411. Growing up online, early fame and rediscovering your creativity ft. Arden Rose

TW: this episode includes discussions of eating disorders. What happens when millions of people watch you grow up online? How do you navigate change, love and making mistakes in front of a massive audience? And how do you rediscover your creativity after creating content about your life, becomes your job? In today's episode we talk to one of the original YouTube 'it-girls', Arden Rose, about early fame, body image, art and her life lessons as she enters her 30s. We discuss: How making YouTube videos at 14 turned into a full-time job The dark side of Hollywood and the entertainment industry The biggest opportunity she missed out on...and why Veganism, diet culture and self-esteem The path back to creativity Her greatest pieces of advice for people in their 20s PLUS SO MUCH MORE Happy listening! Watch on Netflix: HERE https://netflix.com/thepsychologyofyour20s Follow Arden here: @ardenrose https://www.instagram.com/ardenrose/ Watch her YouTube HERE https://www.youtube.com/@ardenrose/videos More links below (sorry) Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en# Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast https://www.instagram.com/thatpsychologypodcast/?hl=en# Subscribe on Substack: @thepsychologyofyour20s https://substack.com/@thepsychologyofyour20s For business: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 1:04Jemma Sbeg?

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• 3:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. I'm Jemma Sbeg and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.

• 3:28Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode. I have been really looking forward to this episode because today, not only do we have our first guest for our Netflix episodes, if you are watching over there, but we are talking about something a lot of us have experienced in very small ways, but very few people have experienced on a massive kind of life-defining scale, which is growing up on the internet. Over the last two decades, as social media has become more omnipresent and posting our entire lives has become more normalized, I think a lot of us are having this weird experience whereby our identity,

• 4:11Jemma Sbeg?

  our mistakes, our awkward years, our best years, our relationships are all documented, not just for us, but for other people.

• 4:20Jemma Sbeg?

  Small scale, that might mean like embarrassing Facebook memories. For others, it means like millions of people getting to see you as you are still trying to figure out your life, expecting you to be the same, expecting you to grow in a certain way. And today's guest is somebody who has lived through all of that and more. She is one of the original YouTube creators, or I would say YouTube it girls of our generation. Um, and she built a platform where I think at a time when nobody really understood what the internet could really become. And now as she enters her thirties, she is here to talk to us about that experience and how it has shaped her and her relationship to creating now. Arden Rose, welcome to the psychology of your twenties.

• 5:00Speaker 04

  Hi, thank you so much for having me.

• 5:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, I'm so excited.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  I'm so excited to be here. I feel like you gave me a really nice setup.

• 5:08Jemma Sbeg?

  Really?

• 5:08Speaker 04

  Like I like.

• 5:08Jemma Sbeg?

  Did you like my intro?

• 5:09Speaker 04

  I really did. Yeah. Cause I think it gave a, a good, uh, I don't know, like a, a grounding of how I felt for a really long time, but I never put it into words.

• 5:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh my God, that's what we always endeavor to do.

• 5:23Jemma Sbeg?

  We're gonna talk about it so much, but you know what we were talking about on the elevator wrappers that you used to have a podcast?

• 5:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, I did. I did. It was called Crash on My Couch and it was really cute. It was me and my husband doing it together before we were married. And we would just talk about like random stuff, like he was really into the idea of getting to eventually go on a treasure hunt, which I think all straight cis men have a, some kind of fantasy for. Um, and so we used to go on these like deep dives about like hidden treasures that we might be able to find and stuff like that. And then my segments were all about like animals that were extraordinary in the news. Very, very diverse, very, uh, interesting topics that we were tackling. Important stuff.

• 6:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Honestly, wait, this gives me a business idea.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:06Jemma Sbeg?

  Anybody, there is money on the table for people to do themed birthday parties for grown men where they set up treasure hunts for them.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  A hundred percent, a hundred percent. It's kind of the same thing as like a, an escape room in a lot of ways.

• 6:16Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:17Speaker 04

  If you think about it that way.

• 6:18Jemma Sbeg?

  They yearn for it.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  They yearn, they yearn to be trapped somewhere and to have to steal a golden idol.

• 6:23Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, my God.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  The Indiana Jones of it all.

• 6:25Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:26Jemma Sbeg?

  Would you ever do another podcast?

• 6:28Speaker 04

  I would. I just, I think I, um, I need a partner like you. I need like a, a cool gal pal to, to chat with.

• 6:35Jemma Sbeg?

  Gal pal podcast, so.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:36Jemma Sbeg?

  A really, really what it is. You know what I've realized is that I didn't even let you introduce yourself. So for people who may not know who you are, can you briefly introduce yourself? Tell us about your work, tell us about yourself and. Yeah. How do you think most people know you?

• 6:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay. Well, um, my name's Arden Rose. So that is my name. My actual name is Arden Rose Ricks, but I've always used my middle name just because like every basic white girl, I have the middle name, Rose.

• 7:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Beautiful.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  And also my first name was so weird that I feel like I needed like kind of a normal second name to back it up.

• 7:08Jemma Sbeg?

  Where is your first name from?

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Um, you know what? It's so funny. It would, my mom uh came up with it. She used to live in Texas while she was pregnant with me. And she had a neighbor who used to make her baked goods, who was like quite an older lady, and I think her name was Arden. Or her second name was Arden, or her last name was Arden. And I'm assuming, because I've looked it up a few times, that it has something to do with French spelling of Arden, which is like A R D E N N E S. But my name is A R D E N. Like garden without the G is what I tell every barista that ever has to write my name down.

• 7:43Jemma Sbeg?

  I, that is a great mnemonic device. Yeah, because I've never heard the name Arden before.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  It's a weird one, man. It's a weird one.

• 7:49Jemma Sbeg?

  If you had kids and not to like, we were literally talking about this before, um, would you give them a, a unique name?

• 7:56Speaker 04

  I totally would. I think about it all the time because I think it's like, it's, I think it's like really lame that men are allowed to carry their names down and like women don't have like as much of an okay to do it because Arden is such a cool name. Like I remember being a kid and being like, I've got a cool name. You know what I mean? I wasn't bullied for my name. Maybe I would hate it if I was bullied for my name. But I like, I really want it to be like my kid's name now.

• 8:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Make the rules.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  Maybe I will.

• 8:20Jemma Sbeg?

  You should totally do it.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  I'll do a Laura Lee Gilmore thing.

• 8:22Jemma Sbeg?

  Well, I think that we must.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 8:24Jemma Sbeg?

  I actually saw this post the other day that was like, middle names used to be the way that women could pass down their names to their, to not be erased from the history of their children. And I was like, so I think it's gonna be the new trend.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I think Arden's a good middle name too.

• 8:37Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, beautiful middle name.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:39Jemma Sbeg?

  I completely interrupted you as you were talking about. Your beginning.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  No, I appreciate it.

• 8:43Jemma Sbeg?

  Know you.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  No, I so appreciate it. Well, I think it's so funny. I think I have like different iterations of people who've watched me. Like, there are some people who have literally watched me since I was like fourteen years old in my like, childhood bedroom in Little Rock, Arkansas. And to those, shouts out. Y'all are the real ones out there. Um, but yeah, that's a very different crowd than the people who probably found me in like their college years, um, when I had like just moved to LA and I was like living with all of these girls. We had kind of like a not a content house necessarily, because that was not a thing at the time. But it was like four girls who were all YouTubers living together, but doing like kind of separate things. Um, and that was an era of time that people might know me. And then

• 9:26Speaker 04

  like, as I grew up, then I started traveling more and met my husband and eventually now I've immigrated to the, to the UK.

• 9:33Jemma Sbeg?

  What was it like in that content house? Like this YouTube house that you were in? Or you said it wasn't a content house?

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:38Jemma Sbeg?

  But what was it like?

• 9:39Speaker 04

  It feels like content house like has a derogatory, like, because I just think of like the Hype House or like Team Ten, which now feels like the ancient texts. Like, you know what I mean? Even though that was like, what, ten years ago? It feels like it was like twenty years ago. Um, but it was, it was really cool. It was like kind of a funny thing because uh, it's playing off a theme of like growing up on the internet, but I experienced a lot of like the, what people probably would have had in university or in college, like that same socialization with people who are in the same like peer group as you. But I was having it visibly online with other girls that were also having it visibly online while we were all maintaining friendships together.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  So I think that was complicated because when you're eighteen and nineteen, like, that's a, that's complicated relationships anyways.

• 10:27Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  Um, and so, but I really enjoyed it. It was like, yeah, and then also. This is so random, but like the whole reason that my husband and I got together was because Rebecca Black of Friday fame. Yeah, came over to our house and like we had had a night out the night before. And she stayed over and the next morning we were all having breakfast together and I was like, who's this random British guy that keeps sliding into my DMs? Like, who is this? Little did I know that I had already met him and I completely forgotten that I had met him. But she like vouched for him and was like, oh no, he's really cool and you two would totally hit it off. Like you guys should go on a date together. So like, yeah, so it's kind of butterfly effect. Like if I hadn't, you know, lived with those girls, I probably would have never, I wouldn't be sat here probably.

• 11:08Jemma Sbeg?

  I know.

