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Speaker 1: Cold Zone Media. Welcome to part two of the sixteenth

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Speaker 1: Minute two Horny Brands on Social Media spectacular. My name's

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Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus and this week I'd like to open our

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Speaker 1: show with a little game. Every time in this episode

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Speaker 1: I say the word brand, grab a beverage of your choice,

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Speaker 1: I know many of your driving us of your discretion,

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Speaker 1: and drink.

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Speaker 2: Whatever it is.

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Speaker 1: When you hear the word brand in this episode, the

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Speaker 1: only guaranteed result is that you will have to pee

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Speaker 1: very soon. Enjoy a Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the

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Speaker 1: podcast where we revisit the internet's most notorious main characters,

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Speaker 1: talk to them and see how their moment in the

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Speaker 1: spotlight affected them and what that says about us and

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Speaker 1: the Internet. And this week we're not going to beat

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Speaker 1: around the bush. We're digging into part two of the

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Speaker 1: world of Sentient all two Horny Brands on social Media.

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Speaker 1: So to bring you up to speed and go back

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Speaker 1: and listen to part.

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Speaker 2: One if you haven't.

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Speaker 1: Sentient Brands are the culmination of around a century's worth

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Speaker 1: of American marketing techniques, beginning with the combination of faulty

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Speaker 1: crowd psychology meets faulty Freudian psychology employed by early advertising

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Speaker 1: jargonnauts like Edward Burnet's. For a few decades, persuasion was

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Speaker 1: all about convincing Americans that by consuming this product, that

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Speaker 1: joining this group, the American military anyone, would make you

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Speaker 1: just like everyone else, and that being just like everyone

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Speaker 1: else was the goal of human existence. The idea was

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Speaker 1: to blend into the consuming blob that composed the mid century.

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Speaker 1: But around the time of the Vietnam War this changed.

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Speaker 1: Fitting in was no longer a popular stance, and so

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Speaker 1: advertisers pivoted in response, pushing consumption instead as a way

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Speaker 1: of expressing one's individuality. And if you have a boomer

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Speaker 1: in your life with an inexplicably weird specific collection that

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Speaker 1: they went into debt curating as an act of self expression.

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Speaker 1: My mom's was Lungaburger baskets.

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Speaker 3: They've learned basket weaving from his father and in time

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Speaker 3: created an empire making and selling hand crafted baskets and

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Speaker 3: all shapes, sizes, and collars. At its height, the longer

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Speaker 3: Burger Company was a billion dollars a year business with

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Speaker 3: twelve thousand employees worldwide.

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Speaker 1: Beanie Babies was a popular one. The list goes on.

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Speaker 1: Then you'll know how successful this pivot truly was. So

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Speaker 1: by the time the Internet came around, American advertising had

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Speaker 1: undergone a lot of change, as consumption itself had become

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Speaker 1: an increasingly large part of the American identity in a

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Speaker 1: world that was increasingly flooded with brands and options of

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Speaker 1: things to buy. In a world like that of the Internet,

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Speaker 1: where influencers were becoming king and there was nothing more

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Speaker 1: off putting than a pop up ad, it was up

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Speaker 1: to the next generation of millennials to figure out how

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Speaker 1: to make an old product fresh and worth paying attention to.

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Speaker 1: Last week, we talked to one of the pioneers of

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Speaker 1: this space, Serenity Disco, who.

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Speaker 2: Used their knowledge of time Humbler in the early twenty.

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Speaker 1: Tens, along with its community building techniques, and managed to

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Speaker 1: create a brilliant, absurdist way of selling waffles. And this

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Speaker 1: was extremely successful. They won industry awards and set the

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Speaker 1: bar for future accounts going weird if done by a

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Speaker 1: genuine weirdo. And I say this with love, would become

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Speaker 1: a near shore fire away to get younger people to

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Speaker 1: engage with a brand that they might not normally think

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Speaker 1: twice about. But if you've spent enough time online, and

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Speaker 1: if you're listening to this show, then I'm assuming you have,

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Speaker 1: you'll know that different approaches are necessary in order to

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Speaker 1: be effective on different social media platforms. Wholesome absurdism was

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Speaker 1: definitely the way to go on Tumbler, but that wasn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily how to succeed on Twitter or YouTube or eventually TikTok.

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Speaker 2: So this week we're taking a.

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Speaker 1: Look at what this twenty tens era renaissance looked like

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Speaker 1: over on the bad application that used to be fun,

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Speaker 1: Twitter dot com. And while a lot of us have

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Speaker 1: positive associations with pre elon Twitter, as embarrassing as that

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Speaker 1: is to admit, it's undeniable that Twitter has always been

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Speaker 1: an excellent tool for rage bait and pedantic arguing, and

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Speaker 1: there was absolutely no brand that harnessed this tendency better

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Speaker 1: than Amy Brown of the Wendy's account, stoking carefully calibrated

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Speaker 1: rivalries that would escalate to flirtation and death threats with

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Speaker 1: the likes of Burger King and especially that redheaded bitch

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Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald off at McDonald's. There can only be room

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Speaker 1: for one redheaded broad in this space. But before we

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Speaker 1: can get to Amy it's important to have a little

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Speaker 1: insight into what a social media manager's job even looked

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Speaker 1: like in the mid twenty tents, something we will continue

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Speaker 1: to explore next week as we talk about how it

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Speaker 1: changed going into today. Because the field of social media

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Speaker 1: management has always been dominated by women and fems and

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Speaker 1: what does that mean? Because as I was preparing for

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Speaker 1: this series, I realized that I was going to be

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Speaker 1: speaking to exactly one man in this three part series,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to three people who identify as either.

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Speaker 2: Women or non binary.

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Speaker 1: And that is no coincidence, particularly the further you go

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Speaker 1: back in this space. The social media manager has a

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Speaker 1: long history as being considered.

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Speaker 2: A job for girls. Ah, but there is truth to this.

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Speaker 1: So many of my friends early just out of college

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Speaker 1: jobs were as social media managers in male dominated workspaces,

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Speaker 1: and she or they often ended up being the person

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Speaker 1: who had to translate a relatively boring product that these

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Speaker 1: men were selling into a compelling, visually appealing social post.

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Speaker 1: And like many niche issues affecting women in fems, there

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Speaker 1: was a fair amount of discussion regarding how women dominated

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Speaker 1: and by extension, underpaid this position was in the late

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Speaker 1: twenty tens, following the Me Too movement. This is from

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Speaker 1: a piece in Wired from twenty eighteen by Jesse Hemple

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Speaker 1: called how social Media Became a pink collar job. Between

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Speaker 1: seventy and eighty percent of social media workers self identify

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Speaker 1: as women on the salary compilation site a scale. The

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Speaker 1: career has been referred to as the pink ghetto. Duffy

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Speaker 1: and Schwartz, who are data analysts, i'll add, studied one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty job postings to determine how businesses recruit

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Speaker 1: social media specialists. These companies, which included BuzzFeed, Equinox, and Thrillist,

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Speaker 1: advertised jobs that called for applicants to be sociable, exhibit

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Speaker 1: deft emotional management, and be flexible, all traits that Duffy

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Speaker 1: says are typically associated with women. The feminized nature of

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Speaker 1: social media employment, Duffy and Schwartz argue, is connected to

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Speaker 1: it quote characteristic invisibility, lower pay, in marginal status unquote.

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Speaker 1: Within the tech industry, the parasite statistics from payscill that

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Speaker 1: places average pay for a social media specialist at forty

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Speaker 1: one thousand dollars.

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Speaker 2: But that's for staff jobs.

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Speaker 1: I cannot believe the pay is that low in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and this had been talked about four years already. In

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Speaker 1: Alanahope Levinson's twenty fifteen piece The Pink Ghetto of Social Media,

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Speaker 1: referenced in the above piece, she draws a comparison between

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Speaker 1: the perception of social media as a woman's job to

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Speaker 1: the same pattern under compensation and general disdain for the

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Speaker 1: long women dominated PR space. She writes, it's hard not

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Speaker 1: to hear these stories and draw a parallel to public relations,

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Speaker 1: an industry where eighty five percent of workers are women.

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Speaker 2: Quote.

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Speaker 1: People in the media like to say that PR is

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Speaker 1: a pink ghetto because the often low prestige jobs are

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Speaker 1: almost exclusively populated by women. A few editor who left

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Speaker 1: her job in social media at a major news organization.

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Speaker 2: But social media is the true pink.

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Speaker 1: Ghetto unquote, She says her time in her previous role

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Speaker 1: was characterized by unpaid overtime and a dearth of promotion

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Speaker 1: and raises. And so, while I know that many of

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Speaker 1: you have your aspersions about the advertising profession, writ large

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Speaker 1: that makes sense, but as always, there is a person

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Speaker 1: behind the screen who has that job mainly because they

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Speaker 1: need it to survive, and they are doing more than

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Speaker 1: just tweeting. As Serenity described last week, and as this

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Speaker 1: week's guest Amy Brown expands upon, this job would often

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Speaker 1: consist of a lot of customers, service, taking in DM

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Speaker 1: folders full of verbal abuse, and sometimes balancing multiple clients in.

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Speaker 2: Order to make ends meet.

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Speaker 1: Not to mention that the whole concept of seeming like

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Speaker 1: you're just tweeting is a facade in and of itself.

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Speaker 1: While any good account has a lot of humor and spontaneity,

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Speaker 1: there is always a strategy and a planned narrative voice.

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Speaker 1: To accounts like this, there are real stakes attached to

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Speaker 1: the people running them. So even if this isn't your

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Speaker 1: favorite approach to advertising, and that's totally fair, this is

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Speaker 1: a classic example of everyone being in a somewhat compromised position.

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Speaker 2: It's like, well, you know what it is, So as.

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Speaker 1: Usual, women are shaping this new space and will fail

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Speaker 1: to get adequate credit or compensation for it. And interestingly enough,

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Speaker 1: the most dedicated chronicler of this movement in online advertising

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Speaker 1: was a pivotal figure in the movement himself. Nathan Alibach

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Speaker 1: has written two extensive microhistories of both brand Twitter and

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Speaker 1: Horny brand Twitter for Vulture. In twenty nineteen and twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty two, respectively, And these pieces I cannot overstate were

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Speaker 1: enormously helpful in researching this series. They're linked in the description,

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Speaker 1: and if you were even a casual observer of this space,

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Speaker 1: you will know what I'm talking about when I say that.

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Speaker 1: This same writer, Nathan Alibach, was the copywriter behind the

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Speaker 1: nihilistic woke Stakhem's Twitter account of the late twenty tens.

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Speaker 4: Hey were still going out tonight.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fake plan.

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Speaker 5: The only thing real in this ad is that one

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Speaker 5: hundred percent real beef though.

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Speaker 1: And if you don't know what I'm talking about, good

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Speaker 1: for you and put a pin in that. We'll be

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Speaker 1: back for more on him next week. But in his

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen piece Brand Twitter Grows Up, Alibach gives a

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Speaker 1: pretty comprehensive history of brands across the consumption spectrum. Don't

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Speaker 1: know and how we arrived to the subject of today's interview.

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Speaker 1: Per Alibach, this world did not exist in earnest until

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Speaker 1: around twenty twelve, but there were faint rumblings of the

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Speaker 1: bizarre irony that would later dominate Twitter advertising. In two

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Speaker 1: thousand and seven, the Los Angeles Chargers tweeted.

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Speaker 5: So hungry need to find my wife in head to

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Speaker 5: PF Changs iconic.

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Speaker 1: But as it turned out, this was not a brilliant

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Speaker 1: engagement strategy from the Chargers. It just happened that the

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Speaker 1: Chargers took the handle of a lapsed Twitter user who

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Speaker 1: had written this himself on a personal account years earlier.

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Speaker 1: So it just looked like an entire professional sports team

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Speaker 1: wanted to go to Pfchangs with wife? Where was wife?

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Speaker 1: Did they ever make it to PF Changs?

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Speaker 2: We do not know.

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Speaker 1: By the late two thousands, as brands slowly migrated to

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Speaker 1: Twitter after the platform's huge surge in popularity and legitimization

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Speaker 1: in the wake of the two thousand and eight election,

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Speaker 1: some brands experimented with tweeting in first person.

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Speaker 2: Alabac uses this.

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Speaker 1: Example from KFC in two thousand and nine, where the

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Speaker 1: colonel is watching basketball going to watch.

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Speaker 5: A little college basketball. I'm told I'm kind of an

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Speaker 5: expert on buckets A oh.

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Speaker 1: Just kidding, twenty one likes pretty weak and if you

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Speaker 1: can believe it. These kinds of posts were considered bizarre

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Speaker 1: and kind of risky at the time, but today they're

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Speaker 1: kind of boring right. Alibach also points out that most

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Speaker 1: people assume that the people running these Twitter accounts were

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Speaker 1: just interns, completely unpaid, and therefore inclined to be loose

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Speaker 1: and lazy with the accounts, a notion that for some

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Speaker 1: still persists to this day. And so I repeat, it's

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Speaker 1: not unpaid college students adults, it's exhausted underpaid adults women.

