Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio and Unbust Creative. I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Here everyone, I am back and I wanted to share
Speaker 1: a few quick updates with you. I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: say that we're gonna be back with new weekly episodes
Speaker 1: for our new season, dropping in just a few weeks,
Speaker 1: and I cannot wait. But in the meantime, I just
Speaker 1: had to come back in your earbuds because I just
Speaker 1: finished that new Amazon Prime documentary Lula Rich, and I
Speaker 1: am dying to talk about it. So, for those of
Speaker 1: you who don't know, Lula Rich is a documentary all
Speaker 1: about Lula Row, the multi level marketing scheme that sold
Speaker 1: leggings and big dreams of successful entrepreneurship to millions of
Speaker 1: millennial women across the country. But basically it was too
Speaker 1: good to be true because it turned out to be
Speaker 1: a total scam. And truly, there is nothing I love
Speaker 1: more on this planet than a documentary about a scam.
Speaker 1: So later this week we'll have a very special episode
Speaker 1: featuring Verberta Blevins, the former Lula Row mentor turned multi
Speaker 1: level marketing awareness advocate featured heavily in the documentary, and
Speaker 1: hearing Roberta story and all the other women's stories in
Speaker 1: the Lula ro documentary really got me thinking about the
Speaker 1: kinds of societal conditions for women that allowed for these
Speaker 1: women to get scammed by Lula Row. You know, we
Speaker 1: basically live in a world where if you're working mom,
Speaker 1: there just is not a lot of support. It's a
Speaker 1: world of precarity and scarcity. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: we also live in our world that tells women that
Speaker 1: we need to do it all. We have to be
Speaker 1: hashtag girl losses, you know, be successful entrepreneurs, raise our families,
Speaker 1: be good partners, while also being expected to advertise how
Speaker 1: great event now we're doing. Doing all of that incompatible
Speaker 1: stuff on a picture perfect, meticulously curated Instagram feed. It
Speaker 1: is way too much, and it creates the kind of
Speaker 1: conditions that can really lead to women being easy prey
Speaker 1: for scams like Lula Row. Conditions like feeling like you
Speaker 1: have to be perfect all the time on social media
Speaker 1: or advertising or branding yourself all the time on social media,
Speaker 1: Conditions like feeling like you have to do it all,
Speaker 1: and conditions that lead to burnout. So ahead of our
Speaker 1: episode this week, breaking down lu La Row and the
Speaker 1: documentary lu La Rich. I wanted to revisit my conversation
Speaker 1: with Anne Helen Peterson, author of Can't Even How Millennials
Speaker 1: became the Burnout Generation? And if you just can't get
Speaker 1: enough with Ann and I, you can check us both
Speaker 1: out at Unfinished Live, where I will be doing my
Speaker 1: very first ever live taping of There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. Unfinished Live as a convening of technologists, journalists,
Speaker 1: artists and change makers in person at the Shed in
Speaker 1: New York City and happening virtually on September. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be two days of talks about how we can all
Speaker 1: use ethical tech to build a fairer economy and a
Speaker 1: stronger democracy alongside the leading mind shaping that future. I'll
Speaker 1: be there alongside other speakers like and Helen Peterson, Charlie
Speaker 1: Worzel of Galaxy Brain, Sophia Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppress,
Speaker 1: Shin and Glitch, CEO of Neil dsh Just go to
Speaker 1: live dot Unfinished dot com and use promo code tangoti
Speaker 1: for more information. This is gonna be a little bit
Speaker 1: different of an episode than what we usually do because
Speaker 1: things aren't normal, and I don't feel normal, and you
Speaker 1: probably don't feel normal either, if you're anything like me.
Speaker 1: A combination of never ending to pressing news, I r
Speaker 1: L events and connections being replaced with more time sitting
Speaker 1: in front of the computer, and the overall creeping feeling
Speaker 1: of mounting instability has left to you feeling drained, exhausted, distracted, unmotivated,
Speaker 1: and burnt out. In her viral BuzzFeed essay called how
Speaker 1: Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, and Helen Peterson writes, if
Speaker 1: exhaustion means going to the point where you can't go
Speaker 1: any further, burnout means reaching that point and pushing yourself
Speaker 1: to keep going, whether for days, weeks, or years. Burnout
Speaker 1: isn't just one thing, it's everything. For weeks, I've had
Speaker 1: a list of things to do that I just can't
Speaker 1: seem to get done. They roll over to the next week,
Speaker 1: and I tell myself, we'll do them then, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I've had a package in the corner of my room
Speaker 1: that I've meant to return for months, my personal email
Speaker 1: inboxes where correspondence goes to die. I let emails go unreplied,
Speaker 1: and then feel awkward about how long it's been since
Speaker 1: I've replied, so they just go unanswered. While I'm working
Speaker 1: on this very episode, there's a chime an email added
Speaker 1: to my seemingly unending inbox. A work Slack message knocks
Speaker 1: for attention. In the background, a group text motification from
Speaker 1: friends wanted to confirm a zoom party for this weekend.
Speaker 1: I'm already feeling out of sorts, so I check Instagram
Speaker 1: to see if anyone left a nice comment on a
Speaker 1: picture that I posted of myself appearing to look very
Speaker 1: centered and chill that was ultimately posted to make myself
Speaker 1: feel better about my life in the first place, and
Speaker 1: all of it ends up feeling like a lot of distractions.
Speaker 1: At night, instead of going to sleep, I doom scroll
Speaker 1: social media until I pass out. I did to wake
Speaker 1: up and start the whole thing over in the morning.
Speaker 1: Is this what my life was meant to be? Like?
Speaker 1: Everything from work obligation is to leisure activities feeling like
Speaker 1: a task vying for my attention that I'll never get done.
