Speaker 1: Real talk. Creating content costs money.
Speaker 2: That is a whole fact.
Speaker 3: Dead ass and dead ass that costs the money part
Speaker 3: was the part that you left out when we embarked
Speaker 3: on this journey to.
Speaker 2: Begin with dead ass, I might have changed my mind.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm Kadeen and I'm Devoured and we're the Ellis's.
Speaker 1: You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Speaker 3: Voice and reading each other publicly as.
Speaker 2: A form of therapy.
Speaker 1: Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 2: Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, we are.
Speaker 4: We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
Speaker 4: li's most taboo topics.
Speaker 2: Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Speaker 5: Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass
Speaker 5: is a term that we say every day. So when
Speaker 5: we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts one hundred
Speaker 5: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 5: We about to take Philo talk to a whole new level.
Speaker 3: Dead ads starts right now.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna take y'all all the way back over decade
Speaker 5: twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: This is a story I've never told before.
Speaker 2: Really. Okay, So we were what ten years in.
Speaker 1: Yes, we were ten years in.
Speaker 5: We had just moved back from Michigan in two thousand
Speaker 5: and nine. We were starting to get rolling with the
Speaker 5: gym and stuff.
Speaker 3: Jackson was born twenty eleven. Yes, okay, so there we.
Speaker 1: Are, and.
Speaker 5: We had started married to the gym. Remember married to
Speaker 5: the gym?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: So the reason why I started marrying to the gym
Speaker 5: was because Kay had just had Jackson.
Speaker 1: She was trying to get her body back.
Speaker 5: So I started filming training her and then we had
Speaker 5: a bunch of other moms from the football program who
Speaker 5: we're also training as well. Apparently some producers saw it
Speaker 5: came to me and Kadeena were just like, hey, we
Speaker 5: think you guys are great on camera. We would love
Speaker 5: to help you guys create a show. So I was like, cool,
Speaker 5: what's the show going to be about? They were like, well,
Speaker 5: what's at stake? What's his steak for you guys? And
Speaker 5: I was like, what do you mean. We just got married,
Speaker 5: we have a son. We told me I have a
Speaker 5: training program for kids. So they got excited about the
Speaker 5: training program. I'm like, oh my, got the training program?
Speaker 5: How many parents? So I told them how many kids?
Speaker 5: How many parents? Like any single moms. Many of the
Speaker 5: moms got beef, and then I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 5: how did we get here?
Speaker 2: How did we get to beef?
Speaker 5: The name of the show was called Married to the Gym, Like,
Speaker 5: that's the segment is Married to the Gym. I thought
Speaker 5: we were going to discuss, you know, what we can
Speaker 5: do with love and work together and build together. Again,
Speaker 5: there's not much his steak there, so I said, Okay, well,
Speaker 5: if that's not the direction you want to go, then
Speaker 5: we don't want to talk about the kids and their parents.
Speaker 5: Their parents come to train with us, like their personal
Speaker 5: lives are not on the table here. But I also
Speaker 5: had another friend at the time who played in the NFL,
Speaker 5: and we developed the show called d and Bow Tackle
Speaker 5: the off season, and we filmed and they enjoyed it.
Speaker 5: But at the time, my boy Bow was in the
Speaker 5: middle of his football careers, Like, I can't commit to
Speaker 5: doing a reality TV show.
Speaker 2: Forgot about.
Speaker 1: Season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had to dig up that trailer. It was
Speaker 2: actually really good.
Speaker 5: It actually was really good to go and it was
Speaker 5: it was ultimately about Bow and I being remember the.
Speaker 1: Show Robin Big.
Speaker 5: It was like Robing Big, you know, Bo was six five,
Speaker 5: two hundred and eighty pounds. I'm a smaller guy compared
Speaker 5: to him, and we both met our wives in college.
Speaker 5: We were building families at the time. They had three kids.
Speaker 5: They had lost their son, Skylar, yes, and we had
Speaker 5: one child. So it was just about college roommates who
Speaker 5: were embarking on this different life. During the off season,
Speaker 5: I had transitioned to not no longer doing NFL football,
Speaker 5: but I was working as a broadcaster. So they loved
Speaker 5: that idea. But Bo didn't want to do it. So
Speaker 5: they were like, Oh, we'll figure something else out. You know,
Speaker 5: you guys don't have any star power. That's pretty much
Speaker 5: what it was. You guys don't have any star.
Speaker 2: Par We don't have any drama or drama star.
Speaker 1: Power and drama. Yes.
Speaker 5: So at that time I started to realize that there
Speaker 5: was a trend because every year a different producer and
Speaker 5: the more we started to gain popularity on social media.
Speaker 5: For example, the TIM shoot happened in twenty and thirteen,
Speaker 5: I believe, And after the Tim shoot happened, we started
Speaker 5: to get a little bit popular.
Speaker 1: Another producer came.
Speaker 5: This producer was much larger than the first two producers
Speaker 5: and already had a show on television, and this producer
Speaker 5: wanted to do a show with Kadeen and I. But
Speaker 5: also the same thing, they didn't see the positive aspect.
Speaker 5: Now remember we're going back to two thousand and twelve, thirteen.
Speaker 3: They saw the positive, they just wanted negative with the no.
Speaker 5: No, not that they couldn't see the positive, they couldn't
Speaker 5: see the positive being a sellable trait for viewership.
Speaker 1: That's what I meant when I said they couldn't see
Speaker 1: the positive.
Speaker 5: They couldn't see the positive being something that people wanted
Speaker 5: to see. And I'm gonna be honest, I could tell.
Speaker 5: I mean, I understand where they were coming from because
Speaker 5: about sales at the end of the day, and you
Speaker 5: have to sell to an audience that's going to watch
Speaker 5: your TV show. So after those failed attempts at Kadeen
Speaker 5: and I being on our own reality show, we started
Speaker 5: to get phone calls from producers up until last year
Speaker 5: that current shows who have ensemble casts want us on their.
Speaker 1: TV show and we just don't want to do it.
Speaker 1: No thanks, we just don't want to do it. And
Speaker 1: over the.
Speaker 5: Last that was twenty twelve, eleven years, eleven years, Kadeen
Speaker 5: and I finally sat down and said, you know what,
Speaker 5: We're gonna do this shit ourselves.
Speaker 3: We're gonna do it our way. So birth Patreon. All right,
Speaker 3: karaoke time.
Speaker 1: Do you have a karaoke song?
Speaker 3: Because you said you have one, We do have one today,
Speaker 3: and I feel like it's rather fitting because it can
Speaker 3: apply in this circumstance. As we speak to you guys today,
Speaker 3: we're thinking of ways to make it better. Right, We're
Speaker 3: trying to make it better for y'all who have been
Speaker 3: supporting and listening and watching us for so many years.
Speaker 3: We're trying to make it better for de Valini, for
Speaker 3: our team. So I'm a movement by myself, but I'm
Speaker 3: a forge.
Speaker 2: Maybe Wait how bad I go again by myself? You
Speaker 2: make me better, You make me, You make me better.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Neil, Shout out to Neil. Y'all make
Speaker 2: us better.
Speaker 3: That's a fact, because shoot, all the content y'all be requesting,
Speaker 3: we're trying trying to find ways to get it to y'all.
Speaker 3: We're trying to find ways to get it to you.
