
You know, why are people believing these Selena Gomez
30:14
conspiracy theories? And people are, and these are
30:16
like grown adults that are believing these conspiracy
30:19
theories and they're so outlandish.
30:21
And that was, you know, one of the examples I gave, just one of
30:24
my theories is I think over the past, maybe like 10 to 20 years,
30:30
a lot of the quote UN quote conspiracy theories that we've
30:33
seen with like elites, let's say, that felt so outlandish.
30:36
They started to be validated. And Epstein files is an example
30:40
of that. So then it makes people be like,
30:41
OK, well now there's got to be conspiracies everywhere.
30:44
You. Know there's also another aspect
30:45
of like, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a journalist, I'm not
30:48
an activist. But I think with a lot of the
30:52
political discourse online and it's like tendency to, to kind
30:58
of like devolve into rage baby type content, which is meant to
31:03
spark like engagement with other people online.
31:06
And that can sometimes spin into like personal, like conflicts
31:11
that are fully played out online.
31:13
I also think there's something to be said for like, it's easy
31:16
to forget that is very much happening in an online space.
31:19
That is not to say that online advocacy isn't important and
31:21
can't be impactful. It absolutely, it absolutely is.
31:24
And we have so much to thank that has come from online
31:28
activists, especially on global issues, which we otherwise like
31:31
it may not have known about at all.
31:32
But I do think there's something to be said for like this type of
31:35
hyper engaging rage bait content keeps you locked in the online
31:39
space. And it's really easy to forget
31:42
that like that is not actually the only place or even maybe the
31:45
primary place where we want things to change.
31:48
It is the material world where we actually need to make some of
31:53
those changes. Even if people are wanting to
31:55
make changes to online platforms, it's like you, you
31:58
can't only do that by talking about it online or getting into
32:02
like back and forth, like stitching wars with other people
32:05
online. There is a different layer of
32:07
like activism and advocacy that still has to happen.
32:10
And I think that's what it takes away from us as well.
32:12
It's like it, it kind of makes you forget where the priorities
32:15
should be because there is just something so addictive about
32:18
like watching two people go back and forth with each other, you
32:22
know, getting into the minutiae of like who said this and who
32:25
said that? And then another third party
32:26
jumps in like, but that is all that can be very unproductive
32:31
and just so siloed where it's like sometimes it's only
32:34
happening on one platform. It's like it's only happening on
32:36
TikTok and the people on Instagram don't even know that
32:39
this is happening. And people on YouTube like don't
32:40
even know this is happening. So that's another thing.
32:42
I think we're losing touch. We're losing touch a little bit
32:46
with the online base. We are losing touch.
32:48
I also think there's probably something to be said for doing
32:52
quote, UN quote online activism or getting involved in online
32:55
discourse like that and getting essentially the positive
32:59
reinforcement, the dopamine hit from that, that like, let's all
33:03
be honest, if you're doing, whether it's activism online,
33:07
offline, a lot of it comes back to, you know, like you're doing
33:10
it for from the goodness of your heart, hopefully, but also
33:13
because it makes you feel good, right?
33:15
And you get probably a lot of us probably get that same similar
33:19
hit when you're doing it all, like within the TikTok comments
33:21
and you feel like I'm validated people are agreeing with me.
33:24
So look, I'm making a difference.
33:25
But that's actually, like you said, it's in such an enclosed
33:29
small ecosystem that it's really not making as much of an impact
33:34
as we probably feel it is. And it's also not particularly
33:39
intergenerational or the communities online tend to be
33:42
very much like Gen. Z, millennials, yeah, some Gen.
33:46
X, like some boomers. More alphas in the comments than
33:50
I think people realize. Like that is like my, I think if
33:53
I was to have, if I was to be able to get some government
33:55
money to have like a public service that's been ad that runs
33:59
like across all like television, radio, billboards everywhere.
34:03
It would be something along the lines of like stop, like think
34:07
twice before you argue with someone in the comments because
34:09
that person might be 16. And you as like someone you
34:14
know, who's like 28 might be going back and forth with like,
34:18
yeah, a 16 year old, which is not something that I like to
34:21
think most of us would opt to do in real life.
