WEBVTT - Do We Love or Hate The Internet? with Taylor Lorenz (Washington Post + Extremely Online) 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:08.160 Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever, 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.360 pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.120 and I have conversations that put a new spin on 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:21.239 pretty This is pretty smart. Have you ever noticed just 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.680 how conflicted our relationship with technology is. We are in 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.360 the ultimate love hate relationship when it comes to the 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.640 Internet and social media in particular. We just seem so torn. 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.519 We can't seem to decide if these advances divide us 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.879 or connect us. Are we getting smarter, more worldly, or 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:47.199 are our attention spans diminishing. Wherever you look, there's studies 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.120 to prove whatever theory you'd like to subscribe to. A 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.080 recent article in The Atlantic takes a look at how 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.760 the inability to stay logged off of social media can 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.480 best be compared to alcohol addiction, and. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.600 It gives us more equal opportunity in what we do, 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.759 and that it enhances the way we think about things. 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:11.000 Were skeptics and addicts, and with all the research into 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.440 social media and the impact on our mental health, we 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:18.000 all forget that the internet can be a really fun 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:25.920 and joyful place. Our guest today, Taylor Lorenz, has core 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.680 memories of the Internet's early days. Taylor is unique in 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:32.840 that she saw the power of the Internet and technology 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.200 far ahead of some of her bosses and colleagues. She 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.800 was covering internet culture early on, So it would make 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.280 sense that the title of her book is extremely Online 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.040 in the way that Taylor was a pioneer in wanting 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.600 to cover the Internet, and she reminded me that women 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.320 were pioneers when it came to creating it and harnessing 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:53.920 its power. 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:57.360 Some women were taught to be the earliest computer programmers. Actually, 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.000 people don't know that because it was considered this easy 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:01.920 job for women to do. You could train them up 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.120 in computer programming. Then it turned into this male dominated 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:07.840 tech industry. Really when Silicon Valley took hold in the 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.760 eighties and really the nineties was like the boom of 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:11.720 Silicon Valley. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.560 Her book and our conversation today is all about the 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:20.560 history of the Internet, social media, and influencer culture, from 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:25.360 its humble beginnings to ridiculous controversies. Taylor has watched it 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:27.640 all and she's been taking notes. 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.080 The concept of online influence has migrated just from fashion 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.840 and beauty to politics, to business to everything. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.360 We have an expert with us, so I had to 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.359 ask all the things I was curious about, from why 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:41.720 TikTok gets a bad rap. 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.120 It's not social media that's making us dumber. TikTok is 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.560 informing us about the world like we are gathering information. 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.840 I would say TikTok is making us smarter than you 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:52.960 know a lot on Instagram. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.680 To why being an influencer isn't all that easy. 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.640 Being a content creator is so much work and productizing 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.480 yourself build I mean, you're building your own media company. 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.320 They're laughed at because they're conventionally attractive, beautiful women and 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.880 businessmen or whatever don't take them seriously, and tech reporters 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:10.880 don't take them seriously. 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:13.880 And how about Taylor's own experience online. 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.640 It's a very hard industry to operate it, and so 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:18.919 I've gotten a lot of hate. It was really hard 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.560 for me. I felt very alone, and I cannot think 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.079 of another female tech reporter that's sort of operating at 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:26.640 the level that I've been operating at. 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.680 I followed Taylor's work for a long time. I've always 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:35.720 admired how creative and inventive she is. She's forged her 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:40.800 own path within legacy institutions. That is not an easy 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.520 thing to do. It was really fun for me to 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.240 finally meet the person whose work I've followed for so long. 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.800 I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:57.600 as I enjoyed having it so Taylor. Your book is 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.520 titled extremely Online, and I've been hearing that more and 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.520 more these days. It's sort of internet slang. I guess, now, 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:05.320 what does it mean to be extremely online? 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.320 Good question. I feel like we are all sort of 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.800 increasingly extremely online. It just means being more and more 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.880 plugged into digital culture and also just the Internet playing 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.400 a bigger and bigger role in everyone's lives. When I 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.159 started out on this beat back in two thousand and nine, 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.120 you know, it was very much this concept of like 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.080 logging on and oh like things happening online. And now 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.320 Internet culture is just culture, and you know, the Internet 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.040 just plays a bigger and bigger role in every single 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:39.000 aspect of our society, from economy, politics, you know, culture, music, fashion, 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:40.719 it's all shaped by the Internet. 