282: Taylor Lorenz on Internet Culture

Taylor Lorenz is a technology reporter at The New York Times covering internet culture. Before joining The Times, she was a technology and culture writer at The Atlantic and The Daily Beast. In this conversation, we discussed what internet culture is, how memes are the message, the business behind the largest influencers, how content houses work, what exactly is happening on TikTok, and the dark side of an influencer's fame. =============================== Crypto.com is the only all-in-one platform that allows you to BUY / SELL / STORE / EARN / LOAN / INVEST crypto all from one place. Join over 1 million users currently using the Crypto.com app. Download and earn $50 USD using my code ‘pomp2020’, or use the link http://platinum.crypto.com/r/pomp2020 when you sign up for one of their metal cards today. =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 45,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pomp.substack.com

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

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Taylor Lorenz is a technology reporter at The New York Times covering internet culture. Before joining The Times, she was a technology and culture writer at The Atlantic and The Daily Beast. In this conversation, we discuss what internet culture is, how memes are the message, the business behind the largest influencers, how content houses work, what exactly is happening on TikTok, and the dark side of an influencer's fame. I really enjoyed this conversation, and Taylor didn't disappoint. But before we get into the episode, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. The first is Crypto.com. Crypto.com is a pioneering payment and cryptocurrency platform that seeks to accelerate the world's transition to cryptocurrency.

• 0:53Anthony Pompliano?

  They have a vision to put cryptocurrency in every wallet, which is frankly why we are all here. Their Crypto.com app offers a full range of financial products with competitive pricing, well-designed user experience, and high security. It's the best place to buy, sell, and pay with crypto. These guys have been longtime supporters of the Pomp Podcast and keep launching new product after new product. So do yourself a favor and go to Crypto.com to check them out. Again, Crypto.com, the place where mass adoption is occurring. Also, don't forget, I write a daily letter every morning to over 45,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. I break down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry.

• 1:33Anthony Pompliano?

  You can subscribe at Pomp.substack.com or go click the link that's in the description. All right, let's get into this episode with Taylor. I think you guys will enjoy this one. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 2:13Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I have Taylor here with us. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 2:20Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. I feel like you have one of the coolest jobs on the internet because you get to sit and write about internet culture. Let's just start off with kind of your background and how do you get to that position where you are the voice of the internet culture to some degree?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  That's very kind. It is definitely a dream job. I always tell teenagers that reach out, like, it's, you know, a job that you get to spend all day on YouTube or TikTok or Zoom now. But I got into media, actually, about a decade ago through Tumblr. In 2009, after graduating college, I was just working a bunch of temp jobs and got into Tumblr. And that's kind of what got me into media, doing social media. I spent most of my career running social media accounts for brands and writing on the side. And then about three years ago, I transitioned to writing about this stuff full-time.

• 3:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so as you think about like internet culture itself, maybe just start with like, what does that mean to you, given you spend so much time understanding it?

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I think internet culture is like, an internet culture reporter, I think, is going to be one of those job titles that's like webmaster, where it kind of will probably seem irrelevant, because every year, I feel like the internet is just more ingrained in our lives, especially now in the midst of a pandemic. We're literally living online. So I kind of think of it as culture coverage with a tech bent. My technical title at the New York Times is technology reporter, and I definitely love tech and, you know, look at things, sort of look at how people socialize and how culture moves through these platforms, like, any kind of social platform. That can be, you know, something that's made to be

• 4:17Speaker 02

  a social platform, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or something that, you know, another type of technology that people are just using to connect and socialize, like Google Docs or Zoom or things like that.

• 4:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and it feels almost like, you know, the internet culture is actually really bec- it it used to drive culture. Now it's almost becoming the culture, right? There there's less and less of a difference between the two to some degree.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  I think there's almost no distinction. I mean, I do think that you have some people that are still kind of offline in in certain ways. But, um, you know, it's it's even true for older people. I mean, if you think of boomer culture, it's very driven by the internet. Uh, old people love memes more than anyone. Um, you know, boomers are very online in other ways, usually email. Um, so yeah, it's definitely kind of just culture at this point, um, especially pop culture. I mean, the areas that I cover in terms of like entertainment or music or movies, Netflix, um, it's it's, yeah, it's just culture coverage, which is why I'm on, uh, the style section of the New York Times, which is our, you know,

• 5:23Speaker 02

  we we sort of cover lifestyle and culture and things like that, rather than being on like the business side, where I'm covering more the business of tech companies.

• 5:32Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And and it, one of my favorite sayings right now is like, the memes are the message, right? Kind of taking the the bent of like, the medium is the message. Maybe talk a little bit just about how you see, um, whether it is memes or gifs and and things like that, how they're infiltrating a lot of society.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think it's a society we're moving towards visual communication, and that's been true for a while. I mean, memes have been around for, I think, 20 years. I went to some retrospective, uh, at the Museum of Moving Image in New York on memes, and I was honestly surprised. Um, I think the first meme they had was like, what, all your base belonged to us or something. It was like literally from the year 2000. So, um, you know, the concept of memes as we understand them as these kind of like internet pieces of content, communicating a message, um, have been around for a while. And, um, you know, we're also using platforms that allow us, that allow us to, um,

• 6:30Speaker 02

  express ourselves more visually, you know, um, like Instagram stories, all the creative tools we have there, Snapchat, now TikTok, and you can express yourself in this very visual way, which lends itself to memes. And just as things travel around the internet, they gain kind of this shared understanding or knowledge or humor to them. And so I think it's it's just easier to kind of share and riff off people's. Thoughts or content or ideas and it's, you know, it's just easier to do that every I can't speak, it's more and more easy to do that every day.