Speaker 5: So we're going to take a quick break and then
Speaker 5: when we get back, we are actually going to dive
Speaker 5: into the business aspect of why we are creating our
Speaker 5: own content and why it's important for us to own
Speaker 5: our own content.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, why Patreon up next? Stick around?
Speaker 2: Y'all?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Baby plus me it equal better math? Now the song's
Speaker 3: coming back.
Speaker 1: Now, the songe's coming back in it. But you were
Speaker 1: that's that forty y'alls.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't have caffeine this morning, so I'm going
Speaker 3: to the chiropractor later and they told me that I'm
Speaker 3: having a reassessment and I should avoid caffeine before coming in.
Speaker 2: So if I'm talking in slow motion, it might be
Speaker 2: that's why.
Speaker 1: Right, cool, Let's go back to twenty twelve.
Speaker 5: So I always had an idea for a sitcom or
Speaker 5: reality show. Now, if you go back to twenty twelve,
Speaker 5: that was during the time when those reality shows that
Speaker 5: were hitting were.
Speaker 1: Flavor of Love.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that was that time.
Speaker 5: There wasn't a lot of scripted content that was on
Speaker 5: television during that time in twenty twelve, and sitcoms and
Speaker 5: dromedis weren't really a thing. So when I was pitching
Speaker 5: the Elysis, people are like, I don't see.
Speaker 3: It because we grew up in our generation on sitcom right,
Speaker 3: And that was huge for us. We think of the
Speaker 3: Martins of the world, the Cosby Shows, the Family Matters,
Speaker 3: you know what was it on Friday Nights TJ. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all the sitcom So to us it just kind of
Speaker 3: made sense. Who were like, you know, a sitcom just
Speaker 3: sounds like something the world needs right now.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: So I looked at my beautiful wife and it was
Speaker 5: partly because it's something I wanted, but I knew it
Speaker 5: was also something that she wanted. We wanted to be
Speaker 5: able to showcase our abilities, but do it our own way. Now,
Speaker 5: I know everyone here has heard the statement people sold
Speaker 5: their soul.
Speaker 1: Right, let's discuss what that means.
Speaker 5: People often believe when they say you sold your soul,
Speaker 5: that you actually had a meeting with someone who purchased
Speaker 5: your soul, gave you money, and now you have to
Speaker 5: just do exactly what they want you to do.
Speaker 1: That's not really what the statement means.
Speaker 5: What the statement means is that you, as a creator,
Speaker 5: had an idea. Your idea was good, but someone came
Speaker 5: along and said I can make your idea better, gave
Speaker 5: you money, and said, now your idea is my idea,
Speaker 5: but I need you to play out my idea because
Speaker 5: I gave you the.
Speaker 3: Money right the way I see fit. And a lot
Speaker 3: of times they don't necessarily even have the vision per se.
Speaker 3: They may just have the resources to be able to
Speaker 3: bring that to fruition for you.
Speaker 5: And in their defense, they're coming with the resources and
Speaker 5: the investment, and most of the time they already have
Speaker 5: the audience. Yes, So what they're saying to you is,
Speaker 5: I'm willing to put you in front of my audience,
Speaker 5: but you have to do what my audience wants, because
Speaker 5: I know what my audience likes. Yes, And Kadeen and
Speaker 5: I said, no, absolutely, that's not what we want to do.
Speaker 5: There was one time in particular, this is when we
Speaker 5: started doing brand partnerships.
Speaker 1: If you guys have noticed, we don't do as.
Speaker 5: Much brand partnerships anymore. This is why this was in
Speaker 5: two thousand and seventeen, No. Twenty eighteen, the Graham had
Speaker 5: blew up for us.
Speaker 1: We had a meeting with a group.
Speaker 5: I don't like to out people or say certain things,
Speaker 5: because it could be a person in that.
Speaker 1: Groups in that moment, in that moment who said something,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't represent the group.
Speaker 5: But I had a meeting with a group about a
Speaker 5: brand partnership and they wanted us to do something for
Speaker 5: I think it was Black History Month. We're a black family.
Speaker 5: Have a meeting with them. And this is before Donora,
Speaker 5: because if we were with Donora, Donora would have absolutely
Speaker 5: obliterated them.
Speaker 2: Would have been like laptops.
Speaker 1: Yes, So this had to be twenty and eighteen.
Speaker 5: It had to be February twenty eighteen, after we had
Speaker 5: done Clawox, we had done Durasel.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 5: I remember group comes to U and sayd hey, we
Speaker 5: want to do a Black History Month thing. We have
Speaker 5: an idea. They told me the idea. I said, okay,
Speaker 5: this is cool, it's easy. Me and my family can
Speaker 5: do this.
Speaker 3: Can you?
Speaker 5: Is there a way you can blacken it up? And
Speaker 5: I said, what do you like? What do you what
Speaker 5: do you mean?
Speaker 1: Check this out? This is this is the this is
Speaker 1: a real statement. Kadeen.
Speaker 5: I know Kadeen has a long, stringy hair. Is she
Speaker 5: willing to put on like a like a wig, like
Speaker 5: an afro wig?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I said what, like a what? And they were dead serious.
Speaker 5: And the fact that they felt like our family could
Speaker 5: be blackified, like it's Black History Month, we need to
Speaker 5: wear kin cloth and afro wigs or flat tops to
Speaker 5: be considered black. Our blackness in itself in Brooklyn in
Speaker 5: an apartment was not black enough.
Speaker 3: We didn't look like your quote unquote as they said,
Speaker 3: typical black family.
Speaker 1: So then they questioned me, so is Kadeen is?
Speaker 5: Is she black? I'm like, I'm like, are we really
Speaker 5: having this conversation? And it was moments because that wasn't
Speaker 5: the only moment. It was moments like that where they
Speaker 5: wanted our black is to be a trope of blackness,
Speaker 5: not just black because and I tried to explain a
Speaker 5: couple of times black people are not monolithic, We sound,
Speaker 5: we act differently, and they were.
Speaker 1: Like, okay, well, well you know what, We'll circle back.
Speaker 5: So when I'm getting the circle backs and I'm realizing, well,
Speaker 5: there's a reason why.
Speaker 1: They're not.
Speaker 5: Willing to work in synergy with us, right, So I
Speaker 5: started to ask questions and this is the answer as
Speaker 5: to why we started Patreon. A large part of the
Speaker 5: people in this country who watch shows like us shows
Speaker 5: that what people to look like us don't look like us.
Speaker 5: Middle American white people pretty much dominate the television industry
Speaker 5: as far as who watches, especially if it's family content.
Speaker 5: So what they want to do is either make us
Speaker 5: whitewashed or make us a trope of blackness. This is
Speaker 5: what I realized after going to all of these meetings
Speaker 5: with producers and brands. They see us as a commodity,
Speaker 5: but only in the way they view us, which means
Speaker 5: we would either have to be the black family that
Speaker 5: wears the polka dots with the ties and the suspenders
Speaker 5: and be the whitewashed version of what blackness is, or
Speaker 5: we have to be baggy clothes yo yo fro afrocentric,
Speaker 5: like they only see tropes and tropes of not only blackness,
Speaker 5: tropes of whiteness and tropes of blackness because they feel like, hey,
Speaker 5: we got the audience.
Speaker 1: We know what our audience wants to see.
Speaker 5: And Kadein and I made a decision that, well, we
Speaker 5: know our audience and we want to make content.
Speaker 1: For our audience, not for your audience.