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.000 I like that you mentioned your beat because I think 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:48.960 I've probably been following you since you started reporting on 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:53.040 digital culture and Internet trends. It's been thirteen years now. Yeah. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.560 Yeah, well, you know you're not I mean, it's weird 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.599 because those of us that grew up on the Internet 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.560 are not, I think, starting to feel like we're in 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.320 a different age bracket. 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.560 So it's interesting what being online means now. But I 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.920 think it's so interesting that you report about the Internet 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.599 on the Internet and when you started, this was not 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.040 a beat. You really sort of invented it. How did 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:17.680 it come about? 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.480 Yeah? Well, so when I started, I started as a 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.000 blogger back in sort of the heyday of blogging, and 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:28.839 I really felt like people weren't writing about the Internet 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.479 as a user. It was more like these sort of 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:36.640 boomer type people at legacy mainstream publications that had sort 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.120 of never really used social media before, but they were 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.360 writing about social media as if they knew what was 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:43.720 going on, and a lot of it was really condescending. 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.880 It was really out of touch. I think the media 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.320 still had this problem, and so I wanted to write 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.320 about social media sort of as a user. At that 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.840 time when I was coming up there, it was this 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.120 like heyday of gadget blogging, and so there were all 0:05:56.160 --> 0:06:00.520 these people that were blogging who actually used the products 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.880 like the new iPhone or the new Mac computer or whatever, 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:05.560 but they would write about it from the perspective of 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.080 people that had used it, and so I thought I 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.880 would do that, but for social media, you know, just 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.120 try and write about things happening online from the user side. 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.680 I think I always gravitated towards you because of that, 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.760 because there also you were really like the only woman 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.840 that I saw doing it, and you were writing about 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.960 the Internet that I was growing up with. You weren't 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.080 writing about necessary. I mean sometimes you would, but a 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.440 lot of these male tech reporters as they were called, 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.279 were writing like reviews on the new iPhone, and that's 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.880 not the Internet that I was interested in necessarily. 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.160 I feel the exact same way. I feel like there's 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.920 this thing in tech. It's such a male dominated field, 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.200 and there's this obsession with like hardware and you know, 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.360 tough like things, and look, you know, I went back 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.960 to school, I learned how to code, I learned web development. 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.080 I'm into that technical side of things. But yeah, I'm 0:06:58.160 --> 0:06:58.359 got a. 0:06:58.360 --> 0:06:59.840 Little known fact by out. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.760 Yeah, I mean, I love technology and I'm interested in 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.600 that side of things. But I think what makes you know, 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.080 writing about it interesting to me is more like the 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.559 cultural impact and how it's shaping you know, our lives, 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.040 and especially the content creator industry. Like one thing that 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.960 I noticed really early on covering these platforms, it's just 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.720 that there were these people with massive audiences wielding a 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.920 huge amount of influence and shaping the products, and these 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.240 people were totally ignored by Silicon Valley. A lot of 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.320 them were women. It was a lot of you know, 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.360 mommy bloggers, fashion bloggers, lifestyle bloggers. I mean it started 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.200 with blogging that all emerged on Pinterest, Instagram, all these platforms. 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.520 But I think because it was sort of seen as 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:42.200 this like female coded industry, the male tech reporters didn't 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.520 take it seriously or touch it or cover any of it. 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.720 And I thought, well, I'll do it, then I'll cover 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.840 all of that. I love that stuff and it's fascinating, 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.160 and again it has real tech impacts. I mean, look 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.440 at the way that now Silicon Valley vcs talk about 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.320 people like mister Beast, you know, like how he's a 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.280 productized himself and oh he's launching products. He's not just 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:06.280 an influencer. Beauty YouTubers were doing that, you know, twelve 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.520 years ago. They were launching their own makeup lines and palettes, 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.520 and people like Michelle von and Ingrid Nielsen, and so yeah, 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:15.080 I just wanted to kind of set the record straight 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.080 with my book too, of like how this whole thing 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.080 came to be and the role that influential users and 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:21.360 especially women played in it. 