• 7:04Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure, and it feels like you of all people, like if somebody said to me, who has the best pulse on the younger generations on a lot of these platforms, like I think you are probably the first person that comes to mind for many people. So maybe let's just start with going, how you think about each platform for the younger generation, right? So there's Snapchat, there's TikTok, there's Twitter to some, you know, bit, but just like, how do you think about how they're using each one of those platforms differently in comparison to each other?

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Sure. Um, I mean, I guess I would say the main difference that I see with young people is just the extent to which they use it. I mean, if you think about Instagram, sorry, if you think about Instagram, a lot of millennials or older users treat Instagram,

• 7:56Speaker 02

  they treat the product sort of the way that that they understood the product and they initially got on it, sometimes like in 2013, 2014, when it was really primarily a photo sharing app. Whereas younger people, that's really sort of where they, it's like the core of where they express their identity and their friendships and stuff like that. So it's much more of a communication app. I mean, Snapchat is another one that I think older users kind of stopped embracing, but it's still like a primary messaging app for a lot of young people. And TikTok, I kind of compare a lot to Twitter, actually, because it is a place where especially young people go to express their ideas. It's almost like a mini YouTube in the sense that you can make these short videos, they can get surfaced

• 8:38Speaker 02

  and go viral. But, you know, you can also live stream, you can also comment, you can also DM, it has a lot of other kind of capabilities too. But sort of like Twitter, it's like where I think while a lot of older people might go to Twitter to express their thoughts on maybe the president or something, younger kids will tend to do that on TikTok.

• 8:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  A lot of them are on Twitter too, but they usually tweet about like Stan's, you know, Billie Eilish or something.

• 9:05Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And it feels like, um, you know, there's a entire culture on these platforms, right? So like TikTok is a great example where there's obviously the TikTok influencers. There are certain ways that people use it. And you wrote an article about even the way that people use certain functionality. And one of them was like the live streaming while people are sleeping. Uh, maybe talk a little bit about just like, that seems like such like a new wants to use case for a platform where, you know, most older people would like be horrified at the idea of that. Whereas, um, some of these influencers had really kind of understood like, hey, this is a unique way to use the platform.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's funny. So back in 2015, I was obsessed with this live streaming app called Uh, You Now. And, um, I would make my friends go on it all the time. It never honestly really took off, but, um, there was, there were You Now influencers. Some of them became users that are now TikTokers. But, um, you know, it was another live streaming platform where the benefit was to sort of stream as long as possible. But obviously it's very hard to fill content, um, for that amount of hours. Then there was this, um, this trend that started called Sleep Squad, um, that took off among people and it kind of became this thing that people did, which is live stream themselves sleeping. Um, and then now we

• 10:21Speaker 02

  see it on Twitch and, um, TikTok. And, um, it, it's kind of a thing. It's kind of a meme and it's a joke. It's like, can I, hey, how many followers can I get, you know, when I'm sleeping? But it's also a way to like go viral because it's so funny. And because what it does is provide these sort of pop up chat rooms. So it's like, it's kind of like, a lot of people also just stream an inanimate object. And what they're doing is really just, they want to get that like chat going. And then people just start connecting and chatting and having this whole thing sort of within this pop up chat, um, on the live stream. And so that's the appeal for users that are watching it. It's not that,

• 11:06Speaker 02

  yeah, it's a dark room, someone's sleeping and that's kind of funny for a second, but you're also able to kind of like chat, um, you know, with these other people in a way that you wouldn't, you know, have access to. So it's sort of like these little ephemeral chat rooms.

• 11:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and it seems like as part of that, these applications aren't being used solely for the videos, right? So like the TikToks, for example, you can sit and I think it's really unique how they've put the platform together in terms of you kind of just scroll and continue to see video after video after video. And if you're just using it for the first couple of times, like that's kind of the surface use case. But the comments and kind of all of these subcultures within the platform aren't very obvious. Is that something going back to like the younger demographic is just all of their friends are doing it? And they kind of learn it by talking to each other? Or is it something that you it's just actually like the time on the application itself drives you to use some of the other features?

• 12:01Speaker 02

  You know, that's something that I would love like data from Instagram on, for instance. I wrote about like comment culture on Instagram a couple of years ago. And it's hugely driven by teenagers. I mean, if you go in the comments of a lot of stuff, it's like meme accounts, people trying to get, you know, publicity. And then a lot of teenagers or young people primarily. I mean, of course, there's still the like, you know, other, it's not just teenagers that comment, but but they really do engage in that way. And I don't know, like, you know, I don't know if that just has to, I don't know if it's driven specifically by time spent. But I imagine part of it is the culture, like tagging friends, responding to things.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  And I think a lot of young, you know, stars on Instagram also have more interesting comment sections.