• 11:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Take me back to like your first YouTube video and before, because I have a lot of questions about this era of your life. But when did you post like your first video online?

• 11:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know what? It's so funny. It's like, it's really funny to think about how the history of YouTubers, like the history of the internet. Like I was kind of not there for the creation of it, but I was there watching people go from doing like makeup tutorials online to being like personalities online. And like how that transformed and like why that shifted and changed. And I think in my case, it happened really organically because I was admiring all these like beauty gurus, you know, like the, the OG beauty gurus of the time. Like Juicy Star O Seven and all the, you know, Blair Fowler and Elle Fowler and like, you know, all these people. And Gigi Gorgeous.

• 12:03Jemma Sbeg?

  Gigi, I, I used to watch her religiously.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  Girl, like so many different people. Um, Bub's Beauty, I don't know if you remember her. She was, she's like an, um, I think she was Irish, but she was like an amazing Michelle Phan.

• 12:16Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh my God. But yeah, I do. And she had read, is this what I'm thinking of? Bugs Beauty?

• 12:21Speaker 04

  Bugs Beauty, I think is different than Bub's Beauty.

• 12:23Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, okay.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  But, but she had a really cute dog. I know. It's just so fun. Everyone had such cute usernames. I wish we stuck to usernames. Um, but, uh, you know, it was kind of the era still of like the stranger danger era, which is so funny because now everyone posts everything always. Um, but I was just watching these people and really loving it. And then I had a friend named Kennedy, who went to my school when I was younger and then moved to Texas um for, I think for her dad's job. And when she moved, we would watch YouTube videos together, like in middle school. And so I started sending her, like, we would make kind of like fake beauty guru videos, like to each other, like getting ready in the morning.

• 13:07Jemma Sbeg?

  That's so cute.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  Right. And so we would send it back and forth. But then it became a bit of this thing where like, we both started getting followers from like pe- people watching us get ready for each other. And so it became this thing where like, that's kind of where it started. And I lost all those videos, which I'm really sad about. Like, I think I privated all of them when I was probably like eighteen. Because I just thought, I'm so young in these videos. Even at eighteen, I was like, I'm too young to be like, have these videos on the internet.

• 13:32Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Um, which is also really funny, because even at that, that time when I was posting as like a fourteen year old girl, I, and I mean this sincerely, never had a creepy comment. Not once. I was comple- I don't know what, I don't know what was looking out for me.

• 13:48Jemma Sbeg?

  Really?

• 13:48Speaker 04

  But I was completely sheltered from like pervs.

• 13:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Were your parents worried about that? Were they, did they ask you?

• 13:55Speaker 04

  They didn't exactly know about it initially. That I, the only reason I told my parents about it when I was, I think I was sixteen years old when I finally told them. So it'd been like two years of very intermittent posting. Like, I would post like a video and I would post like four videos a week and then I wouldn't post for like two months.

• 14:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  You know, like, just teen stuff. And then I, Google AdSense became a thing. And you needed to have a bank account and you needed to have your parents' permission if you were gonna sign up. I was sixteen years old. And I was like, I think I can make money doing this. Like, that was the first, like,

• 14:25Jemma Sbeg?

  Wow.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  inkling that anything, and I think I probably had like twenty thousand followers on YouTube. At the time. Granted, also, the other thing about YouTube at that time, was that it was such a small ecosystem that there weren't that many people to watch that were making content like that. So like, it's so ubiquitous now. Anyone, everyone has access to it and everyone feels.

• 14:45Jemma Sbeg?

  Everybody's thought about it.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally.

• 14:47Jemma Sbeg?

  We have to admit, like, everybody has thought about modifying. What if I made YouTube videos? What if I posted TikToks?

• 14:53Speaker 04

  Absolutely. So it was, but it was like at the time for me, it was like a thing like you can make money doing that. You know what I mean? Like, oh, okay. Well, that's interesting. So I remember I told them when I was sixteen and they were like, well, are you being safe? Like not knowing what question to really ask me for that. But like, are you like an amorphous, are you being safe? And I'm like, yes, I think like I'm sixteen, like, I don't know. But I was also, I'm one of four kids. So I think they were just like happy that I wasn't, you know, joining some kind of cult.

• 15:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, doing something else nefarious.

• 15:24Jemma Sbeg?

  It's so interesting that you're like, I never got a creepy comment, but so your first video you posted when you were fourteen. Yeah. And what, what was that video? Was it like a get ready with me?

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it was a get ready with me. It also could have been like a review of something. You know what it might have been? It might have been um so like silly, like so lame now to think about. But I think at the time, you know, MAC cosmetics was like huge. And I remember there was this

• 15:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Significant.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Right? And there was this brush called the MAC two one seven brush that was like the blending brush everyone was like obsessed with. I can see it in my mind's eye to this day.

• 15:59Jemma Sbeg?

  What color? Was it black?

• 16:00Speaker 04

  It was, well, all the black, like MAC handles. And then it had white, like really soft bristles. I remember this. I want this brush now. Um, but maybe they've changed it. I don't know. But I remember I went to MAC and I bought that and I bought, I think, a single eyeshadow. And I came home and I did a haul with my two items.

• 16:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 16:22Jemma Sbeg?

  My heart.

• 16:23Speaker 04

  I probably thought I was being so cool because Michelle Phan used that brush. So I was like,

• 16:29Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, I got it. Well, this is what I was gonna ask you about. It's like, what is it? What was it like back then, which you've kind of already answered? And what is it like to watch those videos back now, knowing what the internet is these days? Because back then it was such low production value.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:46Jemma Sbeg?

  And it was really organic. And now it's this, it's Mega like

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Literally, people now realize like being online can make you a millionaire, could make you a billionaire in some situations. Maybe we're not at that level yet, but

• 16:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:59Jemma Sbeg?

  Pretty close. Like, what was it before that? Kind of, what was it like before that took over?

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. It's, it's interesting because it's like, uh, you're so right. People just didn't really have like the means to figure out that, that it was such a thing until it was. And then everyone who could possibly exploit it kind of like figured out how to work algorithms and stuff. I think that was like a really interesting phase of YouTube. But I think before that point, there was this real kind of like ooey gooey center core of people on YouTube that were like kind of not antisocial people, because I think that has like a negative connotation, but people that maybe felt more comfortable being creative in their bedrooms on the internet, which is like a very different thing than wanting to make money on the internet. Right? Like, that's like, those are two different types of people.

• 17:43Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  And sometimes that diagram exists, but for me, it was like, I didn't feel like I had a lot of friends at school. My friend Kennedy had just moved.

• 17:52Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 17:52Speaker 04

  You know, I was like joining Cheer and I was like very awkward. And I was just like, I had a really bad haircut at the time. And I think all of that to be said, I think like I was looking to express myself to someone or something like just like gab out loud. I was kind of screaming into the void.

• 18:11Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 04

  But by just like showing Mac eye shadows, you know?

• 18:14Jemma Sbeg?

  Being like, accept me.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love me, accept me. Help me figure out how to be like a young woman.

• 18:19Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  So, yeah, that was sort of like the genesis of it. And then also like I, there were limitations as far as like setup. Like I had to wait for my dad to come home because his crappy laptop had a, had a webcam in it.

• 18:33Jemma Sbeg?

  You, you filmed on the, on?

• 18:35Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. It wasn't even a MacBook. It was like an HP. It was so buggy. It was so bad. I remember like there were months where I couldn't record anything because he would get so many viruses on his laptop that he would have to like go get it wiped. Like I remember.

• 18:48Jemma Sbeg?

  That was amazing.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  Yes, McAfee babe. Oh, yeah, big time. So, yeah, there was like, um, yeah, just moments where like stuff like that would happen. It was just kind of like an organic. Break.

• 18:59Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 04

  And then, but I remember there were times like that where I would go on my, my comment section and you know, there'd be like five or, five or six comments on a video and one of them would be like, where's she been all this time? And it's like, it's so funny to think that that was the reason I wasn't there.

• 19:11Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah. I mean, you were like, I feel seen. Like people miss me.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  Don't worry, girls. I'm coming back. All three of you watching, I'm coming back.

• 19:17Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah. Um, sorry, guys. I've been on a little break. I just want to be completely transparent about what's been going on.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:23Jemma Sbeg?

  Let's address it.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  Lot, lots of stuff happening in my personal life. Lots of viruses on my dad's laptop. Uh, yeah.

• 19:30Jemma Sbeg?

  What was the first video of yours that went like viral? It was, and was like virality even a thing back then?

• 19:36Speaker 04

  I, yeah, it definitely was. I think virality had a, had a different connotation. Like, I'll use Rebecca as an example. Like Friday had a very different virality than what viral is today. Like viral today is something popular for a week.

• 19:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Yep.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  Like viral back then was popular for years.

• 19:54Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 04

  Like talked about for years.

• 19:56Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 04

  Like where have they been? Kind of vibes, you know, like when you think about the chocolate rain guy, Teyson Day, um, or Rebecca for Friday, or like all these people, like they still have these like statements next to them, like, you know, capital chocolate rain guy.

• 20:13Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Because they were like, you know, integral parts of the internet, whereas now it's like, nothing can really.

• 20:19Jemma Sbeg?

  And nobody can trace it back to who started it.