34:24
You know, that's not something I I spend my time doing or even
34:28
thinking about. So yeah, it can really lack like
34:31
if you're just talking to a lot of the same people, I think it
34:34
can lack like that broader context of who we all are in the
34:38
world and in the society and who is getting information from
34:41
where. Like when I talk to my parents,
34:43
like I don't live in the same city as my parents.
34:45
So I talked to them once a week. We have like quite a long phone
34:48
call and it's like to try and explain when they ask, they're
34:51
like, oh, like what happened this week?
34:53
Like what was what was big? What was news?
34:56
And sometimes it's like, well, I spent a lot of time thinking
34:58
about this thing, but I actually even know where to begin to
35:01
explain to you who these people are like what this was really
35:05
about. And it is important.
35:07
Like the thing was important, but I actually can't even get
35:09
into it with you because you just we have to do too much
35:12
background. Maybe I should maybe I need to
35:14
do now the reverse context thing that was originally for Jen says
35:18
we now need to do it for like boomers to help them understand
35:21
the context of online life. Yes, maybe that's that's missing
35:26
venture. Yes, that's.
35:27
Missing. Wait.
35:28
I love that. I actually think a lot of young
35:31
people would appreciate that from you.
35:33
Yeah. So that they think about it.
35:34
Their parents. OK, so being a woman who is so
35:38
visible online in both of your respective, I guess, positions
35:43
both at Crikey and Z feed, how do you handle the criticism?
35:46
How do you handle being visible online and covering topics that
35:50
are sensitive? It is like a very much an
35:54
ongoing work in progress. Like I'm sensitive.
35:57
I'm a very sensitive person. I take everything to like a way
36:01
to personally, I buy all rights should not be saying anything
36:04
online. I should not be saying anything
36:06
in public because I take it all like quite personally.
36:09
But I'm getting better all the time at just blowing things off.
36:13
I think there is something within my personality because
36:17
I'm curious about what drives other people.
36:19
And that's what makes this job, like feel just so perfect for me
36:23
and why I love doing it. But it also means you like
36:25
really badly want to be understood.
36:27
So I've had to really work at when people do misunderstand and
36:31
it's inevitable. Like that's just life, but you
36:34
know, when they'll respond to something that I've written or a
36:36
video I've made or a podcast that I've done and
36:39
misinterpreted or misunderstood a statement and then got like
36:42
mad at me for that or like, you know, this was like a bad take
36:46
because of XYZ. Resisting the urge to get in
36:50
there and explain back I think has been a journey.
36:53
I used to do that too much. I don't do it anymore.
36:57
I have still have to resist the urge to do it, but I don't do it
36:59
because that's just not a good use of my time that it is.
37:04
It's rough. And also, I think being a woman
37:07
online, I mean, I can't speak for the experience of men who
37:12
are very visible online. I also like worry more about my
37:15
appearance than I would like to. I I think in my day-to-day life
37:19
offline, I don't worry that much about how I look.
37:22
But as soon as there's like a camera and as soon as you're
37:24
seeing your own face all of the time on like all of these
37:27
screens, it can be really confronting.
37:30
Yeah, 100%. When like I'm with my friends
37:33
and, you know, you're having a bit of like down time and
37:35
someone will like in a scroll, then like when you hear, I hear
37:38
my own voice coming from their phone and see my own face.
37:41
That is very disconcerting. Yeah, I don't like that.
37:44
Don't scroll near me. No, I find I actually, because
37:48
when you're filming yourself so much, you can control the
37:52
lighting, the angles. And I find it really confronting
37:56
when I just take a casual photo with a friend or something and
38:00
it's like a an angle that I don't normally feel myself at or
38:03
I don't look at myself. And I'm like, Oh my God.
38:05
And like I have an image of what I look like in my head, not from
38:08
the mirror anymore, but from the camera.
38:10
Yeah, yeah. It's so bizarre.
38:11
It's very, it's a very strange experience.
38:14
And I think also, you know, talking about politics, talking
38:18
about sensitive issues, talking about injustices, talking about
38:22
the government online. I mean, it's a fact.
38:25
Men get a lot less criticism for doing that.
38:29
And also men get a lot less, not 0, but a lot less critiques of
38:33
their appearance while they're doing that, like completely
38:36
unrelated to the things that they are saying.
38:39
So that's just like hard to deal with.