• 12:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. It feels like, you know, and Instagram's, I think, a perfect example where you see the comments. But then there's also like a whole nother layer of usage where people take the photos or videos that are posted. They DM them into these groups and they have these group chats around that. And it's like that conversation is more protected, it's private, it's with that kind of a selected group of friends. But that is almost the same type of thing that happens in the comments to some degree.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think both are places to socialize. I mean, the benefit of DM is that you can share links. You know, you have a set group of people. I hear of people meeting in the comments a lot. And I think there's like somebody that was saying that they met friends actually in the comments of the comments by celeb page. Because there's all these like comments by accounts now that are really popular too, that sort of highlights some of the best parts of the comment section. So I think people are kind of going there to make connections, find people with similar interests, and then hop into group chats. There's so many interest-based group chats, you know, that that people are involved in on Instagram, and I get added to them a lot, and I love it. And so I just, yeah, I just think it's another way to socialize.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  I think that, you know, a lot of users that are maybe more adults, I don't know, some of, I mean, I know some moms that have Instagram group chats, but I think they're also more likely to use things like iMessage.

• 14:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes, speaking of moms, one of the the trends that just blows me away is on TikTok, these kids who are pulling their parents in, especially now because most of them are home, and their parents are growing like pretty big audiences, simply by dancing in videos with their kids, right? Similar to kind of, I think, how the Vine stars all made each other famous. Now, kids are just doing it with like the closest adults to them who just happens to be their middle-aged parent.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  I know. I wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago about sort of like how it's all family TikTok now because everyone's involving every member of their family. I saw a girl just this morning celebrating. She was giving her father a cake because he had a hundred thousand. So it's, yeah, it's, it's been fun. I think everybody, you know, when you like an influencer, you like a certain person on TikTok, you like to kind of follow everyone in their orbit, whether that's their close friends or their family. Their family usually are the ones that have the kind of like behind-the-scenes access to them and posts, you know, funny videos. You know, a bunch of the big TikTok influencers have kind of transformed their whole family into influencers, like Addison Rae, her whole family.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  And Charli D'Amelio, obviously, like Mark D'Amelio is like an influencer unto himself now.

• 15:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and I guess part of that is so Charlie D'Amelio is, I think, one of the first ones that I saw where she's now got fifty million followers, give or take.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  The most followed person on the app, yeah.

• 15:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow. And, and so she's famous, her sister's famous, her dad's famous, and her mom's famous, right? I mean, literally the entire family. And then they all got signed by UTA together, like as a unit. So maybe let's talk a little bit just about like the business behind a lot of this. Cause it's, you know, it's kind of fun and games to see people post the content and grow, but there's really, really big businesses that are being built here. Just kind of at a high level, like, how do you think about, you know, the commercialization or the business behind all of it?

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's what a lot of people sort of don't understand is the business behind it. And one, how much work it takes to grow that business. And two, the sort of like ancillary businesses that are built up around the influence industry. I mean, you mentioned agents, a lot, you know, the big Hollywood agencies all have very robust digital divisions that sign, you know, people like the D'Amelios, hoping to turn them into essentially the next Kardashians, or sort of grow, you know, grow their brand even bigger collectively. But then you also have all of these other people that support influencers, you know, you have kids that just make money essentially by helping influencers optimize their YouTube thumbnails

• 16:51Speaker 02

  and editing them in a certain way to get them clicks. Or you have, you know, somebody that runs a brand marketing platform that just partners brands with influencers. There's like a lot of sort of businesses that are helped to sort of set up to help support the influencer economy. It's not just like traditional entertainment businesses, like managers, agents, you know, acting coaches, singing coaches. A lot of these people have those people also in their orbit.

• 17:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's, it's crazy because I think, you know, when you get into the game of, hey, just creating content's one thing. But now all of a sudden, we're going to start optimizing the thumbnail, right? We're actually going to strategically place you in videos with other influencers to cross promote accounts. And, and it almost feels like a lot of this loses the authenticity. But the ones who are really good at it, they're able to kind of hide the business a little bit behind this. How much of that is being driven by the kids themselves and like they want it to be a business versus they've got a family member or somebody near them who's a little bit more professional or, you know, experienced that's driving it?

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, their family members absolutely are never more experienced than these kids. These kids understand monetization on digital platforms better than truly, I would say, almost any digital marketing executive, a lot of them. And if you look at people like David Dobrik or James Charles, right, both of whom are very young influencers, you know, they're not teenagers. I think James is like 20 and David's 23 or something. You know, they are, they have teams around them, but they're incredibly adept at staying on top of the trends, you know, getting in early and promoting themselves on these new platforms, growing their audiences. And they really do want to make it a full-time career.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  And that's, it's, you know, I would say, being an influencer, content creator, or whatever, you're essentially an entrepreneur, right? You're running your own small business. Often, that, that business is your personal brand, but, you know, it can also just be an interest-based account that you run. You know, if you're a car vlogger and you just post about cars all day, you know, you can end up sort of running essentially a little content company about cars, right? And so I think like any small business owner, you know, these people work really hard. They understand their business better than anyone. And it's usually, it's driven from them because if you have some outside person, you know, that can help motivate you to a point, but it really has to come from you if you want the businesses to succeed.