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.320 I don't see you tweeting, because tweeting is, you know, 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.840 controversial now, but I used to see you tweeting a 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.080 lot about the bullying and harassment you received. A lot 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.400 of it was very gendered. I don't see you talking 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.480 about that as much as it still is prevalent, and 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:42.280 you're just bored of discussing it or what's happening sort 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:43.280 of behind the scenes for you. 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.480 Yeah, it got really crazy in twenty twenty and twenty 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.120 twenty one, especially at the time I was working at 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.959 The New York Times, which I loved my editor. I 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.040 would dive for my editor there. She was amazing, and 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.720 I loved my team. But I think structurally that company 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.880 was not really set up to deal with the level 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.240 of harassment I got. That's not a knock on them, 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.840 They just didn't They weren't prepared for it, you know. 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:07.920 I think that now all these news organizations are sort 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:09.720 of learning how to deal with you know, when your 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.719 reporter is getting thousands and thousands of death threats a 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:14.800 day or all of this horrible stuff. Er they're targeting 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.280 her family, Like how do we respond to that? So 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:19.080 it was really hard for me. I felt very alone, 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.520 and I was on Twitter more sort of talking about it. 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.520 But it's been hard. I mean, I operate in a 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.720 very male world. I cannot think of another female tech 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.600 reporter that's sort of operating at the level that I've 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.280 been operating at other than Kara Swisher, who's a woman 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.600 in her sixties, and it's sort of from a different generation. 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:39.280 She came up in a different time when there wasn't 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:41.600 this twenty four to seven or feedback on the Internet 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.520 and scrutiny. And she's also a lesbian and doesn't present 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.640 as feminine as me, and I think that there's just 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.200 a sort of a difference in how we're perceived. I 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.320 cannot think of a feminine presenting tech reporter that really 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.600 has risen the ranks to that level. It's a very 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.160 hard industry to operate it, and so I've gotten a 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.280 lot of hate. When I first started reporting on influencers 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.120 and I was reporting on big things, you know, it 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.080 was like the way that these influencers were actually like 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:08.920 they you know, had sold so much product for instance, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.600 that Instagram had to redo, you know, a feature or whatever. 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.360 Like there was all these impacts that were having on 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:15.959 the tech world. But when I tried to call myself 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.600 a tech reporter, these men in the industry freaked out. 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:21.679 They were like, well, you're not reviewing iPhones or you're 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.720 not writing about Microsoft's latest earnings. You can't call yourself 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:25.400 a tech reporter. 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:27.960 You feel respected now? 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:30.319 Yeah, now I think I got the last laugh. I 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.360 mean this is we know that the influencer industry is 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:34.640 about to be a half a trillion dollar industry. The 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.360 concept of online influence has migrated just from fashion and 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:42.360 beauty to politics, to business to everything. So I feel 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.600 fine about my life now. But I used to talk 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:46.320 about it more because I think it was really I 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:48.720 was really sort of like fighting to take up space. 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.400 I get why you were talking. I actually think it 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:53.920 was helpful that you were talking about it because people 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.800 were people that were going through similar things in different industries, 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.160 probably related, and people who warrant got an inside look 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.280 into what that was like. I mean it was the 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.000 things you would post were horrifying. 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:09.840 Yeah, it was bad. It was really bad. 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.120 I don't have like the breath of understanding to speak 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.480 about this that well, but I do know just from 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:20.000 my own experience that when you are a woman on 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.920 the Internet, the sort of mean tweets that you get 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.320 are usually really scary because a lot of them have 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.320 to do with like harming you, and so that's and 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.120 maybe like you're saying, harming your loved ones. So that's 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:31.640 what's scary. 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.400 Yeah, And there's a gendered like there's this like gendered 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:37.920 nature to it too, like yeah, I mean, one thing 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.240 that I constantly get is like told now that I'm 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.040 in my thirties that I'm too old to write about tech. 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.880 And it's so funny because throughout my entire twenties, when 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:47.679 I was like building this career for myself, they were 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.280 like this silly little girl. I mean, Tucker Carlson was saying, like, 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:52.440 I'm too, I'm younger than everyone else at the New 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.520 York Times, And how did I even get this job. 