38:40
It's just a lesson in like getting in the comments enough
38:44
to take the temperature of the thing that you've put out there.
38:47
And I do think that's really important.
38:48
I would never ever advocate for not looking at the comments at
38:52
all because like you need some feedback.
38:54
Like you do need to, you do need to have an understanding of how
38:58
things are being received and like who what you're putting out
39:01
there is resonating with. But you know, it's you need just
39:04
enough to get the feedback and then move on.
39:07
But it's like a lifelong process, I think.
39:10
Yeah, and it's harder and harder when platforms hide comments for
39:13
some people and not others and they do all these weird things
39:16
with the filters and you even if you haven't put the filters on,
39:19
it's so. Confusing.
39:20
Yeah. I mean, This is why I think we
39:23
kind of like vaguely touched on this, but the push for like the
39:27
resurgence of newsletters, I think is in large part been
39:30
because the engagement like hacking experience of the other
39:36
digital platforms has been like quite fatiguing.
39:39
So that's why a lot of people have gone back to like writing
39:41
things in a newsletter form and like sending that directly to
39:44
the people who want to hear. I mean, there are still a lot of
39:46
frustrations with like deliver things around deliverability and
39:49
it even not getting to the people who say they want to see
39:51
it. But I put a lot of stock in the
39:53
people who'll take the time to e-mail me about something or
39:57
like, go out of the way to find a contact detail and, like,
40:00
e-mail some feedback that hasn't always been like, that's not
40:03
just compliments. Like sometimes people will be
40:05
like, hey, I saw that thing that you wrote.
40:07
Like, I think that you should consider, yeah, this like, I
40:10
don't think you paid enough attention to, like, this aspect
40:12
of it. I still think that's quite
40:14
valuable because there's like some more effort I think that
40:16
has been gone into. Delivering that message.
40:19
And so far, this is not true for everybody, but so far I have
40:23
found e-mail feedback a lot less aggressive, much less trolling,
40:29
like a lot less of the toxic stuff that makes you not want to
40:32
hear from anyone else. That's always worth in the
40:33
comments. But having said that, that's
40:35
just only been my experience. I know a lot of people get
40:37
really awful e-mail, really awful e-mail feedback.
40:41
Yeah, a lot of female journalists.
40:43
I know a lot of female journalists I know who are not
40:46
white get get horrific feedback. And I think it's to do with the
40:49
size of the platform as well. Like, yeah, you know, when
40:51
you're in a really big outlet and it's going out to, you know,
40:53
millions of people, it's sad. It's really, really sad to say,
40:57
but it just comes with the territory.
40:58
Yeah, so having essentially 2 full time careers, the code
41:03
switch between Crikey Z feed and maybe even just like your
41:07
personal life. Yeah, it is tricky.
41:10
I think I've been very fortunate that or not fortunate it.
41:13
It is also by design that the audience of Z Feed and the
41:18
audience of Crikey, which if people don't know is an
41:20
independent news organization in Australia.
41:24
Actually, it's Crikey's 26th birthday as we're recording this
41:28
month. So they've been at this since
41:30
the year 2000. Wow.
41:31
Which is like really, I think in the independent space, like
41:34
Incredible also started as a newsletter, I believe.
41:38
So crazy that newsletters are back, literally.
41:41
But the audiences for those two publications are quite
41:44
different. So even though the topics and
41:46
the like, the material is a lot of the times it's very similar.
41:49
Like there's a focus on Australian and international
41:52
politics and social issues and that type of thing because
41:55
they're talking to two different groups of people.
41:59
That helps because I can go into like Crikey mode when I'm doing
42:01
Crikey stuff and then I can go into the Z feed mode when I'm
42:03
doing Z feed stuff. Z feed is very much like young
42:07
feminist women and just feminists in general, but like
42:11
really heavily skews kind of like young women.
42:13
And so I feel like I can have a little bit more like of my own
42:16
personality in that and speak a little bit more colloquially,
42:19
even in the newsletters that I write.
42:21
Like it doesn't always need to be so like, you know, news
42:23
voicy, like I don't think I have a great news voice anyway, but
42:26
it doesn't need to be so straight.
42:27
So that helps kind of like creating that divide.
42:31
I think the other thing that has helped me more than I thought it
42:36
would is taking like the, the parts that you learn from
42:41
working in one place to the other and vice versa.