Speaker 1: How did we get here? And Helen Peterson writes burnout
Speaker 1: and the behaviors in weight that accompany it aren't in
Speaker 1: fact something we can here by going on vacation. It's
Speaker 1: not limited to workers in acutely high stress environments. And
Speaker 1: it's not a temporary affliction. It's the millennial condition. It's
Speaker 1: our base temperature, it's our background music, it's the way
Speaker 1: things are, it's our lives. And that realization recast my
Speaker 1: recent struggles. Why can't I get this mundane stuff done
Speaker 1: because I'm burnt out? Why am I burnt out? Because
Speaker 1: I've internalized the idea that I should be working all
Speaker 1: the time. Why have I internalized that idea because everything
Speaker 1: and everyone in my life reinforced it explicitly and implicitly
Speaker 1: since I was young. Her essay about millennials and burnout
Speaker 1: was so impactful she turns it into a new book
Speaker 1: called Can't Even How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. In it,
Speaker 1: she describes that, famili, you're an exhausting feeling of what
Speaker 1: she calls aaron paralysis, being so overwhelmed that you're not
Speaker 1: able to get any of these tasks in life done,
Speaker 1: so you're left feeling perpetually stuck. But our generation was
Speaker 1: supposed to have it easier than our parents did, and
Speaker 1: technology was supposed to make our lives better and more fulfilled,
Speaker 1: not worse. So why are so many of us burnt out?
Speaker 1: What's going on? I am Anne Helen Peterson, and I
Speaker 1: write culture study for stub Stack. So one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I was so excited to speak to you
Speaker 1: today is because I just really have not been like
Speaker 1: in a good place. I guess I've been feeling stuck.
Speaker 1: I've had a hundred kind of work things to do,
Speaker 1: online emails to apply to, these kind of social obligations
Speaker 1: on Zoom. That's somehow to leave me feeling like more
Speaker 1: drained than when I started. And the main thing is
Speaker 1: like nothing was getting done. You know. I would write
Speaker 1: these to do lists and like they would just carry over,
Speaker 1: you know, day by day. And when I read your
Speaker 1: excerpt of your book and Wired, which will put on
Speaker 1: the show notes, it really just struck me. You know,
Speaker 1: you start with this rundown of your digital diet, and
Speaker 1: it was this very familiar and also exhausting mid of
Speaker 1: you know, little task where you feel like you're kind
Speaker 1: of never working but at the same time always working.
Speaker 1: And so I guess my question for you is, I
Speaker 1: know that when you first started writing your buzzbe piece,
Speaker 1: that later became the book Can't Even. It was a
Speaker 1: kind of a way for you to grapple with your own, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, your own issues around burnout and feelings sort
Speaker 1: of burnt out all the time. What did that feel
Speaker 1: like for you? What did that look like for you?
Speaker 1: You know, a lot like what you just described. I mean,
Speaker 1: we weren't in the pandemic, so like I felt like
Speaker 1: social interactions weren't nourishing. They just felt like another thing
Speaker 1: on my to do list. And I felt like that
Speaker 1: to do list was never ending. Like there were the
Speaker 1: things that just gave me so much shame because they
Speaker 1: kept recycling, like one week after or another, that like
Speaker 1: owners task that really isn't probably that hard, but like
Speaker 1: just felt like insurmountable um. But then also just like
Speaker 1: little things like the piddally stuff of life that just
Speaker 1: kept always being there. And I think, you know, for me,
Speaker 1: that is the best description of how burnout feels, is
Speaker 1: that everything becomes like a task to complete instead of
Speaker 1: you know, your life to live, like there's no highs
Speaker 1: and no lows. And that's why, you know, there are
Speaker 1: lots of intersections with like depression and burnout and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing but I think that it burnout feels
Speaker 1: to me at least different insomuch as it is so
Speaker 1: related to your attitude towards work. What are the attitudes
Speaker 1: about work that you dig into? Is this idea that
Speaker 1: our jobs have to be both the filling and also
Speaker 1: quote good jobs, you know, the kind of jobs that
Speaker 1: your parents would be excited to brad about you having.
Speaker 1: And you say that social media has really had a
Speaker 1: hand in building up these fantasy jobs that we should
Speaker 1: be striving to that are simultaneously both really cool and
Speaker 1: good jobs. Yeah, I think that younger people have internalized
Speaker 1: this idea that like jobs should be cool right in
Speaker 1: some capacity, that whatever your job is, whether it's a
Speaker 1: passionate job or a job that is like you know
Speaker 1: on the outside, you're like, oh, I'm just like making
Speaker 1: deals and like having cool drinks after work. I don't
Speaker 1: know like people have. It's hard to describe a cool job,
Speaker 1: you know when you see it. And the way that
Speaker 1: a job becomes cool is oftentimes through our mediation of
Speaker 1: it through social media. Right, So that's like everything from
Speaker 1: taking pictures of your equally cool job mates, like in
Speaker 1: your cool office space too, you know, even just like
Speaker 1: taking a picture that describes like how meaningful and rewarding
Speaker 1: and fulfilling your work is. We are always representing our
Speaker 1: jobs as I think, far more fulfilling and cool than
Speaker 1: they actually are. God, that really res dates with me.
Speaker 1: Something that you write about your piece and I didn't
Speaker 1: even I did not even really notice I was doing
Speaker 1: it until I read your piece. Was the way that
Speaker 1: so not only do we have to have our jobs
Speaker 1: look cool on social media, but we also have to
Speaker 1: sort of be constantly using social media to brand ourselves
Speaker 1: in a kind of way. And so even if you
Speaker 1: are not working, what you're posting on social media, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're a journalist, you want to show you want
Speaker 1: to use Twitter to show that you're with it, that
Speaker 1: you're smart, that you're reading good things, and that you're
Speaker 1: influencing others to read good things and have good takes.