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Speaker 1: But in the early twenty tens, as Twitter fights were

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Speaker 1: well established as a great way to get attention of

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Speaker 1: any kind, brands began to realize that it wasn't drawing

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Speaker 1: attention to the competition to interact with other brands online.

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Speaker 1: In fact, brands talking to each other seem to help

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Speaker 1: both brands. It's a may the best poster win kind

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Speaker 1: of mentality.

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Speaker 2: But it started.

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Speaker 1: Small, with brands interacting that were not in direct competition

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Speaker 1: with one another. A good example, Alabac points out is

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Speaker 1: a summer twenty twelve fake feud between Old Spice deodorant

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Speaker 1: and Taco Bell. Here is me and my fiance performing

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Speaker 1: that for you, Old Spice.

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Speaker 5: Why is it that the fire sauce isn't made with

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Speaker 5: any real fire? Seems like false advertising?

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Speaker 2: Is your deodorant?

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Speaker 1: Made with really old spices.

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Speaker 5: Depends do you consider volcanoes, tanks, and freedom to be spices?

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Speaker 1: Okay, the little nationalistic at the end, they're old spice.

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Speaker 1: And if you're familiar with these products, this actually makes

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Speaker 1: a lot of because guys who eat too much taco

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Speaker 1: bell often reek of old spice deodorant.

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Speaker 2: Do you see what I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: So by the mid twenty tens, this approach is almost

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Speaker 1: standard for brands, not news organizations, mind you. It is

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Speaker 1: now considered normal to write and post in a way

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Speaker 1: that personifies a company with hundreds of thousands of employees

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Speaker 1: as just a little guy like you. But this riskier,

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Speaker 1: edgier approach is by no means the industry standard until

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Speaker 1: later in the decade. In fact, in the early to

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Speaker 1: mid twenty tens, the standard was that corporations were so

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Speaker 1: desperate on Twitter to fit in with everybody else, just

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Speaker 1: like advertising seventy five years ago did almost like we're

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Speaker 1: in a demented cycle. Here we see communities like our

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Speaker 1: slash fellow kids referencing the hello fellow kids.

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Speaker 4: Meme how do you do fellow kids?

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Speaker 1: And it actually became a popular corner of social media

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Speaker 1: to make accounts parodying brands trying.

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Speaker 2: To act like cool young people.

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Speaker 1: I had so much fun looking at these old cringe

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Speaker 1: attempt to fit in tweets.

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Speaker 2: And I want to share some of my favorites. One

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Speaker 2: I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: About that made me laugh so much was from Spaghettios.

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Speaker 1: For context, it was a big thing in the mid

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Speaker 1: twenty ten social media to acknowledge what happened on this

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Speaker 1: day in history, regardless of whether that historical event had

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Speaker 1: anything to do with you or what you were selling.

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Speaker 1: This led to the Spaghettio's Twitter account posting a photoshop

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Speaker 1: tribute to Pearl Harper. This was done totally sincerely. It

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Speaker 1: was so funny, especially if you consider that my friend

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Speaker 1: Iffy wadi Way would later pose as Spaghettios on Twitter

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty and released a fake statement of Spaghettio's

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Speaker 1: supporting Black Lives Matter.

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Speaker 2: Look it up. He's so funny.

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Speaker 1: The point is brands were considered cringey more often than

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Speaker 1: not during these years. Serenity Disco and Denny's were major

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Speaker 1: major outliers, which is part of why people still talk

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Speaker 1: about them. And I don't think that the often young

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Speaker 1: social media managers themselves are to be blamed for this cringiness. Anecdotally,

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Speaker 1: most companies were not as hashtag brave as Denny's and

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Speaker 1: weren't willing to let their employees take big narrative swings

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Speaker 1: with their social media accounts. And this is how we

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Speaker 1: got an influx of brands awkwardly trying to chase trends

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Speaker 1: of the time, a lot of brands saying Bay, brands

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Speaker 1: saying on fleek, and brands commemorating nine to eleven in

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Speaker 1: the weirdest way possible.

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Speaker 5: Let's get two thousand, two hundred ninety six retweets for

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Speaker 5: the two thousand, two hundred and ninety six people who

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Speaker 5: lost their lives thirteen years ago today hashtag nine to eleven,

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Speaker 5: hashtag never forget.

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Speaker 1: No brand saying Bey was actually a very successful parody

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Speaker 1: account that Ala Bach references that I hadn't thought about

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Speaker 1: in a long time, but it was a very popular account.

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Speaker 1: It was mainly screenshots of popular brands awkwardly saying by,

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Speaker 1: while also indicting the job of social media managers in general.

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Speaker 1: Here's an example attached to a screenshot of the Jimmy

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Speaker 1: Johns account saying Bay A lot it.

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Speaker 5: Is straight up someone's job to make a sandwich shop

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Speaker 5: seem more likable. People used to be blacksmiths.

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Speaker 1: And this is the environment that leads us into the

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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen election cycle. Brands get weirder during this time.

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Speaker 1: While parody accounts like brand Saying By remains popular, the

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Speaker 1: brand accounts themselves double down on trying to be cool

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Speaker 1: because at this time, becoming the target of the malevolent

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Speaker 1: brand saying Bay was something to be avoided at all costs,

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Speaker 1: and this led to Hamburger, Helper and I Promise I'm

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Speaker 1: not kidding making a twenty sixteen mixtape, which inspired a

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Speaker 1: series of diss tracks from other accounts, including Wendy's. In

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Speaker 1: the Years to come, i'by in the kitchen, Well, Women.

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Speaker 6: Women Well, i'by Sefish makes it when my on that day?

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Speaker 6: What a women of starring y'all want?

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Speaker 5: Beeping not a service? What a women of starring sarna

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Speaker 5: y'all be I'm a.

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Speaker 6: Survig I start, I start, I start right on Starry.

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Speaker 4: I hate the babtist bachelor.

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Speaker 6: I'll mix it up, mix it up, women on women,

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Speaker 6: So get you a think of unnatural?

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Speaker 2: Is it a parody of Watch the Throne?

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Speaker 1: Called watch the stove, Yes, but I think it's good.

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Speaker 1: But it's the Wendy's account, as run by Amy Brown

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Speaker 1: that takes this heightened approach, cranks it up to a

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Speaker 1: twelve and gets it all the way to the National

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Speaker 1: News in January twenty seventeen. And because Andrews and Cooper

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Speaker 1: really had some fun with this, and I think reenacts

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Speaker 1: the entire feud that took place between Wendy's and some guy,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to let him tell it to you, please enjoy.

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Speaker 7: Before we get to the meat of it, it'll help

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Speaker 7: to have just a little bit of a basic backstory.

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Speaker 7: This is about Wendy's, the hamburger place. Every one of

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Speaker 7: a certain age remembers where's the beef? But there's actually

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Speaker 7: another slogan, one that Wendy's has used for years and years.

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Speaker 2: Take a look.

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Speaker 5: If hamburgers were meant to be frozen, wouldn't cals come

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Speaker 5: from Antarctica?

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Speaker 3: Wendy's hamburgers are made with.

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Speaker 4: Fresh, never frozen beef.

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Speaker 1: Who else can say that it's way better than fast food?

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Speaker 5: It's Wendy, Okay.

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Speaker 7: Wendy's has this thing about its beef being fresh, not frozen.

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Speaker 7: Apparently in the world of Big Hamburger, every distinguishing factor accounts.

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Speaker 7: A few days ago, Wendy's tweeted a reminder of its

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Speaker 7: long standing policy on its meat and I quote, our

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Speaker 7: beef is way too cool to ever be frozen, smiling

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Speaker 7: emoji with sunglasses. Totally innocuous tweet. Right, It's like the

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Speaker 7: kind of tweet no one could possibly have a problem with. Right.

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Speaker 7: But of course, somewhere out there, someone was having the

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Speaker 7: kind of day that made them say to themselves, I

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Speaker 7: believe I shall now spend a sizable hunk of time

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Speaker 7: arguing with the social media account of a fast food company.

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Speaker 7: That's someone's name is Thuggy D. An exquisite Twitter exchange

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Speaker 7: happened between Wendy's and said Thuggy D. Tonight I will

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Speaker 7: be reading the Wendy's tweet, and Frank from our studio

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Speaker 7: crew will be playing the role of Thuggy D. Take

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Speaker 7: it away, Frank, your beef is frozen.

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Speaker 2: We all know it.

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Speaker 4: You'll know we laugh at your slogan fresh never frozen.

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Speaker 2: Right, Like you're really a joke.

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Speaker 7: I like that last line, to which Wendy's replied, sorry

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Speaker 7: to hear you think that, but you're wrong. We've only

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Speaker 7: ever used fresh beef since we were founded in nineteen

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Speaker 7: sixty nine.

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Speaker 4: So you delivered it raw on a hot truck.

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Speaker 7: Let me pause here because you have to admit that

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Speaker 7: is an interesting question that Thuggy he poses. And this

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Speaker 7: is where Wendy's gets a little frosty and responds, and

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Speaker 7: I quote, where do you store cold things that aren't frozen?

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Speaker 1: Ah?

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Speaker 7: Yes, a riddle, But how will fuggy do you respond?

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Speaker 4: Y'all should give up.

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Speaker 6: McDonald's got you guys beat with that don't best breakfast.

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Speaker 7: And Wendy's brings down the hammer with you don't have

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Speaker 7: to bring them into this just because you forgot refrigerators existed.

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Speaker 7: First second there, boom, thank you, Frank. He's excellent, excellent read.

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Speaker 1: I actually really really love this clip and it does

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Speaker 1: remind me of how desperate people were to feel normal

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Speaker 1: about anything in January twenty seventeen, if.

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Speaker 2: Only they knew.

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Speaker 1: In any case, Amy Brown struck again with the Wendy's

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Speaker 1: account that March, getting over one hundred and thirty thousand

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Speaker 1: legs on Twitter for the following interaction with McDonald's as

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Speaker 1: performed by me and my fiance McDonald says, attached to.

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Speaker 2: A picture of a steaming quarter pounder.

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Speaker 1: Today, we've announced that by mid twenty eighteen, all quarter

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Speaker 1: pounder burgers at the majority of our restaurant will be

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Speaker 1: cooked with fresh beef.

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Speaker 5: Wendy's replies, So you'll still use frozen beef in most

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Speaker 5: of your burgers in all of your restaurants.

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Speaker 1: Asking for our friend, she got him McDonald's, is he

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Speaker 1: hymn to me?

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Speaker 2: And this also got a ton of.

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Speaker 1: Mainstream media coverage and for a few glorious minutes for

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Speaker 1: social media managers, it was actually cool to be a

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Speaker 1: brand on Twitter.

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Speaker 2: They were so.

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Speaker 1: Cool, in fact, that the Wendy's social media team that

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Speaker 1: Amy Brown was a part of did a Reddit ama.

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Speaker 2: At the end of twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 1: Where most of the commenters either congratulated the brand on

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Speaker 1: being the only one funny enough to follow, or we're

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Speaker 1: curious how the tweets had translated to actual business, quoth

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Speaker 1: Wendy's in response.

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Speaker 5: It can be hard to track impressions, engagements, brand metrics,

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Speaker 5: other marketing mumbo jumbo. People are talking about us a lot,

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Speaker 5: so that.

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Speaker 1: Helps, and it's not a stretch to say that the

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Speaker 1: success of the account run primarily by Amy Brown. Throughout

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Speaker 1: its peak had a big effect on how other brands

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Speaker 1: managed their stuff. Oh this is how you get on

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Speaker 1: the news. Let's do that. But now things escalated. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't just unrelated not competing brands talking to each other.

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Speaker 1: Amy's success meant that direct competitors were constantly flaming each

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Speaker 1: other on Twitter at this time. Moonpies versus Hostess de

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Speaker 1: Giorno versus Papa John. The list goes on. Isn't it

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Speaker 1: weird that this is my job? Anyways? You might remember

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Speaker 1: Netflix firing off this one to the tune of over

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Speaker 1: three hundred thousand likes.

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Speaker 5: To the fifty three people who've watched a Christmas Prince

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Speaker 5: every day for the last eighteen days. Who hurt you?

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Speaker 1: Some brands took the tack of flirtation, which would get

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Speaker 1: very popular in the years to come. And yes this

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Speaker 1: is dual lingo pispurd foreshadowing. Other brands tried to foster

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Speaker 1: friendships with fellow brands, but as has been true in

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Speaker 1: the media since time immemorial, the best and most successful

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Speaker 1: approach was always aggression, and nothing bears that out more

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Speaker 1: than Amy Brown's work. Because the Wendy's tweets were pretty good.

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Speaker 1: Here are some of the more successful ones. So this

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Speaker 1: interaction is spurred by Duncan. There is a picture of

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Speaker 1: a Dunks representative in front of a Wendy's wearing a

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Speaker 1: pink sprinkled donut costume, holding a tweet that's printed out

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Speaker 1: from Duncan that says, listen to the life sized donut.