Speaker 5: We want to make content for the audience that has
Speaker 5: supported us since we started. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 5: starting in twenty seventeen. I'm talking about twenty twelve. Because
Speaker 5: we had a Facebook page that was doing really well
Speaker 5: with Married to the Gym, and we were getting a
Speaker 5: hunt of thousands of views in twenty twelve, before Instagram
Speaker 5: even became a thing. The first video ever did that
Speaker 5: when viral was a video of k pushing the sled
Speaker 5: and me pushing the sled behind it and me slapping
Speaker 5: on it. But and it got like one hundred and
Speaker 5: thirty thousand views on Facebook at the time, which was
Speaker 5: like unheard of. But people just loved to see me
Speaker 5: supporting my wife, my wife working hard, and then a
Speaker 5: little baby running on.
Speaker 1: The field while we were doing what we were doing.
Speaker 5: And it reminded me of The Fresh Prince and The
Speaker 5: Cosby Show because at the time The Cosby Show and
Speaker 5: The Fresh Prince wasn't the version of blackness they were
Speaker 5: used to seeing. Think about the seventies, the greatest show
Speaker 5: coming out the seventies was Good Times, right, and then
Speaker 5: it was Georgia Waisey's The Jeffersonsons, and it was just
Speaker 5: about struggle.
Speaker 1: It was like black people struggle. All black people do
Speaker 1: is struggle.
Speaker 5: I wasn't a Good Times god, but I know the
Speaker 5: father on Good Times struggled keeping a job, you know,
Speaker 5: and I think the mom was the one always work
Speaker 5: and she was always tired. But the show did really well.
Speaker 5: So when the Cosby Show came out. He's a doctor,
Speaker 5: the wife is a lawyer. They got five kids. The
Speaker 5: kids don't really get in the type of trouble that
Speaker 5: you expect black kids living in Brooklyn to get into.
Speaker 5: At first, it was just like, I don't know how
Speaker 5: real it is, but it became a phenomenon because that
Speaker 5: version of what black looks like wasn't just black.
Speaker 2: It related to everything everybody.
Speaker 3: The first ontional too, I think, I mean, I remember
Speaker 3: your dad saying that he didn't like The Cosby Show
Speaker 3: for that reason.
Speaker 2: He's like, it's not real. It was a show, Like really,
Speaker 2: my dad said that, and.
Speaker 3: He said that as a black man. So I guess
Speaker 3: it really depends on the audience that you're trying to
Speaker 3: cater to. But just start to circle back with the
Speaker 3: brand deals and stuff like that. You know, even just
Speaker 3: the brand partnerships that I had gotten or you had
Speaker 3: gotten through other companies were far and few in between,
Speaker 3: because we also in creating content and just in promoting
Speaker 3: other brands, we were really, really and we still are
Speaker 3: very very adamant about only partnering with people who we
Speaker 3: believe in and people who support us. Because what we
Speaker 3: also found was that some brands when they came along,
Speaker 3: they come to you because they enjoy your content. They
Speaker 3: enjoy the fact that you do have an audience who
Speaker 3: is tried and trusted, but also in them wanting you
Speaker 3: to produce content. They would sometimes circle back now with
Speaker 3: feedback about how you can alter your content to then
Speaker 3: make it in their mind, more digestible or more appetizing
Speaker 3: to the viewer. And I'm just like, you came to
Speaker 3: me for a reason, then clearly I know what I'm
Speaker 3: doing when it comes to my content and my audience.
Speaker 3: Why won't you just let me do what you're paying
Speaker 3: me to do? Essentially, But I'd say that to say,
Speaker 3: that's another avenue as to why Devaleni decided, like, we're
Speaker 3: just really only going to do what we want to
Speaker 3: do in this.
Speaker 2: Social media space.
Speaker 3: So if you see something come out on our page,
Speaker 3: if we pose something, you know that it's coming directly
Speaker 3: from Devalini and not from any other source who has
Speaker 3: coursed us in doing it.
Speaker 5: That also takes me to another part when it comes
Speaker 5: to our I don't like saying following, but our supporters.
Speaker 5: I had a producer say, you have great numbers, but
Speaker 5: your supporters don't add monetary value. Pretty much was telling
Speaker 5: me black people won't spend money on stuff.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much what he was saying.
Speaker 5: Little does he know that our audience isn't only black, right,
Speaker 5: Our audience is a rainbow of colors.
Speaker 1: Ages, genders.
Speaker 5: And the truth is they look at us and just assume, oh,
Speaker 5: that's a young black couple. They got young black people.
Speaker 5: So when we create content, they think they're teaching us
Speaker 5: how to create content for just that demographic, when we're
Speaker 5: actually creating content for a multi generational audience that has
Speaker 5: a bunch of different races and genders. So when Kadeina
Speaker 5: and I start to sit down and think, you know what,
Speaker 5: why don't we just do high quality content ourselves, Like
Speaker 5: we don't really need them. Okay, it's gonna cast some cameras,
Speaker 5: it's going to do Okay, fine.
Speaker 2: We'll make the investment.
Speaker 5: So we made the investment. And once we made the investment,
Speaker 5: we realize like, wow, like this this is expensive, Like
Speaker 5: isn't it isn't easy? You know, you put people on salary.
Speaker 5: We have producer on salary, we have camera operator on salary,
Speaker 5: we have error on salary. We you know, you guys
Speaker 5: know Josh and Matt and Treble. They work with us
Speaker 5: directly practically every single day. I think it is every
Speaker 5: single day, right, Josh, Josh. We're on the phone like
Speaker 5: every single day, every single day to sure create content. Now,
Speaker 5: when you're doing this type of work, to create content,
Speaker 5: you're creating any economy, not only for yourself, but for
Speaker 5: the people who work with you. We like to say
Speaker 5: people work with us because we don't see it as
Speaker 5: an employee.
Speaker 1: We see everyone that we work with as partners, team members.
Speaker 5: Now, typically you would put out content hope that a
Speaker 5: producer or a production company or network will come to
Speaker 5: you and say, here's a budget create the content. Patreon
Speaker 5: allows us to use the budget that we've been able
Speaker 5: to amass through memberships to create our own content the
Speaker 5: same way. That's why when you're looking at the content
Speaker 5: now you're saying this looks like a reality show.
Speaker 2: To pay people.
Speaker 1: We have the same cameras.
Speaker 5: We have, the mics, they invest the time. We're able
Speaker 5: to do everything the way we want to. But here's
Speaker 5: the most important part. We can feel comfortable with the
Speaker 5: people we love and we know around our children. Because
Speaker 5: since we do family content, it is difficult to ask
Speaker 5: your eleven at the time six five and one year
Speaker 5: old to get in front of the camera and be
Speaker 5: themselves with people they don't don't and that was another
Speaker 5: issue for us. I was like, I'm not going to
Speaker 5: have people I don't know around my kids. Oh well,
Speaker 5: we don't have to do with the house. We can
Speaker 5: do it at a location that's not.
Speaker 2: Authentic to who we are exactly.
Speaker 5: People want to see who we want to share who
Speaker 5: we are and how we go about doing it the
Speaker 5: most authentic way possible with the people our children trust
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 3: And it's crazy that you say the most authentic way
Speaker 3: with the people we trust and you say all that.
Speaker 2: It makes me think of.
