Featured Session: Shit You Should Care About: Live

Unknown Speaker 0:00 Which is a media company that helps people give a shit about things. And today I am going to take you for a little scroll through memory lane. You're allowed to be on your phones during this talk, because I would be such a hypocrite if I said that you couldn't. It's cool. You should hear about the live show. If you want to go on and comment and interact, you don't have to. And also, you should ask me questions through that little question thing on the app, because that's so much more fun than me just talking at you. It would be really nice like talk with you. Anyway, I'm from New Zealand. I'm Lucy. I'm very happy to be here. It's very cold this morning, so I'm hoping we can warm up together in this room, and I think we should just get into it. So here's Harry. You're going to hear a lot about Harry Styles during this show, because, as you'll learn, I don't just care about the news. I care about one direction. I care about Formula One. I care about the climate changing. We're all people. We all have multiple interests, and that used to really piss people off at the start of my media career. But anyway, we'll get into that. So I don't know if any of you all felt this way, but the worst thing that I would get asked when I finished uni was like, What are you going to do? You know, what's your job going to be? What are you going to do after this? And I had no idea. My lecturers had always told me there was no money or no prospects or anything in journalism, and I've just been studying it for three years. And I like, I'm really broke at this point. I'm thinking, Okay, now my lecturers are telling me there's also no job for me. Awesome. That's awesome. So this was back in 2018 and I was sitting in one of my lecture theaters in New Zealand, in Wellington, and I text my two best friends, saying, like that, the news was really boring, and I've been studying this, and I knew I wasn't dumb, but it just like wasn't landing. And so I text Ruby and lit with my two best friends this. These are the actual original messages. So Ruby, I had an idea that I want you and live to start with me as a trio. Liv epic trio, a blog called stuff you should care about, for people who don't have time to figure out things that they should care about. So we like write little pieces, etc, on things they should care about so they don't have to go and search for them themselves. Unknown Speaker 2:36 Ruby, OMG, would love to. Lucy, do you think we would be able to call it shit you should care about, like with this wheeler, because that's edgy. Liv, yes, Unknown Speaker 2:48 edgy like me in 2018 thinking shit is edgy. I did not know what the internet had coming on me, and then I just said I was sitting in my lecture buzzing, we can write in our own styles, or whatever you have to answer to no one live. This could be so cool. Oh, indeed, it's so open, like you can write about anything that you should care about. Yes, I love that would actually be so cool. I already have an idea where and when for meeting. What are you up to today? This Arbo tonight. Bring notebooks and ideas. So that was back in 2018 and it's so funny reading back on these texts, because like nothing has changed. It's still so open, and we have to answer to no one except for meta, apparently, but we'll get to that. And so here's me, Ruth and Liv, and we were babies just starting out, and it's really cool to start a business with your best friends, because, like, Liv was a designer, so she did all the pretty stuff. I was the writer and person that was obsessed with being on the internet, and then Ruby, she's kind of like the realist, and she would tell us, you know, when something maybe was a bit too controversial, too far reaching, I didn't really listen most of the time to Ruby. So sorry, Ruby, these two, I should say, still my best friends. They no longer work with shit you hear about, but they're off doing like way cool things and still be seats. This Is Us, Harry. I just like my photo. Okay, cool. Well, you if you don't love yourself. So yes, I was in that lecture theater, and I was struggling through all those readings. They were really boring. It was all black and white, and it seems really audacious now. I was 21 to be like, I should be the one to change the news. And we started off like, on a actually, I think I talked about the Kardashians first. This was 2018 right? And this was the age of Kim Kardashian selling us like gummies to make us skinny or make us have thinner waist or have whiter teeth. It was very like brush photos, saturated selfies, and the Kardashians selling us shit. And I remember we wanted to start a blog, even though, like, now my kid, I'm like, Well, everyone was hanging out on Instagram. Why are you going to start a blog? No one's reading vlogs. But we did. We started off with a blog, and this is what it looked like at the very start. It was so cute. It was on WordPress, which I feel like no one really talking about WordPress anymore. That's where the blog was, and we did essentially what those texts said. We wrote about everything from like abortion laws. I remember we wrote about like, bullying culture on The Bachelor we wrote about procrastination. It was like from day one, a very, very mixed bag. But then, thankfully, very quickly, I did realize, Oh, no one is coming to read a blog. It's like the tree falling in the forest or whatever, like, Is anyone there? I don't know what I'm trying to say, but you know, if no one hears it, do, I'm gonna see it. Blah, blah, blah. So we started on Instagram, and this was our very first, like Instagram screenshot that I have. We have like, 600 followers. And it didn't seem groundbreaking to like put words and news on Instagram, but this was 2018 and so it kind of was, and I feel like we, from this little pocket in New Zealand, were some of the first people to start like putting the news where the young people actually were so God asked for that. And then we posted our very first Harry style post. And now this is going to become quite a theme throughout this chat, but I just wanted to, like, give you all a break from seeing facts and stuff. Unknown Speaker 7:01 Here's Harry. So cute, really good. Oh, he is actually so cute anyway. Unknown Speaker 7:08 So, yeah, so cute. So in December of 2018 we reached 1000 followers, and