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Speaker 1: You don't have to settle for spicy nuggets hashtag Duncan's

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Speaker 1: Spicy Side. The post says here's some advice about spice.

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Speaker 1: It's always better on a donut like the spicy Ghost

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Speaker 1: pepper donut hashtag Duncan's Spicy Side.

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Speaker 5: Wendy's quote tweets and writes, stick to pushing the food.

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Speaker 5: That's so good you took it out of your name.

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Speaker 5: My grandma has more heat in her roasts. Lol. Hope

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Speaker 5: they'll still take your return at Spirit Halloween after the

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Speaker 5: stink of this tweet gets on your costume.

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Speaker 1: Okay, play the horns. Here is Wendy's fighting with a

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Speaker 1: random guy. Random user Lewis tweets to Wendy's you know

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Speaker 1: Burger King also has spicy chicken nuggets.

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Speaker 5: Wendy's replies yeah, and there's also water in the bottom

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Speaker 5: of the dumpster out back if you're thirsty, and.

438
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: I remember this one another interaction with just a normal person.

439
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 1: Random user Georges tweets to Wendy's. If you reply, I

440
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:46,479
Speaker 1: will buy the whole Wendy's menu right now.

441
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 5: Wendy's replies prove it.

442
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: George is ready to play ball and returns with a

443
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: photo of a full trash bag, saying here's your proof.

444
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 5: Wendy's order replies, thanks for sharing your baby pictures.

445
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 1: Work from the Wendy's account was so influential that in

446
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: the years to come, communities like our Fellow Kids and

447
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:18,360
Speaker 1: brand parity accounts like Brand Saying by actually became less popular.

448
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: Ala Baca explains in his Peace and what this says

449
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:25,360
Speaker 1: about the world is somewhat unclear, but this account and

450
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: Amy's work did ostensibly change the game permanently. And so

451
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 1: when we come back, Amy Brown of the Agro Wendy's

452
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:53,959
Speaker 1: Twitter account, welcome back to sixteenth minute. Can someone please

453
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: link me to an atsy store that can make a

454
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: custom earn My dad has been sitting in a suitcase

455
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: for months, And we're back with more on the Sentient

456
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: brand era of social media. I just want to add

457
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: one last thing before we jump into our chat with Amy.

458
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: The Silence brand meme something that I kind of associate

459
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:19,160
Speaker 1: with gen X and elder millennials, and it was essentially

460
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: an attempt to push back on this brand interaction of

461
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:28,440
Speaker 1: the twenty tens. Silence brand means quite literally that it's

462
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 1: a meme that people use to reply to any brand account,

463
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: like the ones we're talking about. They usually are bad

464
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: photoshops featuring movie monsters with lasers shooting out of their eyes.

465
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 1: Silence brand, you get it. You'd use these when a

466
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: Wendy's tried to chiculy insert themselves into an unrelated conversation,

467
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: usually by name searching the name of their company. And unfortunately,

468
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: this meme evolved from a really depressing conservative one called

469
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 1: silence Lil used in a similar way to own the

470
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: Snowflakes or whatever, and who did these geniuses have lasers

471
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:07,480
Speaker 1: coming out of their eyes?

472
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 2: Famous dictators of course.

473
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: But I've noticed as time goes on, young millennials don't

474
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: seem to have the same qualms with being parasocially advertised

475
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: to if that meant that they could talk to a

476
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: funny stack of pancakes on the Internet, a trend that,

477
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: by the time gen Z and Jen Alfa were on

478
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: social media would become increasingly more normalized. Probably not a

479
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: good thing, but what can you do. We're all going

480
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: to be underwater in thirty years. This week, we're talking

481
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 1: to another heavy hitter, and for my money, arguably the

482
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: only writer who got big enough outside the account to

483
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: be recognizable to the extremely logged in. Amy Brown and

484
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 1: I are longtime mutuals, and I honestly didn't even know

485
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: she ran the Wendy's account until I started to work

486
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: on this series. To me, she was a great joke

487
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: writer who had followed a long time ago on Twitter

488
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: under her personal account and then later on Blue Sky

489
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: due to the Nazi problem. But indeed Amy's was not

490
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: just the voice of the Wendy's account at its peak,

491
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: she also got a fair amount of press for having

492
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 1: done so press. I know she would want me to

493
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: reassure you, because she's very normal and not an attention

494
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: freak that she wasn't really seeking out. People just wanted

495
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: to know who was behind this account they liked so much.

496
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 5: Behold the sas master behind Wendy's.

497
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: Twitter read a Mashable headline in early twenty seventeen doing

498
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: something that might have seemed counterproductive to the brand, revealing

499
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: the person behind it. But even if Wendy's were opposed

500
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: to it, the knowledge that there was someone just like

501
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: you posting up a storm professionally really seemed to only

502
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: strengthen the brand, which has continued with the same narrative

503
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: voice after Amy's departure with a lot of success. So

504
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 1: let's hear the story from her side. I give you

505
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: Amy Brown.

506
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 4: So my name is Amy Brown. I am maybe best

507
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 4: known as the social media manager at Wendy's from twenty

508
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 4: twelve to twenty seventeen. I'm currently a freelance writer and

509
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 4: social media strategist trying to pivot out of social We

510
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 4: can probably touch on that, but yeah, I live in Berkeley, California,

511
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 4: with my husband and my kids and our very old dog.

512
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 2: Yeah there.

513
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: I'm curious a little bit more about you, your background,

514
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up?

515
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 2: How did you grow up?

516
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 6: So?

517
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 4: I grew up in a place called Piqua, Ohio, which

518
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 4: is about half an hour outside of Dayton, Ohio, which

519
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 4: is probably still not a helpful geographic reference if you're

520
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 4: not from Ohio. But basically I am from a rural

521
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 4: area half an hour outside a very small city, so

522
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 4: my world growing up was pretty small. Like I literally

523
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 4: my backyard was a cornfield and a soybean field. So

524
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 4: I spent a lot of time on the internet. We

525
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 4: got a computer at my house like pre y two K,

526
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 4: and yeah, I just I took to it. I spent

527
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 4: a lot of time on the internet. I was always

528
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,719
Speaker 4: the I was the nerd in growing up. I am

529
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 4: my high school classmates actually voted me biggest no and

530
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:02,479
Speaker 4: like the senior polls, my pictures in the yearbook and everything.

531
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 4: Not always the easiest to be like the smart kid.

532
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 4: So I spent a lot of time kind of on

533
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 4: the computer seeking out, like I don't know, like music,

534
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 4: and just like people to tell me that there's life

535
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 4: after high school and all that kind of stuff. And

536
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 4: I've also always been a writer, so that's the other

537
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 4: piece of it. I've always been extremely online and always

538
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 4: been a writer. Went to journalism school. I graduated with

539
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 4: a degree in newspaper journalism in twenty eleven, which is

540
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 4: not a great time to be graduating with a degree

541
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 4: in newspaper journalism. So I pivoted into marketing, and after

542
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 4: a stint in like copywriting, I ended up at Wendy's

543
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 4: just because I knew a lot about social media and

544
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 4: I kind of threw myself out there. And yeah, now

545
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 4: I've not been working in it for a really long time.

546
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: I do believe that some of our best writers and

547
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: artists today were very online indoor kids. What were your

548
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: early memories of the Internet, What got you hooked?

549
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 4: As to say, my earliest memory of the Internet is

550
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 4: actually I was on like a pen pal website my

551
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 4: mom found when I was like nine or ten years old.

552
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 4: It was like something my mom had like vetted and

553
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 4: felt was safe. And I made friends with this girl

554
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 4: named Catherine in Scotland, and it just like we were

555
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 4: like besties. I have no idea what happened to her.

556
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 4: We lost touch when I was like a teenager. I

557
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 4: hope she's doing well, but yeah, I really like it

558
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 4: was just like I met a friend who was like minded,

559
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 4: like I had friends at school, but she was the

560
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 4: first person I felt like really got me. From there,

561
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 4: it was like I got I got my foot in

562
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 4: the door on diary Land, which was like an early

563
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 4: live journal. I had a regular diary and a poetry

564
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 4: diary for my like eleven year old poetry and then yeah,

565
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 4: from there like live journal, zanga. I was very early

566
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 4: on like the MySpace train, that's where I started.

567
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: I was really into a post Secret.

568
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 4: Yes, I loved Postsecret. I actually I have a postcard

569
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 4: in the first post Secret book.

570
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: When I was cleaning up my childhood home last year,

571
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: I found a postcard that I made and was too

572
00:33:56,320 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: afraid to send to them about having a crush on

573
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: a boy who is eight inches shorter than me in

574
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: high school. And I like made a whole visual and

575
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: I'm like, it probably for the best that I didn't

576
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: send it in, but I remember the feeling of making it.

577
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember reading post Secret in like the on

578
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 4: a computer at the library and being like, oh my god,

579
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 4: this is so this is revolutionary. But yeah, it was

580
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 4: definitely a lot of like seeking community and just like

581
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,800
Speaker 4: like minded people. I guess people started becoming famous on

582
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 4: the Internet while I was still in high school, like

583
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 4: Tila Tequila is probably the first one I can think of, right,

584
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 4: And I definitely didn't aspire to fame in that kind

585
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 4: of way, not like a reality TV way, but I

586
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 4: did always. I always kind of thought it would be

587
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 4: like a like a cool thing to get out of

588
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,320
Speaker 4: my hometown and be like uh yeah, be someone notable

589
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 4: and then be like hah, suckers. I don't know, but yeah,

590
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 4: I always like there was a there was a phase

591
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 4: where I, like I thought I was going to be

592
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 4: an actor, and so I do I think there was

593
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 4: kind of a through line of like attention or like

594
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 4: external validation. I mean, I think I've always been like

595
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 4: a very high achieving person, like self driven, so I

596
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 4: think I kind of saw like like fame is like

597
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 4: the ultimate, the ultimate thing you can achieve to show

598
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:09,479
Speaker 4: that you've like been successful at whatever it is you're doing.

599
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 4: I was pretty shy. I'm still pretty shy, and so

600
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 4: my way of introducing myself to people would be like

601
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 4: to connect with them on MySpace first, and it turned

602
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 4: into a like by the time I was like a

603
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 4: junior or senior in high school, I would run into

604
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 4: people at the mall and they'd be like, you're Amy

605
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:24,399
Speaker 4: from MySpace and so like that.

606
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Okay, wait, tell me more about that,

607
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 1: because that is an experience I definitely never had.

608
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 4: I was very much like not cool at high school,

609
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 4: but then like to people in this other space that

610
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 4: I inhabited. I was like a person, and I didn't

611
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 4: necessarily feel like I was being anyone else either. I

612
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 4: just kind of like put out my interests. I actually

613
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:48,320
Speaker 4: I found like an old screenshot of my MySpace profile

614
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 4: the other day and under famous movie under favorite movies,

615
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 4: it's like every movie I've ever seen in my life. Right,

616
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 4: It's just like here's every band I've ever listened to.

617
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 4: But just really trying to like put myself out there

618
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:02,319
Speaker 4: and find people to like connect with, and a little

619
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 4: bit of a little bit of posturing for sure. Yeah.

620
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 4: I would say that was my first brush with like

621
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,800
Speaker 4: using using the internet as like an extension. I don't know,

622
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 4: as an introvert, it sometimes is like an extension of

623
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,399
Speaker 4: my internal monologue. It's like things I can't say out

624
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 4: loud I can like put on Twitter or myspits. So yeah,

625
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 4: I think that was really my first my first experience

626
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 4: with that.

627
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 2: What was your feeling when you were going into school?

628
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 2: What was the what was the goal?

629
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:27,359
Speaker 5: Oh?

630
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:28,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I thought I was going to be like

631
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 4: girl investigative reporter. I was going to be like investigating

632
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 4: corruption in the newspaper, which is like not even really

633
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 4: a thing the newspapers do anymore. An investigative reporter uncovering

634
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 4: corruption and like doing doing good stuff. I took my

635
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 4: journalism classes, I branched out into like some creative writing classes.

636
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 4: I graduated in twenty eleven, so only it wasn't until

637
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 4: my senior year that we even touched on like blogging

638
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 4: and online because it seemed like, oh, maybe that'll be

639
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 4: a thing. So I took like a I took like

640
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 4: an independent study course where I got to make my

641
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 4: own blog, which was basically the most preparation I got

642
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 4: in a formal sense for like social media and the

643
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 4: internet and stuff. I graduated and took an internship in

644
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 4: social media because I could not find a job. I

645
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 4: applied for like one hundred jobs after I graduated and

646
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 4: ended in like a paid internship doing social media in

647
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 4: twenty eleven, which was like pretty sleepy. In twenty eleven,

648
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:22,239
Speaker 4: my experience was very much like it was like just

649
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 4: like we feel like we should have social media accounts,

650
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:27,240
Speaker 4: we don't know what to say, and also we need

651
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:30,319
Speaker 4: we want to make sure that like nobody's saying bad

652
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 4: stuff about us, which like they weren't because I was

653
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 4: working for a like a very small division of your

654
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 4: graill that like I don't think anyone had ever heard of.

