Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / Author And Influencer Fortesa Latifi Like Follow Subcrime
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Have you checked out errow dot net yet, aar r
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- 0:25Speaker 1: How are you doing the author in you? How is
- 0:28Speaker 1: the author in you doing and not the person who's
- 0:30Speaker 1: out promoting today? I want because I want to take
- 0:32Speaker 1: care of the author as well.
- 0:34Speaker 2: Yeah, the author is thrilled.
- 0:36Speaker 1: It is kind of an exciting moment because but what
- 0:39Speaker 1: a lot of readers don't understand is the process of
- 0:41Speaker 1: getting to where you are in this moment of now
- 0:44Speaker 1: that it really does involve respecting the continuation, doesn't it?
- 0:49Speaker 2: Yes, totally.
- 0:51Speaker 1: How did you even come in come up with this
- 0:53Speaker 1: path in the way of writing the way that you do?
- 0:56Speaker 1: Because Mark Twain always said, if you don't write in
- 0:59Speaker 1: your own accent, then people won't find you. So how
- 1:02Speaker 1: did you finally get the confidence to write like you write?
- 1:07Speaker 2: You know, that's such a good question because I went
- 1:09Speaker 2: to a very traditional journalism school where it was like,
- 1:12Speaker 2: do not include yourself in the story at all? And
- 1:14Speaker 2: then when I started writing this book, I was very
- 1:18Speaker 2: very early postpartum. It was like a few weeks after
- 1:21Speaker 2: I gave birth to my daughter, and I was writing
- 1:23Speaker 2: about mom influencers and family bloggers, and I was like,
- 1:26Speaker 2: I have to include myself in this. And I think
- 1:28Speaker 2: it made for a more interesting and more honest book.
- 1:33Speaker 1: But you've taken it to a level of where we
- 1:35Speaker 1: are today. In other words, you know, you're talking about
- 1:38Speaker 1: child online when it when it comes to be an influencer.
- 1:40Speaker 1: And I deal with influencers because I work for a
- 1:42Speaker 1: movie promotions company that depends on influencers. So you're walking
- 1:46Speaker 1: a path that I'm very familiar with. But I don't
- 1:48Speaker 1: get the opportunity to see your you know, your your determination,
- 1:53Speaker 1: your focus, your your your perseverance, because you've got to
- 1:56Speaker 1: move through a lot of mountains, man, because people look
- 1:59Speaker 1: at you and say, really, where you at? What's your numbers?
- 2:02Speaker 1: Tell me more? You know what that's all about?
- 2:05Speaker 2: Totally? Yeah. I mean it's interesting because influencers don't feel
- 2:09Speaker 2: like they need traditional journalists in any way because they
- 2:11Speaker 2: have millions of followers and subscribers, So what's the point.
- 2:15Speaker 2: So it's really like an act of kind of trying
- 2:18Speaker 2: to convince them that there is that there is something
- 2:21Speaker 2: to be found there.
- 2:23Speaker 1: Yeah, because I come from the world of radio, and
- 2:25Speaker 1: radio for the longest time did not understand what you
- 2:29Speaker 1: and I are doing when it comes to playing those
- 2:31Speaker 1: numbers and understanding the system of building your analytics and
- 2:36Speaker 1: so so, I mean, how much of your day is
- 2:38Speaker 1: dedicated to just everything has to stop so that you
- 2:41Speaker 1: can understand what your algorithms are doing.
- 2:45Speaker 2: You know. Probably half I think it's taking in other
- 2:48Speaker 2: people's work, you know, so that I can understand, like
- 2:52Speaker 2: what I'm writing about. And then it's trying to put
- 2:54Speaker 2: my own work out there in a way that the
- 2:56Speaker 2: algorithm favors, so that people end up buying my book.
- 2:59Speaker 2: Because I know that it's not enough to just put
- 3:02Speaker 2: a book out. I have to kind of be like
- 3:04Speaker 2: a little influencer in my own way.
- 3:07Speaker 1: Yeah, because you've got to do a language to keep
- 3:09Speaker 1: them going inside the book. Because nothing, Nothing kills me
- 3:11Speaker 1: more than somebody who goes two or three chapters and says,
- 3:13Speaker 1: I'm done. What's you You haven't even't even heard the
- 3:16Speaker 1: whole story yet. Just get back in that book.
- 3:19Speaker 2: I know that's heartbreaking to me.
- 3:22Speaker 1: One of the things that you do, you ask, and
- 3:25Speaker 1: I love your honesty in this and how you were
- 3:27Speaker 1: able to develop that honesty because a lot of people
- 3:29Speaker 1: go into writing to hide. I always call them writer hiders,
- 3:32Speaker 1: But you ask the question, what is it like to
- 3:34Speaker 1: grow up with a camera in your face? Twenty four seven?