then midway through 2019 we have 20,000 followers. By the end of 2019 I think we had 60,000 and then we all know what happened in 2020 covid happened. And okay, sorry for making about covid Worst thing like to talk about. I hate it when it gets brought up in movies and shows and whatever, but I went through, like, a bit of a trip down memory lane, and I got the audience to send us some of their initial reactions to covid. And they said, like, if class gets canceled, I'm going to Europe, such cheap plane tickets. Or maybe you're right. Oh my god, dirt cheap. Yep, now might be the time to buy. You heard they locked Italians in the country and then, yeah, my work saying to make us wear surgical masks. Have you guys used or seen the app house party? It's awesome. We're having a party at five. What is zoom? I think she meant zoom into the picture. Like, it's just so cute. The way we were all like, oh my god, this is so fun. And then it really was good. Anyway. So while covid was happening, we were all locked inside. I'd lost my job, so I had all the time the world to start, like distilling the world for people. It was like a perfect storm of shit. Things happening. We had, well, we had an election in New Zealand, there was an election over here. We had the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. We had covid. It was like everyone was on their phones feeling helpless. And I had time to sort of like try and make or make sense for them. So we started doing daily no bullshit covid. 19 updates, which, oh my God. Remember this when the celebrities thought like they should sing and match into us, down the barrel of their cameras to make us feel better? No, that's such a mean. Oh, everyone posted black squares, and it actually like meant that good information couldn't get out because everyone was just posting. Like, that was a time, but it was also a time when celebrities were like, Okay, we need to start showing that we care about stuff. We need to start being with the people I never really did, but they started coming that you should care about, which was so funny, like three women Unknown Speaker 9:45 in this little small town in New Zealand, helping the world make sense. And then I remember, like, Unknown Speaker 9:49 reading Ruby and Liz being like Ariana Grande. She's followed us like Philly idol. She just put us on her story, blah, blah, blah. Like that is, it's really, it's still, it actually is unfathomable. And then like, this is not a flex, but like, Madonna follows it. This is definitely not a flex. Joe Rogan follows me. Girl, what are you doing here? Because, like, there's no way that our worlds align. But then here lies those who have since unfollowed. Ariana Grande, Gisele Reese Witherspoon and Olivia Rodrigo. What did I do? I would love to see the post that broke the camel's back. So that keeps me humble, having this here, knowing that, like, I'm not for everyone, and that's fine anyway. During 2020, within a month, thing was July, we got to a million followers, and this was crazy. I remember being like, holy shit. I need to, I think I took like, a week off, like, posting anything. So I was like, I need to learn how to be an editor. I need to learn how to be, like, really smart and safe with this platform of so many people and reading this shit, like, I need to get my dust on the road. And luckily, I've studied this and New Zealand's very cute. And like, I could reach out to people that actually had some experience being editors and stuff. And they gave me so much advice, so I owe a lot of the success they think of she actually care about to being from New Zealand, because then a month later, it grew to three and a half million followers, or 3.4 million. And I just remember being like, What the fuck is Unknown Speaker 11:40 going on, and I still feel like that a lot, but I'm very Unknown Speaker 11:44 uncomfortable with the job. Now it's been like six years, eight years. What a time. So that's crazy. That was like a movie. And then when we got all those followers, I remember being so thankful to young Lucy because we made this decision in the cafe, like, below our house, our university's like flat, and we see, like, do we know who runs the BBC? No, like, do we know what the intro vidali looks like? No, should we put our faces to this thing? No. And so for about five years, we ran this fully, anonymously, like it wasn't about what makeup we had on, what t shirt we were wearing, what we looked at looked like. It was so nice because people just came for our brains, which was very refreshing. And it still is like most people probably walking into this room, you would have no idea that there's many. I mean, the vibe, you could probably tell because the vibe is, like, really similar to the vibe you see online. But it was so nice being able to grow up and, like, fully form my brain without having the opinions of everyone about like, what I looked like, and where I came from, what my family did. And it was nice being anonymous. And I do think one of the things people like, they asked me, or they think in this day and age, is that you really have to have a face to your brand or to your Unknown Speaker 13:10 website or whatever. And yes, if you want to go out and Unknown Speaker 13:14 get, like, big brand deals and sell people shit, then you probably do. But that was not what we wanted to do. And I think it really is possible to be known for your your brain, your words, rather than just your face. It has changed a little bit now. I wrote a book called make it make sense, which touched on like some really personal shit. And I just thought it would be nice for people to see that the person that wrote this book is actually just like them. So when that book was released, I was like, Oh, it wasn't like, a great, like, unveiling or anything. It was just people started seeing me a little bit more. Still, I don't like, sit down and do a piece to camera, like, Hey guys, here's what's happening in the news. I still don't do that, because I think it's such a joy to keep young people reading, and for as long as I can, I would like to encourage people to read rather than watch. But anyone that sits down does the piece to cameras. It's just not me. And so now we get to the one direction, like era of this chat, my favorite thing to talk about in the world. So shit you should care about did not go viral