655
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:39,720
Speaker 4: It's like they make standardized tests and stuff.

656
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 1: The approach to social media at that time was like

657
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: more we need to do this, and like more self

658
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 1: conscious than we're going to forward our brand by doing this.

659
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 4: I established the accounts they got set up with like

660
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 4: a social media monitoring software, a very early iteration of it.

661
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 4: It was extremely clunky, but like so they wanted to

662
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 4: know what people were saying about them and also some editors.

663
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 4: But it was kind of this weird spot at the

664
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 4: beginning where it's like what do we even like what

665
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 4: do you say? Or like even who's the audience? Right

666
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 4: like who is the audience for a Twitter account for

667
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 4: like a testing company? And I don't know that we

668
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 4: actually got that answer while I was there, because again

669
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 4: I was only there two months.

670
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:17,760
Speaker 2: Where do you go from there?

671
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 4: So my first two full time gigs were as like

672
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,760
Speaker 4: a copywriter at small marketing agencies, mostly like blog posts

673
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:29,919
Speaker 4: with SEO keywords in them, right like, and then I'd

674
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 4: also just like website copy for like municipal governments and

675
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:35,399
Speaker 4: stuff like I wrote some stuff for like the city

676
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 4: of New Albany, Ohio, like kind of smaller stuff that

677
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 4: my name's not on and mostly writing as opposed to

678
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 4: social media. I'm living in Columbus, Ohio at the time

679
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 4: because I went to school in Ohio and that's where

680
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 4: Wendy's is headquartered. And in about twenty twelve, I noticed

681
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:51,919
Speaker 4: that they have posted for a social media manager. They've

682
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,720
Speaker 4: got a job opening, and I just I had thoughts.

683
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 4: I was like, I bet I could do this. I

684
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:58,359
Speaker 4: bet I'd be great at this. So I applied kind

685
00:38:58,360 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 4: of on a whim.

686
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 2: Pretty much fresh out of college. When you started this job.

687
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 4: I was twenty three when they hired me at Wendy's.

688
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you recall what their social media was like

689
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: at the time you entered the position?

690
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:12,279
Speaker 4: Well, man, I do remember what Wendy's social media was

691
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 4: like in twenty twelve, because I went into that interview

692
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 4: room so confident and I was like, here's everything. I

693
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 4: know what you're doing right now like they had. I

694
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 4: had like followed them on Pinterest and they were like,

695
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:23,439
Speaker 4: we're going to do a cool thing that looks good.

696
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 4: But then it was like just the longest image ever.

697
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 4: I was like, you're doing stuff that's really annoying to

698
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 4: me as a user, which looking back, I just I

699
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 4: walked in like I was just like, yeah, I can

700
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,320
Speaker 4: do this, and for some reason that like went well,

701
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:39,240
Speaker 4: but I can imagine it going like plenty of other ways.

702
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 4: But yeah, it was like come to Wendy's and buy

703
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 4: a Frosty. They were doing like photoshopped pictures of a

704
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 4: cartoon Frosty doing stuff which like I think could have

705
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 4: had legs, but like wasn't really dry. Frosty had its

706
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 4: own Facebook page. It was very Facebook centric at that time,

707
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,359
Speaker 4: right like Facebook and a little bit Twitter there were

708
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 4: They had an Instagram account that someone was clearly just

709
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 4: like taking pictures on their iPhone and uploading. I remember

710
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 4: when I started there were thirty seven thousand followers on

711
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 4: the Twitter account, which felt like a lot of the time,

712
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,879
Speaker 4: but obviously these days isn't really that much. They were

713
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 4: working with like a an ad agency based out of

714
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 4: New York on all of this stuff, and I was

715
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 4: the first social media person internally. I got hired by

716
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 4: the director of digital who went on to be like

717
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 4: a early great mentor to me of.

718
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: The sort of Mount Rushmore of iconic brand accounts.

719
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 2: You're pretty early to it.

720
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: When you were starting this job, were there any accounts

721
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,720
Speaker 1: specifically that you're like, oh, like, this is an account

722
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 1: that I think is doing it well.

723
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 4: It was Taco Bell. Taco Bell was like BuzzFeed would

724
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 4: put out these lists because it was like the heyday

725
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:48,879
Speaker 4: of BuzzFeed too, right, and they'd be like twenty five

726
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 4: times the Taco Bell Twitter account was all of us,

727
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 4: and I was like, I can do that for Wendy's.

728
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:55,080
Speaker 4: I can make the Wendy's account all of us. I

729
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 4: don't know how we're going to get there, but yeah,

730
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 4: like I saw that and I was just like, we

731
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 4: could do that, Like I could do Yeah, they were

732
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 4: like the blueprint to me. It was that and it

733
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 4: was not Starbucks Social but like Starbucks was such a

734
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:08,320
Speaker 4: big deal back then. It was like it like, yeah,

735
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 4: like a lifestyle brand almost, And so that's what I

736
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 4: was always talking about, is like we're gonna be cool

737
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 4: like Taco Bell, but also like we want people to

738
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 4: feel proud that they're holding a Wendy's.

739
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 2: Cup, especially around this.

740
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I guess I don't know because

741
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:21,600
Speaker 1: I'm no longer twenty three. But when I was going

742
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 1: in for similar jobs at the same age. It was

743
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: like with the same level of confidence. And I felt

744
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:31,240
Speaker 1: like what worked to my advantage was that the people

745
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,439
Speaker 1: who were interviewing me didn't understand how the internet worked.

746
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 1: They weren't Internet natives, and so I think they were

747
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 1: sort of like, yeah, sure, great, try it out.

748
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 4: Actually, so funny story. They my boss after they hired me.

749
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 4: He told me I was the least experienced candidate they interviewed,

750
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 4: and that what really put it over the edge is

751
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 4: that at the time I had I had like two

752
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 4: hundred followers on my personal Twitter or something, but I

753
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 4: put my personal Twitter handle on my resume and the

754
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 4: hiring manager went to my Twitter and he said, what

755
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 4: set you apart is that you had like an actual personality,

756
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 4: and like, we're looking for someone to have an actual

757
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:06,359
Speaker 4: personality like behind the brand. And he's like, all these

758
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 4: other people were clearly trying to like build a personal brand, right,

759
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 4: and they're like they're posting, like here is my take

760
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 4: on XYZ, Like I kind of shit posted my way

761
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:16,240
Speaker 4: into the job, which is also very funny.

762
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: And they told you in school you couldn't do it.

763
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,359
Speaker 1: Are you working strictly alone? Are you sort of are

764
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: you pitching stuff to your bosses? Are you pitching arcs

765
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 1: for the Twitter account? How does the day to day

766
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: work in terms of strategizing for an account at that time.

767
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,399
Speaker 4: So when I came on at Wendy's, they also were

768
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 4: bringing on a new ad agency at right around the

769
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 4: same time, and so that was really I was the

770
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 4: entire internal team, and then everything else was these guys

771
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 4: at VML. They're based in Kansas City. They're like a

772
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 4: big deal now, largely because of the Wendy's work, which

773
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:50,359
Speaker 4: is pretty cool for them. I would not have been

774
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 4: able to do anything I did without that support. But yeah,

775
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 4: it's like copywriters and strategists and like art directors, and

776
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 4: so the way it worked when I started was I

777
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 4: was responsible lately for community management, which is when you

778
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 4: reply to someone, so all of it, like the funny stuff,

779
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,759
Speaker 4: the customer service stuff, all of it. And then our

780
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 4: agency worked on first we worked on like revamping a

781
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 4: strategy and like what does the brand sound like? And

782
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 4: they they sort of they would take a first pass

783
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 4: at it and then bring it to us, which was

784
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 4: me and my boss at the time. And I had

785
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 4: sort of a lot of latitude to give feedback, be

786
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 4: like this is or isn't how how we should be proceeding.

787
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 4: And then yeah, on the day to day they were

788
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 4: creating posts and copy and then a lot of a

789
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 4: lot of my job was running that up the Wendy's

790
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 4: side for approvals. So like there are brand managers who

791
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:40,760
Speaker 4: want who want to make the make sure the product

792
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 4: looks right, and like legal want size on everything. I

793
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 4: often did a lot of the behind the scenes like

794
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 4: internal corporate stuff, and not so much the like the

795
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 4: actual tweets and Facebook posts were always our agency, but

796
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 4: I helped. I helped with the strategy, and then the

797
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 4: community management was me for the first couple of years,

798
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:03,799
Speaker 4: and then eventually my role expanded. We added another person

799
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:06,720
Speaker 4: to the team. Internally, we handed off community management largely

800
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:09,480
Speaker 4: to a guy at our agency who did it up

801
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 4: until I think like last year. He was there for

802
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 4: a really long time.

803
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: So it is like a pretty large collaborative operation.

804
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 4: As I say, that's actually something I've always kind of

805
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 4: felt bad about in the coverage is that they always

806
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,399
Speaker 4: want to be like this is the person and like

807
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 4: you can tell people that it's like me and a

808
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,320
Speaker 4: whole bunch of other people, But Obviously the end product

809
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:30,839
Speaker 4: is whatever, like the writer wants it to be right,

810
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 4: So I don't know, that's not always a compelling piece

811
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 4: of the story to be like, I had lots of help,

812
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:36,439
Speaker 4: but I had lots of help.

813
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 1: Well, thankfully, I'm not interested in a compelling story. A

814
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: lot of the original pieces about either the Wendy's account

815
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 1: or you specifically, it was either like the points of

816
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 1: view that it landed on felt very black and white,

817
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,280
Speaker 1: like you are being duped by a brand by relating

818
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: to the brand, or it's just this one person, but

819
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 1: it seems like it there is like gray area in

820
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: there where it's like there's multiple people, there is a plane.

821
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: What was the goal of these accounts when you were

822
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: starting and as time went on, what was the goal

823
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 1: of engagement and what were you building tours?

824
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:16,799
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean obviously we wanted everyone to know about

825
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 4: like the latest cheeseburger and stuff, right, But when I

826
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 4: showed up at Wendy's, they were in the middle of

827
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 4: like a massive corporate rebrand. So like you might remember

828
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,240
Speaker 4: the old Wendy's logo that literally said like old fashioned

829
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 4: hamburgers on it, which was something they really they were like,

830
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 4: we don't we want to shed the old fashioned perception, right,

831
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 4: So they readed the logo, which is the one that's

832
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 4: now just like Wendy, and they were sort of they

833
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:43,399
Speaker 4: started they started reding, like making all the restaurants fancy, like, yeah,

834
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 4: I'm sure you've been to a renovated Wendy's. So that

835
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:47,799
Speaker 4: was all happening right around the time I showed up,

836
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 4: and it was very much. It very much played hand

837
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 4: in hand with the social strategy, which was to kind

838
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 4: of make people think of Wendy's as not just like

839
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 4: a place where senior citizens get chilly, which is something

840
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 4: I saw on light a lot. I would see people

841
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 4: be like, my grandma likes Wendy who eats Wendy's, And

842
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,120
Speaker 4: so I think that was a big But then there's

843
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 4: always like individual marketing goals, like we were always supporting

844
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,760
Speaker 4: like campaigns for the latest thing, because in fast food

845
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:13,760
Speaker 4: there's it's just like a parade of limited time items,

846
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 4: like that's the that's the entire model. So new limited

847
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 4: time item, new bunch of posts. But then also doing

848
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 4: something called always on, which is just like reminding people

849
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 4: that Wendy's exists, right, And yeah, with the with the

850
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 4: goal of like ultimately driving people to a Wendy's or

851
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 4: even just like getting them to think more positively about

852
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 4: Wendy's in general, so like maybe the next time, like

853
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 4: bumping Wendy's up from I will never eat there to like,

854
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:39,759
Speaker 4: oh yeah, I would consider having that for dinner. Because

855
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 4: it's really hard to like draw a direct line from

856
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 4: a tweet to a purchase unless someone's like I bought

857
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 4: this hamburger because of this tweet. So a lot of

858
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 4: it was around like the brand sentiment and like maybe

859
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 4: not awareness because like most people have heard of Wendy's,

860
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 4: but like changing how you think of Wendy's. The whole

861
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 4: brand's jumping on trending stuff which you didn't ask for

862
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 4: a history lesson, but I'm gonna give you anyway. Which

863
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:04,359
Speaker 4: is it? It was? It was not really a thing

864
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 4: until suddenly it was. I forget which super Bowl it was,

865
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 4: but it was the one where all the lights went

866
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 4: out and Oreo Oreo made this tweet. They were like,

867
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 4: you can still dunk in the dark, and that was

868
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 4: like an iconic case study and social media for like ever,

869
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 4: it was like if you go to a conference and

870
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 4: someone's talking about the dunk in the dark tweet You've

871
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:21,799
Speaker 4: like got a bingo on your on your bingo board.