• 20:21Speaker 04

  No, exactly. Yeah. And it's, yeah. And I don't know, we can't trust anything nowadays. So it's just like hard for, for anyone to like be a hundred percent on anything. Yeah, we live in a really weird time, but at the time, I think I did a video, this is so lame, but so the bad haircut happened and then I made a video where I had researched a bunch of stuff as this probably 15 year olds. Okay. 16 year old, maybe of ways that I could grow my hair back.

• 20:48Jemma Sbeg?

  So wait, what was the haircut? We need to know the haircut.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  It was just a bob.

• 20:51Jemma Sbeg?

  It was a bob.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Like, it was just a bob.

• 20:53Jemma Sbeg?

  But it wasn't like a funky little bob. It was like a.

• 20:55Speaker 04

  No, uh, no, it wasn't chic.

• 20:57Jemma Sbeg?

  It wasn't a chic.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  It wasn't French Claire, but it was fine. It wasn't atrocious. Like I think I was just like insecure and I was a, you know, a southern girl who had.

• 21:06Jemma Sbeg?

  15, 16.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, so I had made this video and it went really, really viral. Like I think it had like millions of views.

• 21:16Jemma Sbeg?

  Wow.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  Which is so funny because it was obviously just people like before I knew what SEO was.

• 21:20Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  It's like someone just searching, I wanna grow my hair back. And they're getting some dumbass sixteen year old in Little Rock, Arkansas, telling them how to grow it. Like, I know anything.

• 21:29Jemma Sbeg?

  What was your advice? Was it like?

• 21:30Speaker 04

  I don't even remember. It was bad. You could barely hear it. The audio is so bad. And again, I'm recording it on like either, do you remember those flip cameras?

• 21:38Jemma Sbeg?

  Yes.

• 21:39Speaker 04

  It was either one of those which sounded like you were, it sounded and looked like you were in the ocean. Or it was my dad's MacBook, which also looked like it was in the ocean. So.

• 21:48Jemma Sbeg?

  But being in the ocean is good for the hair, you know?

• 21:51Speaker 04

  So true.

• 21:51Jemma Sbeg?

  It's thematic.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  It's all coming together.

• 21:55Jemma Sbeg?

  That is so funny. This brings me to, I think the real big question of this episode, which is like, what's been the hardest part of growing up online? Like you've spent half of your life on the internet. Do you feel like as you've entered your thirties, like people who know you from back then have like expectations for you?

• 22:14Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, I think, I think I have like a really interesting audience. Like I said, I've like picked up these like little core cool girl groups, I'll say, like throughout time and space. But for the most part, I have always had like a really intelligent, really emotionally mature and very kind audience. Like I've always had really, really sweet people follow me. I've never felt bullied by my audience and I've never felt like put on the back foot. And I think part of that is because I've never been someone who has like that serious viral fame that usually comes with some kind of outrage or, you know, like,

• 22:50Jemma Sbeg?

  controversy.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  I don't know. Like I always just think about how like as women, you, if you get to a certain point of virality, there will always be like a guillotine waiting for you. You know what I mean? Like Chapel Rowan is a great example right now. Like, don't even get me started on that because I could go on for so long about that. But, but so I've had kind of like this weird privilege where because I've been a bit of a middling creator in the sense that like I've, you know, I still have like millions of followers, but people have tens of millions. Millions of followers now. People have like hundreds of millions of followers now. Um, I've always been able to maintain this like cool, smart, sweet group of people all the way through.

• 23:29Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  And that's been like such a blessing.

• 23:31Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, I, I honestly relate to that a lot.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 23:34Jemma Sbeg?

  I have this full theory that it's like an elevator. It's, it's a Taylor Swift lyric.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 23:39Jemma Sbeg?

  It's like an elevator that rises. Yeah, elevator that rises too fast, like never lasts. And I genuinely do believe it where it's like a lot of people will get online and be like, I want to be famous and I want this and I want that. And it's like, be careful what you wish for, like the slow burn of like really caring and about what you're doing is gonna take you so much further.

• 23:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:57Jemma Sbeg?

  And it's really interesting, something you said before of like you started YouTube because like it sounds like you just really wanted to make videos because you just liked it.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 24:06Jemma Sbeg?

  And you know, you were waiting for your dad to get home and you were trying to communicate with your long distance friend and you were just like enjoying it as a craft. And I think that's something that people these days don't have.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:19Jemma Sbeg?

  People always like, how you start a podcast? Like, how did you make money off your podcast? And it's like, you don't start at wanting to make money.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:26Jemma Sbeg?

  Like, that's literally, you've already lost. Like the moment you're like, I want to do this so that I can be famous.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:32Jemma Sbeg?

  I feel like one percent of people who have that intention, maybe it happens, but it like drops off so quickly. It's like this whole crazy, crazy thing.

• 24:39Speaker 04

  You don't have the inner well to keep up the energy to keep doing stuff.

• 24:43Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  If that's the main goal, then once you get famous or once you get enough money, then like where's the spark to continue it?

• 24:50Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, it's nowhere. Or once you get your first, like, have you ever had any controversy? Cause I feel like once you get your first thing like that.

• 24:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, then it knocks you off.

• 24:57Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I know, I, I haven't really ever had like a big controversy. I like, I, I stream video games, so I do like, I play cozy games online.

• 25:07Jemma Sbeg?

  Really?

• 25:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:08Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh my God, I didn't know that.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:09Jemma Sbeg?

  On Twitch.

• 25:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like especially on, um, I used to play a lot of Animal Crossing. So like Animal Crossing was my big game all through lockdown. Um, and during like the whole Black Lives Matter movement, I raised a bunch of money for the bail project, like the most money I've ever raised for charity. And it was like such a big deal to me, but my family's very conservative. And so the only controversy as I have ever been in are with interpersonal relationships. I'm I I'll feel really good about something that I've done online and I'll be like, I'm really glad that I did that and I feel really proud of like my audience to be able to do something like that. And then I get like pushback from my personal life.

• 25:45Jemma Sbeg?

  The reverse.

• 25:46Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah.

• 25:47Jemma Sbeg?

  That is really interesting.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Totally. So it's like a weird thing of sort of just being like, you know, having to kind of be my own best friend in that situation.

• 25:57Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 04

  You know?

• 25:58Jemma Sbeg?

  Well, and it's often because people will find, you know, controversy online and seek protection in your family. And it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's she's doing it different.

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• 26:41Jemma Sbeg?

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• 27:18Jemma Sbeg?

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• 28:02Jemma Sbeg?

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• 28:44Jemma Sbeg?

  is my whoop. I am such a data person, which is why I love whoop because I can genuinely see why my body feels differently depending on the day, why I'm running differently, why I'm maybe less focused. Whoop effortlessly tracks my sleep, it tracks my strain, my recovery, my stress and most importantly, my overall health and it just gives me all that data and all those patterns. So I can make better decisions, which includes knowing when to go easy and knowing when to go hard. New members can try whoop with a thirty day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of whoop. Can we talk about something a bit more personal? Yeah.

• 29:26Jemma Sbeg?

  Which is you obviously shared a lot of, you know, shared some of your experiences going through an eating disorder when you were online. Yeah. Do you think that like being online at a young age kind of contributed or do you think it was already there and? Just kind of followed you through those early years of the journey.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's so funny, like, I mean, nothing about eating disorders is funny.

• 29:47Jemma Sbeg?

  But sometimes you gotta, you gotta laugh.

• 29:49Speaker 04

  But sometimes you gotta laugh or you cry. But it's, um, I think for me, I think, I think disordered eating, but a lot of like less understood, but very culturally prevalent mental disorders are, or like mental health problems are things that people broadly understand, but don't. But like the minutia of them are kind of like complicated. And so for mine, I had such like a combo where I felt really out of control when I was growing up and when I was a, like a teenager, like felt very isolated from people in my school. And I also have trichotillomania, which is like a hair pulling disorder. It's so bad right now. Like I have no eyelashes.

• 30:30Jemma Sbeg?

  But I used to do that as well, but I started getting fake lashes.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:34Jemma Sbeg?

  And it helped me.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  Whoa, you have trick?

• 30:36Jemma Sbeg?

  Well, I would just do my eyelashes. I would just, it was just like a nervous thing, but I never really identified as having, I would just pull my eyelashes out.

• 30:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I pull my eyelashes out too. It's funny. It's, it's, it's, that's a weird one because it's like, it's like, you know, because like you understand like clinical psychology, but there's so many like layers and cross layers of what things could be, right? So when I was younger, I was like, I think I have OCD because I do this hair pulling thing. It's compulsive. And I also, my eating disorder was very wrapped up around like threes. Like I would tell myself I could only eat three things. So it was, it was like, I remember for a while it was like apples, triscuits and cheese. And I can have as much of it as I wanted, but I just needed to eat those three things. And there was no reason, like, there was no religious reason, which threes are usually kind of a religious

• 31:23Speaker 04

  thing. Um, and there was no, uh, like doom spiraling OCD. If I don't do this, something bad's gonna happen. But I just had this like feeling of control. That was really important to me. So that's what my eating disorder kind of like started out as. And then as the internet developed, veganism got really big because of, uh, cowspiracy. Um, and again, completely think that is so like valid.