• 19:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And would it be fair to say that a lot of these young kids, like, this is the dream, right? When I was growing up, it was like, hey, I want to go play in the NBA or play for professional sports. People maybe wanted to be like a traditional actor or musician. It feels like now there's a lot of these kids who are saying like, no, I actually want to be an influencer. Like, that is something to aspire to be as a career.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. I think it's like the number one thing a lot of kids aspire to be. I saw some stupid thing that was going around last year of like, oh, in some other country, kids want to be an astronaut. In America, they want to be a YouTuber. And, you know, people will share that and they sort of joke about it, which I get, but, you know, if you're a YouTuber, well, one, that's, that's the work that you're seeing modeled every day. You know, when you log on the internet, you're following people that, you know, these... That are talking about their job every day, like, you know, these YouTubers are talking about what it's like to be a YouTuber, how they're making money, you know, they'll give a behind the scenes tour of like, you know, the, the factory that's developing their merch or things like that. So they're talking about

• 20:25Speaker 02

  that career in a really detailed way to kids in a way that honestly, a lot of kids don't have any clue what their parents do, but they, they deeply understand sort of like how an influencer business works. So that's part of it, I think, is why they think it's aspirational. It's, it's the main version of work that they're seeing on the internet every day. And then two, um, you know, there's a huge amount of autonomy that comes with running your own business. A lot of people mistake wanting to be an influencer with wanting fame. But a lot of these kids, what they want is, they, they want autonomy and they want to be able to run their own company based off their own interests. So if, you know, if you can run a small business that's,

• 21:07Speaker 02

  you know, gets you access to certain events, maybe because, you know, you, you're involved in some world. You know, I'll use cars as another example, because I know this, this kid, I can't remember his name, but he's on YouTube. He's very into cars, right? Like, you know, in the past, maybe he would have been a car journalist, to be honest, but, you know, he makes all of these really cool driving videos. He gets to test cars before anyone else. He gets to work with all these major car brands. That's a dream job, you know, um, and you own your income, you set your own hours, you have enormous flexibility. I can't imagine why you would want to do, you know, some entry level job and instead of sort of owning your own thing.

• 21:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's almost like the barriers to entry are so low because literally, you know, you've got a cell phone in your hand. Can you record a video, post it on one of these platforms? And if you're good at it, all of a sudden you can gain the audience and it goes from there. Um, and, and another piece that, you know, in conversations I have with people who are trying to understand this stuff, I always say like, this isn't new either, right? I mean, if you look at Oprah, Tony Robbins, like all of these people basically were the influencers before we called them influencers. They just had to do it on different platforms. It took a lot more capital. Uh, and that, do most of these younger kids understand that kind of this isn't new? Uh, it's just in a new form factor, or are they just so focused on what they're doing that they don't really kind of make the historical, uh, connection?

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think Oprah is different because she's more of a traditional celebrity. And so there's all these sort of gatekeepers, right, before getting there. And I don't think that she really owned her own IP and business from the start. Tony Robbins might be a better example. I mean, I think some people in certain careers, right? He's an entrepreneur ultimately. So, yeah, I think that what's different is that, you know, it's people building themselves up on this digital platforms and sort of owning their followers. And you're right, that is not new. I mean, it's funny, when I did this story recently on agencies, I was talking to this guy from Abrams, which is a big sort of talent agency. And they were signing MySpace stars back in 2006. So I think it took a while for it to emerge. I mean, I got my start on Tumblr.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  And, you know, there were certainly other people that were very big on Tumblr at the time that I was, that have sort of launched careers from that. But it's just, it's more pervasive now. I think, you know, every year, kids are more and more sort of on the internet. These social platforms get more power. And so I think that it's sort of progressed into mainstream culture in a different way. Just the fact that I have a job covering this stuff, you know, I couldn't get a job. I tried for a long time to write about this stuff full time. And there really wasn't an audience, I would say, until three years ago. So, you know, I think it's entering the mainstream in a different way.

• 23:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, speaking of entering the mainstream, like, how many of these kids want to stay on the digital platforms? Right? So be the TikTok influencer or whatever versus they want to cross over into like traditional movies, commercials, television shows, and things that maybe we think is more traditional media. Like, do they actually want to cross over? Or is it they shun that and they want to stay on the digital platforms only?