by accident, in a way, I was like training for this to be my job my whole life. So when I was 15, I had a One Direction fan account, and it was on Twitter, and it had like 60,000 followers, and that is how I learned how to like be a person on the internet, and how to be good at the Internet. I was only 15. I don't think was that good for my brain, but it was good for my future prospects. So I always tell people that I went to the University of One Direction. So in YouTube 101, I would sit and watch they were on The X Factor, and they would do like, the origins for me, of vlog style content was like their video guy sit in a little staircase and film things for us as fans. I remember social media was just really taking off while One Direction were and so it was like we the fans, were learning with them, and we were encouraged to be online all the time because they were and it was really, really fun. But this, I would like to sit on YouTube and like, figure out, Okay, what's a what's a good quote that I've said in this live stream. How can I chop this up and, like, tweet about it, whatever. Then I went on Twitter. Twitter, one on one. I learned how to, like, take those little sound bites, turn them into tweets, figure out what a hashtag was. Figure out, like, how things go viral. Learn how to be funny on the internet. Learn what a meme was. All that really important shit. Then on Tumblr, 101, I learned how to turn them into like, GIF sets, just all these skills that I thought were going to get me nowhere, that turns out very useful in Photoshop. 101, I learned how to, like, make a minute like a manipulation. So no me and Harry, but I also learned media literacy, so how to tell the real from the fake? Like, if someone was really good at photoshopping, and I'd be like, is that real? Like, where are the lines? Which actually comes in really handy today, because everything is fake. And so me learning at a young age to, like, not trust everything on the sea. Thank you. One Direction is very useful. Then we had live streaming. 101, so live streaming is now a huge thing, but back back in the day of like 2013 it was like on Twitter and like, I would just sit and watch these two boys sit in their hotel room at like 3am to be like, 6000 viewers that chat to their stream. You'd like, listen to what they're saying, transcribe it again, go to Twitter, tweet it, blah, blah, blah, all these skills that are very useful when it comes to watching and distilling. And then, like, posting about the news, they're coming in handy. And I think, oh, and then community management, so whenever the boys were up for an award or something, I like, learned how to rally, rally the people and, like, get them to sign petition to go and vote for the Brits or vote at whatever that actually, that's activism. Back then. That was like me learning how to organize people in my place to do like, what I was saying, oh, editing 101. This is probably the most important for me. I would read, like, self published fan fiction on Wattpad. And as I was reading it, I'd be like, there needs to be full stops here. Like, that spell wrong. This is so bad. This was, like, an iconic one. And it was like, about this girl, she comes downstairs and she's really confused, and then she goes for these people, your new owners. This is a story of how one direction bought me. Like, this a fucked up thing to be reading at like, 15, like, oh, like, your dream is to be bought by one direction that is weird, but going a little easy, I guess. And then I think, because, and this is what I always love to say, like young fan girls, or fans of things, because the study was all like, self directed. I was having so much fun learning all these skills. I got really good at stuff, because no one, there was no syllabus, there was no exams, there was no nothing. Was just me learning all these skills for the love of the game, and the game was getting Harry Styles to notice me. And still, I'm friends with his sister now, and I think that's as hot like not to be weird, but I think this is close as I should get. So yes. And then one other thing that I should say in this one direction part of the chat is that my brother, my older brother, loved him so much, was obsessed with the Tour de France. So he was obsessed with cycling. He would have his friends over to, like, stay up and watch cyclone in the middle of the night. They would buy, like, this Unknown Speaker 19:28 nerd. They would be they would buy Unknown Speaker 19:29 magazines with cyclists based on it, right? And that was, like, really cool and so socially acceptable. But when I would get up in the middle of the night to watch my direction user video that was really seen. I would buy merge, or I would get tickets to something it was seen as so cringe. And I remember just thinking like, Hmm, there's some double standard going on here. And then also, like, my brother could get a job at a bike shop, which he did. There was career paths for him, like, what if he wanted to be a commentator, or something like that? And I remember thinking that there was no career path for my interest, but actually there is because all those I keep banging on about it, all those skills I learned perfectly transferable into the day and age we're living in right now. And so, yes, all of this is the backstory to why we love Harry so much. Also, I think it's just so nice. Like, we write a lot about the news. We write a lot about really terrible shit. So nice of us have, like, a timeline cleanse. I always like to say, I want to give people the news without giving them the blues, and Harry definitely helps with that. But some people in the beginning really hated this. And to be clear, I had my fair share of haters, but this was from a manager of a really famous Australian influencer at the time, and he wrote him, hi girls. Have loved seeing your platform grow, and I'm loving the Harry content we all do. Wanted to give a piece of advice. I've been at this for a while now, and I wish someone had been honest with me when I started out. The new cycle is really heavy at the moment, and you're doing a great job at reporting it, but the hairy stuff seems a little light and fluffy amongst it all. Maybe you could isolate the hairy content to a hairy hour of sorts, and we'll know when to expect it, just so the messaging doesn't feel so disjointed, then we could