Speaker 3: A message I got from someone. Every now and again,
Speaker 3: I may see a DM it's hard because I get
Speaker 3: so many. But this one person kept messaging about Patreon
Speaker 3: and essentially said in her message, I can't believe you
Speaker 3: and Deval have gotten so Hollywood that now y'all are
Speaker 3: requiring people to sign up to see y'all's videos when
Speaker 3: y'all been doing this for free. Yeah, man, listen the
Speaker 3: fumes that came out of my ears. Yeah, she was pissed'
Speaker 3: She was pissed because I'm like, first of all, don't
Speaker 3: throw in the whole. You and Deval have gotten so
Speaker 3: Hollywood bullshit, Like stop. I feel like if anybody who
Speaker 3: really knows us know the people who support us, the
Speaker 3: people who work with us, Devaleni are the same old
Speaker 3: as Valenkadeen since we lived on New York Avenue, and a.
Speaker 5: Lot of times we get in trouble for it, from DeNora,
Speaker 5: from our manager, from venues, They're like, you can't just
Speaker 5: walk in and be like like, you can't just do
Speaker 5: things like that right exactly.
Speaker 3: You need to have this, you need to have security,
Speaker 3: you need to have call ahead, you need to have that.
Speaker 3: And we just kind of just like say, well, I
Speaker 3: mean we literally are moving like the same people. Of
Speaker 3: course when we have the kids and stuff, they're different,
Speaker 3: you know, and depending on the spaces that we're in,
Speaker 3: I get it, But I say that to say like,
Speaker 3: I feel like, if anything, Deval and I are even
Speaker 3: more grounded and who we are and who we want
Speaker 3: to be and who we portray ourselves to be because
Speaker 3: we are who we are. So the fact that this
Speaker 3: person is spewing this whole y'all became so Hollywood now,
Speaker 3: y'all making us pay.
Speaker 2: Have you not been getting content for free for the
Speaker 2: past seven.
Speaker 1: Years and they still get content?
Speaker 3: And you still get content for free because de VAL's
Speaker 3: still doing this hole in his phone up getting videos.
Speaker 3: I'm still posting content on my end. I'm still posting
Speaker 3: stories every day. There's a ton of free content that's
Speaker 3: there and it's readily available. There's YouTube, there's Facebook, there's
Speaker 3: so many different platforms.
Speaker 5: Can you explain or would you like me to explain
Speaker 5: the difference in the content that we are creating on
Speaker 5: social media and on Patreon?
Speaker 3: Now, go ahead, I mean Deval take the reins on
Speaker 3: this because he is really the mastermind behind how we
Speaker 3: roll out our content, and I just be like where
Speaker 3: you want me to be because when.
Speaker 2: To say action what I got to post today?
Speaker 3: But you can go ahead and break it down just
Speaker 3: so it's digestible for people listening, because we thought this
Speaker 3: episode was important for people to understand why we decided
Speaker 3: to even do something that was subscription based.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: So the biggest thing is there are different types of content.
Speaker 5: When I picked my phone up, and yes, everybody's phone
Speaker 5: got four K and stuff like that, I do pick
Speaker 5: it up and I put that content on social media.
Speaker 5: But one thing Josh and I realized, because Josh and
Speaker 5: I had started talking about doing higher quality content I
Speaker 5: believe in twenty and nineteen when we first moved to California,
Speaker 5: was that when I was doing the vlogs on YouTube,
Speaker 5: right like twenty five minute vlogs, someone on forty five
Speaker 5: minute blogs, the average viewership was less than six minutes,
Speaker 5: you see. So it was like, I'm creating content and
Speaker 5: I'm putting hours into it and it's not being watched
Speaker 5: because people who watch on YouTube are not going to
Speaker 5: YouTube for long form content. They go to YouTube or
Speaker 5: Instagram or Facebook or Twitter for short form content little bytes.
Speaker 1: Remember Quibi quick bites.
Speaker 5: People go to those platforms for quick bites because they
Speaker 5: want to watch something and move on. So for me,
Speaker 5: I was like, dang, I want to produce longer form content,
Speaker 5: but it's not being consumed in its totality. Then we
Speaker 5: partner with Patreon because Patreon is when someone makes a decision,
Speaker 5: they say, you know what I'm going to spend, And
Speaker 5: for us, we made the price extremely low. The price
Speaker 5: is five dollars a month, and the reason why it's
Speaker 5: five dollars a month is because it's less than a
Speaker 5: quarter of a day.
Speaker 1: I never wanted to charge people.
Speaker 3: You actually donor was honest for a while about Patreon.
Speaker 1: Months and I was like no, no to charge.
Speaker 5: I was like, no, I don't want to charge people
Speaker 5: because we've been giving them content for free. But then
Speaker 5: I actually started to think about the economy I could
Speaker 5: create using the resources.
Speaker 1: I'm always on.
Speaker 5: Dead Ass podcast talking about group economics.
Speaker 1: How can we support each other?
Speaker 5: How can we support our friends if we all pool
Speaker 5: our resources? Right, Patreon is just another form of group economics.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: I wanted Josh and I wanted Matt to be here
Speaker 5: full time. How can I ask them to quit doing
Speaker 5: what they're doing if I'm not going to replace that
Speaker 5: salary to be able to work with us, I can't
Speaker 5: ask for favors. No, you get to a point in
Speaker 5: your life where asking people for favors and to sacrifice
Speaker 5: for their family so you can gain or you can
Speaker 5: provide some of the other people, it is just not fair.
Speaker 1: It's not okay. So for me, it was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, let me utilize this.
Speaker 5: Way to create an economy so that I can create
Speaker 5: the type of content I want to create, long form
Speaker 5: high quality content, but also allow my friends to provide
Speaker 5: for their families as well. Like, that's really what this
Speaker 5: whole Patreon thing is about.
Speaker 1: It's us taking away the network.
Speaker 5: You don't got to go to TBS to watch US.
Speaker 5: You don't got to go to ABC, you don't got
Speaker 5: to go to Hulu or Netflix or HBO. No, you
Speaker 5: pay a subscription to those networks to watch long form content.
Speaker 1: And half the time you paid a subscription and you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't even.
Speaker 2: Even watch it.
Speaker 3: I literally just last night went into my Apple settings
Speaker 3: and I was just like, what subscriptions do I even
Speaker 3: have right now? Because I was looking at the American
Speaker 3: Express because since I'm so phisically responsible now, y'all, I
Speaker 3: was looking at all these different things coming out, and
Speaker 3: I'm just like, I don't even know I still had this.
Speaker 3: I don't even know I still had this membership because
Speaker 3: you just sign up for stuff and then you just
Speaker 3: kind of don't watch, or you watch maybe for one show.
Speaker 3: And I was going to say something to piggyback off
Speaker 3: of what you said about Patreon and stuff, But for us,
Speaker 3: I think the most important part, at least for me,
Speaker 3: is that we're able to now remove the outside noise.
Speaker 3: We're able to remove any network, any other outside influence,
Speaker 3: and literally we do what we want. I think the
Speaker 3: freedom and the autonomy that we have over Patreon is
Speaker 3: what excites us the most because now I feel like
Speaker 3: we're all invested, like the entire team is really sold
Speaker 3: on this idea because we're enjoying creating this content. It
Speaker 3: doesn't feel like work. It doesn't when Matt pops up
Speaker 3: on a random Wednesday and catches just something that happens
Speaker 3: to happen in the house that was funny. That's that's
Speaker 3: essentially what we wanted and how we foresaw a reality
Speaker 3: show or even a sitcom rolling out with us, just
Speaker 3: watching us in our natural setting and the funny things
Speaker 3: that happen on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: And you know the even better part about it, y'all,
Speaker 2: Patreon is optional.