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.280 I'm such a young, unqualified girl. Then you turn thirty 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.400 and now as I'm too old. Meanwhile, Walt Mosburg icond 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.160 of the industry. But you know, there's all these other 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.720 tech colonist men. Yeah, they're in their forties and sixties, 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.280 and no one would ever say that. So it's women 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.760 are subject to a very different you know, and this 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:13.520 is true in every industry. You're held to a completely 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:14.280 different standard. 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.320 So your book sort of paints this overview of social 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:20.920 media and the Internet in a way I hadn't heard 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.560 told before. This is going to sound like probably the 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.560 most ridiculous question that you will ever get in an interview, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.880 But just so we can start baseline, how did the 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:30.640 internet start? 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.920 Oh my god, good question. It started way back, you know, 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:37.880 in like the sixties and sort of emerge in the seventies. 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.679 I'm sure you guys have seen those like giant you know, 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:42.840 computers that like took up the size of a room. 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:44.800 And it actually started with women. I mean some women 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.480 were taught to be the earliest computer programmers. Actually, people 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.120 don't know that because it was considered this easy job 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:51.839 for women to do. You could train them up in 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.120 computer programming. That's yeah, that's why some of the first 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.480 and most famous early computer programmers were women. Then it 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.760 turned into this male dominated heech industry. Really when Silicon 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.480 Valley took hold in the eighties, and really the nineties 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.000 was like the boom of Silicon Valley and you saw 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:12.680 these corporate you know, companies like behemoths submerge. My interest 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:15.640 in the Internet sort of started in the late nineties 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:17.920 as a millennial. I mean obviously I had like aim, 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.240 I had Facebook in college, but it wasn't really until 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.320 that sort of like social part of the Internet took 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:24.680 off that I really started to fall in love with it, 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:26.559 which was really kind of that turn. It's really when 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.239 my book begins, it's like the year two thousand, I am. 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.200 Isn't that when like everybody thinks Al Gore started the Internet? 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:38.160 Yeah? Yeah, yeah, you remember. 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:42.360 So what is a digital reporter? And I would say 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.880 digital culture reporters daily relationship with the Internet, like like 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:50.119 paint me sort of a picture of your social media routine. 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:52.920 Oh god, it's slightly horrifying. I don't like to look 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.079 at my screen time too much because I am online 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.680 kind of from start to finish. 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.240 Yeah, I mean, I wait, going online. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.280 Extremely online, But that's okay. I love I mean, it's 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.880 such a dream job for me, and I do have 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.440 a lot of hard boundaries as well. But I wake up, 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.480 I immediately roll over took my phone and after checking 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.400 sort of Slack and email and stuff, I just dive 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:15.760 in and see what people are talking about online. I 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.200 live in LA so by the time I get up 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.880 around six or seven, you know New York has already 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.960 been up for a few hours in the UK, so 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.920 you know, you sort of get a sense of what's trending, 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.880 what people are talking about. And my day is a 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:32.560 mix of meeting people in person, interviewing. I do a 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.760 lot of video stuff. I do TV hits, I do 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.760 podcasts like this, and then I'm writing in between all 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.520 of that, and I just kind of dip in and 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.040 out all throughout the day. But I'm online twenty four 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:44.760 to seven. I don't have a huge boundary of like 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.760 work hours, just because the Internet, everything happens at any time, 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.400 So I kind of every day is a mix of 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:53.360 all of that stuff. 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:55.920 I always say my days are like fire drills. It 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:57.360 sounds like yours are the same way. 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.600 Yes, that's such a good way to put it. I 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:00.480 feel this same way. 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.400 So when I first moved to LA in twenty thirteen, 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.280 my first real job was at this place called Clever TV, 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:11.560 which was under defined. Yeah, and for anybody who doesn't know. 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.440 It was sort of this YouTube conglomerate. They housed like 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.800 ten of the largest YouTube channels with smash games and 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.360 Clever was their entertainment outlet. And that's where I first 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.200 really learned the Internet. I didn't know. I had always 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.480 been like a user for fun and this was a job. 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:33.480 And I learned about SEO and strategy and content creation 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.200 and the whole thing. And I learned that there was 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.240 an entire vocabulary to the Internet. 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:39.040 It is. 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.160 Some people say the Internet is culture. I think it's 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.920 still a subculture because there's so many subcultures that make 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.040 up our culture. Do you remember the exact moment when 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.040 it became abundantly clear to you that the Internet had 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:53.840 its own culture. 