- 3:39Speaker 1: Now I understand I couldn't do it because, as you
- 3:42Speaker 1: can tell, I'm not on camera right now. I'm a
- 3:44Speaker 1: radio guy. We don't do cameras.
- 3:47Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean I feel the same way,
- 3:50Speaker 2: right like, I'm a writer, Like you know, it's not
- 3:54Speaker 2: my ideal to be on camera either. But for these kids,
- 3:57Speaker 2: it's second nature, you know. I think the camera becomes
- 3:59Speaker 2: part of the family.
- 4:01Speaker 1: But what do you do in those situations? Though, because
- 4:04Speaker 1: I'm guilty of it. Something happens in the everyday world,
- 4:07Speaker 1: something the slightest, and we take note of it because
- 4:09Speaker 1: we're aware of everything that's moving, and all of a
- 4:12Speaker 1: sudden we go get I got to write this down
- 4:14Speaker 1: so I can do the research on it, because everything
- 4:17Speaker 1: becomes the next show.
- 4:19Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean I think about you know, Nora
- 4:21Speaker 2: Efron said, everything is copy. But these days everything is content,
- 4:25Speaker 2: you know, and it's not only influencers, but it is
- 4:28Speaker 2: people like you and I, you know, on the radio,
- 4:30Speaker 2: and writers who we know that we can spin something
- 4:33Speaker 2: out of it.
- 4:34Speaker 1: You bring up something that I didn't know, and that
- 4:37Speaker 1: is the Loud Family. I didn't know that they're looked
- 4:39Speaker 1: upon as being the very first reality TV show family,
- 4:42Speaker 1: because I've always wondered, where did this start? Was this
- 4:44Speaker 1: Jim Carrey with that crazy movie where everybody was again,
- 4:47Speaker 1: we're all going, nobody's gonna watch somebody grow up? But
- 4:50Speaker 1: look where we are.
- 4:52Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I mean people love to watch other families
- 4:55Speaker 2: and it's fascinating because it's really kind of banal content.
- 4:59Speaker 2: It's incredibly day at times, like it's like, go grocery
- 5:02Speaker 2: shopping with me for my six kids, make dinner with me,
- 5:05Speaker 2: Like it's like incredibly boring stuff that we don't even
- 5:08Speaker 2: like doing in our own lives, let alone, Now we
- 5:11Speaker 2: want to watch other people do it. It's very weird.
- 5:14Speaker 1: I have a podcast that's in what. The podcast is
- 5:17Speaker 1: about what it's like to be in customer service at
- 5:20Speaker 1: a grocery store and you're telling the story of the
- 5:23Speaker 1: thieves the robbers, the liars, the people that are coming
- 5:25Speaker 1: in that just want to smile. No people will tune
- 5:28Speaker 1: in for anything. But you love it though, because you
- 5:30Speaker 1: feel like it's like, yeah, we're telling the real Americana story.
- 5:34Speaker 1: You've got to be feeling the same thing.
- 5:38Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's just a peak into how other
- 5:41Speaker 2: people live. And I think nothing is more fascinating than
- 5:44Speaker 2: another family, because families are so intimate and so strange,
- 5:48Speaker 2: and we all have our own weird little ticks, and
- 5:51Speaker 2: like it reminds me of like being a kid and
- 5:53Speaker 2: going to a sleepover and being like, oh my god,
- 5:55Speaker 2: this family is so different than mine. Like it's the
- 5:57Speaker 2: same thing.
- 5:59Speaker 1: Is it when you read stories about how social media
- 6:02Speaker 1: and influencers, you know, because everybody's mind is always how
- 6:06Speaker 1: much money you're making? What are you gonna do? How
- 6:07Speaker 1: are you gonna get more money? It's an unregulated business
- 6:11Speaker 1: and yet I mean, and I fear every day that
- 6:13Speaker 1: they're gonna come knocking on our door to say, by
- 6:15Speaker 1: the way, we change the rules a little bit, And
- 6:18Speaker 1: I'm so afraid that that's going to take away from
- 6:20Speaker 1: what we do as creative people in connecting.