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Um, I don't think they think of themselves as like specific to platforms. Like, a lot of kids that come up on TikTok, they have, I mean, they all have different career aspirations. But what they want is to own their own businesses and brands. I think that, you know, I was talking to this 18-year-old TikTok creator recently. And he's been offered a, you know, potential show of his own. And he's just like, well, that's going to impede on my YouTube show, you know? And if you, and the YouTube show, you see direct benefits. You're able to monetize that, you get the ad money. You know, the people that watch become your followers and you grow. When you book, when you go on a TV network, first of all, it's hard for people to find,

• 24:51Speaker 02

  you know, unless it's a big enough show, it's kind of not worth it. So I think it it really depends. It also depends on whether these kids want to go into entertainment. Entertainment is really only a portion of the influencer economy, right? You have a lot of other people where, you know, their dream is to launch a fashion brand, right? Or you're a beauty influencer, you really want to like productize yourself and launch your own beauty brand. Maybe that, maybe that means like going on a fashion, maybe Project Runway or something. But ultimately, like, your goal isn't to be an actress or a singer. So I think for those, you know, the the small portion that does want to be maybe a traditional Hollywood person, it's a huge, it's a huge step up to have a following, and you'll definitely get in the door faster than people without a following.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  But the majority of kids that I talk to, it's not that they want to stay on digital platforms forever, they just want to own their own thing. And I think they see as sometimes like doing these bigger deals with more traditional platforms as as kind of like giving up some of that control.

• 25:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and it's really interesting that you see them as entrepreneurs, because I think that's like a very unique lens. And it would make sense that if you are that entrepreneur, you want to build the brands and and kind of drive the the business that you have, you don't want to go get distracted, right? So like, that would make sense, but how do they actually make money, right? So like, there's a whole bunch of things that I've heard, but like, in your experience, what are the main revenue sources for somebody who's amassed one of these audiences on the digital platforms?

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, kind of like every small business, they all have sort of a mix of different revenue streams. There's no one way that all influencers monetize. The primary way that people usually, the primary thing that people think of when they think of influencers is usually brand deals. The assumption is that influencers just make money by posting spawn con all day, sponsored content. That's not really true. Certainly, some influencers do make money from brand deals. I mean, most influencers, that's a huge portion of their revenue stream. But, you know, they're also making money on pre-roll ads, for instance, on YouTube.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Merch has really emerged in the past, I would say since 2018, really when Fanjoy came on the market and started working with a lot of the top YouTubers. Merch has become the primary revenue driver. I mean, David Dobrik, for instance, one of the most popular YouTubers in the world, makes hardly any money on YouTube, but he makes his money through selling merch and through this clothing brand that he's developed called Clickbait. You know, so launching your own merchandise and product lines are really big. So you'll sort of either license your name or work with a company to, you know, develop a line, for instance, for Nordstrom, where you, you know, take a portion of that profit, or you develop your own product. For instance, this girl, Gal Meets Glam, Julia Engel.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  She's a huge lifestyle influencer, developed this very sort of southern, unique style, and launched her own clothing line, and it's now, you know, massively successful. I mean, she's still an influencer, but that's the way she makes all of her money. She essentially runs a clothing brand. So you're seeing more and more of that. Again, influencers are trying to keep control, and they want to directly monetize their audience. They don't want to partner with someone or rely on some ad dollars that could go away tomorrow. A lot more of them, too, are charging for exclusive behind-the-scenes access. So that could be charging people for close friends' content on Instagram, or setting up a Patreon, launching a podcast, having a newsletter where you give exclusive, you know, photos or videos, things like that.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  These are, there's a million other things, but those are kind of all the big ones.

• 28:33Anthony Pompliano?

  And do they learn that from, like, seeing Kylie Jenner go and create the, kind of, the lip kit and her whole line of products? Or a Kanye West really licenses name essentially to create Easies with Adidas? Like, are they seeing that and saying, "I basically want to do that in my own world"? Or are these, you know, again, they're just not necessarily making that connection between what they're doing and what some of these much more traditional celebrities?

• 29:00Speaker 02

  I think that influencers are pioneering that. You know, you see people like Kylie Jenner take that model because influencers pioneered that model, you know, growing this digital platform and then turning it into, you know, using it to launch a product or something like that. Like, that is classic sort of influencer monetization strategy. I think the really successful, especially young celebrities, are monetizing that way and copying these influencers. In terms of licensing, I mean, celebrities have always licensed their names, so I think that's probably a more traditional business. But, you know, you see even actresses now charging for close friends content. You know, that was something that was started by people on the internet.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  So, you know, I think it actually flows the other way more than you'd think, where you have these groups of people online pioneering new monetization strategies and then it sort of ladders up as bigger and bigger people adopt it.

• 29:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it almost feels like, just like in technology, innovation's the necessity, you know, comes from necessity, right? They don't have the big teams and stuff. You've mentioned a couple of times the close friends Instagram content. I'm assuming most people listening don't know what that is, and it's fascinating. So maybe just talk a little bit about like how an influencer or celebrity uses that functionality on Instagram to monetize.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Sure. So, close friends is essentially this feature on Instagram where you can just post content on your Instagram stories just to a select group of people that you select. You know, influencers adopted it because it's just another way to gate your content behind sort of a paywall. So, you know, people charge maybe, or, yeah, the influencer will charge maybe three dollars a month, and if you pay that or you support them at that level on Patreon, you'll get access to those additional videos posted to Instagram stories that are only, you know, gated to close friends. I wrote a piece a couple of years ago on, like, up and coming rappers and, like, sort