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.840 Yeah, I mean, I guess I always thought of the 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.080 Internet as a separate sort of thing, like it was 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.000 really my Space era. I just remember a lot of 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.600 people at my school had MySpace. It was really kind 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:08.640 of those early two thousands when I started to really 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.240 notice this like MySpace culture or that like emo culture, 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.600 and although I was definitely not part of it, it 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:15.880 kind of just it was this like thing that I 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.840 became aware of that, like things were happening online and what. 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:20.840 Were you blogging about? 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.040 So I started blogging more like later after that, Like 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:26.280 I would say, if that was sort of like two 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.000 thousand and four to two thousand and six. I started 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:30.600 blogging really seriously in two thousand and nine when I 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:34.280 got Tumblr. But Tumblr had all this social functionality. I 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:36.800 would just go through and like and engage with everyone 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.960 that I saw on Tumblr, and I started to get followers, 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:41.640 and I started to get people who knew who I was. 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.280 But it was that social aspect that I really liked. 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:46.240 I was going to say, what were you getting from it? 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.080 Did you feel like you were making friends? Did you 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.200 feel like did you have friends at school and then 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.200 felt like this was a separate life or yeah. 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.600 I mean I had a really hard time in school academically, 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.520 and so I had transferred through many school I had 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.680 really hard time. I was always really good at making friends, 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:05.240 but school wise, I had a hard time, and I 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:06.720 never felt like I fit in. So I think I 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.760 would be sort of a chameleon and just like adjust 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.800 to these expectations of myself that were sort of like 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.879 very rigid. And when I got on Tumblr, I was like, 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:18.359 oh my god, there's all these people that are just 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.000 not buying into this, you know, Like I mean, I 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.399 think as a girl in the mid two thousands, like 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.080 there was this obsession with being thin and beautiful and 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.640 sort of meeting these beauty standards. And I remember being 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.800 on Tumblr and seeing that was the first time I 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.080 had seen a fat person post a picture of themselves 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.560 in a bikini and not like I remember seeing that 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:40.119 and being like, oh my god, I can't believe this 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:42.959 girl put this on the Internet. And there were so 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:44.880 many things like that, just like not just the body 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.760 positivity movement, but it exposed me to like just this 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.040 wider range of viewpoints that I grew up with. I 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.520 grew up in a sort of a narrow, pretty conservative 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.760 town and just the suburbs, you know, like a lot 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.560 of us. And so yeah, Tumblr really opened my world. 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:01.240 And I was like, and I had moved to New 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.399 York at that point, I had graduated college, and so 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:05.840 I was like, wait a minute, there's like a whole 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.120 world out here, and these people are really cool and interesting, 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:09.800 and even people that I didn't agree with, I just 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.600 kind of wanted to like meet them and talk to 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.439 them and you know, experience life outside just what I 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:17.320 had been exposed to. 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.240 So I'm so interested in the photo that you just 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.120 mentioned because one of my questions for you is about 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:29.639 women online. So I go to like and MCEE a 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.520 lot of female founder events, and one of the things 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.440 I'm always taken by is like, it's so much harder 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:38.800 to be a woman in business, to be a woman 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.240 in any industry. But one of the things I see 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.720 that benefits us is how we gather. Men don't gather 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.280 the same way. And I see it happening on the internet. 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.360 I think TikTok and correct me if I'm wrong. TikTok 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:57.160 seems like a female run platform or female led at least. 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:57.879 Is that true? 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.320 I totally agree with you, and I think that's exactly 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.960 why so many men refuse to take it seriously. I mean, 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.639 just it's so funny. I had this bet with my 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.399 friend Katy Newton, who I love and he's actually a 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.560 phenomenal gay man. He took TikTok seriously, but he was 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.200 still had this like silicon value mentality where I remember 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.280 we made a bet like will TikTok still be relevant 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.240 in a year? I was like, this was back in 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.240 twenty nineteen, and I was like, this is like the 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:24.879 single most relevant platform ever. What are you talking about? 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:26.920 This is like where especially I'm a huge reality TV 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.680 pop culture stan and like, that's just like where people 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:31.800