- 6:25Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think the Cat's kind of out
- 6:27Speaker 2: of the bag on that. Like, I don't think that
- 6:30Speaker 2: legislators can figure out a way to regulate this. I
- 6:34Speaker 2: think in some cases they are trying. But it's like
- 6:37Speaker 2: even in this book, I talk about how there's five
- 6:40Speaker 2: states that have child influencer laws, like related to the
- 6:43Speaker 2: profits that they make, but the laws are so so
- 6:48Speaker 2: difficult to understand that, Like I tried my best to
- 6:51Speaker 2: put it through like the formula, to put my own
- 6:54Speaker 2: content through the formula, and like I couldn't figure it out,
- 6:56Speaker 2: and like I was doing my best and with my
- 6:58Speaker 2: best intention. So it's like, I don't think there's any
- 7:01Speaker 2: any worry about them figuring it out anytime soon.
- 7:04Speaker 1: But I mean you've got to be able to see it.
- 7:06Speaker 1: I mean, you can go to a movie premiere, you
- 7:08Speaker 1: can go to the opening of a restaurant. You see
- 7:10Speaker 1: the child influencers out there, and I often wonder whose
- 7:14Speaker 1: website is this? Is it mom's or is it the child?
- 7:17Speaker 1: I mean, do you face that as well?
- 7:22Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think it's interesting because you know,
- 7:24Speaker 2: Meta and YouTube have rules about how old you have
- 7:28Speaker 2: to be to have your own account, so oftentimes but
- 7:32Speaker 2: oftentimes it's you know, it's the kid's account, and then
- 7:34Speaker 2: it says like managed by mom and dad or whatever.
- 7:37Speaker 2: So there are ways around that very easily.
- 7:40Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Fortessa Latifi coming
- 7:43Speaker 1: up next. The name of the book like follow Subcrime.
- 7:48Speaker 1: We are back with Fortesla Latifi. I gotta know. And
- 7:51Speaker 1: this is only because I'm also an author and I
- 7:53Speaker 1: when I go into a book the first and I
- 7:55Speaker 1: do look at a book cover, and I also go
- 7:57Speaker 1: into the dedication page. Do you call this person E?
- 8:02Speaker 1: Or who? Will we ever know who E? Is? Should
- 8:05Speaker 1: we always keep it a mystery? Eave? Oh?
- 8:06Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my daughter? Yeah?
- 8:11Speaker 1: See, because I mean that's my daughter. If somebody has
- 8:14Speaker 1: made the last final test and they made it into
- 8:17Speaker 1: ink on a page and it's like we got to
- 8:20Speaker 1: talk about him, there's got to be a reason why
- 8:21Speaker 1: E is inside this book.
- 8:24Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my girl. I mean, I sold this book
- 8:27Speaker 2: when I was seven months pregnant with her. I turned
- 8:30Speaker 2: in the draft when I was seven months postpartum. I
- 8:32Speaker 2: wrote most of it while she was laying on my chest.
- 8:35Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like we did it together.
- 8:38Speaker 1: Would you ever do this again? Or is it? I mean,
- 8:40Speaker 1: because you know what it's like mentally and physically. I mean,
- 8:43Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why I created the iHeartRadio channel.
- 8:46Speaker 1: Creativity is the addiction we are addicted to getting those
- 8:50Speaker 1: numbers and creativity.
- 8:53Speaker 2: I loved it. I will say that writing a book
- 8:56Speaker 2: was professionally the scariest and most difficult thing I've ever done,
- 9:00Speaker 2: and I have. I told my dad the other day,
- 9:02Speaker 2: I'm like craving another one, like I want it's like
- 9:05Speaker 2: baby fever, but it's book fever. Like I want another
- 9:08Speaker 2: project like that so badly because the way it was
- 9:11Speaker 2: like all encompassing in my life. Like I loved it,
- 9:13Speaker 2: like I love work, I love I love writing, like
- 9:16Speaker 2: it was a dream. I loved it all Right.
- 9:19Speaker 1: When you're writing once again, you're you're I'm a writer
- 9:22Speaker 1: as well with six published books. And the thing is
- 9:24Speaker 1: is that are you writing with a writing instrument which
- 9:28Speaker 1: which is a pen? But but the people at the
- 9:30Speaker 1: at the pin store said, we don't sell pins here.
- 9:32Speaker 1: It's a writing instrument, So so are you using a
- 9:35Speaker 1: writing instrument or are you using the computer keyboard?
- 9:38Speaker 2: No, I'm I'm on my computer, but I turn everything,
- 9:42Speaker 2: I turn my Wi Fi off, I turn my phone on,
- 9:46Speaker 2: do not disturb. I try to make it as little
- 9:48Speaker 2: of like a smart computer as I can, but I
- 9:50Speaker 2: find that I can't keep up with my thoughts if
- 9:53Speaker 2: I'm writing like with my hand. But I do take
- 9:56Speaker 2: lots of notes, you know, So I do have like
- 9:58Speaker 2: a notebook full of notes. But yeah, I type, yeah, yeah.