872
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,919
Speaker 4: Right wow, Okay, So I think this really they got

873
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 4: like a ton of attention for it, and I think

874
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:30,279
Speaker 4: it really started this idea that like, oh, brands can

875
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 4: jump in and talk about anything. So we we tried

876
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 4: that a little bit around like super Bowls a lot

877
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 4: of the time, and often it was a thing where

878
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 4: it's like we've got we've got pre approved things to

879
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 4: say for like this scenario and that scenario, and a

880
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 4: little bit of like having fun in the comments with

881
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 4: community management. I will say I think a place we

882
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 4: kind of landed as a company was suddenly there were

883
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 4: something every brand was trying to make like the Oscars

884
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 4: or the Grammys or the super Bowl relevant, and it's

885
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 4: like if everyone's talking at once, nobody's really like. We

886
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 4: actually kind of pulled back a little bit from that

887
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 4: kind of stuff because it's like, how do you how

888
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 4: do you even break through something that noisy.

889
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: Because you're a part of it, seems like and correct me.

890
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: But like this sort of wave of brands developing very

891
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 1: specific editorial voices, when did that start?

892
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:23,360
Speaker 2: What was that? Was it a mistake? Was it planned?

893
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 2: What was that?

894
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 6: Yeah?

895
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 4: So I will say for Wendy's, I think that really

896
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 4: started like a year before the roast thing blew up,

897
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 4: we had like another viral incident where we were kind

898
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 4: of poking fun at burger King, and I actually, I

899
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 4: will admit I went a little bit rogue, expecting that

900
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 4: nobody would see it, but we had sort of So

901
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 4: Wendy's comes out with the four for four and then

902
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 4: Burger King comes out with the five for four like

903
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 4: a week or two later. It's like the exact same

904
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 4: thing as the four for four plus a cookie. Internally,

905
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 4: we are all pissed off, and we're like, what do

906
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 4: we do about this? And everyone decides we're not going

907
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 4: to do anything. We're not going to like bring more

908
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,080
Speaker 4: attention to the five for four. But then people start

909
00:48:57,120 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 4: tweeting at us about the five for four, and I remember,

910
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 4: I'm like in a meeting and I just like I

911
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:03,759
Speaker 4: dash off a reply about it to someone making fun

912
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:06,719
Speaker 4: of burger King. I believe, I believe they asked what

913
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:09,320
Speaker 4: we had that Burger King doesn't, and I said edible food,

914
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 4: and that was like the whole tweet. And Yeah, I

915
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 4: got out of that meeting and it was going bananas,

916
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 4: and I was like, I'm fired because we agreed we

917
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 4: weren't going to do this and I did it anyway.

918
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:20,720
Speaker 2: But it worked. I'm assuming it worked.

919
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 4: I don't remember anyone being mad at me, though, I'm sure. Yeah, Like,

920
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 4: I feel like they were probably a little miffed at

921
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:29,319
Speaker 4: the beginning when they were like, I thought, we weren't

922
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 4: going to talk about this, what are you doing? But yeah,

923
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:33,879
Speaker 4: I kind of just like, I was like, oh, people

924
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 4: are asking us to say something, like they're expecting us

925
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:38,080
Speaker 4: to say something now, which was not the case when

926
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 4: we made this decision. Yeah, I will say I'm very

927
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 4: lucky in that regard that my boss was kind of like,

928
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 4: that's funny. I'm not like, oh my god, you didn't

929
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 4: listen to me.

930
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,040
Speaker 1: You were making really effective marketing choices that I'm sure

931
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 1: would have been completely anathema to a lot of marketing

932
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:55,280
Speaker 1: elders at the time. Do you have any specific memories

933
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: of how those discussions went or yeah.

934
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,399
Speaker 4: I think my favorite example so when we did go

935
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 4: like mega viral with the roast like the one that

936
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 4: Anderson Cooper read right in twenty seventeen. I remember at

937
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 4: work the next day having to explain exactly what happened

938
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 4: and what it meant, Like our head of market our

939
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:17,840
Speaker 4: head of marketing didn't have a Twitter account, so he

940
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 4: was like he also didn't understand. He was like, I

941
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:23,719
Speaker 4: didn't review or approve this, Like where did you get

942
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,280
Speaker 4: permission to do this? And I was like, well, community

943
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:28,399
Speaker 4: management is just a thing we always do. We're always

944
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 4: replying to people. I think they did not realize that

945
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 4: on our end we were. I think the idea that

946
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 4: there wasn't an approval process for those reply tweets really

947
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:39,319
Speaker 4: scared some people. Yeah, we actually we ended up having

948
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 4: to bring in our ad reupts from Twitter to like

949
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,400
Speaker 4: explain why this was good because there was definitely the

950
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:48,240
Speaker 4: vibe was a little weird. Yeah, my boss was very excited,

951
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 4: but like, yeah, his boss was like not sure what

952
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 4: was happening.

953
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the roast For the uninitiated. How

954
00:50:57,480 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: did the rose come about? It was twenty seventeen, right.

955
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 4: In early January twenty seventeen. I actually I remember a

956
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,000
Speaker 4: lot about the day because it was just like such

957
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:08,160
Speaker 4: a such a nothing of a day until suddenly it

958
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 4: was like the day. But so it's it's January third,

959
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen, and the office is still closed, but we

960
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 4: are technically launching a new brand campaign. So I'm like,

961
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:19,800
Speaker 4: I'm in my pajamas, I'm working from home on the couch.

962
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:22,399
Speaker 4: Things are slow though, because it's like the first day

963
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,279
Speaker 4: after the new year, and the new campaign is all

964
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:28,439
Speaker 4: about fresh, never frozen beef because that's Wendy's like big

965
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 4: differentiator with the hamburgers. It's like the meat's never frozen.

966
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 4: So we have some sponsored tweet out about how the

967
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 4: meat's fresh, never frozen, and the sponsored tweets are always

968
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:38,760
Speaker 4: where people are getting a little like get a little

969
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 4: feisty with you because like they're not following you, so

970
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:43,840
Speaker 4: they're like, why am I seeing this Wendy stuff? Like

971
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 4: I don't want this.

972
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 3: OK.

973
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:47,280
Speaker 4: So this guy comes in and he's like, you're lying

974
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,720
Speaker 4: it's frozen, and I kind of at first I gently

975
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 4: push back. I'm like you, like, I'm sorry you think

976
00:51:55,200 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 4: that I think is what I said, like like very corporate,

977
00:51:57,640 --> 00:52:01,400
Speaker 4: Like you're wrong. It's always been fresh, never frozen since

978
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty nine. And so this guy really laid it

979
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:08,439
Speaker 4: up for me though, he really just like he set

980
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:11,160
Speaker 4: me up so well and he said, you mean you

981
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 4: want me to believe you deliver it raw on a

982
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 4: hot truck. And I was just like, and so I

983
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 4: remember I sort of I answered him with a question.

984
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 4: I said, where do you store cold things that aren't frozen?

985
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 4: And I think that made this guy a little bit

986
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 4: upset because he sort of went like, McDonald's is better

987
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 4: than you anyway, And I said, the final nail in

988
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 4: the coffin, I told him he didn't have to bring

989
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 4: McDonald's into this, just because he forgot that refrigerators existed,

990
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 4: and the crowd went wild. Literally the next day, Anderson

991
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 4: Cooper and one of his staff they were like, they

992
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 4: acted out the tweets on Anderson Cooper three sixty on CNN, which.

993
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:50,720
Speaker 2: I'm sure Wendy's was thrilled about.

994
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:53,759
Speaker 4: They were thrilled when we were able to quantify it

995
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 4: for them in the language that marketing people care about.

996
00:52:56,200 --> 00:52:58,320
Speaker 4: So when we were able to be like, we got

997
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 4: X amount of media impressions, which is valued at like

998
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 4: X number of dollars, suddenly they were like, okay, yes,

999
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 4: we see the value. But when it was like I

1000
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:08,759
Speaker 4: made a funny tweet and it's on Anderson Cooper, they

1001
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 4: were kind of like, Okay.

1002
00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 1: Were people tracking you down? Were people sending you weird messages?

1003
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: What was the personal uh you know, what were you

1004
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:17,759
Speaker 1: taking home with you?

1005
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:21,279
Speaker 4: Yeah, So my fatal misstep was giving an interview about it.

1006
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 4: The week that it happened, someone from Mashable reached down

1007
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:25,719
Speaker 4: and I give this interview and like, my boss is

1008
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:27,279
Speaker 4: in the room, pr is in the room. It's a

1009
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 4: very tame interview. But the piece comes out and it's

1010
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 4: all about me, right, It's like it's about here's Amy Brown.

1011
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 4: They call me the SaaS master in the headline, right,

1012
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 4: and then like there's like a they're talking about how

1013
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 4: my mom is proud of me, right, and it's just

1014
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 4: like it's this. It's like a profile piece that I

1015
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:46,319
Speaker 4: wasn't expecting And so that gets me pegged forever as

1016
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:49,279
Speaker 4: the lady who did it, right, because there's and so

1017
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 4: it did. It got very weird. Yeah, people, My social

1018
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 4: accounts were not private at the time. They they quickly

1019
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 4: became private, but like there was a also being a

1020
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 4: young woman made it weird, Like there was a I stumbled.

1021
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:04,799
Speaker 4: I used to google myself. I don't really anymore, but

1022
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 4: I used to just to see what was going on,

1023
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:08,880
Speaker 4: and there was like a conversation on a message board

1024
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 4: that was like would you bang the Wendy's Twitter lady?

1025
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 4: And I remember these guys were like they had like

1026
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 4: scoured my Instagram photos and they were like, well, I

1027
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,840
Speaker 4: think maybe she has weird teeth because she never smiles

1028
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:23,359
Speaker 4: with her mouth open, just like that level. And then yeah,

1029
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 4: there were I I'm Jewish, and some people figured out

1030
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 4: that out. So there were like gropers in my dms

1031
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,759
Speaker 4: being like I'll save you when they come for the Jews,

1032
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 4: like literally saying shit like this to me.

1033
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 3: Oh my god.

1034
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 4: Ex boyfriends popped back up. They were like, hey, can

1035
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:39,160
Speaker 4: I tell people I used to date the Wendy's Twitter lady,

1036
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:40,440
Speaker 4: And it's like if you want.

1037
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:46,439
Speaker 1: Like, like I mean, I think even the rare case

1038
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:48,920
Speaker 1: where it's even weirder to ask for permission than to

1039
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:51,440
Speaker 1: simply just do it because it's true there.

1040
00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:54,439
Speaker 4: Like I guess if you're interested in that. Also, one guy,

1041
00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 4: a guy who dumped me, went on Twitter and was like,

1042
00:54:58,000 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 4: you guys are all celebrating the Wendy's Twitter lady, but

1043
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 4: she's like a bipolar, alcoholic and a bad person. It's

1044
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:04,240
Speaker 4: like Jesus Christ.

1045
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:07,279
Speaker 2: I know, oh I did.

1046
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:09,360
Speaker 4: For like a month he dumped me, and I was

1047
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 4: just like, I didn't even know you were mad at me?

1048
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:13,239
Speaker 4: Like what is going on?

1049
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:15,439
Speaker 1: And what a way to find out in a way

1050
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 1: that professionally implicates you as well.

1051
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:20,719
Speaker 4: Honestly, it kind of like ruined my brain for a

1052
00:55:20,719 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 4: couple of years. I just like like I would wake

1053
00:55:23,080 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 4: up and I'd be like I would wake up with

1054
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 4: like a sense of dread, being like, what is happening

1055
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 4: on my Twitter account? What happened there while I slept?

1056
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 4: Because like I'd wake up occasionally and there'd be a

1057
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 4: guy in my DMS being like is this your address?

1058
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:37,839
Speaker 4: And it is my address and it's like gee, like which,

1059
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 4: like guy. When that happened, I got like real paranoid.

1060
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:44,720
Speaker 4: Though I never nobody ever came to my house or anything.

1061
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:46,920
Speaker 4: But it's just the idea that someone has that information

1062
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:49,319
Speaker 4: and they did that on they did that for that reason, right.

1063
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:52,280
Speaker 1: But I'm assuming, just based on having had similar jobs,

1064
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:54,960
Speaker 1: that you're not compensated to a level that you can

1065
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: really like protect yourself.

1066
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 4: It's such a funny misconception sometimes when I talk about

1067
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 4: the Wendy stuff, people assume I must be like rich.