Speaker 1: But that is actually work, and so it sort of
Speaker 1: creates this weird thing where your leisure time and your
Speaker 1: work time are kind of blended because you have to
Speaker 1: be branding yourself even though that's not work that you're
Speaker 1: necessarily being paid for it. Kind of we've kind of
Speaker 1: just blurred these lines of what isn't isn't work, and
Speaker 1: that we're always sort of working and it's sucking, exhausting. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: the way I think of it is that, like work,
Speaker 1: the contemporary like feeling of work, like it just seeps
Speaker 1: into every corner of your life. And when we don't
Speaker 1: have very good boundaries about like the space between work
Speaker 1: and non work, that makes it easier for it to
Speaker 1: slip into like, Oh, I just woke up in the morning,
Speaker 1: I'm going to roll over and open up my phone
Speaker 1: and check my email right now at six am, right
Speaker 1: or I'm like feeding my kids and I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: like casually scroll through my Slack messages. It just slips
Speaker 1: into all of those places. And of course the pandemic
Speaker 1: has has made that slippery noess even you know more so, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how how do you think the pandemic has really made
Speaker 1: this worse? I know I was reading a piece earlier
Speaker 1: that said that the time that we have saved by
Speaker 1: commuting by people who you know, work at home, now
Speaker 1: we've just filled that with more work. We haven't filled
Speaker 1: that with leisure time or rest or something else. We've
Speaker 1: just losed that time. However much that time it would
Speaker 1: have been that we would be commuting to an office,
Speaker 1: that's just more work time. Now, yes, absolutely, Like everyone
Speaker 1: I know who who has recouped rated a commute time
Speaker 1: by having to be at home, they they are not
Speaker 1: like using it to Oh I'm just like having some
Speaker 1: quiet reading time, or I'm meditating, or I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be really present with my kids, you know, any of
Speaker 1: those things that like our best selves would want to
Speaker 1: devote that time too. Instead we're just pushing more work
Speaker 1: into it. And this certainly happened to me when I
Speaker 1: moved to Montana in two seventeen. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, I'm gonna have so much more time
Speaker 1: to be outside beautiful Montana, Like it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be on the train all the time,
Speaker 1: like work from home going to be great. And instead
Speaker 1: I just worked more than I had worked in in years.
Speaker 1: So being in beautiful Big skuy Montana didn't make you
Speaker 1: feel less barred, doubt, I mean in some ways right
Speaker 1: Like I for me, one of the hard things that
Speaker 1: like daily hard things about living in the city was
Speaker 1: that like just from the way that I grew up,
Speaker 1: I grew up in rural Idaho, like being out of
Speaker 1: the city and in outdoor spaces is like very nourishing
Speaker 1: and replenishing to me, and it was so hard to
Speaker 1: find that. Like I mean, I love the parks in
Speaker 1: New York. They're great. I love parks just in general, fantastic.
Speaker 1: They are not the same as like being in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere and um, and it was just, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a car. It was just so hard
Speaker 1: to to get into those spaces from New York. So
Speaker 1: I did have that like available you know to me
Speaker 1: in Montana on a daily basis and especially on the weekends.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like I think the pictures
Speaker 1: that I was taking on social media of like all
Speaker 1: of this beauty, we're a way of trying to tell
Speaker 1: myself a story of how much more balanced my life was.
Speaker 1: Like you're telling the world, but you're also telling yourself
Speaker 1: a story with your social media when in truth, like
Speaker 1: I was just, um, I was just working all the time.
Speaker 1: I was traveling constantly for for my job and also
Speaker 1: for like go speak at colleges and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And and oftentimes I think people who do travel a ton,
Speaker 1: it's easy to frame that traveling it's like glamorous life right, Like,
Speaker 1: here I am in the in first class, and you're
Speaker 1: like the only reason you're in first classes because you
Speaker 1: travel so much that you get upgraded, and like the
Speaker 1: only difference in first classes that like your legs don't
Speaker 1: hurt by the end of the flight. Um, but again,
Speaker 1: you tell yourself a story in order to like not
Speaker 1: feel like crap about what the daily existence of your
Speaker 1: life is. Like, let's take a quick rate and we're back,
Speaker 1: So yeah, you say, um. Part of the problem is
Speaker 1: that these digital technologies, from cell phones to Apple watches,
Speaker 1: from Instagram to Slack, encourage our worst habits. They stig
Speaker 1: me are best laid plans for self preservation. They ransack
Speaker 1: our free time. They make it increasingly impossible to do
Speaker 1: things that actually ground us. They turn out run in
Speaker 1: the woods into an opportunity for self optimization. They're the
Speaker 1: neediest and most selfish entity in every interaction I have
Speaker 1: with others. They can compel us to frame experiences as
Speaker 1: we are experiencing them with future captions, and to conceive
Speaker 1: of travel as worthwild only when documented for public consumption.
Speaker 1: And my god, that really, I mean it's true. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel like I cannot have an experience if it
Speaker 1: is not filtered through social media, and that this sounds
Speaker 1: really fucked up, but that at times it's almost as
Speaker 1: if if it's not on social media, did it even
Speaker 1: really happen? Like if I have a lovely experience in
Speaker 1: the woods, or a lovely experience while camping or hiking,
Speaker 1: and I'm the only person who knows that it happened,
Speaker 1: did it even really happen? Yeah? Absolutely right, And of
Speaker 1: course it happened, because what actually matters is how it
Speaker 1: made you feel. But I think we've gotten so distance
Speaker 1: from that, Like the only way to know how it
Speaker 1: made us feel is how we're able to present it.
Speaker 1: Feel like, oh, I didn't get any good photos of that.