• 31:49Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 31:49Speaker 04

  But then there was this huge, like the way the pendulum swings. There was like that banana lady. What was her name? Freely?

• 31:56Jemma Sbeg?

  She used to.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Girl.

• 31:58Jemma Sbeg?

  Sorry.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  Girl.

• 31:59Jemma Sbeg?

  Fun fact, she lives still near where I grew up.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  That's so scary. That's so dark sided.

• 32:04Jemma Sbeg?

  I know. She likes, she lives actually like deep in the rainforest of Australia.

• 32:09Speaker 04

  She always looked like she did.

• 32:10Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:11Speaker 04

  Like, how is she getting all those bananas?

• 32:13Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't know. And now her whole thing is like drinking, okay, no.

• 32:16Speaker 04

  No, because she just started posting again, didn't she?

• 32:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 32:19Jemma Sbeg?

  Sorry.

• 32:20Speaker 04

  I'm getting off topic.

• 32:21Jemma Sbeg?

  And with you sharing sensitive stuff, I'm sorry. But yeah, so freely the banana girl. I think she genuinely, not to make, you know, irreputable claims, but triggered a lot of people into a state that was not great.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  I think so. I think part of the problem was that she was a very visibly thin, uh, woman who was like attractive by societal standards and was also had the craziest fucking diet you've ever seen. Like, that was a crazy diet. And so I think it did, like, push a lot of people, like, both this sort of rise in veganism and this kind of moral guilt of eating animal byproducts. And then also this rise of like, this conventionally attractive person with a crazy diet, I think, pushed me and I started eating vegan. And again, I have vegan friends who eat very healthily and eat so well and take care of themselves. I was not doing that. I was like restricting.

• 33:16Speaker 04

  Girl, I don't think I had a solid bowel movement for like three years, like.

• 33:21Jemma Sbeg?

  The size people don't talk about.

• 33:22Speaker 04

  People don't talk about it. It's gross.

• 33:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 04

  You eat a salad, you poop a salad. It's like, it's really something. You could put that strapline to this episode. You eat a salad, you poop a salad.

• 33:33Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  Um, but yeah, just like in general, it was just like, I, again, it became this way of controlling. And then it became also this like moral thing as well, where people associated me on the internet with like eating vegan food. And I don't think it was healthy either, because I think I was too thin at that point. And I was showing other girls that the way to be thin, poop yourself every day, was by eating vegan. And like, I wasn't doing it well. I wasn't giving like whole meals. I wasn't showing people how to do it right. I was just, you know, picking the thing that was the most vegan on a menu, even if it was like the cucumber salad with no protein and no carbs and nothing but a cucumber, you know? So that's kind of like where I was like, I kind of need to do something else with this

• 34:17Speaker 04

  because I'm having headaches all the time and I'm really tired and I can't stop pooping.

• 34:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  So, and you know, I think I really messed up my digestive system. That's the other thing that like people don't really talk about is like even now to this day, I have so many digestive issues because of all the eating, the disordered eating that I was doing in my developmental years from when I was like fourteen or thirteen even until, you know, maybe six years ago.

• 34:40Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:41Jemma Sbeg?

  Well, it is a big thing, right? Your stomach starts to eat itself, basically.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 34:46Jemma Sbeg?

  Which is again, like I think a lot of people and these days with skinny talk, it's like you just don't understand what you're doing

• 34:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:53Jemma Sbeg?

  to your body long time. Can I actually come back to this, this, what sounds like kind of a big realization for you, which is like, um, maybe I wasn't doing this the right way. Like, how have you kind of felt about that as you've gotten older, been like, I don't know, not to say you misguided people, but have you ever been like, I don't know, like, how do you feel about it now?

• 35:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:14Jemma Sbeg?

  Maybe, I don't want to say set an example for other people because I don't think you deserve to feel like guilt about it. But yeah, how do you feel about it? That that was like something you lived through online?

• 35:24Speaker 04

  I like, I, I still, I feel really guilty about certain videos I posted. There was like, I remember there was one video that I posted. It was supposed to be kind of like a, a clickbaity title that then I would flip it on its head. And I would be like, you don't need to worry about this because this is stupid. And it was like five ways to look thinner. But it was when you got into the video, I was like, this is so dumb. Like the way that people do this. Like these are, I basically like gathered all these different ways that people talk about it online and then was like, this is how people are trying to look thinner online. Isn't this so silly? Like, this is so stupid.

• 35:54Jemma Sbeg?

  Journalism, like a real, like journalistic video.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  Journalism.

• 35:57Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Um, but I took it down because that video got crazy views. And what I realized in the comments was like, my audience at the time was like nineteen year old girls and they weren't reading it the way that I was posting about it, if that makes sense. They, they saw the title and they clicked it so that they could actually get advice. And I was pushing them into these corners of the internet that were, it was basically skinny talk before skinny talk existed, Tumblr page. Like talking about stuff, you know, and like, I didn't even realize it until I got older. And I remember when I first posted that video, I was sort of like, wow, this video is doing really well. It's getting millions of views and like, kind of ignored the moral complication of it. And then, it sounds so crazy, but Amy Poehler had a production company.

• 36:43Speaker 04

  And she, I think she probably still does, she might run her podcast through it. But I had a meeting with her production company, cause I was like, would love to just do something with you. Anything, if you need like a host to do something, whatever. It was just one of those like Hollywood meetings that I was having. And I remember I sat down with one person from her production team. And the only thing she said to me as like a 20 year old, was she was like, we can't work with you because your content doesn't align with us. And I was like, what? What do you mean my content doesn't align with you? And it was that video. She had seen the thumbnail, she had seen the title of it. And she was like, this girl is promoting eating disorders. Like this girl is promoting like,

• 37:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 37:19Speaker 04

  Like, yeah. And so, like, I was so, I remember like, my stomach dropping and like, me trying to explain it. And I remember being really mad about it afterwards, but like, and that was before the era of like, clickbait titles are the only thing that you read, like when you only read a headline, right? I feel like now that's so prevalent, like I'm even bad about that. So I was kind of annoyed at her that she didn't take the time to like, look at the context of the video. But after that meeting, I immediately went home and took it down. It was like one of my most viewed videos and I was like, taking that down. And also feeling like so ashamed and so horrible for like, you know, months, but also feeling like righteous fury where I was like, she doesn't even know me, she doesn't even know me. But I was like, that's defensiveness, like that was a, that was actually probably a good thing that she had said that to me. Because I'm really glad that I like, had a chance to,

• 38:04Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 38:04Speaker 04

  Like fix that, if that makes sense.

• 38:06Jemma Sbeg?

  But it's so interesting, cause it's like, I see your intention.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:10Jemma Sbeg?

  I see your intention of being like, if somebody is going through this or is gonna look for this.

• 38:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:15Jemma Sbeg?

  This is kind of like a reverse psychology thing of like, I'm gonna lure them in and be like, don't.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to do.

• 38:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Exactly.

• 38:22Speaker 04

  But, but also.

• 38:23Jemma Sbeg?

  It was ahead of its time.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  Totally, but also it's coming from the wrong person. I'm not the person that should be talking about that, period.

• 38:28Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 38:29Speaker 04

  You know what I mean? It's this like funny place where I'm the person that the- Are gonna listen to about that kind of thing because I'm their age and I like look like them. But also I'm not the person that should be.

• 38:38Jemma Sbeg?

  But also I'm their age and I look like them.

• 38:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 38:40Jemma Sbeg?

  Like that's the thing. It's like way, yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:43Jemma Sbeg?

  Because at that time, had you been open about the fact that you were maybe struggling with disordered eating?

• 38:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think I had talked about that a lot on the internet at that point. Like I think that had been something and I think that was also a time when a lot of people were starting to talk about body positivity. But then also I think I resonated less with that because so much of my disorder eating, like I said, was about control. And so it was like, like the everything numbers was really important to me. My trichotillomania was really bad. Like, you know, I was just like struggling with all of my other mental problems. And then like then the eating disorder was the way to kind of like gain a bit of control back, you know? Um, so I couldn't really understand, like, I don't know. I feel like I was coming at it from like a, like a, I felt like it was a really like personal angle when in reality, that's how like a lot of people deal with eating disorders.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Like that's a very common way to be introduced into an eating disorder is like lacking control. Um, but it definitely opened my eyes like to what like body neutrality could look like. And that seemed to be.

• 39:47Jemma Sbeg?

  That's freedom, genuinely. Everybody tries to, body positive is fine. Body neutrality is the best. I really love it. I could stick my teeth into that anyway.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  Oh, it's delicious.

• 39:56Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  Eat that up. Oh, yeah. And as I get older, I think that's the other thing too, is like, I think I also like being in Hollywood and going on auditions and stuff because I was auditioning and I was acting from when I was uh sixteen. So I would go like, that's how I originally kind of got slightly bigger on YouTube was because I got picked up by this like show called Awesomest TV.

• 40:19Jemma Sbeg?

  Which was like. Oh my goodness, flashback. I remember that.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:24Jemma Sbeg?

  And they would do like all these TV shows, but on YouTube, right?

• 40:28Speaker 04

  It was like, it was, I think it was backed by Nickelodeon.