still get involved with the shit we should care about, something to think about as we continue to grow and influence. And I remember just being like that. Thanks so much. This is something we thought about as much we agree on some parts we never want to lose our human aspect, or any of our content controlled by other people. Thanks so much for checking in. If people think that because we post Harry Styles, then all our new other news is irrelevant, then I think that's on them. So I was very audacious from the start, and like he was honestly managing the biggest influencer in Australia at the time. And I was just like, No, we're not having a hairy hour. Our interests as people don't fall into like times of the day. And now, like mixing pop culture in the news is not like a It's not that deep. But back then, for some reason, it rubbed people so the wrong way. But it's that happens. It happens when you go viral and when you when you get 3 million followers, you sort of you learn a few things. And so I thought I would do a little here's what you learn when suddenly you have 3 million followers. So the first thing good attention is like to grow so when you start going viral, like, I remember when we first started getting heaps of followers, I was like, up all night. I was basically manic. I was like, oh my god, this is it. I need to reply to everyone. You reply to all the comments. I need to be finding shit to post 24/7, and it really sets this horrible, like stupid expectation. Like, if a post or something that you've written or whatever gets less than 10,000 likes, you think it's a flop, like that is terrible expectations, and I don't have them anymore, because I don't look at the stats at all anymore. I'm very just like, No if I care about it, or I think we should care about it, or if someone's written in about it, about it, then we'll talk about it. It's not about the stats. But at the start of good attention is like a drug. A lot of the time, you'll feel like Hannah Montana. So for me, I really feel like I live the best of both worlds, because I am a very normal person, but I get to come and do things like this. But when I'm not doing stuff like this, I'm like, at home in New Zealand, in my bed. I literally live with seven housemates, like I'm so normal, annoying, loose please do your dishes. Annoying clinic. See, I honestly, I'm like, here talking to South by Southwest, and one of my flatmates seems to be saying, do the dishes. So that was planned, but, yeah, it's like, so weird. And then every now and again, like the worlds will combine, and you'll be on a random beach in New Zealand, and you'll have this, like, kiwi dad coming up to you, be like, My daughter loves you, like, let's get a selfie, blah, blah, and I'll be like, holy shit. I'm I just write the news the airway so cute. We love it so great to be here. I love doing stuff like this, but it is very weird, just like, you still live on with your seven friends, and they're looking at you like you live a double life Lucy. The next thing is, the internet incentivizes people to take things in the worst way possible. So this is not a hot take. I feel like nothing I'm saying is really a hot take. But I mean, I'm just gonna say it anyway, because I feel like the internet, as we know, is not built to like, be nice. So there's this thing called Cunningham's war, which says that the best way to get the right answer is not to just post the question online. To ask the question online, it's to like, say something so wildly wrong that everyone's going to come and correct you with the right answer. And so because the one thing that people like better than being right is pointing out that you're wrong. So I do feel like, sometimes I use this to my advantage, and I'll just, like, say something slightly off. It won't be like, like, a fact, it won't be to do with the news, but I'll do something to like, make people come to the comments, especially if, like, I'm being shadow banned or something. But because Instagram sometimes hates what I talk about, I'll post something that just makes people like comment be like, Oh, you got that slightly wrong, because enragement is engagement, which is why I do something called a mundane poll every day, and it lets people go to the stories or comment on your feed posts and like argue about something that's not going to hurt people's feelings. I just like encourage them. If you feel like you need to argue online, argue about something that doesn't matter. So like, is milk sweet or savory? Why don't you go and argue about that, instead of, like, arguing about politics, because nothing ever got solved in the comment section, which is where I turn our hate comments into inspirational quotes, this isn't shit I should care about. I just want you to know that you ruin all your credibility when you post about Harry Styles. Why don't you idiots post about insert topic here? Oh, this was back. This was in a better time. Oh, wait because a Democrat is president and you're embarrassed for giving the last president shit. So now the issue is 100 is 1000 times worse, not as 100 since you're based in New Zealand, why not just concern yourself with your own show of a country? Worry about your own problems. Your Insta is a one sided girly mag for young carrots who will never know any kind of hardship. You have a female slant that is boring. AF, may all your followers crawl into the shadows of Oblivion, and then just fuck you. Yeah, people, people do be hating, but most people are most people are actually pretty nice. And then the next thing you learn your third million followers is that you'll weirdly be like two degrees away from celebrities that, except for Harry, no, I am, of course, celebrities that you've, like, been a fan of your entire life, which is just like the weirdest thing that, like, you grow up being a fan of these people, and then you get to sit and interview them, and you realize, Oh, they're actually just, like, really normal, just into our doom, we missed her. And then, speaking of actually being two degrees of separation, there was this one time I talked to Mark Zuckerberg, and I totally wasted my opportunity. So I said, just for Olivia Rodrigo. Post that post that one of the clean versions of vampire was blood sucker, Mark Zucker. I wish so badly she chose that. And he doesn't follow me and I don't follow him, so