• 31:01Speaker 02

  of SoundCloud rappers and how they pioneered monetizing every single feature on Instagram. And I think it's an example of this kind of like ground up. Like, I guess, like, these monetization strategies where these, these rappers are essentially charging for literally every single thing. I mean, they'll charge to post, they'll charge for, like, they'll charge to comment, um, you know, if you're a fan and you want me to comment, like, great, you know, um, that's gonna be five dollars, whatever. I mean, if you think about it, like, Cameo is kind of built off this, right? Like, asking for shout-outs from certain celebrities. Um, you know, prior to Cameo, people were just negotiating these things on Instagram.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  So, um, yeah, so I think that it's, uh, you know, the, that, that kind of, those kind of monetization strategies are, are definitely things that influencers have pioneered, really people on the internet have pioneered. I mean, a lot of these rappers, a lot of sex workers, a lot of other people that have been shut up, shut out for more traditional forms of monetization have, um, developed these sort of other schemes that have been more widely adopted.

• 32:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and maybe talk a little bit about how these influencers, like, work together to grow their audiences? So we saw, you know, the Vine stars all lived in the same apartment complex, pulled each other in. Uh, I've heard of Instagram groups where, like, if we're all in the same group, I post, I DM it into the group, everyone goes and likes and comments on it. Just like, what do you see there? And, and is that becoming more pervasive where people realize, like, hey, let me team up with other influencers and really grow our audiences together?

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, it's, I, I would say people constantly underestimate collaboration when it comes to growth. Um, because if you're collaborating with the right people, you're gonna grow. Um, and I think what you see is a lot of people have come up this way. I mean, I was a big fan of O2L, which was this YouTuber group back in the day, like, 2012. Um, and, you know, they, that was this, essentially, this, this group of, of guys that met at VidCon and decided to kind of all partner up and create videos together, um, you know, essentially every day of the week in this collaborative channel, and grew huge. And, um, you know, you see Vlog Squad, you mentioned the Vine generation, like,

• 33:06Speaker 02

  you have to kind of partner up and collaborate on content in general, because just posting videos of yourself gets old, you want people in your orbit. Um, and if you can find sort of other like-minded people, it just, it- It makes your content more sticky and engaging. You know, because even if I like, you know, you, for instance, maybe I follow you on YouTube. And then you constantly have your friend Joe in the video. Even if I'm not like a huge fan of Joe, I might just follow Joe anyway because he's friends with you. And so it's just kind of this way to grow your influence and also, you know, help others, you know, like build up others and they'll build up you.

• 33:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so this then led into these hype houses or content houses. Like, explain what these are and kind of like, what the hell is going on with a bunch of teenagers all living in the same house?

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, again, this, you know, these have been around for almost a decade. Like the O2L house, the Blog Squad had a house, you mentioned 1600 Vine, which was back in 2013. This apartment complex that all these vineyards lived in. So creators have always sort of lived together in these collaborative houses in mostly Los Angeles. But they're kind of all over. I mean, the original Phase House was in New York, I think, actually. So it's, it's great to kind of like live with people that you collaborate with. It provides more opportunity for content. Usually when you're coming up, you can't live in your own apartment. You know, you can't live by yourself, so it's cheaper to live with other up and coming creators that have the same goals as you. You know, you see this kind of thing happen in the comedy world, right?

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Or actors that start out living together. But I think with the TikTok generation, they grew up seeing all of these collab houses on YouTube and wanting to emulate that lifestyle that, you know, as soon as they have any amount of money and clout, they want to move to LA and start something like the Hype House, for instance, which is this TikToker collective. Now you have the Sway House, you know, there's the Club House, which is, you know, a bunch of people that left the Hype House. And, and sort of, and so on and so forth. There's a lot of them. You know, Jake Paul had his Team 10, there was the Cloud House. These, sort of these places serve as little hubs almost. And they're not just for the influencers that live there.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  They're for other people in that kind of generation of stars to come over, collaborate, hang out with people to stay, you know, places for people to stay out when they're in town.

• 35:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and my understanding is that there's not a lot of kind of hardware or infrastructure that's in the houses or that these people are using, but maybe just talk about like somebody who's got, you know, 50 million followers, even a million followers, like, are they literally just using their cellphone to do all this? Or is there a little bit more that goes into the production that that might not be as obvious to people just watching the content?

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, with TikTok, it's cellphone, maybe a ring light, maybe a stand. Although at the Hype House, when I was there in January, they were using literally a bottle, a smart water bottle and a toilet paper roll as their default stand to film all their videos. So I think it's a lot more lo-fi than people would probably imagine. Sometimes you'll have like a DSLR to film YouTube content, but a lot of times people like the the sort of more authentic, raw way it looks. If you film it with an iPhone and it's just easier. A lot of kids I see just edit it all on their phone, which is insane. But that's that's more for content on, you know, YouTube and Instagram. If you're doing something with more higher production value, maybe for YouTube,

• 36:37Speaker 02

  you know, sometimes you'll shoot with a camera, but it's not like you have a massive production crew with like a TV camera or anything like that.

• 36:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, does that make it harder for either the traditional players? Or, you know, folks who want to bring this stuff to television and try to recreate it, but it isn't necessarily authentic to them, does that make it harder for them to? Because they're used to coming with, you know, 10 people in a crew and and lighting and TV cameras and all of that?