1068
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 4: They're like, oh, you did that Wendy's thing. You made

1069
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 4: a lot of money. And it's like, no, the sharehold

1070
00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 4: Like the shareholders made a lot of money, Like the

1071
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:11,719
Speaker 4: chairman of the board made a billion dollars, right, It's

1072
00:56:11,719 --> 00:56:18,680
Speaker 4: like I made five figures. But yeah, I definitely the

1073
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:22,239
Speaker 4: mental health piece was really really tough, honestly, And there

1074
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 4: is there's backstory too. I actually I so I've had

1075
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 4: depression in my whole life, anxiety too, and actually the

1076
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:31,040
Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen, the summer of twenty sixteen, I took

1077
00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 4: a leave of absence from work to do an intensive

1078
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:36,040
Speaker 4: outpatient mental health program for depression. And I had just

1079
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 4: come back to I had come back to work in

1080
00:56:38,040 --> 00:56:41,000
Speaker 4: October and then all the roast stuff happened in January.

1081
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:43,720
Speaker 4: So I was still like trying to find my footing.

1082
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:48,840
Speaker 1: Still, Like, also a very normal election cycle in the

1083
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:50,960
Speaker 1: middle of that too, that's nuts.

1084
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:53,279
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a yeah. When I look back at it,

1085
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:55,399
Speaker 4: I can't believe that all happened in like a year.

1086
00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:57,320
Speaker 4: But yeah, so I'm still trying to find my footing,

1087
00:56:57,400 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 4: I like, and I was like very I was like

1088
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:01,799
Speaker 4: vocal about why I was taking leave too, because I'm like,

1089
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, we're going to break the stigma, Like

1090
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 4: depression is okay. I'm gonna tell everyone I have depression

1091
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 4: and it's gonna be fine. And like it was not fine.

1092
00:57:09,200 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 4: People were weird, people were uncomfortable.

1093
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:14,799
Speaker 1: There is a brief period of years in the mid

1094
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:18,400
Speaker 1: twenty tents where I genuinely believed that like being very

1095
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:21,520
Speaker 1: straightforward and honest, like it was like, oh, it's not

1096
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:22,960
Speaker 1: that there's a systemic problem.

1097
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 2: It's that like I must not be articulating.

1098
00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 4: It's like, no, I just need to talk louder about

1099
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 4: having depression and everyone will understand.

1100
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:49,280
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more Amy Brown. Welcome back

1101
00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:52,960
Speaker 1: to sixteenth minute. My mother literally got kidnapped at the

1102
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:57,440
Speaker 1: Austin Airport this week. She's fine now, but oh my god.

1103
00:57:58,080 --> 00:58:00,200
Speaker 1: Here's the rest of my interview with Amy Brown.

1104
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 4: In the wake of the of the big tweet, right,

1105
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 4: we sort of we decided we're like, well, we got

1106
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:07,800
Speaker 4: to lean into this, right, like, we we don't know

1107
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 4: that when this will die down, so let's try to

1108
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 4: ride it out. But it got to a point where

1109
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 4: it was it was me, our other person in house

1110
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:17,200
Speaker 4: named Meredith and our community manager at the agency named Matt,

1111
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:20,280
Speaker 4: and we were literally like taking shifts on the Twitter account,

1112
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:22,480
Speaker 4: just trying to reply to like as many people as possible.

1113
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:25,680
Speaker 4: We're like, we can't let it die, and yeah, I

1114
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:28,320
Speaker 4: definitely am. I mean, social media in general is a

1115
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:31,520
Speaker 4: really hard gig for people who want to have work

1116
00:58:31,520 --> 00:58:32,160
Speaker 4: life balance.

1117
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:32,440
Speaker 6: You know.

1118
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 4: It's like there's no there's no stop button. And yeah

1119
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 4: there's the part where it's like, I mean I think

1120
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:41,640
Speaker 4: that probably ties back into the gropers and my dms. Right,

1121
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 4: it's like it's a it's a turning point for the

1122
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:45,520
Speaker 4: Internet where it's like, oh, the Nazis are here and

1123
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 4: Trump is here, and like they're talking to me and like,

1124
00:58:49,240 --> 00:58:52,280
Speaker 4: so yeah, it was definitely I Yeah. I actually I

1125
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 4: ended up Wenday's and I ended up mutually parting ways.

1126
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 4: I like to say it that way. We need truly

1127
00:58:56,840 --> 00:58:59,600
Speaker 4: parted ways in March of that year, like two months

1128
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:02,680
Speaker 4: after the tweet happened, which in turn turned into they're

1129
00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:05,640
Speaker 4: actually like there there are like Reddit threads where people

1130
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:08,440
Speaker 4: are like, why did she get fired? And it's like, ah,

1131
00:59:08,480 --> 00:59:11,440
Speaker 4: I didn't get fired you for assuming that. Yeah, it's like,

1132
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:13,320
Speaker 4: actually I just kind of went nuts and then so

1133
00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 4: like step away.

1134
00:59:15,080 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 1: For a while, you know, And then this isn't even

1135
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 1: a particular like a stab at Wendy's. I think it's

1136
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:21,760
Speaker 1: like any corporation you would work for where it's like, oh,

1137
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: that thing worked more of that and you're like, well, no,

1138
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:28,320
Speaker 1: that will kill me, Like, oh, we can't, we can't

1139
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:30,560
Speaker 1: actually do that. I'm glad that you were able to

1140
00:59:30,560 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 1: step away. I was curious when in twenty seventeen you

1141
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: made that call.

1142
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:37,160
Speaker 4: Yeah. I left in March of that year, and I

1143
00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:40,480
Speaker 4: freelanced for about a year. Like early I was in

1144
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:42,600
Speaker 4: I was in a position where my name had like

1145
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:44,520
Speaker 4: really been out there, so it was pretty easy for

1146
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 4: me to just like pick up some freelance work. Although

1147
00:59:46,840 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 4: honestly I was living. I was living with actually yeah,

1148
00:59:50,840 --> 00:59:53,080
Speaker 4: my my husband and I got married that year too. God,

1149
00:59:53,160 --> 00:59:55,000
Speaker 4: so much stuff happened in like two or three years.

1150
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 4: But I was kind of just like sitting around playing

1151
00:59:57,680 --> 01:00:00,640
Speaker 4: video games, like trying to try and to get my

1152
01:00:00,720 --> 01:00:03,959
Speaker 4: brain back to normal, like working maybe twenty hours a week.

1153
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 1: There was no playbook for the stress that comes with

1154
01:00:09,880 --> 01:00:12,120
Speaker 1: a job like that, in a way that someone starting

1155
01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:14,920
Speaker 1: a job like a social media management job or community

1156
01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: manager job now would it.

1157
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:18,640
Speaker 4: Was really it was harder on my nervous system than

1158
01:00:18,640 --> 01:00:20,440
Speaker 4: I think I realized while I was doing it. Just

1159
01:00:20,480 --> 01:00:22,760
Speaker 4: like I think about it now, right, how the social

1160
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:26,320
Speaker 4: media platforms are engineered to like keep us engaged and like,

1161
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:28,880
Speaker 4: I don't know, I feel it feels very much like

1162
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:29,840
Speaker 4: a slot machine.

1163
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 5: Right.

1164
01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:32,480
Speaker 4: It's like the lights go off and the like button

1165
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 4: lights up, and it's like my brain is my brain

1166
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:37,480
Speaker 4: is like activated, and then I like I logged off

1167
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:40,440
Speaker 4: and my brain was like very still and quiet, and

1168
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:42,640
Speaker 4: I didn't feel very good, you know. I was like, oh,

1169
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:45,320
Speaker 4: I don't want to be alone with my thoughts. So

1170
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:49,280
Speaker 4: there was a lot of that, and yeah, I think

1171
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of fear that like, oh

1172
01:00:52,480 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 4: my god, this is just like because I would take

1173
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:56,560
Speaker 4: job interviews and they would just want me to they

1174
01:00:56,600 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 4: were like, can you come here and do the Wendy's thing,

1175
01:00:58,280 --> 01:01:00,640
Speaker 4: And it's like, I know, I don't want to, Like

1176
01:01:00,640 --> 01:01:02,160
Speaker 4: I don't want my whole career to just be like

1177
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 4: writing sassy tweets. So that was also I had this

1178
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 4: fear for a long time that like I would just

1179
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 4: be pigeonholed as this one thing forever, I will say,

1180
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 4: a resource that was very valuable to me. And part

1181
01:01:11,440 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 4: of the reason all the social media managers seemed to

1182
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 4: know each other is because we had like a we

1183
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 4: had like a private Facebook group back in the day

1184
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:20,440
Speaker 4: that was just like a bunch of social media managers

1185
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 4: for brands, and so I remember when the Wendy stuff happened.

1186
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:25,320
Speaker 4: I was just like, hey, it's me. I feel insane,

1187
01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:28,160
Speaker 4: like can anyone help me? And I actually I still

1188
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 4: I have a lot of like long standing friendships that

1189
01:01:29,960 --> 01:01:32,880
Speaker 4: came out of that group, which actually no longer exists

1190
01:01:32,920 --> 01:01:35,640
Speaker 4: anymore because like online communities grow and die and whatever.

1191
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:37,919
Speaker 4: But I feel like the group really started to grow

1192
01:01:37,960 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 4: and take off, like right around twenty seventeen when I left,

1193
01:01:40,440 --> 01:01:42,800
Speaker 4: just because there were a lot of a lot of

1194
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:44,920
Speaker 4: people working in social at that time. There were some

1195
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:47,959
Speaker 4: other smaller groups I was into, imber. I remember leaving

1196
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:50,320
Speaker 4: one angrily because someone was like talking shit about the

1197
01:01:50,360 --> 01:01:51,920
Speaker 4: Wendy stuff. They were like, oh, they'll fall flat on

1198
01:01:51,960 --> 01:01:53,840
Speaker 4: their face soon enough, and I was like, I'm right here.

1199
01:01:55,720 --> 01:01:57,040
Speaker 2: That's a fascinating thing to me.

1200
01:01:57,080 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 1: It's like you're being addressed as Wendy's and it is

1201
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 1: personal to you.

1202
01:02:02,120 --> 01:02:04,919
Speaker 4: That was also, yeah, it's it took a long time

1203
01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:08,000
Speaker 4: for me to disentangle my own personality with Wendy's, which

1204
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:10,120
Speaker 4: was like, it is such a fucked up thing to

1205
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:12,000
Speaker 4: look back on, where it's like, well, if I'm not

1206
01:02:12,040 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 4: at Wendy's, who am I? And it's like anyone you

1207
01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:16,840
Speaker 4: can be Anny, you don't have to, but yeah, I

1208
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 4: just cause I think it all goes hand in hand, right,

1209
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:21,560
Speaker 4: Like I was pretty I was pretty unhappy and I

1210
01:02:21,600 --> 01:02:24,520
Speaker 4: didn't realize it. So I just like stayed busy. And

1211
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:28,000
Speaker 4: my way of staying busy was work. Like I had

1212
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:30,920
Speaker 4: a series of like shitty boyfriends and like that was

1213
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:32,960
Speaker 4: not fun. So it's like my personal life was whatever,

1214
01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:36,400
Speaker 4: but work was great. Work was silk good. And the

1215
01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:38,440
Speaker 4: work got pulled out from under me and I was like,

1216
01:02:38,480 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 4: well who am I? And I'm like I'm in therapy,

1217
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:42,760
Speaker 4: but like my therapist doesn't know what, Like how do

1218
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:45,040
Speaker 4: you even talk to a therapist about this? Yeah? I

1219
01:02:45,080 --> 01:02:47,200
Speaker 4: actually I have a therapist I work with now who

1220
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:48,920
Speaker 4: I've been talking to. I've been working with her for

1221
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:51,600
Speaker 4: like four years. I didn't even approach the the Wendy's

1222
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 4: and online stuff until like year three because she's so offline,

1223
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:55,880
Speaker 4: and then I had to like kind of explain what

1224
01:02:55,880 --> 01:02:58,600
Speaker 4: the Wendy's Twitter stuff was like. She wasn't super familiar,

1225
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 4: so that was really fun. I was like, yeah, I

1226
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:03,000
Speaker 4: have trauma because a thing happened to me on the

1227
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:06,080
Speaker 4: internet and she's like what. Because I remember like none

1228
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:08,240
Speaker 4: of the brand managers at work really understanding what I

1229
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:10,440
Speaker 4: did until suddenly we went viral and they were like, oh,

1230
01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:12,320
Speaker 4: that's what she does. But like in the early days,

1231
01:03:12,320 --> 01:03:13,920
Speaker 4: it was a lot of like what do we need

1232
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:15,760
Speaker 4: to Like I would I would run into people at

1233
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:18,520
Speaker 4: work who are like, oh, yeah, my son has a Facebook,

1234
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:22,560
Speaker 4: can he help? And it's like no. But so a

1235
01:03:22,560 --> 01:03:25,440
Speaker 4: lot of like feeling undervalued, feeling stressed out, a lot

1236
01:03:25,440 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 4: of just like trying to trying to figure out what

1237
01:03:27,240 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 4: the heck you're doing, Like yeah, a lot of commiserating,

1238
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 4: a lot of like no stupid questions, and yeah, just

1239
01:03:33,600 --> 01:03:36,080
Speaker 4: really getting to like getting to meet people who do

1240
01:03:36,160 --> 01:03:37,200
Speaker 4: what I did was nice.