• 40:30Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  And so it was basically like supposed to be like a tween, like in the same way that Nickelodeon has always done a really good job of making tween content. They tried to do that for YouTubers. So I became, and I lived like down the studio, like down the road from the. Studio. Um, and so I used to just walk to work to like film episodes with them and da, da, da, da, da. But that being kind of like my jump off point, I started auditioning and doing all this stuff. And being critiqued as like a twenty one year old, a twenty year old on your body, your looks, like everything. Like I remember walking into auditions where they would just like immediately turn off the camera like they wouldn't even. They like, they would let me go through with the whole thing and then I would look and I would realize the camera was never on. Because I was just not the look and that's fine, but there's just like an ego death that happens like every time.

• 41:15Speaker 04

  So I think that was also just like, I was in a unique circumstance in that way as well.

• 41:20Jemma Sbeg?

  I think this is something that you wouldn't know unless you were in industries. That a tangent, oh, in, in entertainment industry or tangential, it's like, there is always this thought of like, would I be more successful if I was skinny?

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Totally, totally.

• 41:32Jemma Sbeg?

  I have thought about that. I think about that all the time.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, completely. And it's also like, I think it's, again, it's kind of a control issue. Because when you're in industries like that, where there is literally nothing else is in your control. You are not the nepo baby that can have the like mom and dad call to make sure that like someone actually pays attention to you in a room. Or like sees your name on a sheet. So if there is anything that you can control, it's learning your lines. And starving yourself. Like that, that seems to be like the two things that at the time I thought I had control over, which is not.

• 42:04Jemma Sbeg?

  And if you're thin, everybody's gonna look at you. Like, that's the thing. It's like you're gonna be noticed.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:10Jemma Sbeg?

  More.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:11Jemma Sbeg?

  It's such a, such a mind.

• 42:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's funny though, because I think that and then I think about like, because sometimes I think about like what I would do now if I was in that same situation. I'm like, I actually think I would have looked a lot more unique and I think I would have been a lot more castable had I just been like very normal. I think if I had just been like, very normal, I could let the nepo babies be like the really hot, thin people. And then I could be like the normal girl, which is usually what I got cast for anyways.

• 42:37Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 42:37Speaker 04

  So.

• 42:38Jemma Sbeg?

  Do you do much acting these days?

• 42:40Speaker 04

  Uh, no.

• 42:41Jemma Sbeg?

  Have you kind of been like, I'm, I'm done with that or?

• 42:43Speaker 04

  I'm kind of done with it. Again, I keep coming back to this like problem of control, but like.

• 42:47Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  Even when you do get cast, there's like a very good chance the person who cast you is like a man who likes you in some way. And so it's just like. It's just not, I don't know, like my, my husband's a filmmaker and a writer and a director. So he is totally in on that. And like, I love the writing side of things now.

• 43:07Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, interesting.

• 43:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I've always said like, I would do acting again, but only if I had like a lot of control over it.

• 43:14Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  I like so enjoyed, I got to work on a, um, a comedy for four years. That was really amazing. It was so fun. Yeah, it was really, really cool. It kind of got like, um, put into the bin of history because it was like, it was for one of those like apps where it has like a weird timing of like runtime for each episode. Like it wasn't a half hour and it wasn't split into quarters. So it was kind of a weird one to play.

• 43:38Jemma Sbeg?

  What was the, what was the comedy?

• 43:39Speaker 04

  It was called Mr. Student Body President.

• 43:41Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh my God, Mr. Student Body President. Okay. Everybody go and give this woman some royalties.

• 43:46Speaker 04

  I have no idea where it's playing. I don't know if I've ever gotten a royalty for it, but if you can find it. But the guy, um, my good friend Jeremy Shada, who's the voice of Finn from Adventure Time. He was the lead. So I became like really good friends with him because we hung out so much for the last like four years. So it was like really good things that would happen.

• 44:05Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  In tandem with like the shit stuff.

• 44:07Jemma Sbeg?

  Terrible stuff, really terrible stuff.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:09Jemma Sbeg?

  That makes so much sense. And you know what? The segues into the next questions have been so smooth because

• 44:14Speaker 04

  Hey.

• 44:15Jemma Sbeg?

  This is what I was gonna ask you about next, which is like, how is your relationship to like the media and social media and your career? Like, how have things changed? In recent years, have you felt more of a desire to be online? Like, I'm sure there was a period when you were an actor, um, where you were kind of like, maybe I shouldn't be online as much. Like, maybe I should have a small professional look. Like,

• 44:39Jemma Sbeg?

  I'm putting words in your mouth. How is, how have, how has it changed for you?

• 44:42Speaker 04

  I think, um, I'm gonna be honest, because I did social media from when I was a kid and I did it like without earning money and enjoyed it so much. And it was like my emotional release. It was like my, um, social release. And it gave me like all my friends, it gave me my future, like all these amazing things. I, I stopped wanting to do it for a while because I hated the idea that like, I was just doing this now to make money, like that, that like.

• 45:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Speaker 04

  That that inverse relationship between like making money and posting on like authentic content.

• 45:14Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  Like became really unbalanced.

• 45:17Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  Where I was like, I'm doing this because I need to like make my rent. I'm not doing this because I necessarily want to be posting these things.

• 45:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, it kind of got to that point. And I've had like ebbs and flows of that. And I think when it came to the acting stuff, I always really loved the, I, I was really passionate about it. And I think of it as like an art form, obviously, and filmmaking is an art form. And if there was ever a world where I could have actually done that and made money and like felt secure in that, I think I would have thrown my phone into the ocean and like never posted anything ever again.

• 45:48Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 45:48Speaker 04

  Um, but that's just also not realistic because that didn't happen. And that's like a, you know, like a retrospective fantasy.

• 45:55Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  But I think nowadays, I think that's like not how that would have gone.

• 45:59Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 45:59Speaker 04

  Like, I think I probably still would have been posting stuff.

• 46:03Jemma Sbeg?

  Just because you loved it so much?

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:05Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:05Jemma Sbeg?

  I like that.

• 46:06Speaker 04

  And I'm like, I'm a blabbermouth, as you can tell.

• 46:08Jemma Sbeg?

  This is what I'm saying. You need to start a new podcast. The, it's the ultimate medium.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  Blabbermouth.

• 46:13Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, it's amazing.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:14Jemma Sbeg?

  So do you think you're gonna keep posting for like the rest of your life? This is something people ask me. Probably, yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. Like, it wouldn't shock me.

• 46:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 46:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, because also like, not to like segue too early.

• 46:25Jemma Sbeg?

  No.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  But because.

• 46:26Jemma Sbeg?

  You are doing my job for me and it is, this is what I'm saying.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  So how's your day been today?

• 46:31Jemma Sbeg?

  Are you looking at the? Pardon me in the question.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  So as I've been wanting to segue into the next, no.

• 46:35Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  Um, I've just realized how important it is. And like, I've gone from being kind of resentful of like feeling like this is the only way that I can make money. Because also I'm not college educated. I didn't go to college. Like, I.

• 46:48Jemma Sbeg?

  What, what was that decision like, quickly?

• 46:50Speaker 04

  Well.

• 46:50Jemma Sbeg?

  Were your parents like?

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Well, okay, so it's so funny because it's like, it's the political burblings of like what conservatives were valuing i- in like two thousand eight Obama era.

• 47:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  Um, which was like, actually, we don't like college anymore. Like, the anti-intellectualism kind of started popping off.

• 47:10Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, my god.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  But also, um, it's so funny because all three of my siblings are really highly educated. Like, two of them went to grad school. So I'm like, I don't know. Where one of them went to law school, one of them went to grad school. So I'm like, I don't know where the hell I became the one, but um, but also I think part of it was that my parents were like, are like middle class Arkansans and they were like, oh, one of them doesn't want to go to college. That's kind of cool. And she's already making money. And like, my dad was the one who would fly me to LA and like be with me when I would do like the awesomest TV stuff. And like, when I would get these little, for awesomest TV, I was getting six hundred dollars a week to like, uh, come in on the weekend and then.

• 47:50Jemma Sbeg?

  That is low.

• 47:52Speaker 04

  Huge, huge for a teenager.

• 47:54Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, but like, for a huge for a teenager, but but not for life.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, no.

• 47:58Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Totally, but like in my head.

• 48:00Jemma Sbeg?

  Working in the weekends, like doing all this crazy stuff.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. And so.

• 48:04Jemma Sbeg?

  Is for a teenager, like, wow.

• 48:05Speaker 04

  Totally. And also, that being said, it would be once a month. So it was six hundred dollars a month.

• 48:10Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. To get flown out. And I thought it was like the most glamorous thing in the entire world. And it was. Um, but like, I was like, I've got my own money. I could pay rent because I've been saving all my money.

• 48:20Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  Like, I wasn't, what was I spending my money on in Little Rock, Arkansas? So I would just like save all my money. So I had this like little fat pad from when I was sixteen until I was like eighteen to be able to get rent and da, da, da, da. And so I applied to NYU.

• 48:36Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  And I applied to UCLA.