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, people always reach out to me because I think over the years, people have wanted to do different reality shows. I think that it's, I mean, Jake Paul had his Team Ten, essentially a reality show on YouTube. And I think that he did have maybe a part of a production crew for that. Or like he had, you know, he, it was definitely more highly produced than normal content. A lot of big YouTubers have, you know, specific editors and they'll have maybe like a boom mic or something. But I think it's, I think it's probably, you know, I don't know, I don't really know anything about the TV world. I think they would probably be shocked at how lo-fi a lot of stuff is, but I don't even know what is required for TV because I'm so out of touch with the TV.

• 37:49Anthony Pompliano?

  But it's crazy, right? Like, literally, you're talking about people who, you know, as you said, they have like a toilet paper roll, right? And they're using that as a stand and they actually are probably getting more views on some of the content than a traditional television show.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Oh, 100%.

• 38:03Anthony Pompliano?

  And so the world has kind of really, really changed. And you also wrote this piece on like the American teenager bedroom? And like how that's kind of changed and almost become like a headquarters for a lot of this stuff. Maybe talk just like, what exactly does that mean, right?

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I profiled this 15 year old kid, Rowan Winch, who is a little entrepreneur. He ran a bunch of meme accounts, which is another thing that teenagers do to kind of get clout and followers on the internet. And I do think a lot of people are doing a lot of this stuff in their bedroom. I mean, the more entertainment, like personal brand, people may move to LA. But then you have this whole generation of young kids that is getting into things like e-commerce, right? Like dropshipping, using meme accounts, growing meme accounts to promote that, which is essentially influencer marketing, right?

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Growing digital brands and kind of engaging in the internet and promoting yourself on the internet, but they're not necessarily doing it like with their own face on it. And that's kind of what I was interested in is just like how these kids are running these little companies from their bedrooms and how challenging that is. One, to manage when you're young, and two, just how volatile it is because you have no, I mean, none of these kids have any contact with the platforms. They're usually doing stuff that's technically violating, you know, terms of service, like growth hacky type spam stuff. And, you know, so, yeah, that's, that was what I guess was interesting to me and why I wanted to write about that kid.

• 39:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and it feels like, again, You know, not new in the sense of there's always been kids who have had their little side hustles, you know, really just trying to get some cash, right? It was kind of the, even when I was growing up, whether it was selling, you know, things that you had, selling sneakers, going and buying and stuff. But then the internet opened it to like, hey, I can now sell to anybody in the world. These kids taken an even step further, whereas, you know, even maybe five, 10 years ago, let's say merchandise, for example, you would have to literally put an order in, you know, take risk upfront, get the actual inventory and then try to sell it. And if you sold it, great, but if not, then you're left holding, you know, a bunch of sweatshirts that you don't want. Dropshipping and things like that obviously changed that.

• 40:18Anthony Pompliano?

  And it feels like these kids really, really understand the logistical side of this and that the true business behind it, it's not just, hey, I've got an account. Let me, you know, just turn a switch on and all of a sudden money starts pouring in, right?

• 40:31Speaker 02

  No, they're so sophisticated in terms of their marketing. I mean, branding, understanding of e-commerce, understanding of like promotion and digital marketing in general. I mean, that doesn't mean that they don't make constant missteps. I mean, I think a lot of kids are always DMing me on Instagram because they're getting banned or blocked or, you know, they're got kickoff Shopify or something. But it, you know, it is, it is, I think it's great that, that all these kids are sort of learning that stuff. And it is through, through this influencer culture. I mean, it's, it's sort of like wanting to be an entrepreneur and wanting to own your own thing and leveraging the attention economy to, you know, get you there.

• 41:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and, and I guess as part of that, like, if you're a traditional business, you not only are very good at kind of your business yourself, but you also are probably pretty good at measuring, are you being successful or not? Are you growing? Is revenue going up or down? You know, what's your cost of acquisition? All these metrics that would almost go in like an investor report. Do they have any understanding of that stuff? Or is it more of just? Okay, so they, so from a data-driven standpoint, they're actually pretty sophisticated.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Oh my god, these kids. I was literally on the phone with this nineteen-year-old who runs a really popular giveaway company with a sixteen-year-old. And they, so you know, they orchestrate these massive Instagram giveaways, which are essentially growth marketing, you know, tactics for influencers. That they sort of have an influencer that, that hosts a cash giveaway. And then they sell spots where it's basically you have to follow these seventy accounts, you know, to enter the giveaway. And then they'll charge all those seventy accounts to be part of it and make money on top of that. And yeah, this teenager was just explaining to me, you know, the difference in CPMs and all of these different forms of advertising. And why giveaways are, you know, currently the highest, but you know, you have to get this kind of thing.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  And how, you know, he has these calculations that he's determined in terms of how many followers each person, you know, each sponsor can expect. And how that affects his pricing. And, you know, this is a kid that is, I believe, a freshman or sophomore in college. And I truly, sometimes I'm like, why are these, why are you even in school? I understand wanting to degree, but I, I think, and his sixteen-year-old partner, you know, it'll be interesting to see if he goes to school. But, you know, even if their business fails, because, you know, the giveaway bubble is definitely a thing on Instagram right now. And I don't think it'll be there forever.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  You, you know, you have this really deep understanding of analytics and Instagram and, you know, advertising, basically, so.