1241
01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:41,720
Speaker 1: When you're entering like a job that basically hasn't existed

1242
01:03:41,800 --> 01:03:46,040
Speaker 1: until now and you're really fucking good at it, how

1243
01:03:46,040 --> 01:03:48,720
Speaker 1: does your identity become entrenched? And then how do you

1244
01:03:48,800 --> 01:03:52,160
Speaker 1: like untangle that? That sounds like such a bizarre process.

1245
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:55,760
Speaker 4: No, it really it was like I felt, and I

1246
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:57,400
Speaker 4: know now that this is not the case, but it

1247
01:03:57,400 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 4: felt like I finally found the thing I'm good at.

1248
01:03:59,880 --> 01:04:01,720
Speaker 4: It was like, this is the one thing I do,

1249
01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:04,919
Speaker 4: and I do it for Wendy's and like I stayed

1250
01:04:04,960 --> 01:04:06,520
Speaker 4: there for such a long time because I really liked

1251
01:04:06,560 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 4: my boss. But yeah, I definitely I had. I had

1252
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:12,400
Speaker 4: thought about leaving before, you know, just to like work

1253
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:14,360
Speaker 4: somewhere else. Was my first real job out of college.

1254
01:04:14,360 --> 01:04:18,040
Speaker 4: But yeah, certainly, especially after everything started getting big and

1255
01:04:18,080 --> 01:04:20,960
Speaker 4: I was like really proud of the work too, that yeah,

1256
01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:24,439
Speaker 4: I got such a sense of pride. I was like, look,

1257
01:04:24,480 --> 01:04:26,880
Speaker 4: I'm doing it. But yeah, it was very much like

1258
01:04:27,200 --> 01:04:30,960
Speaker 4: this is like I said, outside of work, it's like, oh,

1259
01:04:31,000 --> 01:04:33,480
Speaker 4: things aren't going so great like all it Like, honestly,

1260
01:04:33,480 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 4: the only thing I was really stoked about was my dog.

1261
01:04:35,520 --> 01:04:38,240
Speaker 4: There was a long time where I was very weird

1262
01:04:38,240 --> 01:04:40,720
Speaker 4: about the Wendy stuff. Like in the process of disentangling

1263
01:04:40,760 --> 01:04:42,200
Speaker 4: myself from it, it was like I just don't want

1264
01:04:42,200 --> 01:04:44,240
Speaker 4: to talk about it. Like I'm sure people at my

1265
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:47,240
Speaker 4: next couple of jobs probably picked up on it. They'd

1266
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:49,160
Speaker 4: like they'd mentioned that I was the Wendy's Lady, and

1267
01:04:49,200 --> 01:04:51,919
Speaker 4: I'd like grimace and be like h or like even now,

1268
01:04:51,960 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 4: sometimes I just don't mention it. Like I just started

1269
01:04:53,960 --> 01:04:56,560
Speaker 4: a freelance project and they were like, introduce yourself and

1270
01:04:56,560 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 4: I was like, Hi, I'm Amy. I live in Berkeley, California,

1271
01:04:59,040 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 4: and the the guy who hired me is like tell them.

1272
01:05:02,720 --> 01:05:04,640
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I've worked for all these companies

1273
01:05:04,680 --> 01:05:06,720
Speaker 4: and I did the Wendy's Twitter account, and then of

1274
01:05:06,800 --> 01:05:08,640
Speaker 4: course at least one person is like, I'm such a

1275
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:11,800
Speaker 4: big fan, and I'm like, no, I'm just some lady.

1276
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:17,000
Speaker 4: It never stops being weird when people are like that

1277
01:05:17,120 --> 01:05:19,000
Speaker 4: was so cool. I love what you did because for me,

1278
01:05:19,040 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 4: it's like, oh, I made some tweets and I got

1279
01:05:20,960 --> 01:05:23,400
Speaker 4: paid for it, and then I didn't do that anymore.

1280
01:05:23,680 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 4: And but I like, I was writing a freelance article

1281
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:28,040
Speaker 4: and I was interviewing a guy who's in his twenties

1282
01:05:28,080 --> 01:05:30,160
Speaker 4: and he was like when I was in college, which

1283
01:05:30,240 --> 01:05:31,880
Speaker 4: also made me feel like the oldest person in the world.

1284
01:05:31,920 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 4: But it was like, when I was in college, what

1285
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 4: you did made me want to do what you do

1286
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:37,360
Speaker 4: and I was just like, I almost cried. I was like,

1287
01:05:37,400 --> 01:05:40,000
Speaker 4: that's really he was like, you're He's like, I think

1288
01:05:40,080 --> 01:05:42,160
Speaker 4: you are better than you realize, and I was like,

1289
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:44,200
Speaker 4: that is a really cool thing to say to me,

1290
01:05:44,280 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 4: and I'm gonna cry. I feel ways about that, Like

1291
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:49,040
Speaker 4: other people have managed to make money off the Wendy's thing,

1292
01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:51,520
Speaker 4: not me, though. I mean, I guess I should like

1293
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:53,520
Speaker 4: the fact that I am where I am in my

1294
01:05:53,640 --> 01:05:57,560
Speaker 4: career and like have a decent network and stuff like it.

1295
01:05:57,560 --> 01:05:59,960
Speaker 4: It wasn't nothing, but it certainly like I didn't get

1296
01:06:00,240 --> 01:06:01,920
Speaker 4: I didn't get a big fat check for the Wendy

1297
01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 4: stuff right. Also, also they're not to not to put

1298
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:07,200
Speaker 4: too fine a point on it, but some of those

1299
01:06:07,240 --> 01:06:10,160
Speaker 4: are my tweets, some are Merediths, some are Mats. I

1300
01:06:10,160 --> 01:06:12,320
Speaker 4: guess I just I always want to make sure everyone

1301
01:06:12,360 --> 01:06:15,200
Speaker 4: because I think I feel like it was really kind

1302
01:06:15,240 --> 01:06:17,920
Speaker 4: of a bummer that nobody else got the spotlight shown

1303
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:20,400
Speaker 4: on them, although I have always felt like maybe they

1304
01:06:20,400 --> 01:06:21,160
Speaker 4: were lucky.

1305
01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:22,960
Speaker 1: In that way too for something at the time that

1306
01:06:23,000 --> 01:06:25,080
Speaker 1: you were you know, you were paid a living wage,

1307
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:29,880
Speaker 1: but it's it seems to me that the value you

1308
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:34,080
Speaker 1: were adding to the company outweighed what you were being compensated.

1309
01:06:33,800 --> 01:06:36,160
Speaker 4: I would say that's fair. I would also say that's

1310
01:06:36,200 --> 01:06:38,840
Speaker 4: pretty typical for advertising. Like I sort of I'm of

1311
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:42,120
Speaker 4: two minds with it, which is like, Wow, I did

1312
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:45,720
Speaker 4: this incredible thing and I didn't really like, like at

1313
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:48,000
Speaker 4: least didn't really receive much in the way of monetary

1314
01:06:48,080 --> 01:06:50,400
Speaker 4: value for it. Although I will say my boss did

1315
01:06:50,440 --> 01:06:52,640
Speaker 4: give me the company tickets to the super Bowl after

1316
01:06:52,640 --> 01:06:54,800
Speaker 4: the Burger king tweet, so like I did, I like

1317
01:06:55,040 --> 01:06:56,960
Speaker 4: that was very cool. That was like a thing that

1318
01:06:57,000 --> 01:06:59,440
Speaker 4: I never would have experienced otherwise. But yeah, on the

1319
01:06:59,480 --> 01:07:01,760
Speaker 4: other hand, it's like, I don't know, that's that's how

1320
01:07:01,760 --> 01:07:04,920
Speaker 4: advertising goes. Like you make a the person who made

1321
01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 4: the Oreo dunk in the dark tweet isn't famous, isn't

1322
01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:09,520
Speaker 4: famous or rich? And like, I don't know, it's you

1323
01:07:09,560 --> 01:07:12,919
Speaker 4: don't that's that's not what it's about. But my name

1324
01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:14,560
Speaker 4: is a hyperlink on new your meme.

1325
01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 1: So in the time you're there twenty twelve to twenty seventeen,

1326
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:24,600
Speaker 1: how was social media changing from your perspective working at

1327
01:07:24,600 --> 01:07:25,520
Speaker 1: this company at the time.

1328
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:28,720
Speaker 4: Lots more brands, lots more people talking, I think, I

1329
01:07:28,760 --> 01:07:32,280
Speaker 4: think also just a shift away to a shift towards monetization. Right,

1330
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:35,520
Speaker 4: Like I started and like we were on Facebook and

1331
01:07:35,520 --> 01:07:37,720
Speaker 4: Facebook was a major platform for us, and then suddenly

1332
01:07:37,760 --> 01:07:39,640
Speaker 4: it's like, oh, you can't really get organic reach on

1333
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:42,720
Speaker 4: Facebook anymore, partially because everyone's using it now. So it's

1334
01:07:42,760 --> 01:07:44,520
Speaker 4: like how does everything go in the feed? Like you

1335
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:47,120
Speaker 4: got to pay for the audience, but certainly a lot

1336
01:07:47,160 --> 01:07:49,320
Speaker 4: of that. The other big piece of it, which I

1337
01:07:49,400 --> 01:07:51,080
Speaker 4: think a lot of people like to pretend doesn't impact

1338
01:07:51,120 --> 01:07:53,320
Speaker 4: their work, but it obviously does, especially nowadays, is the

1339
01:07:53,320 --> 01:07:56,960
Speaker 4: political landscape and how that's changing. And like especially now,

1340
01:07:57,040 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 4: like the political landscape and the social media landscape are

1341
01:07:59,880 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 4: in extricably linked because of Elon and so like, yeah,

1342
01:08:03,360 --> 01:08:05,560
Speaker 4: I think that's another big piece of it that just

1343
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:07,640
Speaker 4: like like I used to, I used to feel like

1344
01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:09,240
Speaker 4: I was just having fun with my friends and now

1345
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:13,240
Speaker 4: it's like, oh, I'm using like a state propaganda machine.

1346
01:08:13,920 --> 01:08:15,200
Speaker 2: Is there a solution for that?

1347
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:17,759
Speaker 1: How do you ethically yell at a company that's probably

1348
01:08:17,760 --> 01:08:18,479
Speaker 1: just run by a point?

1349
01:08:18,560 --> 01:08:18,720
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1350
01:08:18,800 --> 01:08:22,080
Speaker 4: I mean I think to me, the yelling is part

1351
01:08:22,120 --> 01:08:24,320
Speaker 4: of it. I will am. I actually got dragged for

1352
01:08:24,360 --> 01:08:27,479
Speaker 4: this take on Twitter back in twenty twenty one, I

1353
01:08:27,520 --> 01:08:30,519
Speaker 4: don't think it's funny to like send death threats to

1354
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:33,640
Speaker 4: corporate accounts. But I got on I got on the

1355
01:08:33,640 --> 01:08:35,439
Speaker 4: wrong side of some people who do think it's funny.

1356
01:08:35,479 --> 01:08:37,519
Speaker 4: They were like, no, it's fine to tell mister Peanut

1357
01:08:37,560 --> 01:08:40,479
Speaker 4: to kill himself, and I'm like, I mean, in theory,

1358
01:08:40,520 --> 01:08:42,599
Speaker 4: that is funny, but like, the person reading the account

1359
01:08:42,680 --> 01:08:44,200
Speaker 4: is gonna read it as if you're talking to them,

1360
01:08:44,520 --> 01:08:47,320
Speaker 4: and like, I don't know, I know that if enough

1361
01:08:47,320 --> 01:08:48,960
Speaker 4: people tell me to kill myself, the wheels in my

1362
01:08:49,000 --> 01:08:50,920
Speaker 4: head are gonna start turning, right, Like, no matter whose

1363
01:08:50,960 --> 01:08:51,599
Speaker 4: the account I'm.

1364
01:08:51,479 --> 01:08:52,599
Speaker 2: Offering, it's gonna feel good.

1365
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:55,040
Speaker 4: It's not gonna feel good. Yeah, but yeah, it was

1366
01:08:55,120 --> 01:08:58,120
Speaker 4: very much. It was very much a like, you're a

1367
01:08:58,120 --> 01:09:00,040
Speaker 4: tool of capitalism if you think that people need to

1368
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:02,040
Speaker 4: be nice to social media managers. And it's like, I

1369
01:09:02,040 --> 01:09:03,680
Speaker 4: don't think it should be illegal to get at a

1370
01:09:03,680 --> 01:09:05,880
Speaker 4: brand account. I think you should just remember that there's

1371
01:09:05,920 --> 01:09:08,280
Speaker 4: a person back there who's probably doing that job because

1372
01:09:08,320 --> 01:09:10,280
Speaker 4: they couldn't get a job as a writer or something.