Speaker 1: You know, that's such a like it doesn't matter, right,
Speaker 1: What actually matters is the time that you spend with
Speaker 1: other people at the time you spent by yourself in
Speaker 1: like a beautiful space. But somehow for it to to
Speaker 1: seem important, to seem like it was worth our time
Speaker 1: not working, we have to make frame it in a
Speaker 1: certain way for public consumption, right. And another thing that
Speaker 1: you write about that I I really like is the
Speaker 1: way that we've kind of our hobbies now need to
Speaker 1: be framed through that kind of framework, Like you write
Speaker 1: about how you know, when you started gardening as a hobby,
Speaker 1: if you could, if you couldn't make your garden look
Speaker 1: nice enough quote unquote nice enough. For social media, it's
Speaker 1: a little it feels like you didn't really do it.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm a podcaster. I mostly do it
Speaker 1: because that's a medium that I love, But I feel
Speaker 1: this pressure just sort of you know, be using the
Speaker 1: podcast to or using the medium to sort of like
Speaker 1: pitch myself as a product instead of just like exploring
Speaker 1: a medium that I love. And I feel like we've
Speaker 1: gotten to a place where the things that we're meant
Speaker 1: to be doing for leisure are kind of viewed through
Speaker 1: this lens of either a having them be some sort
Speaker 1: of side hustle, because you can't just you know, do
Speaker 1: something to do, but it has to be a business
Speaker 1: entity or be that we're doing it only to be
Speaker 1: consumed consumed by others on social media, and it really
Speaker 1: it kind of robs us of this opportunity for actual
Speaker 1: reflective leisure time. Yeah, totally, for I think for reflective
Speaker 1: leisure time, which you know, I oftentimes there's like different
Speaker 1: kinds of leisure and everyone has to know what it
Speaker 1: is nourishing for them, and some of us like we've forgotten, right,
Speaker 1: Like we've spent so much time mediating it that you're like,
Speaker 1: what do I actually like? Right? Like, if you if
Speaker 1: you're only doing it for yourself, what what do you
Speaker 1: want to do? And that's that's hard to recover, I think, um,
Speaker 1: and then it also it robs you of you know, reflection,
Speaker 1: just in terms of like change, you know, I thought
Speaker 1: a lot of about some of the frustration that people
Speaker 1: have about what to post about Black lives matter? Right Like,
Speaker 1: do I like, okay, so the black the black square
Speaker 1: is wrong? But what should I post? Is this being
Speaker 1: too much? Is this not being enough? Like if if
Speaker 1: I'm a black person, do people look to me to
Speaker 1: like figure out what I'm posting? And are they like
Speaker 1: weirded out if I'm not posting? There's just so much
Speaker 1: compulsion instead of people actually trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: would it actually look like to be an ally right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny that you mentioned this. I felt so much.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say anxiety. I felt so much something.
Speaker 1: Let's just use the word tention, even though that doesn't
Speaker 1: even feel like the right word in the moment that
Speaker 1: we had around Black Lives Matter and racial reckoning, a
Speaker 1: with people asking me like, oh, I posted this, do
Speaker 1: you think it's right? And then be the feeling of
Speaker 1: being sort of like like looked too for you know,
Speaker 1: a model of what people should it or shouldn't be posting.
Speaker 1: I got so much sort of tension and anxiety around
Speaker 1: that that opening opening Instagram or opening my social media
Speaker 1: just added this, you know, for an already fraught moment
Speaker 1: for me as a black woman. It added this this
Speaker 1: extra level of just tension and and anxiety that I
Speaker 1: really couldn't navigate to the point where I was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to engage with this online. Like I will,
Speaker 1: I will use the platforms that I feel comfortable using.
Speaker 1: But I can't. I can't. This is I can't show
Speaker 1: up like this online. It's just too draining. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Like you're trying to deal with like what's actually happening
Speaker 1: in the world, and then you have to drain deal
Speaker 1: with like the secondary annoyances, like even if you're not
Speaker 1: intending to like sign on and be annoyed, Like there's
Speaker 1: just things that people are going to be doing that
Speaker 1: are like going to be, like you said, tension, like
Speaker 1: it's going to create this tension that you don't actually need.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like not signing, did you feel like
Speaker 1: you were missing something? Or did it feel good? That's
Speaker 1: a great question. It felt good only when I told
Speaker 1: myself that I wasn't going to care what people thought
Speaker 1: on social media, Like I knew what I was doing,
Speaker 1: Like I in my day job, I work for a
Speaker 1: feminist organization that was very much involved in, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the movement for Black Lives stuff, So
Speaker 1: I know, I know that I was like doing the
Speaker 1: work there. I know that I was showing up at
Speaker 1: protests and like helping where I could. Um. I also
Speaker 1: going out physically in protest for protest was a little
Speaker 1: bit tough for me because I'm ammunial compromise, and so
Speaker 1: that was the whole thing. And so once I told myself,
Speaker 1: you know, I know in my real life where I
Speaker 1: stand and what I'm doing, and if anybody thinks anything
Speaker 1: good or bad about what I have or have not
Speaker 1: posted on social media, that is their problem. Reminding myself
Speaker 1: of that constantly and constantly and constantly, like that was
Speaker 1: the only way that I could show up in a
Speaker 1: way that felt not shitty. Yeah, well, and that's the thing, right,
Speaker 1: like you were figuring it out, like you were actually
Speaker 1: figuring it out for yourself instead of figuring it out
Speaker 1: like visa vir reactions to other people's social media accounts.
Speaker 1: Right like that to me is really difficult for a
Speaker 1: lot of people to write out. They're so out of
Speaker 1: practice at like authentically figuring out their stance and how
Speaker 1: they want to position themselves. Does that make sense? It
Speaker 1: makes so much sense. And I think, like like you said,
Speaker 1: right now, because of the pandemic and because of the
Speaker 1: difficulty that some people have who would want to show
Speaker 1: up in person for a march or demonstration or something
Speaker 1: like and then they just physically cannot um that a
Speaker 1: lot of those messages get mixed, and so you feel
Speaker 1: a compulsion like I need to somehow signal that I
Speaker 1: want to be there, and so how do you signal
Speaker 1: it without overly signaling it? So, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: like being especially like people who are how do I
Speaker 1: put this? Um, I think spending some time with yourself
Speaker 1: to actually figure out, you know, do how do I
Speaker 1: perform in a way that actually expresses my allyhood instead
Speaker 1: of or like my devotion to this cause instead of
Speaker 1: thinking about how do I signal my devotion to this cause?
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Definitely? Yeah, it's funny. I mean,
Speaker 1: you you put that so well. I was just I
Speaker 1: was just reading the part of your essay that's about
Speaker 1: slack and how so much of slack is like signaling
Speaker 1: that we are working and not actually doing the work.
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh, I'm thumb nothing my coworkers comment,
Speaker 1: or I'm dropping in a link. Social media has and
Speaker 1: all of these different technologies have given us ways to
Speaker 1: signal that we care about the cause, or signal that
Speaker 1: we're paying attention and checked in without actually be like
Speaker 1: doing the thing. Yeah, exactly, And that's it. Just if
Speaker 1: you take up all this time signaling instead of actually
Speaker 1: doing like that, it evacuates there, Like it evacuates your
Speaker 1: actions of any sort of intent or power I think.