I don't know how he found this, but he said, Wow, where was this? And I say, dare I say tick tock, because we know how he went about tick tock. And he said, love it. And I feel like if I got one chance to talk to him, and I fumbled it that bad. Like that is not good for me anyway. Also like, I feel like he was stalking shit you should care about because I do not follow Him. He doesn't follow me. And the next thing is, you should not just like post through it. No one wins when you're trying to be the first one to post about the news, to post about something like you should really get a grip on something before you post about it. So this was a few years ago now, Unknown Speaker 29:12 and I remember I was getting inundated with DMS about this viral infographic that said that Iran had sentenced 15,000 protesters to death, and so this was like, I think it was three or four years ago. I remember I did, like, the most simple fact check. I was getting so much hate and the demons being like, why are you posting about this? Your silence is violence. Like, blah, blah, blah. I was like, Oh, shit. Like, this is really important. Went and did a fact check. Couldn't find any credible like source about this, except for the fact that, like just Trudeau had posted about this on his story. And then it turns out, this was a few years ago. This was like false, and there was no credible source for it, and like Justin Trudeau, had to take it down to these big apologies, blah, blah, blah. And I remember just being like, how can even he or his team not take one minute to just go and, like, Google it or go and check that what, like, the infographic that you're posting is real, and so no one wins when you post through it. And then the last thing that you learn when you have 3 million Unknown Speaker 30:26 followers is that, again, this happened ages ago, but it's irrelevant today. Unknown Speaker 30:32 The job is never done. So this was when I'd gone and I'm like, oh, it's actually making this necklace. I've gone to like a beading class to make a necklace. I was having two hours off the news, and I was just like, with my friends, and I get out, I turn my phone on, it's like, Lucy, the US just bombed around. And I was like, Oh my God. Like, I just can't have a few minutes, or like, a few hours of peace without something crazy happening. And that's like, part of the job, and part of like, you know, it's, I don't mind doing it, because I think to do the job, you have to be like, I'm obsessed with the news. I love helping people learn about things, and I love doing it all the time. But it's just Unknown Speaker 31:17 the job does never end. Unknown Speaker 31:20 And so today she should care about is less on Instagram, it is much more like we have 500,000 people that read a daily newsletter that I write, which, again, kind of goes along with my instead of pivoting to Tiktok, I like pivoted into a newsletter because I love having young people reading. I wrote a book which is called make it make sense, and actually, I'm signing some of them at 1245 over at the bookstore. So if you want to come and hang out and like, get me to sign your book, it's really good. I swear it's about the Internet helps fuck us up, but also how we kind of use it to our advantage. And then there's things about being like a young woman in the workplace, being underestimated. There's a chapter about grief, chapter about friendship. It's, it's like a, like a, I don't want to say guidebook, because not everyone should live like this. Like, don't be obsessed with internet. It's not that good for you, but the book's good. And today we just everyone says that you should, like, scale up and, like, hire a bunch of people and try and take over the world and make a shit ton of money. But that's just not for me. That's not the goal. It's never been the goal. The goal is to, like, make sure I stay really happy and normal, because like to be online and working in the news, working on the internet, you have to have, like, a good, healthy brain. And so I feel like if I was just not happy doing the job, and I was chasing something like a huge team, like I would hate if my job turned into managing a team. That's not what I'm good at. I'm good at, like doing the news and doing what I do and helping people care about things. And so I do feel like it always surprises people to say that it's just me that does this 24/7 and then I have, I feel like, shit you should care about is like a nepotism thing, because I only ever hire like my best friend, from my mom down. So I have another best friend, Adley, in the front. She does all my designs. Unknown Speaker 33:35 And so it's only just the two girlies, like, against the world, like, literally, against the whole world. We have a podcast now, which is so fun. So if you're less of a reader, or you release of you don't use social media anymore. We are in your ears as well. It's all just bullshit you should hear about. Unknown Speaker 33:56 And so we're basically everywhere you can find us, but we're not on Tiktok, really. So anyone wants to come and do my Tiktok for me, I'm hiring, and I feel like now I'm like, kind of sick of talking at you and rather talk with you. So maybe we should do I could see a bunch of questions coming through on the screen. Let's see how the mundane poll's going actually, is anyone voted in it? This is My Diary. Everyone I used to talk so funny just being on my phone during this. Oh, so most of you face away from the shower head. I face the shower head. Okay, let's do some questions. Why me? Just like, what do I want to do here? Let's put haircut. Why do you think it feels like now more people than ever don't give a shit about some of the injustices and things going on in the world? How do we change that? Okay, I think because we're exposed to so much all the time and like, say, you're scrolling on Instagram and you see, like, you see a photo of your cousin's wedding, and then a cute puppy, and then a war happening somewhere, and then the climate, and then a funny meme. And it's like, because of the nature of the platform, we are taking all of those like things that we're seeing at face value, and we're giving them the same amount of time and attention when, like, a few of those things deserve way more of our time and attention. I think because everything's been blatant, it's really hard for us to