Speaker 3: Nobody is holding the gun to your head to say
Speaker 3: you have to sign up for it five dollars a month.
Speaker 2: You don't have to.
Speaker 1: You don't have to.
Speaker 3: But if you don't, and we don't feel a way,
Speaker 3: if you don't want to work, if you can't, and
Speaker 3: some people can't afford the five thousand a month, I
Speaker 3: undergand that and not really understand that. And the people
Speaker 3: who do subscribe and rock with us, we love y'all
Speaker 3: for that. We're looking to do even more things, doing
Speaker 3: some different lives. You're getting exclusive access first DIBs to
Speaker 3: live shows that we have coming up. So there's so
Speaker 3: many perks involved with being Patreon members. But again, it's
Speaker 3: the option to do it, and no one's forcing anyone
Speaker 3: to do anything.
Speaker 5: Yes, but I did feel it was important to talk
Speaker 5: to because we have so many people who are also
Speaker 5: creators or are also actors or artists who are who asked, like, dout,
Speaker 5: how do I get started? And for me, Patreon is
Speaker 5: a way to see who really truly supports you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, like if you really think about it, five
Speaker 5: dollars a month, less than a quarter a day. There
Speaker 5: are some people who say to me, Hey, Deville, how
Speaker 5: can I support you guys? You know, like that really
Speaker 5: DMS be like, yo, I love what you guys do.
Speaker 5: How could I support you guys? Yeah, I'm like, join Patreon, man,
Speaker 5: just just join Patreon. Be a part of the Patreon.
Speaker 5: The biggest thing with Patreon. Also, please comment and interact
Speaker 5: so we can know how you guys feel.
Speaker 1: About the content for.
Speaker 2: Sure, because this is still kind of new to us.
Speaker 2: We're still kind of fair very new.
Speaker 5: Josh has been running the Patreon. He goes on the
Speaker 5: Patreon ever, he's addicted to Patreon, Like, he goes on
Speaker 5: to make sure because because you guys who pay the
Speaker 5: five dollars a month, your opinions about what we post
Speaker 5: and what we do matter matter. Like Josh and DeNora
Speaker 5: came to us two weeks ago and was just like,
Speaker 5: I think you guys should do some lives And I
Speaker 5: was like, yeah, I know, we could do lives and
Speaker 5: it was like, yeah, you can do lives that you
Speaker 5: can be more interactive with your audience. So if you
Speaker 5: post a piece of content, you can then have a
Speaker 5: formal discussion on the Patreon live about the content.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Yo, that's dope.
Speaker 5: So we could actually do a show, do an after show,
Speaker 5: and then have an audience reacting after show when it
Speaker 5: comes out. Like, to me, that's the most fireway to
Speaker 5: build an audience, to understand what your audience wants to see.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if y'all notice, but I don't
Speaker 1: reply in comments.
Speaker 5: That don't mean I don't read comments because I want
Speaker 5: to learn what did they like about this? What did
Speaker 5: they not like about this? Now, just because you leave
Speaker 5: a comment, don't mean I'm going to follow you. I
Speaker 5: get thousands of comments every day. One person says I
Speaker 5: wish I would put more longer content on YouTube. It's
Speaker 5: not going to make me put longer content on YouTube
Speaker 5: because the analytics show me that the vast majority of
Speaker 5: people who watch on YouTube watch short form content.
Speaker 1: So, yes, I do read the comments.
Speaker 5: I do appreciate you, guy, I just don't respond because
Speaker 5: I don't want anyone else to feel like their comment
Speaker 5: is not important. Because once I start replying, then I
Speaker 5: don't reply to someone. It's like, oh, he only replies
Speaker 5: to these type of people. It's like, no, that's not
Speaker 5: the case. I only have a couple of seconds to
Speaker 5: reply because I'm making content, all right, So it's important
Speaker 5: for people to understand and how we decide what content
Speaker 5: we're going to create.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: So, for example, on Patreon, we say long form content.
Speaker 5: Anything over seven minutes is considered long form content. Right,
Speaker 5: So our Patreon videos are typically anywhere between nine to
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: We try to keep it shorter than fifteen minutes, mainly
Speaker 5: because even on Patreon. When you see how much people watch,
Speaker 5: most people don't watch Patreon for thirty to forty minutes.
Speaker 5: They watch it for fifteen minutes. But that's considered long
Speaker 5: form content.
Speaker 2: And how many times are we dropping a week?
Speaker 1: Okay, so y'all want to laugh? Right once again?
Speaker 6: This is.
Speaker 5: Kadeen and I and our team over delivering. When we
Speaker 5: did our partnership with Patreon, they said we were required
Speaker 5: to drop two pieces of content per month.
Speaker 1: Two pieces of content.
Speaker 2: Per month at Patreon game. How much y'all been ghee?
Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you this already.
Speaker 5: We do the podcast every week, right, forty five minutes
Speaker 5: to an hour, right, and the after show. So that's
Speaker 5: eight pieces of content right there. We got DEVOSMANK twelve
Speaker 5: pieces of content. We got All Day K sixteen pieces
Speaker 5: of content.
Speaker 2: Ever say, yeah, I've been all day? Can in it?
Speaker 3: You have?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: For the record, we're not complaining because we actually enjoy
Speaker 6: making this content, Like it feels good to get ready
Speaker 6: for school in the morning and watch my kids do it.
Speaker 5: And there's a camera somewhere and no one knows where
Speaker 5: the camera is, so the kids are acting by themselves.
Speaker 1: But then when we look at the camp.
Speaker 5: When we look at the content, we can say that
Speaker 5: looks like a traditional American family getting ready for school
Speaker 5: in the morning. They're having fun, the kids are disciplined,
Speaker 5: they're working hard than afterwards mom and dad is going
Speaker 5: off and doing whatever they do.
Speaker 3: I think that's the realest sitcom slash reality version of
Speaker 3: a show or of the ellises that you're going to
Speaker 3: get is definitely going to be on our Patreon page.
Speaker 3: And just so you know, like content creators in general,
Speaker 3: I know it's become a very convoluted market because everyone's
Speaker 3: an influencer, everyone's doing content. There's TikTok now, which is
Speaker 3: even shorter content that people are just really really buying
Speaker 3: into for sake of for the sake of sounding like
Speaker 3: a big, aged, hardbacked old lady. I'm still trying to
Speaker 3: figure out TikTok my damn self. But let's look at
Speaker 3: some facts and stats when it comes to creators, because
Speaker 3: we literally are like full time creators and with the
Speaker 3: strike happening now and Deval and I not doing any work,
Speaker 3: no auditions coming in, it really is given us time
Speaker 3: to focus on Patreon and doing this content creating. So
Speaker 3: it kind of you know, God works in mysterious ways,
Speaker 3: and this has definitely helped us when it came to listen.
Speaker 5: To these facts that K is about to tell you,
Speaker 5: because for all you people who are listening, who are
Speaker 5: aspiring creators, are creating, budding creators, listen to these stats
Speaker 5: so you can understand about staying ahead of the curve,
Speaker 5: which is another a podcast we're going to talk about
Speaker 5: staying ahead of the curves for sure.
Speaker 3: Full time creators use an average of three point four
Speaker 3: channels for audience engagements.