Speaker 1: And so whether that's slack, like you don't have time
Speaker 1: to work because you're so busy trying to show that
Speaker 1: you're working on slack, I cannot tell you how great
Speaker 1: it is not to be on slack, Like obviously I
Speaker 1: missed like chatting with my coworkers. But when I left
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed in August, like suddenly there wasn't that thing that
Speaker 1: made me feel like, oh, I guess I should like
Speaker 1: I haven't said anything for like half an hour. I
Speaker 1: guess I should like say something. It's just compulsory, and
Speaker 1: that is I think what's oftentimes frustrating is that like, yes,
Speaker 1: I was working, I didn't need to do with thumbs
Speaker 1: up like he said yeah. And I think as as
Speaker 1: like creative professionals, it can be so fraught because you know,
Speaker 1: nobody just sits down in front of the computer and
Speaker 1: like a perfect draft spills out of you and you
Speaker 1: know in twenty minutes or something. But I do feel
Speaker 1: like the time that you spend thinking and sitting in
Speaker 1: one of your computer and like I dating or whatever,
Speaker 1: that's all part of it, but it can feel kind
Speaker 1: of rot. It gives me this like anxiety where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have to like overperformed to show that I worked,
Speaker 1: that I was actually working that and not to scooping off.
Speaker 1: And it is kind of a part of me like
Speaker 1: telling myself that I'm not cooping off, even though somewhere
Speaker 1: deep down I know it. It's like this constant thing
Speaker 1: that's such an added distraction from just getting my fucking
Speaker 1: work done well. And I think we oftentimes told ourselves
Speaker 1: stories about work has to look like a certain sort
Speaker 1: of thing, right like instead of work can also look
Speaker 1: like staring into space, where it can look like taking
Speaker 1: a walk. Work can work like not working, um, and
Speaker 1: that has been really hard to especially those of us
Speaker 1: who work in creative fields. It's really hard to understand
Speaker 1: because to us, work is you are sitting in front
Speaker 1: of the computer and you are doing something on that
Speaker 1: computer screen. And it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: did we get to this place? You know, when I
Speaker 1: ready your piece, it really resonated with me. And I
Speaker 1: think the fact that your your buzz vpiece went meta
Speaker 1: viral shows that we're not alone in having these tasks
Speaker 1: that pile up, feeling this this air in paralysis when
Speaker 1: you can't get anything done. How did we how did
Speaker 1: millennials get to this place where we're all so burned out? Well,
Speaker 1: I think the way that I try to position in
Speaker 1: the book is so much of it has to do
Speaker 1: with instability, with procarity, and so that's what bonds people
Speaker 1: who are you know, working three different gig jobs right now,
Speaker 1: and people who are estensively a middle class but are
Speaker 1: super over indebted both in terms of student debt and
Speaker 1: consumer debt, and still really struggling to figure out like
Speaker 1: how am I going to cover rent next month? Or
Speaker 1: how am I going to find childcare next month? And
Speaker 1: the difference, of course, is that middle class people can
Speaker 1: oftentimes throw money at a problem and do have some
Speaker 1: some sort of a safety net either in terms of
Speaker 1: family bonds, like they can you know, you could always
Speaker 1: move back into that basement, and not everyone has that.
Speaker 1: But still, what we're trying to do is keep trading water,
Speaker 1: and so the energy required to keep trading water oftentimes
Speaker 1: that means like feeling like you have to work all
Speaker 1: the time. That means taking your leisure time and optimizing
Speaker 1: it or monetizing it in some way. And that also
Speaker 1: means throwing a lot of time at parenting because you're
Speaker 1: trying to reproduce your own semblance of stability for the
Speaker 1: next generation. Yeah, it's funny. I know that you've written
Speaker 1: about the ways that parenting has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with millennial burn out, and something I found so interesting
Speaker 1: is how this cuts across raith and class lines. It
Speaker 1: just looks differently for different people, depending on their background
Speaker 1: and situations. I know, for me, you know, we grew
Speaker 1: up pretty comfortably, but my mom was the first person
Speaker 1: in her family to go to college. We grew up
Speaker 1: in a black, Southern family. And for them, they were like,
Speaker 1: you know, we want our kids to not you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote become statistics. And the way to get the
Speaker 1: way to achieve that is through college and a stable job.
Speaker 1: And so the same way the upper middle class white
Speaker 1: parent who was interested in their kid going to an
Speaker 1: ivy league college, it's sort of the same, even though
Speaker 1: the cultural and racial, you know, reasonings for getting there
Speaker 1: are different, it's sort of the same thing. Where this
Speaker 1: parenting then sets kids up for this idea that like
Speaker 1: the most important thing is getting a stable job, going
Speaker 1: to college, that pathway, and it really can lead to
Speaker 1: kids being raised almost as little adults. Yeah, totally, And
Speaker 1: a lot of that is motivated. And I try to
Speaker 1: do this a bit in the book. It's it is,
Speaker 1: as you said, like, it's motivated by not wanting your
Speaker 1: kids to take a step back from where you've gone,
Speaker 1: right and our parents generation, uh, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of them had reached that that middle class stability some
Speaker 1: semblance of that middle class stability, sometimes for the first
Speaker 1: time in their family history. And sometimes that was through
Speaker 1: going to college and getting a job after that, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it was through like getting a good union job
Speaker 1: and having stability that way. And so the goal is, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want my kids to fall back from where
Speaker 1: I've come, and so you try to imprint all of
Speaker 1: these strategies for success instability, and and you know sometimes
Speaker 1: too and this I found this in my interviews, like
Speaker 1: sometimes people's parents didn't give a ship right, like they
Speaker 1: were like, whatever, you'll figure it out, But the kids
Speaker 1: themselves really picked up through osmosis, you know, from their kids,
Speaker 1: their peers, from their peers, parents, from their teachers, that
Speaker 1: that was the only way that they had to turn
Speaker 1: themselves into a walking resume, even if their parents didn't care. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely feel that this is like reinforced both explicitly
Speaker 1: and implicitly, Like we're just told that this is how
Speaker 1: you're meant to live life, like you're meant to your
Speaker 1: meant your job is meant to be your every thing.