distinguish, like, what we should be spending more time on. And then it's also just like, really, I think that if you want to make a change, you have to be feeling good in yourself. And being online and seeing all this really shit news all the time doesn't help us feel good in ourselves. And I think it's not that we don't care. I think it's just that we're really fatigued and I think we feel really helpless, which is why I didn't want to turn this into a plug, but it's like doing the news. Giving you the news without giving you the blues is one way that I try to keep myself not feeling helpless, and also to keep the audience from not feeling depressed because or feeling depressed can't do anything. How do you check the fake news that is such this is okay? This is such a good question I used to have. I used to have a very different answer to this question. I used to think like I studied this. I know how to corroborate. I know how to cross reference. I know how to look at sources that used to feel like enough, whereas now with like, AI and deep fakes and everything being kind of a little bit of fake, I feel like I now take everything my first gut reaction is to think that it's fake and then check that it's real, rather than looking at it and thinking that it's real and checking whether it's fake. So, like, I'm always before I post or write about anything, I'm in the comment section, every single thing that we post now has comments saying, is this real? Is this real? Is this AI like that never used to happen. It's really scary and really bad. And if it's on shit you should care about, it is real. The only time I've ever posted something that was fake was and thank god This was, like, a really low stakes error. Was a photo of Harry Styles in Italy, and the background was like, totally like, he was real, but the background was totally fake. And I've never seen the photo before, because I'm usually quite like, all over that. And then all the comments were like, Lucy, you've actually just posted an AI version of Harry Styles. And so thankfully, I love making, like, low stakes errors, because they, like, remind me not to get too big for my boots. And like, go and check what you're posting. But yeah, so now I have to I assume everything is fake, which helps me, and I don't think it's a good way to live, but it helps me do a job. Do you see legacy media as a partner, competitor, or something Cisco exists alongside? Oh, yeah, you should care about I shortened to Cisco because it's a mouthful to keep talking about. She usually care about wouldn't exist without legacy media. Like, I am not in these boots. I'm not boots on the ground in these places, like during 2020 when we saw the big resurgence of Black Lives Matter. All of the stuff that I was posting was coming from people in my audience that were writing things for me and sending them to me, because I'm in a pocket in New Zealand, very sheltered and away from a lot of what's happening in the world. So without legacy media actually having people doing the reporting like I'm much more of a commentator for someone that analyzes things or helps make it make sense than a breaking the news person, and so I would never say that shit you should care about as a competitor. I think it would be really bad if every single news source became like shit you should care about this is, like, the second port of call, I think, for a lot of people, and I think that's what it should be. It shouldn't be like, Oh my God, there's some breaking news. Let's see what Lucy's opinion is on this. Because that's not my job. It's also not what I'm like. I don't have the resources to do that. And these legacy media people, they do, and they have amazing journalists, and particularly in New Zealand, they need to be funded better. We need to find a way that, like just doesn't rely on the audience to fund them, because without them, we're kind of screwed. How do you stay sane this new cycle? Do you ever take a break from your phone? Yes, I do. I'm like, not on my phone that much for someone whose whole job requires me to be up with things, Unknown Speaker 40:15 I feel like, Unknown Speaker 40:18 weirdly, I'm really I'm really boundary. Weirdly, I'm really good at being boundaries. No, I I love, like, going for a walk or a bike ride and just listening to a podcast, and, like, learning that way, where I'm just, like walking around, not looking at my screen, looking at the world, and, like, listening to stuff. Unknown Speaker 40:40 I read a lot of books. We have a book club, which is so good, it Unknown Speaker 40:44 forces me to make sure that I'm reading at least a book a month, but usually more. I always find that, like, the best way to deal with, like, anxiety about the world is to find a small book and sit down and read the entire thing, and it keeps your brain out of the world. It's like, yeah, it's like, the only way that I'm not thinking about the world is like reading the book. I also just, I love the seven people. I go downstairs and you spend two hours yapping. I'm really, yeah, I'm not on my phone that much. But I think if I'd started off like showing my face and I'd be all about me and having to film videos and things like that, it'd be a very different story. Now, I need to take time to actually consider what I actually think and feel. I need to take time to write a newsletter each day. All these things are like forcing me to slow down but not be super reactive, not like in the lumber restaurant fandom, where I was like, holy shit. Harry Styles has just done this. I need to post it now or I won't go viral. Unknown Speaker 41:47 What do you see next for you guys, especially as the social landscape seems to be shifting again? Unknown Speaker 41:55 Okay, this is a really good question. I have this thing where I don't set goals because the internet, like, when I first got online, like we were a blog, then we were on Instagram, now we're a newsletter and a podcast. I don't know what's next. I don't want to prepare for five years in advance and work towards something that's just like, not going to be there in five years. I think the like key is to not set goals, but just to be ready to say yes all the time. So my teachers at school would be like, That is such a bad way of looking at things. You should set goals. Lucy, but I also think that obsession is more important than ambition. I