Speaker 5: So that's like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Patreon, YouTube. That's
Speaker 5: that's six right there that I can already think of,
Speaker 5: but there's so many, so.
Speaker 2: Many more exactly.
Speaker 3: AD revenue for creators has declined by thirty three percent
Speaker 3: since COVID, pushing creators to do more brand collaborations, join
Speaker 3: other platforms, and create more revenue outside of their regular streams,
Speaker 3: which now is down even more brand collaborations.
Speaker 5: Ad revenue before they used to run ads through your
Speaker 5: content and they had to pay people. Now, I know
Speaker 5: everyone's been been looking at or listening to singers or
Speaker 5: rappers saying, hey, I don't own my publishing and then
Speaker 5: told me I.
Speaker 1: Was supposed to get paid through Xyz.
Speaker 5: I'm not getting paid as much as I should because
Speaker 5: now with streaming, you have to have something like a
Speaker 5: million streams to make a dollar.
Speaker 2: It's insane.
Speaker 1: It's insane.
Speaker 2: They now up the anties like so much.
Speaker 5: It's the same thing for video creators, Like in order
Speaker 5: for you to make money off of your streams or
Speaker 5: quote unquote off of your views, you have to have
Speaker 5: like hundreds of thousands of views just to get a dollar.
Speaker 5: That's it, which is making it more difficult for people
Speaker 5: to make money.
Speaker 2: To add a lot of money, yep.
Speaker 3: And then brand partnerships, a lot of these brands are like,
Speaker 3: we don't even have the budget to be able to
Speaker 3: engage you in a partnership or be able to give
Speaker 3: you what you are worth or what you demand or
Speaker 3: require to engage. So brand partnerships are also down. I
Speaker 3: can say that for myself. Even just as of this year,
Speaker 3: sixty three percent of the audience have tipped their favorite
Speaker 3: creators at least once.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know you could tip your creator on TikTok.
Speaker 1: It's a thing where you can put tips on.
Speaker 5: Oh really when people go live, Because if you think
Speaker 5: about it right, And if you just think about creators,
Speaker 5: you go to your phone to be entertained.
Speaker 1: Right, If you walk by.
Speaker 5: In a subway and someone's playing the drums or someone
Speaker 5: to you know, tap dance, and you tip them like, oh,
Speaker 5: you entertained me. You know what I'm saying, thank you
Speaker 5: for entertaining, right. Creators just are the same ways they're entertainers.
Speaker 5: They're just a different form of entertainment because as technology advances,
Speaker 5: there's different ways and mediums. I guess there weren't always TVs.
Speaker 5: There weren't always movie things, you know, there's always ways
Speaker 5: to Uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's dope because I do sometimes see
Speaker 3: people just like, oh, you know, creators always expect for
Speaker 3: you to pay for this or subscribe for that, And
Speaker 3: I'm just like, guys, how like this is people taking
Speaker 3: their time out of their day to engage you.
Speaker 2: Why not? So I think that's a cool idea.
Speaker 3: Twenty four million estimated monthly payouts on Patreon, that's cool.
Speaker 2: We ain't get twenty four.
Speaker 3: Million dollars, so y'all know that's not for us, but
Speaker 3: it's good to know that that's what Patreon is doing
Speaker 3: for folks. The average Patreon user makes forty one percent
Speaker 3: of their income. On Patreon, fifteen percent of consumers are
Speaker 3: subscribed to a creator's membership website. So like, is that
Speaker 3: like but Instagram like people have subscriptions now or just
Speaker 3: random things like that.
Speaker 5: I mean, well, there's so many different memberships, Like you
Speaker 5: can have a membership to Instagram, but people also have
Speaker 5: their own website.
Speaker 1: Oh you know coadean dot com member.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: And ninety seven point five percent of YouTubers do not
Speaker 3: make enough to reach the US poverty line.
Speaker 2: You heard that.
Speaker 3: Ninety seven point five percent don't even make that much.
Speaker 5: And I think that's important because when I look at
Speaker 5: creators or influencers, people typically look at the top one percent.
Speaker 1: They say everybody.
Speaker 5: Same thing with athletes, right, everybody's not making with Lebron
Speaker 5: James makes. Everybody doesn't make with Lionel Messi makes. Everybody
Speaker 5: doesn't make with Tom Hanks makes. As an actor, you know,
Speaker 5: like there are tiers to everything, and ninety percent of
Speaker 5: the people that you watch on television doing the things
Speaker 5: they do don't make enough money to just do that solely.
Speaker 5: Most actors have another job, the job, right. Most athletes
Speaker 5: who play basketball overseas still do something else because they
Speaker 5: don't make enough money just playing basketball.
Speaker 1: Same thing with people playing football leagues.
Speaker 5: So I think it's important for people to understand when
Speaker 5: you look at entertainers, don't just look at your favorite
Speaker 5: entertainers at the highest and think that all entertainers make millions.
Speaker 5: Entertainers are hustling just like everyone else, you know. So
Speaker 5: we just wanted to make sure that you guys understood
Speaker 5: that this isn't a money grab, especially from us like
Speaker 5: the elisis. This is not a money grab. I will
Speaker 5: be honest and tell you I have four or five
Speaker 5: streams of revenue. I don't rely on Patreon. I also
Speaker 5: don't rely on acting, I don't rely on real estate.
Speaker 2: We really don't rely on.
Speaker 1: You know, and that's just part of it. It's just
Speaker 1: in a different stream of revenue.
Speaker 5: So we can create an economy not for ourselves only,
Speaker 5: but also for our friends who are also creator so
Speaker 5: we can do something and build together. Because I watched
Speaker 5: one of the greatest entrepreneurs and entertainers do that, and
Speaker 5: that was Tyler Perryler. You can say what you want
Speaker 5: to say about Tyler Floyd Mayweather a jay Z because
Speaker 5: people there's always detractors, but these are men who did
Speaker 5: it their way, built within their audience, were told no
Speaker 5: so many times and to their so who they are
Speaker 5: and their audience, and now look at them. So those
Speaker 5: those are the guys that I look up to and
Speaker 5: I say, you know, I want to create and own
Speaker 5: my own.
Speaker 1: And another one is easter Ray.
Speaker 5: Like Easter Ray, like she's killing she started owning her own,
Speaker 5: starting on YouTube, creating her own content. She went a
Speaker 5: different way because Patreon didn't exist, but she got that
Speaker 5: early bag from HBO and she's been creating ever since.
Speaker 5: Like these are the people that I'm looking up to
Speaker 5: be able to create and do it on my terms.
Speaker 3: For sure, And it's just that much sweeter when you're
Speaker 3: able to do it and grow and rise and reach
Speaker 3: another level with the people who have been with you
Speaker 3: down at the bottom.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So like you guys know, Josh and Matt, we've known
Speaker 3: for over decade now, Like these are people who we
Speaker 3: were just like, you know, we're going to build and
Speaker 3: grow and do this together. And we really hope that
Speaker 3: this episode just brought some clarity to anybody who might
Speaker 3: have been on the fence about you know, joining.
Speaker 2: Patreon, or wondering why Patreon.
Speaker 3: Was a thing, or thinking like, oh my god, the
Speaker 3: Ellis has given us so much content already, what makes
Speaker 3: Patreon different or why is it a value to us
Speaker 3: and our family and our team. We hope that this
Speaker 3: provided some clarity for you guys, and then I hope
Speaker 3: you join because we'd love to see you on that
Speaker 3: side and continue to deliver great content, high quality and
Speaker 3: more of the Ellis's.