• 48:39Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 48:39Speaker 04

  And those are the only two schools that I applied to. And I got waitlisted at UCLA and I didn't get into NYU. So I was like, well, I guess I'm gonna fly to California and see what happens. Because like, maybe I'll get into UCLA. Maybe they'll, oh, so sweet to think that that was gonna happen.

• 48:52Jemma Sbeg?

  I actually love that. I love that you were like the big unis.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was like, they're gonna let me in.

• 48:57Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Do they not know who I am? Have they not seen awesomest TV? Come on. Um, but yeah, so I ended up getting like a really shitty apartment at this place called Park La Brea.

• 49:07Jemma Sbeg?

  Where, what, what part of LA is it in?

• 49:09Speaker 04

  It's, it, okay, if you know LA, you will know this place. It is, and if you visit, you will know it. It's, it's in West Hollywood. It's, or it's in Hollywood. Um, and it's right by the Grove. It's like, right down the road. It's those giant towers that are always saying, like, cheap apartments, cheap apartments.

• 49:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 04

  The reason why they're, they're cheap, allegedly, is because they are absolutely, I can't tell you how many cockroaches and how many bedbugs.

• 49:32Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh.

• 49:33Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 49:34Jemma Sbeg?

  The bedbugs are the one. Cockroaches I can live with. Bedbugs.

• 49:37Speaker 04

  Crazy.

• 49:37Jemma Sbeg?

  Maybe, probably not.

• 49:38Speaker 04

  No, listen, you can live with a cockroach until they start coming out of your faucet, like a horror movie.

• 49:42Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Like, it is devious, quite devious. And also, the other thing I didn't understand about these apartments, sorry, I'm going on a rant.

• 49:49Jemma Sbeg?

  No, I love, please.

• 49:50Speaker 04

  But they also, their windows were so high. I lived on the thirtieth floor.

• 49:54Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 49:54Speaker 04

  And the windows didn't have, uh, screens on them.

• 49:58Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, my God.

• 49:59Speaker 04

  You're asking for someone to take a, take a tumble.

• 50:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, my God, like, somebody could just have an egg fall through. That is crazy.

• 50:06Speaker 04

  Crazy. It always freaked me out. Like, you know, like, I think that's where my, like, a large fear of, like, heights has come from. You know, when you're like, um, looking over something really, really high and you're like, I could just fall off of this right now, or like, I could just jump. And like, there's something about staring, like, into that, that I remember doing that a lot when I was in my apartment, not like in a creepy way, but just in like a, like, I really don't want that to happen. Like, I kept, like, having dreams about accidentally slipping out of the window.

• 50:30Jemma Sbeg?

  I feel like that's very R C D Carter, to be real with you. Like, this obsession around, like,

• 50:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:35Jemma Sbeg?

  It could happen. It could happen. What's, I used to have this where I'd be like, what's to say that I actually didn't fall yesterday and this has just been, anyways, we'll not get that.

• 50:42Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 50:43Jemma Sbeg?

  Sorry, should not put that in people's heads.

• 50:45Speaker 04

  Whoa. Oh, I got, oh, I guess I'm gonna extend them to mull over later.

• 50:49Jemma Sbeg?

  I know. Well, hopefully you don't live on a thirty-fourth.

• 50:51Speaker 04

  No, thank God. Third floor, way better. Very much safer. Way happier about that.

• 50:56Jemma Sbeg?

  Safer. Yeah.

• 51:38Jemma Sbeg?

  Gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is. Lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark.com.

• 52:10Jemma Sbeg?

  Something that really frustrates me is when wellness brands greenwash their products to make them seem more clean or better for the environment, when they are actually not. When you look into it, they are kind of just like the rest of them. Nature's Sunshine, however, doesn't just talk about the planet. They do something about it. They sustainably source ingredients. They craft their supplements with 100% solar powered manufacturing and their products are incredible. I don't drink coffee and so Nature's Sunshine Brain Edge gives me that kick I sometimes need with potent ingredients, combining yerba mate with nootropics, adaptogens, botanicals to support mental clarity and focus.

• 52:50Jemma Sbeg?

  And you already know how much I love their marine glow and have for years. It is the only collagen that combines skin supporting marine collagen with the sun and blue light protection of luton to make your skin feel and look glowy and protected. Plus, I just really like that they have nature at the core of everything that they do. Try Nature's Sunshine and experience the difference with supplements that are better for you and the planet. Go to naturessunshine.com today and use the code PSYCH for 20% off your first order plus free shipping. That's code PSYCH for 20% off your first order at naturessunshine.com.

• 53:30Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been really trying to prioritize my health in a realistic way this year. And something that has kept me really motivated is my Whoop. I am such a data person, which is why I love Whoop. Because I can genuinely see why my body feels differently depending on the day. Why I'm running differently, why I'm maybe less focused. Whoop effortlessly tracks my sleep, it tracks my strain, my recovery, my stress. And most importantly, my overall health. And it just gives me all that data and all those patterns. So I can make better decisions, which includes knowing when to go easy and knowing when to go hard. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of Whoop.

• 54:15Jemma Sbeg?

  How's your career? What are you doing now? I feel like you're kind of in this period of like starting afresh.

• 54:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:20Jemma Sbeg?

  What is it like to start afresh as like you enter 30?

• 54:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, I think it's been like a cool, that's been really, um, it's felt like, like an appropriate time to start something new. You know, like, yeah, a turning, a turning over of a leaf, really. Um, especially since like turning 30 is the time when you're supposed to like shrivel up and turn into like an old hag. And yeah, I don't know, maybe start performing hexes on people. I don't know what like the general consensus is.

• 54:46Jemma Sbeg?

  Sounds fun.

• 54:46Speaker 04

  I'm already doing that, so I'm already way ahead of you guys. Um, but I think it's just like funny to like step across the threshold of 30 and not like immediately pass away.

• 54:57Jemma Sbeg?

  Um. You seem pretty healthy. You seem, you seem happy.

• 55:01Speaker 04

  I'm feeling really good.

• 55:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  And I think that's the secret is that, and my mother in law has told me this because she was like, was and is the most fabulous woman. But she was like, your 30s are like the best years of your life, easily. And then she was like, but actually your 40s are the best, but actually your 50s are like, it only gets better. I think for women as we get older.

• 55:20Jemma Sbeg?

  I've.

• 55:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, like I really do.

• 55:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Heard this.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  And I feel that, like, I feel it in my bone. How old are you?

• 55:25Jemma Sbeg?

  I'm 26 now.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  Oh my God, it's only going to get so much better.

• 55:28Jemma Sbeg?

  You know what? I also feel like I've documented my entire twenties.

• 55:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:32Jemma Sbeg?

  So I've like literally been doing this podcast for, since I was 21.

• 55:36Speaker 04

  That's so crazy.

• 55:37Jemma Sbeg?

  So I honestly think that 30 is going to be a, not like a liberation, but like a whole new chapter. I don't know to go.

• 55:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:44Jemma Sbeg?

  Not to make this about me, but like, I just think it's gonna be, you know, I turned thirty, it's like a new, a new chapter of life. But maybe I don't document and I do just get to live and like.

• 55:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:55Jemma Sbeg?

  So many things that I don't.

• 55:56Speaker 04

  It's very transformative, just like.

• 55:57Jemma Sbeg?

  I'm excited.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  Again, and maybe it's also my OCD, but like having a number where I'm like, oh, this is when things start or whatever. It was like very uh freeing for me. Like before I left LA, um I was twenty eight. And I was like, I feel really sad that I haven't oil painted in like a really, really long time. Like I hadn't done an oil painting in probably ten years. And I used to do like semi-competitive oil painting in high school, if that's a thing.

• 56:28Jemma Sbeg?

  Everything can be competitive.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  Everything can be competitive.

• 56:31Jemma Sbeg?

  If you're a high achiever.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, if you try hard enough. Um but I used to do these conservation paintings for this thing in Arkansas called the Four H Center, where it was like a fish and wildlife conservation. And so I used to do these like hyper realistic oil paintings of endangered species. Um and sometimes charcoal, sometimes uh chalk pastel, but I would just like do these, like I learned how to kind of like replicate nature in a way that was really cool. Um and I was really competitive, so that was, that was something that I did all throughout high school. And I loved it. It got to the point where I had uh from the little bit of money that I had making, been making from Austin's TV,

• 57:12Speaker 04

  I had asked my art teacher if I could come to her studio that she would work out of with all these other like cool adult artists. And I basically got a little corner of her like studio with my friend Sarah, who also wanted to do the same thing. And we would oil paint together, like in this like adult studio and it felt so cool, like, you know, to come on a Thursday and like, oil paint. So anyways, but that was like such a positive memory for me and something where I really got into flow state. And then as I got older and I was living in tinier studio apartments, I was like, I just don't have room for this.

• 57:44Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  And so I would just put it off and put it off and put it off and I would do, you know, like watercolor paintings. I would do anything that was like not messy. See in my apartment. Um, and then when I got to the point where I was living in LA and I could like buy my own house. I bought a house and still didn't oil paint, even though I had the space for it. And I was like, well, this is like stupid. Like you're just, you've literally created a barrier for yourself and now you're just not breaking it because you are nervous about being bad. Like, cause it's been so long. It was like, I had such a competitive spirit for it when I was younger, that the idea of going back to something and being bad at it immediately. Cause I was going to be bad.