- 10:02Speaker 1: Because I mean Julie I came from the school of
- 10:05Speaker 1: Julia Cameron with the artist way, and that's one of
- 10:07Speaker 1: the things that she promoted back in nineteen ninety four
- 10:09Speaker 1: was she goes, She goes, I don't want you to
- 10:11Speaker 1: be the perfectionist on a computer keyboard. I need you
- 10:15Speaker 1: to make mistakes. I want you to scratch things out
- 10:17Speaker 1: and then go back and see what you scratched out
- 10:20Speaker 1: where the computer doesn't do that. And so when I
- 10:22Speaker 1: get the opportunity and I'm blessed to talk with people
- 10:24Speaker 1: like yourself and say, god, wow, often do artists get
- 10:27Speaker 1: to talk to each other. It's always given it to
- 10:29Speaker 1: everybody else.
- 10:31Speaker 2: Yeah, don't worry. I made lots of mistakes on my computer.
- 10:34Speaker 2: My thought was kind of let me just write through
- 10:37Speaker 2: and then I'll work on it later. Like I started
- 10:41Speaker 2: every day from the spot that I ended the day before, Like,
- 10:44Speaker 2: I didn't go back and edit until I got my
- 10:47Speaker 2: edits back from my editor, and like maybe that made
- 10:49Speaker 2: her job more difficult, but it was easier for me
- 10:52Speaker 2: to just plow through it and just keep going.
- 10:55Speaker 1: Did the bookstores put your book in the right area
- 10:58Speaker 1: of the store. And the reason why I bring up
- 11:00Speaker 1: is because when my first one went out there, they
- 11:02Speaker 1: put it in the religious section, and I went, I
- 11:04Speaker 1: didn't write a religious book, but that's where they put it.
- 11:07Speaker 1: So did they put it in the right section for you?
- 11:09Speaker 2: You know, it's six point thirty in the morning on
- 11:13Speaker 2: publication day, so I don't know yet, but I'm going
- 11:15Speaker 2: to have to go check.
- 11:17Speaker 1: Oh when you walk into that story, oh oh my god,
- 11:20Speaker 1: you've got to film it, and you've got to put
- 11:21Speaker 1: it up because for you to see the excitement of
- 11:24Speaker 1: seeing that book cover on a shelf, I'm telling you,
- 11:27Speaker 1: if you don't document it, it'll be lost forever and
- 11:30Speaker 1: you'll only be stuck in a story that's based on reality.
- 11:34Speaker 2: Yeah. I can't wait. I mean, that's been my dream
- 11:37Speaker 2: since I was a kid. Like I was one of
- 11:38Speaker 2: those kids who was like, I want to be a writer.
- 11:41Speaker 2: Like I've been saying this since I was six years old,
- 11:43Speaker 2: and so this is literally a dream come true for me.
- 11:45Speaker 1: Woo. I like you no, did you have a favorite teacher?
- 11:48Speaker 1: Missus Keith in the second grade was the one that
- 11:50Speaker 1: kept me growing when it came to writing what about you?
- 11:53Speaker 2: You know, I think it was more my love of
- 11:55Speaker 2: books and my parents always really nurtured that and mean
- 11:59Speaker 2: they named me after a book, which I think is
- 12:01Speaker 2: really funny, and so I was like, you kind of
- 12:04Speaker 2: set me up for this, and we really lived in
- 12:06Speaker 2: a household where books were everywhere, and they allowed me
- 12:10Speaker 2: to be as obsessed as I was. Like I would
- 12:12Speaker 2: read under the dinner table, like while we were eating,
- 12:15Speaker 2: and like it would annoy them, but they were like whatever,
- 12:17Speaker 2: we'll let them do. We'll let her do it. And
- 12:19Speaker 2: I'm like, thank god they let me just be obsessed.
- 12:23Speaker 1: So are mommy bloggers still the big thing? Because when
- 12:25Speaker 1: I'm doing my movie premieres, there's a lot of them
- 12:27Speaker 1: that come in. But the problem is, though I'm not
- 12:30Speaker 1: seeing the followers and maybe we're not supposed to as
- 12:32Speaker 1: regular people.
- 12:34Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's less mommy bloggers now where they were
- 12:37Speaker 2: on actual blog websites and like writing, you know, thousands
- 12:41Speaker 2: of words essays and the original mom bloggers were really
- 12:44Speaker 2: writers and now it's more mom influencers where it's just
- 12:47Speaker 2: you know, posting picture perfect things on Instagram or YouTube
- 12:51Speaker 2: or TikTok.