think I'm not, weirdly, I'm not an ambitious person. I used to be. I used to want to be like a girl, boss, she, yo, whatever. And then I just that was when I was, like, 15 or 16, and then I can't switch, switched into obsession, like, anytime anything's gone, right for me, it's because I've been really obsessed with the thing and so, yeah, obsession, I think, more important than ambition. Unknown Speaker 43:08 What's your favorite trap on Harry Styles album? Unknown Speaker 43:14 Oh, my God, really steady. Go. It's like one of the best songs ever written. Go and listen to it. Everyone. He's not paying me to say that. So actually, you don't have to go. Have to go listen if you don't want, in your opinion, what is the shit we should have caring? Oh my god, that is a huge tool. Come and read the newsletter. I think one of the this is not like, the biggest thing we should be caring about at the end. I also love that I'm like, halfway reading the question and then being like, Oh my God, and not even telling you what I'm answering, what is the shit we should be hearing about the most? At the moment, I don't know what we should be hearing about the most, and I don't care about this so much as I think it's fascinating. But we've been talking about this a lot on the podcast, like there's this whole world happening right now where AI agents have their own social media, and they're, like, making their own language and shit. So I think that's really fascinating. Also Black Mirror, also like someone's like an AI agent wrote a hit piece on its person and, like, published it to the internet. I think that's like, fascinating, really scary. A generative AI can get in the bin honestly. So we should be kind of, I always like to be an optimist about new technology, because I think, like young women, we have been like, kept out of like. I remember when I was little, like, the stock market was, like, this elusive thing that I had no idea about, and my dad knew about it, and my brothers, some reason, knew about it. I was like, Oh, my god, me and my friends have no idea about the stock market. Now I remember, like, crypto and nfts and stuff came out, and I was like, right, well, I should learn about this, because I don't want to be left behind again. Then that ended up being a total flop. And so now, like, with AI, I'm really, like, even if I don't buy into it, I should learn about it, because I and, like, talk about it on the podcast with other people, because I don't want young women to be left left behind once again. Unknown Speaker 45:18 How do you monetize shit you should care? Oh, how do you monetize the shit you should care about? Empire, take care Unknown Speaker 45:24 and do you want to throw it? Unknown Speaker 45:28 I monetize shit you care about, and probably the best way Unknown Speaker 45:31 possible, which is like, I write a daily newsletter that is for free because I don't think the news should be behind a paywall or be really hard to understand, because like the news is happening to all of us. The whole reason we started this was so that all of us could understand it, and so putting like the news behind a paywall doesn't feel right to me, but people that just love what I do, or often older people that want to make sure that young people, like, I can keep doing this job and young people can keep reading it will kind of like sponsor a young person. They'll pay for the newsletter and email me and be like, this is so that you can keep doing it for free, so young people can keep reading it. So I write a newsletter and have paid subscribers there, and then I wrote a book, and so that is, it's very like diverse I try not to do a lot of advertising, because it just feels like a bit. I'm kind of allergic to it. I on Instagram, it feels like I shouldn't mix the news with like partnerships. So if I really care about the thing, hell yeah, I will. But it's really hard, because I think that if you don't stand for anything, like, I see so many people that like advertising, like, you know, those bedding apps, like how she and holy market and like, like working with these people. And I'm like, damn if I didn't have any value, then I could just say yes to everything. I'd be so rich. But because I'm like, No, I will only work with people that are doing shit I care about, or things that I think my audience would care about. It does kind of limit it, but I still work with some people sometimes because I have to, like, pay my rent and things like that. What's your favorite shit to follow? Podcast news, okay, I love the podcast. Pivot. Scott Galloway Harris, wisher, I think that's so fucking smart and funny and like, you know, they love each other, but they sound like they hate each other 50% of the time they're really good on the media and like they know a lot of like tech CEOs, and they talk shit about them, and I love it. So that's my favorite podcast. Social media accounts. My favorite social media account is this girl called Martina Calvi, and she does like junk journaling. And I really love scrapbooking and junk journaling. That's another way that I keep my brain out of the news is I'll just like, sit there and just like, stick scraps of paper into my diary. It makes me feel very good so that my favorite things to follow are online, hypocritical, but are, like, not the news. I don't go to Instagram for my news. I keep that very like crafty and wholesome and nice. Do you think social media has made people more informed or just more reactive? I think it has made people more informed. I think, like when I was 16 in high school, I did not know anything about the news. I was not going to protest. I was not informed about anything. Whereas now you have young people that are organizing and creating petitions and going to protest, and if they can't, they're protesting on Roblox like young people, they are genuinely My hope for the future. And yes, social media has made people more reactive, but it's kind of a symptom of us all being more informed. It's just a symptom of us being more online. Like, of course we're going to be more reactive. Also, the algorithm wants us to react. Like, there's that whole thing about the angry react on Facebook pushing things higher up than the happy react. And it's like, sometimes it's not our fault, like, the algorithm incentivizes it. So we do need to cut ourselves some slack and cut the