1373
01:09:11,320 --> 01:09:15,080
Speaker 1: The tricky thing is, behaviorally, how do you adjust it to, yeah,

1374
01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:18,720
Speaker 1: say what you're trying to say without making someone just

1375
01:09:18,880 --> 01:09:20,320
Speaker 1: like you his life harder.

1376
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:23,920
Speaker 4: General idea of like saying you're mad about something, like

1377
01:09:24,520 --> 01:09:28,280
Speaker 4: social media managers pull analytics like they will they report

1378
01:09:28,360 --> 01:09:30,599
Speaker 4: up and like if enough people say they're mad about something,

1379
01:09:30,640 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 4: that will reach them. But like, no, you're very specific.

1380
01:09:33,080 --> 01:09:35,439
Speaker 4: Tweet that's like kill yourself, Like that's never going to

1381
01:09:35,479 --> 01:09:37,719
Speaker 4: reach as the person doing anything.

1382
01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:41,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a screenshot for the person who tweeted it. Yeah,

1383
01:09:41,680 --> 01:09:44,400
Speaker 1: what is your relationship to social.

1384
01:09:44,120 --> 01:09:45,080
Speaker 2: Media and the internet?

1385
01:09:45,240 --> 01:09:49,840
Speaker 4: Like now, I am still trying to spend less time

1386
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:51,360
Speaker 4: on it. I've definitely, like I said, I'm not on

1387
01:09:51,400 --> 01:09:54,200
Speaker 4: Twitter anymore. I'm on Blue Sky a lot, but I'm

1388
01:09:54,240 --> 01:09:57,840
Speaker 4: trying to step back given the just the political landscape.

1389
01:09:57,920 --> 01:09:59,600
Speaker 4: My husband's actually on a business trip this week, and

1390
01:09:59,600 --> 01:10:01,000
Speaker 4: he was like, if you spent all week on Blue Sky,

1391
01:10:01,000 --> 01:10:02,280
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be pissed off at you because you're just

1392
01:10:02,280 --> 01:10:04,680
Speaker 4: gonna be like spiraling when I get home. I was like,

1393
01:10:04,680 --> 01:10:06,960
Speaker 4: he's very right. I was like, he knows the drill

1394
01:10:07,000 --> 01:10:11,599
Speaker 4: at this point. Yeah, I deleted my Facebook. I just

1395
01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:15,400
Speaker 4: like I don't know after the inauguration and everything and

1396
01:10:15,439 --> 01:10:18,080
Speaker 4: how Zuckerberg's kind of been involved in all that, and

1397
01:10:18,160 --> 01:10:19,839
Speaker 4: like I don't know, I don't really use my Facebook

1398
01:10:19,880 --> 01:10:22,719
Speaker 4: for much anymore. I was posting pictures of my kids there,

1399
01:10:22,760 --> 01:10:26,439
Speaker 4: but like now now they're training the AI on everyone's faces,

1400
01:10:26,439 --> 01:10:29,080
Speaker 4: and it's like, I don't, like, maybe my kids won't

1401
01:10:29,080 --> 01:10:30,720
Speaker 4: care when they grow up, but maybe they'll grow up

1402
01:10:30,760 --> 01:10:32,280
Speaker 4: and be really pissed off at me for letting Mark

1403
01:10:32,360 --> 01:10:34,840
Speaker 4: Zuckerberg train his AI on their faces. So I'd rather, like,

1404
01:10:35,240 --> 01:10:37,439
Speaker 4: I'd rather be safe than have them real mad at me.

1405
01:10:38,240 --> 01:10:39,920
Speaker 4: So I did that. I don't post pictures of my

1406
01:10:40,000 --> 01:10:42,160
Speaker 4: kids on Instagram anymore either. I used to have like

1407
01:10:42,200 --> 01:10:44,559
Speaker 4: a like I had, like they were very much like

1408
01:10:44,560 --> 01:10:46,400
Speaker 4: a part of my a part of my presence on

1409
01:10:46,439 --> 01:10:48,919
Speaker 4: the internet, just like here's what I'm doing, here's my family.

1410
01:10:49,240 --> 01:10:50,960
Speaker 4: And so I've kind of taken a step back from

1411
01:10:50,960 --> 01:10:53,280
Speaker 4: that too, just thinking a lot about like what are

1412
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:56,360
Speaker 4: they doing with our data. I still try to use

1413
01:10:56,400 --> 01:10:58,439
Speaker 4: it the same way I always have, Like I'm always

1414
01:10:58,520 --> 01:11:01,080
Speaker 4: using it with a focus on just like having fun

1415
01:11:01,120 --> 01:11:03,200
Speaker 4: with my friends, like I just yeah, I just want

1416
01:11:03,240 --> 01:11:07,000
Speaker 4: to like shit post and laugh. It's also been a

1417
01:11:07,000 --> 01:11:09,439
Speaker 4: pretty cool tool for me, the Wendy's thing, even though

1418
01:11:09,439 --> 01:11:12,679
Speaker 4: it was weird, Like anytime I need a new job.

1419
01:11:12,800 --> 01:11:15,679
Speaker 4: It is much less difficult for me than someone else

1420
01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:17,680
Speaker 4: because I can just like can go on LinkedIn and

1421
01:11:17,720 --> 01:11:19,400
Speaker 4: be like, hey, I need a job, and people will

1422
01:11:19,400 --> 01:11:21,400
Speaker 4: be like, the Wendy's lady needs a job, and so

1423
01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 4: like it's been like I am recently well semi recently

1424
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:28,000
Speaker 4: unemployed and just like I Actually I had had this

1425
01:11:28,120 --> 01:11:30,280
Speaker 4: fear when I quit Twitter that like people would forget

1426
01:11:30,320 --> 01:11:32,559
Speaker 4: who I was, which is such a such a weird

1427
01:11:32,840 --> 01:11:34,640
Speaker 4: idea to have. And I heard from like everyone in

1428
01:11:34,680 --> 01:11:37,000
Speaker 4: the world, like a billion people were like, I want

1429
01:11:37,000 --> 01:11:38,640
Speaker 4: to help you, and it just kind of reaffirmed for

1430
01:11:38,720 --> 01:11:41,920
Speaker 4: me that like community is not the website, you know.

1431
01:11:42,000 --> 01:11:44,519
Speaker 4: It's like I have a community and they live they

1432
01:11:44,560 --> 01:11:46,879
Speaker 4: live in the world, and sometimes I talk to them online,

1433
01:11:46,960 --> 01:11:48,240
Speaker 4: but it's like, I don't know. It was a really

1434
01:11:48,240 --> 01:11:50,559
Speaker 4: good reminder that my community will still exist if Twitter

1435
01:11:50,600 --> 01:11:52,200
Speaker 4: goes away or if Instagram goes away.

1436
01:11:52,280 --> 01:11:52,439
Speaker 6: Right.

1437
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:55,519
Speaker 1: Amy would later quit Twitter in the best way possible

1438
01:11:55,920 --> 01:11:59,400
Speaker 1: by changing her profile picture to a young Elon Musk

1439
01:11:59,479 --> 01:12:03,080
Speaker 1: as an awkward PayPal executive and tweet why did my

1440
01:12:03,160 --> 01:12:03,880
Speaker 1: wife leave me?

1441
01:12:04,240 --> 01:12:04,880
Speaker 2: Incredible?

1442
01:12:05,280 --> 01:12:08,760
Speaker 1: Also quick shout out to Wendy's because Amy told me

1443
01:12:08,840 --> 01:12:11,599
Speaker 1: that she met her husband working there, and they now

1444
01:12:11,680 --> 01:12:16,760
Speaker 1: have two little Wendy's. Now that's fresh beef. Can you

1445
01:12:16,760 --> 01:12:20,000
Speaker 1: say that about someone's kids? Thanks so much again to

1446
01:12:20,040 --> 01:12:22,479
Speaker 1: Amy for her time. Please check out her work in

1447
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:25,040
Speaker 1: the description and follow her on Blue Sky while you're

1448
01:12:25,040 --> 01:12:28,360
Speaker 1: at it. She's the best joke writer ever. And next week,

1449
01:12:28,720 --> 01:12:32,160
Speaker 1: in our thrilling conclusion of the Sentient Brands That Got

1450
01:12:32,200 --> 01:12:35,240
Speaker 1: to Horny series, we look at where this road of

1451
01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:39,680
Speaker 1: escalating personification in the social media brand world reaches a

1452
01:12:39,720 --> 01:12:44,439
Speaker 1: divergence in a wood on one path, rampant lock down,

1453
01:12:44,479 --> 01:12:51,120
Speaker 1: aeron nihilism, the other path begging strangers to pee on them. Anyways,

1454
01:12:51,320 --> 01:12:53,920
Speaker 1: here's a little bit more of the Hamburger Helpware mixtape,

1455
01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:57,360
Speaker 1: Bye you Catch and Stowe.

1456
01:12:57,600 --> 01:13:00,000
Speaker 6: I was whipping up a bow. I just came back

1457
01:13:00,120 --> 01:13:02,479
Speaker 6: from the stove. If I start restaurant on their home,

1458
01:13:02,680 --> 01:13:05,080
Speaker 6: I just dumped out that whole packet had the power.

1459
01:13:05,280 --> 01:13:07,679
Speaker 6: Let this see him my hot with whipping whipping, whipping

1460
01:13:07,760 --> 01:13:08,479
Speaker 6: should be dumb.

1461
01:13:08,479 --> 01:13:09,439
Speaker 2: I'm ten minutes.

1462
01:13:10,240 --> 01:13:12,080
Speaker 5: Hold up, I telling you I'm serving and stroggling of

1463
01:13:12,880 --> 01:13:13,599
Speaker 5: out up the oven.

1464
01:13:13,680 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 4: His mother lopper, Hey, I get some mother mama.

1465
01:13:17,600 --> 01:13:19,120
Speaker 5: Hey sartin your aunty and serge.

1466
01:13:19,800 --> 01:13:22,120
Speaker 6: Hey a boil the pope in dry the bundle with

1467
01:13:22,240 --> 01:13:24,360
Speaker 6: my wrist until I got that carbo Tom. I'm gonna

1468
01:13:24,360 --> 01:13:26,719
Speaker 6: talk on this a lot us. I'm gonna pot the handless.

1469
01:13:26,720 --> 01:13:27,639
Speaker 5: How you boy?

1470
01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:29,840
Speaker 6: I got too many flavors, man, you might have thought

1471
01:13:29,840 --> 01:13:30,479
Speaker 6: it was knters.

1472
01:13:30,840 --> 01:13:32,360
Speaker 5: I find them noodles like mcambroney.

1473
01:13:32,560 --> 01:13:34,920
Speaker 6: I stayed with chickens like catch you Tory trying to

1474
01:13:34,920 --> 01:13:37,440
Speaker 6: talk about some people in the now competition in my categuard.

1475
01:13:37,800 --> 01:13:41,800
Speaker 6: Hey get that he I be and Nick kitchen three

1476
01:13:42,360 --> 01:13:45,400
Speaker 6: degrees m he trying to Hey, all these heads are salty.

1477
01:13:45,520 --> 01:13:48,840
Speaker 6: I't two seasoned, hommy dripping down.

1478
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:50,200
Speaker 5: I got cheese on it.

1479
01:13:50,640 --> 01:13:53,719
Speaker 6: Yeah, left me make sure that was straight out of serving.

1480
01:13:53,760 --> 01:13:55,760
Speaker 6: You have a plate left to make sure that we

1481
01:13:55,840 --> 01:13:59,040
Speaker 6: heat left. He stayed with that heat only want people

1482
01:13:59,080 --> 01:14:01,400
Speaker 6: deleting it editor different ingredients.

1483
01:14:01,720 --> 01:14:03,400
Speaker 4: That's why don't you show me love? It's not me

1484
01:14:03,560 --> 01:14:04,520
Speaker 4: because I've always.

1485
01:14:04,240 --> 01:14:04,839
Speaker 6: Been rating.

1486
01:14:09,720 --> 01:14:12,400
Speaker 1: Sixteenth Minute is a production of fool Zone Media and

1487
01:14:12,479 --> 01:14:13,439
Speaker 1: iHeart Radios.

1488
01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 2: It is written, hosted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus.

1489
01:14:17,400 --> 01:14:20,439
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans.

1490
01:14:20,640 --> 01:14:21,120
Speaker 2: The amazing.

1491
01:14:21,160 --> 01:14:25,479
Speaker 1: Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our

1492
01:14:25,560 --> 01:14:27,600
Speaker 1: theme song is by Sad thirteen.

1493
01:14:28,200 --> 01:14:31,120
Speaker 2: Voice acting is from Brant Crater and Pet.

1494
01:14:31,160 --> 01:14:34,040
Speaker 1: Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my Kat's Flee

1495
01:14:34,120 --> 01:14:35,799
Speaker 1: and Casper and my pet Rockbird.

1496
01:14:35,960 --> 01:14:37,920
Speaker 2: Full outlive us, all bye,