Speaker 1: Your identity should be this job, and you should be
Speaker 1: working seven when you're not working. You should be feeling
Speaker 1: guilty about networking or you know, turn whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: if you if you're a bake if you like enjoy
Speaker 1: cooking on the weekends, that should be a business or
Speaker 1: an Instagram page or something that you can never just
Speaker 1: not be you should never be not optimized for working
Speaker 1: or something that looks like working. Yeah, and well, and
Speaker 1: think about that though, Like what was it you know,
Speaker 1: my uh, like my mom would make bread on the weekends,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't like, oh, I need to try to
Speaker 1: like hustle on the side to like make a couple
Speaker 1: of extra dollars. And what it was is that like
Speaker 1: they were able to, you know, pay off my dad's
Speaker 1: student loans, Like they were able to buy a house
Speaker 1: in North Idaho. Like they weren't struggling constantly to cover
Speaker 1: the costs of raising a family, Whereas because of incredible
Speaker 1: increases in the cost of living, the cost of childcare,
Speaker 1: the cost of healthcare, so many families that have like
Speaker 1: dual income streams are still struggling and are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta make an extra fifty dollars every weekend by
Speaker 1: making bread. Yeah, that's something that I think you do
Speaker 1: a nice job. Of illustrating is how in our generation,
Speaker 1: millennials and older millennials, like a lot of us graduated
Speaker 1: into the Great Recession, you know, the dot com burst,
Speaker 1: now the instability of COVID. I feel, like so many
Speaker 1: of us, we have never had the luxury of making
Speaker 1: choices about our life based on security. Like every choice,
Speaker 1: every professional choice I've made, has been based on scarcities
Speaker 1: and based on my back is against the wall. Some
Speaker 1: calamity is happening that's completely out of my control, and
Speaker 1: I have to make my professional choices based on this scarcity.
Speaker 1: And we have no idea sort of what it looks
Speaker 1: like to be making a life at a time of stability.
Speaker 1: I don't even really I can't even like grasp that.
Speaker 1: It's so true. And I think, like, especially people who
Speaker 1: work in more creative fields, like there's this expectation to that,
Speaker 1: like the company you work for is going to fold,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you're not going to have any sort
Speaker 1: of stable job, Like you can't expect a job to
Speaker 1: endure in the way that a lot of our parents
Speaker 1: like started one job and stayed at that job for
Speaker 1: many decades, or like my grandfather worked at one company
Speaker 1: his entire life, right, um, And I think that that
Speaker 1: over our chain procarity so much of it, you know,
Speaker 1: it comes from entering into the economy as adults during
Speaker 1: the first Great Recession and then also just like expecting
Speaker 1: the other shoe to drop. Like most millennials I know
Speaker 1: are not surprised by the pandemic. They're like, we're just
Speaker 1: waiting for everything to collapse. And to me, that shows
Speaker 1: a psychology that is conditioned towards procarity, right, It's conditioned
Speaker 1: towards never feeling like you have a stability. And what
Speaker 1: that does I think over the course of you know,
Speaker 1: many millions of people over the course of a generation.
Speaker 1: And I think it's going to affect gen z as well.
Speaker 1: Is it it makes it hard to to be confident,
Speaker 1: to experiment, to take risks, you know, like when people
Speaker 1: talk about what having a universal basic income does, or
Speaker 1: even having health insurance that's not tied to employment. Is
Speaker 1: what it does is it allows you to make decisions
Speaker 1: that make life easier for you, right, that make it
Speaker 1: so that you can find a job that doesn't feel
Speaker 1: shitty and exploited of um. And it allows you to
Speaker 1: go back to school if you want to. You know,
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of things that having even just
Speaker 1: that modicum of stability permits for people, and we are
Speaker 1: so deeply unfamiliar with that. So how do we get
Speaker 1: to a place where instability is not the internalized norm
Speaker 1: for an entire generation? I mean, create a lot more
Speaker 1: social safety nets. So the big thing that's changed between
Speaker 1: our parents and grandparents generation and now is that so
Speaker 1: many of those social safety nets have been eroded. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like, uh, you know, pretty basic things
Speaker 1: like the fact that we have legislators have just largely
Speaker 1: defunded so much funding for public education and so like
Speaker 1: because you have so much student debt that makes it
Speaker 1: harder to you know, if you lose a job, you're like,
Speaker 1: well gonna default on these loans, right, But then also
Speaker 1: just thinking about things like um funding for some funding
Speaker 1: that has never existed, but funding for things like universal
Speaker 1: pre k or even before pre k uh mandatory paternity leave,
Speaker 1: universal health care, like things that are not alien to
Speaker 1: most developed countries across the world. Like these are things
Speaker 1: that actually make life feel like you're not conditioned to precarity.
Speaker 1: But I think that we are so obsessed with this
Speaker 1: myth of the individual and somehow if the individual can
Speaker 1: work harder, then you'll get out of precarity. But this
Speaker 1: is why millennials are having these sort of existential crisis.
Speaker 1: So myself included, is you get to this point if
Speaker 1: you're late thirties, right, like the oldest millennials are thirty
Speaker 1: nine and forty, and you're like, wait, I thought by
Speaker 1: this point I would have found some stability, And you're like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, like I have kids, or I have
Speaker 1: been you know, been in the workforce for almost twenty years,
Speaker 1: Like where's that stability? Why isn't it here yet, and
Speaker 1: becoming deeply disillusioned and saying like, well, this is just broken.
Speaker 1: We need to fix this entirely. Oh my gosh. It's
Speaker 1: like I I go back and watch these movies that
Speaker 1: I loved in the nineties when I when I watched
Speaker 1: Someone I was young, and all of the main characters
Speaker 1: need to be like twenty five and having some like
Speaker 1: fantastic job or like having a lot of existential dread
Speaker 1: that fact by the fact that they're not, you know,
Speaker 1: but they're turning twenty eight and they don't have their
Speaker 1: life together. And here I am in my mid thirties
Speaker 1: thinking like like, oh, we thought we were gonna have
Speaker 1: stable jobs, stable partner's own houses by the town. We
Speaker 1: we're like twenty five. That like, that was the framework
Speaker 1: we were working with. What is the one? Isn't it
Speaker 1: like my best friend's wedding? There? So funny? So funny?