Speaker 5: And we plan on evolving and as life changes and
Speaker 5: things can happen, we still want to have access to
Speaker 5: the people who've helped us build. Like I know for
Speaker 5: a fact, you know speaking to Tyler that he still
Speaker 5: has the emails from the people that started when he
Speaker 5: was just doing place. Remember when he was doing the
Speaker 5: quote unquote Chitlin Circuit. Yes, and it became no one
Speaker 5: would go into his shows. He was doing shows, no
Speaker 5: one was showing up, but he kept doing them. And
Speaker 5: now his audience is millions of people that he writes directly.
Speaker 5: So I want to continue to evolve the Lass and
Speaker 5: us create contents specifically for for our people.
Speaker 3: Yes, for you. All right, y'all, We're going to take
Speaker 3: a quick break and pay some bills We'll get back
Speaker 3: into listener letters after this break, so stick around. All right, y'all,
Speaker 3: we're back. Let's jump into this first listener letter. Hey,
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed listening to y'all's podcasts and really admire
Speaker 3: you guys as a marriage. I love that I can
Speaker 3: listen to a podcast and that I can get a
Speaker 3: male and female perspective.
Speaker 2: Love that we.
Speaker 3: Hope that that we continue to do it for you guys. Yes,
Speaker 3: I just turned twenty one this year. My boyfriend and
Speaker 3: I were very toxic in our relationship for a while.
Speaker 3: We both did some things and said some things that
Speaker 3: we should never done or said. He came from a
Speaker 3: household where being toxic wasn't normal and it shouldn't be.
Speaker 3: But I came from a household where my family was
Speaker 3: very toxic and a lot of that toxicity was embedded
Speaker 3: into me. I didn't realize how toxic I was, or
Speaker 3: how toxic I have made the relationship and him until
Speaker 3: this year, when I distanced myself from my family. Our
Speaker 3: relationship has gotten better. When I've distanced myself from my family.
Speaker 3: How can I balance not trying to be toxic with
Speaker 3: having such a toxic family? And what are some things
Speaker 3: that I can do that will help me leave that
Speaker 3: toxic mindset where it's at and really help our relationship
Speaker 3: bounce back from our toxic past. It's a lot of
Speaker 3: toxic girl. I guess she must have been really, really toxic.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I think the first thing is you've acknowledged, yeah, the
Speaker 3: source of this. You acknowledge the source of it. You're
Speaker 3: taking accountability for the fact that you are toxic and
Speaker 3: you have been within your relationship. I think that's normal,
Speaker 3: not normal per se, but just having continued conversation with
Speaker 3: your boyfriend to find out the things that maybe you've
Speaker 3: done in the past, unpacking those toxic traits, unpacking what
Speaker 3: transpired within your relationship in terms of arguments or discussions
Speaker 3: or things that you guys have been through, the things
Speaker 3: that you said that you never should have said, or
Speaker 3: did that you never did. If you'll unpack those things
Speaker 3: and just know that you can't do them again, I
Speaker 3: think that's part of the first steps in making sure
Speaker 3: that you're kind of healing from this, and then maybe
Speaker 3: seeing what caused the toxicity within your family. You know,
Speaker 3: therapy is one way to really unpack your past, the
Speaker 3: way you grew up, the things that are triggers for you.
Speaker 3: That might be a good way to start.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 5: I think therapy is very important. First of all, I
Speaker 5: think you've covered everything. The fact that she acknowledged it
Speaker 5: makes the most sense. You know, she knows what it is.
Speaker 5: The only thing I think that you might have missed
Speaker 5: is learn your family history, you know, before you go
Speaker 5: to therapy. I think it's important for you to speak
Speaker 5: to your mom and your dad, or your mom, if
Speaker 5: it's just your mom or your dad, speak to your grandparents.
Speaker 5: I started to understand my family and I no longer
Speaker 5: say my family's toxic, because I think that that's just
Speaker 5: a word that people use now because they don't know
Speaker 5: how to say. You have to understand what triggers your
Speaker 5: family have, right, and what traumas your family have. Triggers
Speaker 5: and trauma don't always necessarily mean that you're toxic. It
Speaker 5: just means you don't know how to respond any other
Speaker 5: way other than what you saw. Yeah, right, And once
Speaker 5: you can acknowledge that, you know what my grandmother did
Speaker 5: this because that was her past, and she taught my mom,
Speaker 5: and then my mom saw XYZ. So now oh she
Speaker 5: married my dad. Oh well, my dad's mom and dad.
Speaker 5: That's why they respond, oh, now.
Speaker 1: I get it, man.
Speaker 5: And then you learn not to judge your family right,
Speaker 5: because your family doesn't need judgment. Your family needs healing. Right,
Speaker 5: you learn not to judge your family. And when you
Speaker 5: stop judging your family, you go to therapy, you learn
Speaker 5: not to judge yourself. Only way I know you can
Speaker 5: learn not to judge yourself is really to go to therapy.
Speaker 5: You need someone else to show you what they see,
Speaker 5: because everything you see from yourself is going to be negative.
Speaker 5: That's a human nature. We pick apart all our imperfections.
Speaker 5: Go to therapy, like Canneen said, and then from there
Speaker 5: try to help your partner do the same thing.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 3: I mean, the unpacking is so so so important, Like
Speaker 3: I've even seen it recently in my interactions with Deval
Speaker 3: where I'm just like, oh my god, I am acting
Speaker 3: this way because my parents did XYZ. Or I can
Speaker 3: see that my sister, my brother and I share this
Speaker 3: particular trait or we deal with in a certain kind
Speaker 3: of way because that's the way we were accustomed to
Speaker 3: seeing things in our household when we were children. So
Speaker 3: then Deval now has a little bit more grace and
Speaker 3: empathy for me as I unpacked that and work through it,
Speaker 3: because he's just like, Okay, I understand where it comes from.
Speaker 3: You're not just acting this way because you just feel
Speaker 3: to do it. Yes, it's just what you were accustomed to.
Speaker 3: And I'm still learning and unlearning that at my big age,
Speaker 3: So there's still time for you, baby, you're only twenty one.
Speaker 3: I love that you've acknowledged this early on in your
Speaker 3: life and you can really take a turn for the
Speaker 3: better just as an individual, as an individual first, and
Speaker 3: then it'll impact, of course, your relationship once you work
Speaker 3: on unpacking those things.
Speaker 2: So good luck to you.
Speaker 3: I think you're off to a great start because you're
Speaker 3: wrote in about it and you're aware of it, and
Speaker 3: now it's just time to do the work.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: I used to get extremely defensive when Kadeen didn't do
Speaker 5: certain things for me, okay, like as a wife, Like
Speaker 5: I'm like, You're like, why wouldn't you do that? And
Speaker 5: I had to learn my family history, right, so I
Speaker 5: started to ask my mom like why she wouldn't do
Speaker 5: certain things for my dad? And I realized that remember
Speaker 5: that triggered me, like watching my dad bus his ass
Speaker 5: to do certain things and my mom was more like independent,
Speaker 5: focused on herself. It kind of made me trigger and
Speaker 5: I said, I wouldn't want to marry a woman like
Speaker 5: that because it looks very one sided. Then I started
Speaker 5: to ask my mom why she was like that, and
Speaker 5: she was like, when you not grow up with your
Speaker 5: grand your grandmother, your grandfather was in and out, wasn't around.