- 12:52Speaker 1: Are you going on a big tour in the way
- 12:54Speaker 1: of there's a lot of schools of broadcasting that have
- 12:57Speaker 1: shut down their doors and revamped their careers. And what
- 13:00Speaker 1: they're doing is they're now doing influencer education. They're doing
- 13:04Speaker 1: things for social media as well as AI technology and
- 13:07Speaker 1: in reading your book, I gotta be honest with you,
- 13:09Speaker 1: I think that's where you need to be, is traveling
- 13:11Speaker 1: the country into these schools and getting and getting these
- 13:14Speaker 1: people who think they're influencers now on the right path.
- 13:18Speaker 2: Well, I'd love for them to invite me, so if
- 13:20Speaker 2: anyone's interested, you can come find me.
- 13:22Speaker 1: And where is that? I mean, since we're going to
- 13:24Speaker 1: drop that, we usually save it for the end, but
- 13:26Speaker 1: we're not there yet. But I would love to hear
- 13:27Speaker 1: that so that so that these educators can reach out
- 13:29Speaker 1: to you.
- 13:31Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I'm everywhere online at High Fortessa, h
- 13:34Speaker 2: I F O R T E.
- 13:35Speaker 1: S A.
- 13:36Speaker 2: I have a website for teslatv dot com, Luckily, I
- 13:38Speaker 2: have a very uncommon name, so if you look me up,
- 13:41Speaker 2: you'll find me.
- 13:43Speaker 1: Now you're opening chapter, you know, darn good, and well
- 13:46Speaker 1: this is going to be the conversation piece because everybody
- 13:48Speaker 1: thinks they're a no it all. But you say, dear Diary,
- 13:52Speaker 1: meet the algorithm. I went, oh my god. You know
- 13:56Speaker 1: everybody's going to have a reaction. Who has to deal
- 13:58Speaker 1: with it?
- 13:59Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I mean because we all dough.
- 14:03Speaker 1: You know, and even advertisers have to deal with it.
- 14:05Speaker 1: And I think that this book needs to be an
- 14:06Speaker 1: advertiser's hands too, because they don't get it. They don't
- 14:09Speaker 1: understand what we're doing.
- 14:11Speaker 2: They have no idea. And there you know, it's interesting
- 14:14Speaker 2: because even like bosses or whatever, they'll be like, just
- 14:17Speaker 2: make sure that like the algorithm whatever, And I'm like,
- 14:19Speaker 2: you don't understand the algorithm. No one understands the algorithm.
- 14:22Speaker 2: We're all just like fighting it all the time.
- 14:24Speaker 1: How do you deal with the ups and downs, the
- 14:26Speaker 1: peaks the valley? So those days where you're having a
- 14:28Speaker 1: good number, you've got a spike, let's say, from chrome,
- 14:31Speaker 1: and then the next day you ain't wear.
- 14:32Speaker 2: The It's brutal, honestly, and That's something that I think
- 14:36Speaker 2: about because I'm thirty two years old. I'm an adult,
- 14:40Speaker 2: and I think about how difficult it is for me
- 14:42Speaker 2: when a piece of content that I worked art on
- 14:44Speaker 2: like doesn't do well. And then I think about what
- 14:46Speaker 2: it would be like if I were a kid and
- 14:47Speaker 2: I were seeing those numbers and I was like, why
- 14:49Speaker 2: don't people like me anymore?
- 14:51Speaker 1: You know, tough journey. But man, I'll tell you what
- 14:55Speaker 1: you're being a teacher right now. I don't know if
- 14:57Speaker 1: you feel that inside your soul, but by releasing this book,
- 15:00Speaker 1: and that's what I have to ask you. Where what
- 15:01Speaker 1: is your next book? You said you want to do more?
- 15:03Speaker 1: Or will you keep inside this moment of truth and
- 15:07Speaker 1: bringing us you know, the reality of being an influencer
- 15:10Speaker 1: or do you start stretching out to a ya author?
- 15:13Speaker 1: Where are you're growing?
- 15:15Speaker 2: You know? I think I want to have another nonfiction
- 15:18Speaker 2: book under my belt. I don't know if it'll be
- 15:20Speaker 2: in this world, but it very much could be because
- 15:22Speaker 2: there's so much more to uncover. And then I hope
- 15:25Speaker 2: to write a novel too.
- 15:27Speaker 1: See, I know we're going to be talking together again.
- 15:29Speaker 1: That's just the way. That's the way. The universe works. Well,
- 15:32Speaker 1: please come back to this show anytime in the future.
- 15:35Speaker 1: The door is always going to be open for you.
- 15:38Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. I had such a lovely time.
- 15:40Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay, yes I will.
- 15:44Speaker 2: Thank you.