like, angry Facebook uncles, some slack. Sometimes. What has been your favorite newsletter to write? Oh, I have one every year that I write. It's on my little brother Jimmy, who passed away a few years ago. He His birthday is on the 28th of September. So every day on or every year on September the 28th I write a newsletter that is just good news, like I collected up all this good news. He loved Formula One, he loved ducks. He loves like Space and Rocket ships and so there's always like, interesting shit about that. So every year, on September 28 for him, I just write a purely good news newsletter. And made I should write a lot about this in the book. It's made such a shit day like so nice and everyone's so cute on the internet about it. So that is my favorite newsletter to write. Oh, my God, okay, given perfect hindsight, is there anything you would have done differently? I wouldn't have posted that. AI generated Harry Styles photo. Unknown Speaker 50:59 I think like, Unknown Speaker 51:02 this is so cringe. I don't actually have any regrets, because, like, anytime that I've gotten something wrong online, and I've been like, I always call it like a soft cancelation. Like, I get softly canceled all the time, but it's not proper. Because, like people, I'm a good person. I'm actually trying to do something good. And I think, like most people that are commenting bad stuff, they're like, they're not actually doing anything that's trying to better the world. So most of I take the gram of salt ANYTIME I LIKE, do something wrong. I see it like, as a like, reminding people that I'm human and I'm I have no qualms about, like, deleting something and then reposting it with like, the amendment, I think that, or actually, I posted something the other day that was like, I had written something and it wasn't showing, like, both sides of the story that I really should have been showing. So I took it down, and I re uploaded it with, like, more perspectives from other people. And then people were, like, calling to you, like, see, yeah, she took it down. She knew it was wrong. Blah, blah, blah, like, Girl, we all saw what you posted in the first place. Blah, blah, and I, like, reshare it. And I said, like, isn't the point of calling someone out of call out culture, like wanting them to do better and then seeing that they're changing in real time. I literally was like, What do you want from me, if not to change it and re upload it and say what I've done wrong? This is exactly what I did. And so, like, I really have no qualms about being wrong and then fixing it and being right. It's really good to remind people that you're human Unknown Speaker 52:42 as well, and not like Unknown Speaker 52:44 this corporation that's protected by, like, all these faces and lawyers and shit like that. Like, I really am just I have written a daily news with it all kind of daily for the last five, six years, and I've never had an editor. And so the fact that it's still like, I haven't really gotten something so wrong that like everyone's turned on me is crazy. But I think it's also just like, I'm human. I'm one person, and people know that, and I seem to like it, which is nice. Unknown Speaker 53:16 Oh, between Instagram, the newsletter, the podcast, what is your favorite medium and why? 100% is the newsletter. Unknown Speaker 53:26 I really love it because, like, algorithms can't dictate someone's advice unless they can now and then. I'm like, fine, but it's like, it's the one place where you're pretty much certain you'll reach someone. They have to choose, like, open it and subscribe and be there. It's not just randomly coming across the screen. It's very like it's really thought out. And want to do that, and if you want to do a good job of writing it, because you know that people are waking up in the morning and having a copy and reading the news with it, it's my favorite. Also, the emails that I get in response are just focused. It is like, I have a big community of Intel, and I write very much like I'm not a news person, like I'm a person. That's what I am. So that's my favorite. The most challenging is definitely Instagram, because, like, user changes. They say that they don't, but they do. And so that is, like, I don't like any money from being on social media. And New Zealand, we don't have any, like, creative funds. You don't get paid for posting shit on Instagram. So it's like, the place I like to be the least, because I actually get very little out of being on those big platforms. Okay, this is Unknown Speaker 54:45 going to be the last question. Unknown Speaker 54:48 If you were launching today, Unknown Speaker 54:51 would you still start with a blog and then Instagram and diversify? Or would you diversify platforms from the start 100% if I was Unknown Speaker 55:00 building it today, I would start with a newsletter, a newsletter and Instagram and a Tiktok would probably be the three places I'd go. I'd write the newsletter. I would publish bits of that for Instagram. And then, honestly, if I was starting today, and I'm and if I'm 28 year old Lucy, and I'm, like, confident and happy with my brain and stuff, I'd probably start making. Unknown Speaker 55:26 Maybe I'd make videos for Tiktok talking about the newsletter, or maybe I Unknown Speaker 55:29 still did it, but yeah, I would not start with a blog today. I know there's, like, this resurgence and like, having personal websites, and it's I love, like, the ytk Internet, and a lot of our branding looks like a personal website, but I just, I still think, like, if you're just posting to the void, you need to have some you need to be, unfortunately, on some of these platforms directing people to come to you. Unknown Speaker 55:57 But yeah, I wouldn't be starting a loop before today, and Unknown Speaker 56:05 that, I think might be me that's been really fun. Thank you, everyone who have questions and for coming out early in the morning on a cold day, Unknown Speaker 56:13 please come and see me at the bookstore. Unknown Speaker 56:17 I think it's I'm not actually going to say where I think it is, because I don't really know, but I'll be there at 1245 and we can actually have a proper chat, and I can sign you don't have to buy a book, just like come talk to me. I mean, yapper, as we can see, but thank you for talking. That was so fun. You. The. Transcribed by https://otter.ai