Speaker 5: So my grandmother taught my mom to focus on herself
Speaker 5: because you never want to be beholding to someone who
Speaker 5: is not going to honor you the right way.
Speaker 1: So she instilled in my mom a certain way.
Speaker 2: To be right and very independent, very head strong.
Speaker 3: Like even your mom now when it comes to just
Speaker 3: your encouraging her to retire and leave her job or
Speaker 3: take some time.
Speaker 1: Off, she's going to do it just like no, I'm.
Speaker 2: Not going to do it. Yep, your mom is very
Speaker 2: head strong in that.
Speaker 5: And it's not with malice. She wasn't not doing for
Speaker 5: my dad because she didn't love my dad. She thought
Speaker 5: she was being the best version of herself, the best
Speaker 5: wife she could be, because that's what her mom taught her.
Speaker 5: And I found out that my grandmother had her first
Speaker 5: child when she was sixteen, so she was young, right,
Speaker 5: and it's so it's like, I'm not blaming my grandmother.
Speaker 5: I'm not blaming my grandfather. I'm not judging my grandfather.
Speaker 5: My grandfather had his first child when he was seventeen.
Speaker 5: He was a baby, so it's like there were two
Speaker 5: young people who had a child. Things weren't the best.
Speaker 5: My mom watched these things. My mom learning took the
Speaker 5: best she could from both of her parents, and then
Speaker 5: my dad met my mom and I watched it and
Speaker 5: I was just like, this don't seem fair. So I
Speaker 5: had certain triggers towards women in general based on what
Speaker 5: I saw, and I was able to, over these past
Speaker 5: I think five years, learn more about my family and
Speaker 5: learn why I got so triggered with things that I
Speaker 5: saw because of what I watched growing up as but
Speaker 5: then I learned about it from watching my grandparents. So
Speaker 5: that's when we say learned about your family history. I
Speaker 5: want you to be very deliberate about what you're learning.
Speaker 5: Don't learn where they're from, parents from Virginia, no, yeah,
Speaker 5: understand their upbringing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you can have those conversations, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: I've had some difficult conversations recently with various family members
Speaker 3: but it just gave me so much clarity on what
Speaker 3: makes me tick as a person.
Speaker 2: And then I felt badly.
Speaker 3: I think when a couple of days ago even I
Speaker 3: was like in the bathroom, like almost in tears, and
Speaker 3: Deval was just like, what's the matter with you? And
Speaker 3: I was like, I can't believe you've dealt with me
Speaker 3: like this was so because it was so frustrating just
Speaker 3: having this conversation with another family member and I'm just like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, this person did exactly what Deval says
Speaker 3: I do when we have conversations, and I'm just like
Speaker 3: the correlation and seeing where I get.
Speaker 2: This stuff from. I'm just like, Okay, yeah, something's got
Speaker 2: to change.
Speaker 3: And that's the whole point, right You want to be
Speaker 3: able to change and do better and be better for
Speaker 3: your person. So good luck to your sis. I guess
Speaker 3: that's almost all the time we have that. We got
Speaker 3: a little long winded, but that's okay.
Speaker 5: Feel like we be breaking down the past is important
Speaker 5: because sometimes you say learn about your history and like,
Speaker 5: I know where my family's from, I know the culture,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, I'm not talking about the culture. I'm
Speaker 5: talking about your family dynamics and why your grandparents moved
Speaker 5: the way they did, and how that affected your parents,
Speaker 5: and how it's affecting you.
Speaker 3: The circumstances under which they made moves. It's very important.
Speaker 3: All right, y'all, thank you for listening today, and thank
Speaker 3: you for always continuing to write in and giving us
Speaker 3: always an amazing portion of the show listener letters, which
Speaker 3: is my favorite. So keep writing into us. Triples always
Speaker 3: going to pick some great, great great letters at dead
Speaker 3: ass Advice at gmail dot com.
Speaker 5: That's d E A D A S S A d
Speaker 5: V I C E at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: All right, moment of truth time, it's simple for me.
Speaker 3: Sign up for Patreon, y'all, sign up for Patreon. And
Speaker 3: I mean, in all seriousness, if you're looking for ways
Speaker 3: to continue to support people who you enjoy watching their content.
Speaker 3: Creators out there who are taking their time and taking
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Speaker 3: and you enjoy that. The best way that you can
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Speaker 3: row seats was almost all the way so loud after
Speaker 3: we opened it on Patreon. But we try to make
Speaker 3: sure we give you guys little perks and stuff too,
Speaker 3: just for being a subscriber and to thank you for
Speaker 3: always supporting and encouraging our families.
Speaker 2: So we really do appreciate.
Speaker 5: That, yes, ma'am, and my moment of truth is very simple.
Speaker 5: On your stuff. That is the only way you can
Speaker 5: walk through life and feel comfortable with your image being
Speaker 5: portrayed the way you want it to is if you
Speaker 5: own it.
Speaker 1: That's it, right.
Speaker 5: We executive produced, we produce, we create, we edit. We
Speaker 5: do everything as a team in here. There's no brand,
Speaker 5: there's no network, there's no one telling us it has
Speaker 5: to be a certain way. So when you see the Elyssis,
Speaker 5: know you're seeing the Elyssis exactly how the Elysses want.
Speaker 1: To be seen.
Speaker 3: The only person that tells you is going to be
Speaker 3: a certain kind of way is the vow. That is
Speaker 3: the boss.
Speaker 2: And I'm just a mere employee, asked Josh, who's the boss, y'all?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the boss in my phone. In my phone,
Speaker 1: her name is the boss.
Speaker 2: I'm your boss.
Speaker 3: Okay, But when it comes to this content, stufs the
Speaker 3: val be the boss, y'all.
Speaker 2: All right, it's the right though, I'll own it.
Speaker 5: But I'll tell you like this though, being a boss
Speaker 5: me knowing when to take advice. We sit down in
Speaker 5: that group and I'll ask Matt will sit there for hours.
Speaker 5: I'll ask them what you think about this. Josh will
Speaker 5: sit down and Josh will tell me, O, this may
Speaker 5: look the best, but this ain't gonna work trible every time.
Speaker 5: How does that sound, triuble? What does rundown look like like?
Speaker 5: It's it's really a team in the area, not enough
Speaker 5: to shout out my team and I love y'all.
Speaker 1: They come here every month.
Speaker 5: Yes, we stay up late, we smoke weed, we drink,
Speaker 5: we party, and we do podcasts.
Speaker 3: We have a good time. We have a good time
Speaker 3: while we do it. And deval be ordering McDonald's that
Speaker 3: the wee hours of good morning. Come on, come on,
Speaker 3: come on, come on man.
Speaker 2: I've seen the video. Come on all right, y'all, So,
Speaker 2: uh here goes theatro.
Speaker 3: Be sure to find us on Patreon Hello for more
Speaker 3: exclusive exclusive dead Ass content and Ellis Family content. And
Speaker 3: you can find us on social media at dead Ass
Speaker 3: the Podcast.
Speaker 2: My page is could I am and.
Speaker 5: I am devout And if you're listening on Apple podcasts,
Speaker 5: be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. And also don't
Speaker 5: forget it's the end of the year. Get your copy
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Speaker 1: Dead Ass.
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