42:44
Like with Crikey, I'm working with a bigger team of people who
42:49
are all different from different backgrounds.
42:50
Like some of them have been in the industry like a really,
42:52
really long time. And so I learned so much there
42:55
as well that I'm able to like put into Z feed.
42:57
And then part of what I've been doing for Crikey as well is like
43:00
bringing them more onto these platforms, like trying to grow a
43:04
little bit more of a youth audience who are interested in
43:06
the same type of topics. So I'm taking what I've like
43:08
built at Z Feed and the skills that I have there like to that
43:12
other workplace as well. So it's kind of like you're
43:14
taking one thing over and then you like put that down and pick
43:17
up something over here and bring it over.
43:18
I don't know it. Kind of compliments.
43:20
Yeah, each other. You feel like you're learning
43:22
and there's enough difference that it doesn't feel like the
43:25
one job yet, like, all of the time.
43:28
I am really proud about what I published in both places.
43:32
I do think it would be hard if if I had a day job where it was
43:36
like, I'm really not, like, stoked about promoting this.
43:39
You know what I mean? Like, yeah, because I'm really
43:40
proud of what I do regardless. I think it takes less of a toll.
43:43
OK, well then, but I don't advise.
43:45
I don't advise again. All of this is like stuff.
43:47
That I do is very hypocritical. It's like these are all the
43:49
things that I do that I would not recommend other people to
43:53
do, so I'm not sure if I'm the best guess.
43:56
Yeah. Well, that's why I wanted to ask
43:58
you final question. How do you touch grass then?
44:01
It does not happen as much as it should.
44:04
As I said, there are times when interventions are staged.
44:08
But one thing I do really like to do, we have a record player
44:12
at at home and quite a little like growing collection of
44:15
records now. So it's really nice whether it's
44:17
like even like a weeknight evening or on the weekends or
44:21
just whenever really to put on a record because you have to
44:25
listen to that thing in order like beginning to end one side,
44:29
flip it over beginning to end the next side.
44:31
And it's service that like interactive, like pick whatever
44:35
you want in that moment. Like over stimulation almost
44:39
that we get from online like media consumption.
44:41
Like you can't just skip ahead 2 songs because like that's your
44:44
favorite song on this album. You have to go slow and you have
44:47
to consume something incompletion.
44:49
I find that really helps to like, slow my, you know, energy
44:53
levels down a little, a little bit, even if it is like an
44:56
upbeat, like, even if it's like a, you know, a puppy dancey
44:59
album. There's something about taking
45:02
the time to consume something the way that the artist created
45:05
it from beginning to end with no interference from you.
45:08
Yeah, I find quite calming. So I do like doing that.
45:11
And then as I said, like my family lives in a different
45:13
state than me, so a lot of my spare time actually is like a
45:17
long phone calls. Yeah.
45:18
But it's really nice because I'm the most online.
45:21
Yeah. No one else is as online as me.
45:24
And so you have these, like, really normal, lovely
45:28
conversations that I find quite grounding.
45:30
It's again, oh, groundbreaking. Like spend time with your
45:34
friends and family. But there is something about
45:37
that that I find. Yeah.
45:39
Helps. And I mean, look around like it
45:41
is beautiful down here. I mean, obviously I live in
45:44
Sydney. Like, that's how we know each
45:45
other. But the pace in Tasmania is so
45:48
much slower than Sydney and Melbourne and even like even
45:52
Perth, which is where I grew up, like it just there is so much
45:56
access to nature here. She's like very helpful.
45:59
And there is just a slower pace of life that has really helped.
46:02
I think like bring my anxiety down.
46:04
Like I don't think it would be surprised anyone to be like, Oh
46:07
my God, you reckon using you having?
46:08
Anxiety. Yeah, yeah.
46:08
Literally same, join the club, but it was really, it has really
46:12
helped and I just love it down here, yeah.
46:16
I love. That So those are the tips.
46:18
Have friends, have family. Have a record player?
46:20
Have a. Record player and moved to
46:22
Tasmania. I love that.
46:25
Well, thank you so much, Crystal.
46:27
Thanks for having me. Centennial World Podcast Network
46:29
operates on Gadigal land. We would like to acknowledge the
46:32
Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this
46:35
land, and pay our respects to elders both past and present.