Speaker 1: Oh more, after a quick right, let's get right back
Speaker 1: to it. The millennial generation is one of the first
Speaker 1: generations where it's not a given that we'll have things
Speaker 1: better than our parents had it. And yet there was
Speaker 1: this attitude where millennials were all lazy or entitled little brats,
Speaker 1: were all whiners. How do we combat those attitudes? Well?
Speaker 1: I do think that the messaging is kind of shifted,
Speaker 1: and part of that is, of course that millennials are
Speaker 1: now like at the helmet a lot of different publications,
Speaker 1: but just the idea that like millennials have kind of
Speaker 1: been screwed is becoming more are uh popular, I think.
Speaker 1: But then at the same time, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it has to do or the way that we
Speaker 1: can change minds about this is actually having conversations with
Speaker 1: people who are you know, our relatives who are are here,
Speaker 1: like people who are older than us, that we can
Speaker 1: actually feel like we can have a real conversation with
Speaker 1: about like, here's tell me about what it was like
Speaker 1: when you had worked your way through college, which is
Speaker 1: always the common refrain, right, which is like, I don't
Speaker 1: know why you took out all the student debt. I
Speaker 1: managed to work my way through college. And you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: so how much did you make a semester? How many
Speaker 1: hours did you work? And then you're like, and here's
Speaker 1: how many hours someone would have to work in order
Speaker 1: to work their way through a state college today, right,
Speaker 1: And those things don't add up. But sometimes you need
Speaker 1: to sit someone down and be like, here's how things
Speaker 1: have substantively changed, and like you can do it without
Speaker 1: turning it into like a math lecture, but you can
Speaker 1: be like, here's how the cost of living hasn't changed, right, like,
Speaker 1: or like the ore raises haven't um been accompanied by
Speaker 1: changes in for cost of living or even inflation that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I tried to do a little bit was create
Speaker 1: a little bit of empathy by being like, you know,
Speaker 1: boomers were burnt out in some capacity too, because they
Speaker 1: had grown up in this time of unprecedented economic stability,
Speaker 1: and then as they entered the job market in the
Speaker 1: nineties seventies, they experienced those first waves supercarity, and we're
Speaker 1: responding to them and so like if anything, you know,
Speaker 1: part of the reason boomers and millennials have such a
Speaker 1: difficult relationship is because I think we are pretty similar
Speaker 1: in a lot of foundational ways. I think that's a
Speaker 1: good point. I think coming come having it come down
Speaker 1: to empathy and having real conversations about what things looked
Speaker 1: like because I don't know. I think about folks who
Speaker 1: are you know, the generation you know after me, and
Speaker 1: I want them to know we had a hard time.
Speaker 1: I don't want them to feel as if I want
Speaker 1: them to know that if they are struggling to figure
Speaker 1: it out, that we also struggled to figure it out.
Speaker 1: I don't want them to feel like they're alone, or
Speaker 1: that they're a whiner, or that they're you know, they
Speaker 1: make their they have some sort of individual failing if
Speaker 1: they can't figure it out, because I do think every
Speaker 1: generation has has their issues with that totally well. And
Speaker 1: I'm seeing, you know, two different kind of discourses come
Speaker 1: out of gen Z and one of them is like,
Speaker 1: you guys were sold a false bill of goods we're
Speaker 1: going to reject that bill of goods. Right, It's like
Speaker 1: we actually think you can like have a different sort
Speaker 1: of life, that college maybe isn't the most important thing
Speaker 1: in the world, that we can do something about climate change,
Speaker 1: that you know, everything isn't interractable. So and I'm always
Speaker 1: hurted by it, by that posture. But then I also
Speaker 1: see some some like stuff that's like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: why are millennials such whiner? Right, Like they just need
Speaker 1: a work harder? And I'm like, don't you dare? So
Speaker 1: I think hopefully by creating not just empathy but actual solidarity, right,
Speaker 1: being like, it doesn't have to be this way for us,
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be this way for you either.
Speaker 1: How can we work together to change it? You make
Speaker 1: this point a lot on your work that I love
Speaker 1: that sometimes when we feel like we don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of power, leaning into the collective, whether it's joining
Speaker 1: a union, which I know more and more young people
Speaker 1: are supportive of, or just sharing honest experiences with each
Speaker 1: other can really be the antidote to some of the
Speaker 1: problems that you lay out, you know, the collective, you know,
Speaker 1: feeling like you're part of the United collective can really
Speaker 1: make you feel a lot more powerful and less alone totally.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't fix everything, but it does make you
Speaker 1: feel like, I mean, this is the word, right, it
Speaker 1: makes you feel a little less alone, like it makes
Speaker 1: you feel like you're not just fighting this problem on
Speaker 1: your own. So much of the writing and content that
Speaker 1: I see around burnout, particularly geared toward women, will always
Speaker 1: have some sort of individual little thing that like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to be the silver bullet or the
Speaker 1: magic bullet that that helps you figure it out. So
Speaker 1: whether it's using your meditation app or you know, doing
Speaker 1: your self care manicure, or you know, quit your nine
Speaker 1: to five and be your own girl boss. And I
Speaker 1: am my own boss, and I can tell you that
Speaker 1: my boss sucks. Working for her is not great all
Speaker 1: the time, you know. And I can't think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not these individual choices or actions that are
Speaker 1: going to save us from something that is systemic, that
Speaker 1: is that is bigger than us. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think the real issue is capitalism, you know. And I
Speaker 1: guess my question is how a how do we get
Speaker 1: to a place where we unlearn that it's an like
Speaker 1: we are doing something wrong individually. If we are feeling
Speaker 1: burnt out and be how can we go forward knowing
Speaker 1: that the real issue is so much bigger than us,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. So there was a critique of
Speaker 1: the book that was, like, this book doesn't talk enough
Speaker 1: about therapy, right, And I get it because I do
Speaker 1: think that a lot of the neuroses that millennials have developed,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are things that like we need
Speaker 1: to work through on the personal level, um, through therapy
Speaker 1: if possible, even though therapy is not accessible to so
Speaker 1: many people. Um. But I also think that, like we've
Speaker 1: been taught oftentimes that like, oh, if you have a
Speaker 1: problem with this work play scenario, that's a personal problem,
Speaker 1: instead of thinking about like, oh, well everyone I work
Speaker 1: with has this problem with this workplace, so maybe it's
Speaker 1: a workplace problem, right, like, or all of these people
Speaker 1: feel the same way in society right now. Instead of
Speaker 1: that being a personal problem, it's societal problem. It's not
Speaker 1: something that you can just work through on your own.