• 58:23Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:23Speaker 04

  Like, that's just how it's gonna be.

• 58:24Jemma Sbeg?

  But what a, how liberating.

• 58:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 58:27Jemma Sbeg?

  Crap and just get a try.

• 58:28Speaker 04

  Be bad, just try. And so then when I started painting again, I started recording myself painting and kind of told the story of what I just told you, which is that I used to really love doing this. And then I felt really like a lot of shame around being bad at it eventually. Um, and so kind of trying to like re uh reinvigorate my like artistic side of myself.

• 58:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 58:52Speaker 04

  And that also coincided with us realizing that we were going to be very kind of last minute and unexpectedly going to be moving to London. Um.

• 59:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Wait, that was just like a last minute.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  That was.

• 59:04Jemma Sbeg?

  Quick decision.

• 59:05Speaker 04

  That was something that was, we knew was gonna probably happen in like the next couple of years, but for like unforeseen personal reasons. It ended up being like, I had like two and a half months of like, oh, I think we're moving. And then it was like, oh, I'm, I'm trying to get my visa now, like, oh, we're like in process. And I was kind of in denial of it the whole time that it was happening. I don't know, it was just like all these things like that felt very like left behind. Because even like when I bought my house, I bought basically half a house, which is like so weird to say, but it was like under construction.

• 59:39Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, really?

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, because that's what I could afford in the area. But my dad's a builder and so I was like, I'm gonna be the person that like can make money off this house, cause I'm gonna flip it. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it and then I'm gonna live in it and I'm gonna feel. And then everything was like three hundred thousand dollars, like minimum for everything. And I was like, cool, so that's just never gonna happen. So we ended up living in kind of like half a house for like the entire time that we were living in LA. Um, that was also preying on me because I was like, oh, this is such a failure. Like I wanted to be able to redo this house and like all these things. And so in the middle of this, while I was waiting to get my visa, I had started oil painting and I started, I went around my neighborhood and I started taking film photos of all of my favorite houses in the neighborhood.

• 1:00:22Speaker 04

  And then I set myself up outside and painted my view from my window so that I could see like what my neighborhood looked like when I lived there. And then also did like personal portraits of all of the houses around me. And it became like the way that I kind of like exercised that feeling of being sad about leaving and also memorialized them. And then also like could kind of tap back into my artistry in a way that felt really like therapeutic.

• 1:00:53Jemma Sbeg?

  So beautiful.

• 1:00:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was really nice. But then also I, I felt really good because somehow I managed to do all of that and film it, which is not normally like, that's the other thing about doing art and filming it. And you probably know this, like it's, it feels like you take a bit of the soul out of it if you have to film it.

• 1:01:08Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  Sometimes.

• 1:01:10Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  But I think because I was so comfortable, like filming myself, that I could kind of like get past that and just be like, this is another example of being able to hopefully help other people feel like if you haven't done this artistic pursuit, whatever that may be.

• 1:01:25Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Speaker 04

  For a really long time, it's like never too late to come back to it and be bad. And so I think that's what like the first video that did like well about my art on YouTube was, it was called like, it was something like, it's okay to be bad.

• 1:01:39Jemma Sbeg?

  Honestly, a very profound statement that you realize the older you get of just like being bad is, I feel like we've talked a lot about control and then a lot about freedom in this episode.

• 1:01:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:01:49Jemma Sbeg?

  And this is what I'm hearing. I'm hearing you be like, wait, like this journey towards just letting yourself be bad at things, letting yourself explore old hobbies. In a way that doesn't sound as like restrictive anymore. Is it probably was at times?

• 1:02:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's true. Ooh, we're finding, we're finding themes here. We're really finding some good themes.

• 1:02:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Psycho, I have a little theme to like dig into. I have one final question for you. This is a question that we, I was gonna ask you about moving to London. Actually, let me ask you about it.

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:02:20Jemma Sbeg?

  This, everybody else can tune out. This is, this is a me question because I have just moved to London. And how do you enjoy it? Cause I'm really struggling with it. And I'm sure a lot of people have moved to cities and been like, ew, I had this whole romantic idea of what this was gonna be. And it's not that. So somebody who's just moved to London, i.e. me, or somebody listening.

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:42Jemma Sbeg?

  What's like some advice that you would have?

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  What, what would you say is, what are you struggling with? Do you feel like the social situation is a thing?

• 1:02:49Jemma Sbeg?

  I've gotten so lucky. I've made so many friends really quickly. It's actually funny. I like went out and was like, um, I'm a very practical person and I had been here for a month or two and I was like, great. So I need to make some friends. So I booked like seven, like friendship making activities in one weekend and was, and just made all my friends on one weekend.

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08Jemma Sbeg?

  And now I'm like, good to go. So and obviously, but I think it's just like realizing this isn't what I thought it was gonna be and like making peace with that.

• 1:03:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Speaker 04

  What did you think it was gonna be?

• 1:03:18Jemma Sbeg?

  I think, I love how, oh, to the tables. I'll, I'll, no, I think that I thought it was gonna be a lot more like exciting and go, go, go and like easy. And I, you know what I think? I thought, I didn't think the city was this big.

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:03:32Jemma Sbeg?

  I thought that things were gonna be closer. And maybe that's what it is where I was like, oh, there's gonna be so many opportunities to do things. It's like, there are, but it takes you two hours. So you actually can't do it all because of a commute.

• 1:03:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, you're not wrong. Is it, is that not how Sydney is?

• 1:03:44Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, no, no, no. Well, also I like would never go over the bridge. So like, there's two sides of Sydney. It was like three technically, but I don't know. Like I lived where, like in the heart of it.

• 1:03:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57Jemma Sbeg?

  No, it's not how Sydney is like at all.

• 1:03:59Speaker 04

  But you know what's funny is even you saying like, um, I don't go over the bridge in Sydney. That's, that is the knowledge that you will have of London. Like, yeah, in like three or four months, you'll be like, oh, I don't go, I don't go there because I, I don't like my connections there. Like, you know what I mean? Like you will have moments where you go, you'll know the city. It just takes, you know, it's like, you have to carve your little mark in the city by experiencing it until you get to the point where you understand the grooves and you can like figure out where you're going.

• 1:04:26Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:04:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:27Jemma Sbeg?

  That's a really beautiful analogy.

• 1:04:29Speaker 04

  It, well, it's like, you know, your, your pathways where you end up like going the most.

• 1:04:32Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, when my like river runs.

• 1:04:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally. Yeah. But I found it okay. I think like in a similar way to you, I found my friends really quickly because my husband was the entire reason I came to London. Like, we were long distance for years and years and years. And we started dating when I was nineteen, I wanna say, and he was twenty, twenty-one. A little older than me.

• 1:04:57Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh.

• 1:04:58Speaker 04

  What can I say? Love an older man. But because he is from London.

• 1:05:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:03Speaker 04

  I basically kind of got to like plug into his whole friend group. And what's really cool about my husband is that he is like, I mean this in like the most positive way. He's like Mr. Ally. We're like, yeah, like our entire friend group is queer people. So that that was really cool. So like, I don't know, coming from Little Rock, Arkansas, where I was like so sheltered to then be living in Los Angeles, where like my mind was expanding a little bit and then moving to London and being like in the epicenter of like just cool people was just such a different. I don't know. I think I I really liked moving here because it was I I was just absorbing so much.

• 1:05:37Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, this is what I need to do. I need to get out there and find my, I found definitely found great people, but I think I need to like focus on experiencing the city for what it has to offer.

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:48Jemma Sbeg?

  And that being like, it's a big horizon expander.

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I also think that people are very locked in on their boroughs.

• 1:05:54Jemma Sbeg?

  I have noticed.

• 1:05:55Speaker 04

  Like big time. Like I'm like, I'm a big like, like I used to live in southwest London, which was great, but it's like the sleepiest place in the entire world.

• 1:06:01Jemma Sbeg?

  What's give me a suburb.

• 1:06:02Speaker 04

  Uh, it's it's like near Hammersmith, like um, Notting Hill would be like southwest. Like, you know what I mean? Like that kind of like area, like a lot of my friends.

• 1:06:11Jemma Sbeg?

  Geography well.

• 1:06:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. West, west in general. I feel like it's just like very sleepy now, but like, no hate to west, westies. Okay. Um, but then like I hadn't really explored a lot of the other boroughs. Um, and then I, yeah, have just been spending a lot more time kind of like east and north and a little bit of time in south, kind of like expanding my horizons. But here's the thing, like you just got here. I just started doing that. And I've been coming back and forth here for like 10 years. So what excuse do I have?

• 1:06:40Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't know. I need to get in on it. I need to. This is, this is like the wiser, you are the wiser version of me.

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  I don't know about that.

• 1:06:48Jemma Sbeg?

  That. But no, but like I need to, I need to, I need to take a bigger bite of London, I think.

• 1:06:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, we can, we can do that together.

• 1:06:54Jemma Sbeg?

  We'll get dinner in the east.

• 1:06:55Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah, I'm always trying to like pull people in different directions, like.

• 1:06:59Jemma Sbeg?

  All my friends are in the east, by the way. And I'm like, yeah, and I'm like, what have I done? Because I live in like the northwest and I'm like, love. Where I live.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Jemma Sbeg?