Speaker 1: And also, almost every millennial I know who burnt out,
Speaker 1: who is burnt out, is either going to therapy or
Speaker 1: has been going to therapy. Right, It's not like therapy,
Speaker 1: it's going to solve those larger issues as well. And
Speaker 1: so what we have to think about is what are
Speaker 1: these systems that are that are making everything so sucky? Right? Like?
Speaker 1: What are what are the systems that make the scenario
Speaker 1: that leads us to burn out? And I'm hardened actually
Speaker 1: by even just like the willingness for us to say
Speaker 1: things like capitalism allowed, Like even ten years ago, it
Speaker 1: was kind of like a like third rail, like oh
Speaker 1: are you a socialist? Like, oh, are you part of
Speaker 1: the occupying movement to like talk about capitalism as this problem?
Speaker 1: Whereas now, like I mean, in part of it, I
Speaker 1: think is the success of memes and even just like
Speaker 1: all over TikTok and Twitter, like you see a very
Speaker 1: clear indictment of capitalism as the source of a lot
Speaker 1: of our ills. And I think that, like you know,
Speaker 1: regardless of my personal politics, which are like much more
Speaker 1: radical than anything that I can see us implementing in
Speaker 1: the United States in our lifetime, I do think that
Speaker 1: there are ways to make capitalism work for the worker,
Speaker 1: and that that is possible, and that there are plans
Speaker 1: or policy suggestions that can make that possible and we
Speaker 1: can do it. The big first step is regime change.
Speaker 1: So even though it's hokey to say, like we have
Speaker 1: to vote, like we have to resume change, and then
Speaker 1: we have to make some big changes and be willing
Speaker 1: to make ourselves amenable to those changes, not just incremental ones,
Speaker 1: but things that might feel scary, um, because they're going
Speaker 1: to reorganize our lives, and I think for the better.
Speaker 1: So I might have to ask, you know, in your
Speaker 1: in the excerpts that I read, you talked about feeling
Speaker 1: so burnt out and how writing that BuzzFeed piece was
Speaker 1: in a in a way trying to kind of come
Speaker 1: to terms with that. How has that how has that
Speaker 1: looked like for your personal journey? Are you still feeling
Speaker 1: that way where you give me give me a check in, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty burnt out in the moment, I think because
Speaker 1: I'm trying to wrestle starting like this newsletter that I'm
Speaker 1: doing is basically like be made my own shitty boss,
Speaker 1: like you said, but then also letting getting this book
Speaker 1: out into the world, which requires a lot of talking
Speaker 1: about the book, which I find incredibly gratifying, but it
Speaker 1: also is time right um. And and then trying to
Speaker 1: think to the future about other big projects like whether
Speaker 1: that's books or whatever. And it was all really amplified
Speaker 1: for me a couple of weeks ago when the smoke
Speaker 1: got so bad out here in the West and I
Speaker 1: realized that, like the one release valve that I had
Speaker 1: cultivated over the course of just general work stress but
Speaker 1: also like COVID and quarantine stress, was being able to
Speaker 1: go outside. And when that was taken away from me
Speaker 1: for a week, I was just like, I I have nothing,
Speaker 1: Like I'm collapsing under the weight of this this house
Speaker 1: of cards that I've built for myself. And I think
Speaker 1: that drove home to me, like just how fragile things were,
Speaker 1: Like I've the balance was in my life of trying
Speaker 1: to keep working and some sort of release uh at
Speaker 1: the same time. But I mean the thing for myself like, no,
Speaker 1: of course I'm not cure to burnout. But what I
Speaker 1: can do is I can recognize burnout behaviors more easily.
Speaker 1: They can try to like see them for what they
Speaker 1: are and just kind of not judge them, but be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how can I maybe shift a couple of things just
Speaker 1: quietly in my life to to try to change that
Speaker 1: um And you know, talking about it definitely makes it
Speaker 1: feel better. I agree. I have to tell you you're
Speaker 1: You're writing and burnout made me feel you know. We
Speaker 1: talked about the collective and feeling less alone. Just knowing
Speaker 1: that I'm not the only person who feels such incredible
Speaker 1: shame around my atrocious inbox or my inability to just
Speaker 1: get simple ship done, or the package that's been in
Speaker 1: the back of my car for six months. Just knowing
Speaker 1: that it's not just me really gave me the power
Speaker 1: to just start thinking about it and talking about it honestly,
Speaker 1: like like, I really you feel like you opened up
Speaker 1: that space for so many people, myself included to do that.
Speaker 1: So I'm so grateful for your work. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it was something that a lot of us were ashamed
Speaker 1: of for a long time. It's like we there was
Speaker 1: this idea that you had to somehow be like doing
Speaker 1: all the ship right, like that you had to like
Speaker 1: keeping it all be keeping it all together at all times.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, even the people who are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so authentic on Instagram or whatever like that is
Speaker 1: such a performance of like messiness, Like it's not actual
Speaker 1: messiness or vulnerability. And so I just hope that we
Speaker 1: can continue to have this conversation in all of the
Speaker 1: different directions it takes us, and also continue to be
Speaker 1: really piste off about it because I want to use
Speaker 1: that anger, uh and use it to push us towards change.
Speaker 1: Nothing we're dealing with right now is normal. So if
Speaker 1: you're feeling burnt out or like you can't get anything
Speaker 1: done or you can't find any motivation, that's okay. One
Speaker 1: of us are operating under normal circumstances, and you shouldn't
Speaker 1: expect yourself to perform like we are. How have you
Speaker 1: been dealing with burnout? Hit us up at Hello at
Speaker 1: tangodi dot com and let us know if you're interested
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Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by me bridget tod
Speaker 1: It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative
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