  But every, all my neighbors are either very old or, or very famous.

• 1:07:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:07:11Jemma Sbeg?

  And we are neither of those things. So it's like, I think they're sometimes confused as to why we are there.

• 1:07:16Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 1:07:16Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't think I've met anybody who lives in my neighborhood who's under the age of thirty five.

• 1:07:20Speaker 04

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:07:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Or under like the income level of thirty five million.

• 1:07:24Speaker 04

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 1:07:26Jemma Sbeg?

  And I feel like we just kind of messed up. But also, we have like this really apartment that is technically not livable. Like, I don't really think you're meant to live there.

• 1:07:33Speaker 04

  I love that about London.

• 1:07:34Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:34Speaker 04

  Sometimes it's just like, yeah, we just live in this like rat hole.

• 1:07:37Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Speaker 04

  We live in a bucket and like it's three thousand pounds, but like.

• 1:07:41Jemma Sbeg?

  Exactly.

• 1:07:42Speaker 04

  They let us.

• 1:07:42Jemma Sbeg?

  I remember our landlord when we moved in, I was like, so what happens if there's a fire? He's like, well, there should be a ladder on the roof.

• 1:07:47Speaker 04

  There should be a ladder on the roof.

• 1:07:50Jemma Sbeg?

  I can't, but we don't know where that is. Like, where is it?

• 1:07:53Speaker 04

  Awesome.

• 1:07:54Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, anyway.

• 1:07:55Speaker 04

  Yes, awesome. No, that's like such a thing. But, but no, you'll have to, you'll have to come um hang out with me over on my side of town.

• 1:08:03Jemma Sbeg?

  Done.

• 1:08:03Speaker 04

  Elsewhere.

• 1:08:04Jemma Sbeg?

  We'll make it happen.

• 1:08:04Speaker 04

  Maybe someone under the age of thirty.

• 1:08:07Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't think they exist here.

• 1:08:08Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:08:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Do they not?

• 1:08:09Speaker 04

  I don't know. Unfortunately, I'm not going to hold up that statistic, but I'll find someone who can.

• 1:08:14Jemma Sbeg?

  Thirty, I feel like thirty is the new twenty five.

• 1:08:16Speaker 04

  Hey, thanks, babe.

• 1:08:17Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been saying that to my friends.

• 1:08:18Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

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• 1:08:47Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:09:25Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:10:10Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:10:45Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my Whoop. Truly, you guys, you know I'm such a data and information driven person and I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit and I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable personalized insights that have made me more

• 1:11:29Jemma Sbeg?

  intentional and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop.

• 1:11:49Jemma Sbeg?

  Final question we ask this of every single guest on the podcast, which is what is the biggest lesson that you have learned in your twenties?

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  Ooh, I think, you know what? Again, I think it comes back to everything we've been talking about, but I think the biggest lesson I learned was that people aren't really looking at me like that.

• 1:12:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:09Speaker 04

  You know what I mean?

• 1:12:10Jemma Sbeg?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:10Speaker 04

  Everyone's like so obsessed with themselves. And I think like, I was so worried all the time, like as someone who was like bullied in high school, that I was like going to be always kind of watching my back or like always saying the wrong thing or always being kind of awkward. And then I realized like, actually, no one, literally no one cares. And that was very freeing in so many ways. Like, I think I had a lot of like guilt and like negative feelings around just like, like being a person in being perceived, not even like a social media perception, but just like interpersonal perception. I think I actually cared less about what people thought about me online than people think about me in person. Um, but I think I've just like completely like exaneed that.

• 1:12:53Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, God, I wish you could bottle that feeling and pass it out.

• 1:12:56Speaker 04

  I want to so badly.

• 1:12:58Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Speaker 04

  Like, I think about that sometimes for like people in their early twenties, because I'm like, oh, girl.

• 1:13:03Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:03Speaker 04

  I feel so bad for you. Like, women in their young, like, early twenties, like, I don't think I would ever go back to being 21.

• 1:13:09Jemma Sbeg?

  You could not pay me.

• 1:13:11Speaker 04

  No, unless I had my brain now and I could be like, none of this shit matters. I'd be fine.

• 1:13:16Jemma Sbeg?

  I think about that with dating all the time. I'm like, brick, I wish I could be dating as like a 20 year old. Obviously, I love who I'm with. Sorry.

• 1:13:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:23Jemma Sbeg?

  Chat my beautiful boyfriend, love of my life. But like, sometimes I'm like, I wish that I had the brain that I have now and could have dated back then and actually had fun. Because I've never had fun dating until I met my boyfriend.

• 1:13:34Speaker 04

  Totally. I totally know what you mean. I feel the same way. It's kind of that whole thing about like, um, what's this Sylvia Plath fig tree?

• 1:13:40Jemma Sbeg?

  We literally just did an episode on that the other day.

• 1:13:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's similar where it's, you know, a little less depressing when you're talking about dating, but like, it would just, yeah, I agree. Just like being able to enjoy stuff because you know, like, it doesn't matter. But you know what? That's also hindsight.

• 1:13:52Jemma Sbeg?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:53Speaker 04

  Like, you know?

• 1:13:53Jemma Sbeg?

  Exactly.

• 1:13:54Speaker 04

  I get still be nervous and like anxious about things now. It doesn't mean that like in five years, I'm not gonna be like, I wish I just didn't care when I was 30. Like, I probably will still say that, you know?

• 1:14:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Brings it back to that thing you said before of like getting older is like such a privilege. And I look at like my mom, for example, and like my aunts. And I also think it's so important to have friends who are a few years older than you as well. Like, and I also a few decades older than you, because it just seems like it gets better and better. It looks so much fun.

• 1:14:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, crazy what perspective can do. Like when you meet someone who's like still rocking it and looking so cool and like doing like the best kind of life and they're like twenty years older than you.

• 1:14:29Jemma Sbeg?

  I'm clean for some gray hair.

• 1:14:31Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:14:32Jemma Sbeg?

  I'm gonna do full gray if it happens.

• 1:14:34Speaker 04

  I'm down to clown.

• 1:14:36Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:36Speaker 04

  I'm so down to clown. I know, like, do you remember that show was called, um, there was, there was a woman named Stacy London, who was like a stylist on the T on TLC. It was like a thing in America, but she, you need to look her up later. She had this show, it was called What Not To Wear, and it was not great. It didn't age well. It was a lot of things being flattering or unflattering or frumpy or not frumpy, like not great body discussions happening. But she had the most fabulous streak of gray in her hair from when she was like, at like our age into her forties. And she still like maintains it and she looks so cool.

• 1:15:12Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, this is gonna be the new trend. I think gray hair is gonna be where it's at.

• 1:15:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:17Jemma Sbeg?

  Cause it's cool. It's a sign of like being, it's a sign of total self-acceptance and like pushback against like the aging propaganda.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  Hundred percent. Yeah. I think that's also like being able to move your face is the same thing, you know? Yeah.

• 1:15:32Jemma Sbeg?

  Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I hope you had a great time.

• 1:15:37Speaker 04

  I did. Thank you for having me.

• 1:15:38Jemma Sbeg?

  I, I really enjoyed this chat.

• 1:15:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. Let me know if you ever want me back.

• 1:15:42Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, I know. Well, maybe people are gonna be like, and hopefully they think we have a good vibe.

• 1:15:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Jemma Sbeg?

  Um, where can people find you and what is something you're really excited about going on in your career and your life right now? You want people to know about?

• 1:15:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I'm on all my socia as per usual. Um, I also just released a collection with Lisa Cezga.

• 1:16:01Jemma Sbeg?

  Which you are wearing, if you're watching on Netflix, literally you walked in and I was like, that, that shirt is phenomenal.

• 1:16:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:08Jemma Sbeg?

  And you painted that. Yeah.

• 1:16:09Speaker 04

  This is my painting. I think the saturation's been bumped up a little bit, but yeah, I did a trip deck of blossoms in a field, kind of like à la Monet. It was my Monet copy, not nearly as good. Unfortunately, he's kind of a master. Um, so that's kind of my attempt of it, but it made a fabulous shirt.

• 1:16:25Jemma Sbeg?

  It does. It actually does. Okay, I'm gonna get people. To check that out, they can find Jo on on socials. Yeah. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening. You can also find the psychology of your twenties on socials in the episode description down below. If you want to follow us on Substack, Instagram, all those things. I feel like every single episode I I give you a longer list, but it's all down below. And of course, you can also find Arden and see more of what she's up to by following the links in the description. But until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon.

• 1:17:02Jemma Sbeg?

  This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over fourteen years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is. Lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark.com.

• 1:17:40Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my Whoop. Truly, you guys, you know I'm such a data and information driven person. And I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit. And I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable personalized insights that have made me more intentional

• 1:18:25Jemma Sbeg?

  and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a thirty day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of Whoop. Hi, this is Jemma Sbeg. Taking care of yourself doesn't have to mean completely changing your routine. Naturewise Vitamin D3 is an easy way to support immune, bone, and muscle health every single day. And because quality matters, Naturewise has one of the first NSF-certified Vitamin D3 currently on the market.

• 1:19:07Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:19:47Speaker 00

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