• 43:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and, and I guess one of the reasons why a kid would still be in school, even though they're doing this, making money, is because their parents, right, are probably, to some degree, saying like, hey, you're gonna go to school. What is the parent's reaction to a lot of this? Like, are they supportive of their kids? Are they, you know, scared shitless and saying like, I can't believe my kid is, you know, playing around on the internet and somehow money's showing up? Like, what do they just generally think?

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and by the way, I think kids should go to school anyway. I think a lot of kids I talk to go there for social reasons too. It's fun to be in college, you know, even if you don't, even if you don't ever go to class, it's still fun. And if you're making money and you can afford to pay for it yourself, or get a scholarship, that's great. You know, a lot of parents that I talk to don't understand this stuff at all. I mean, it's, it's, you know, Rowan's mother was very shocked by a lot of it. I think he was also keeping money, as a lot of kids do, in PayPal accounts. So you can keep money in PayPal, you know, and never transfer it to a bank and then use it. All these teen retailers accept PayPal. So you kind of don't have to let your parents know necessarily the amount of money coming in. You're not claiming it on taxes.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  So I think some parents are, you know, worried about that. I know Rowan's mom was like, where is he getting this money? This is suspicious. But, you know, once realizing that, you know, her son was doing, running these sort of like businesses was like, that's, I'm really proud. Just save it. I always tell kids to save their money as well. Most kids don't. I have to tell you, the majority of kids that I talk to make some kind of financial misstep, which I think is, it's good to make that, you know, those mistakes when you're young, when you're a teenager and your, you know, quality of life is not going to meaningfully change. You know, some kids also use it to help pay their parents' rent or cover medical costs for their parents or whatever, you know, their parents need.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  So I think a lot of parents are grateful when they see their kids making money. So, you know, just the way they would if, if their kid went out and got a part-time job somewhere else.

• 45:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's pretty cool. Obviously, I think you and I have a very rosy perspective of a lot of this and we generally are fans of it and understand why it's happening. But there's also kind of a dark side to a lot of it. First, like, what is like the bad behavior look like from the adults, right? So whether it's parents stepping in and like taking the kids' money or doing anything like that, or even like the agents and people who realize, hey, you know, you're an influencer. You've got a big audience, like, let me quote unquote, "help you", but that help really is just help me make money off of you rather than truly help you. Like, do you see any of that happening?

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Well, I have to tell you, not from the big agencies, I mean, like UTI, CIA, I mean, it is like a huge sign of achievement for a lot of kids to work with those big agencies because of the deals that they get them. And I haven't seen a lot of parents taking advantage of kids, to be honest. A lot of these kids are more sophisticated than their parents when it comes to the internet.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  But I do see sort of predatory managers come in a lot of the time. You know, you see these management companies or management collectives come in, sign kids to bad contracts, promise them the world, and really kind of act like waltzers. That is what is really disturbing.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  You know, I saw one contract recently that somebody sort of leaked to me that I showed to an entertainment lawyer and he was like, "This is the most unethical contract I've ever seen." And, you know, there are these big kids out there that have signed it. And, you know, so I think it's stuff like that that is upsetting. I think that the entertainment industry has always preyed on young people, unfortunately. So in that sense, you know, these people are not new. These people were scamming wannabe models and actresses before all of this. The good thing is that a lot of times, you know, these kids have their followings and so that's good, as long as they don't sign away their

• 47:15Speaker 02

  IP or something, like they, you know, can at least have their following sometimes to kind of negotiate back on some of these people. But, yeah, that's, that's kind of bad. I mean, there's also the actual scammers. So like people that are constantly trying to hack these kids, take down, you know, get them taken down. There's all the drama accounts that feed off of drama between these kids and start feuds and can get really toxic really quickly. I mean, a lot of kids end up quitting because of bullying. You know, it's mentally exhausting to live on the internet all day. So I would say there's like a lot of sort of bad mental health stuff that can happen to you as well. I mean, burnout is huge.

• 47:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. What, like with the contract where you say like it's unethical, like a- any kind of specific things that are in there or just generally like? It's obvious that somebody's taking advantage of somebody else.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's obvious somebody's taking advantage of somebody else. I mean, I, well, for instance, I'll give you a public case that I wrote about as well, which was the Tifu lawsuit against FaZe Clan last year, right? Like, Tifu, one of the best Fortnite players in the world, had signed to FaZe Clan, one of the best esports, sort of this like influencer collective esports conglomerate, you know, that lives in this massive house in LA, content creators, and, you know, Tifu rightly sued to get out of that contract because in some cases, they were taking up to 80% of his revenue for certain things and certain, you know, winnings was, you know, he got really bad splits and he's like, look, I'm the number one Fortnite player in the world right now. And yeah, maybe FaZe Clan helped me get there a little bit by promotion, but these are really bad terms.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  And, you know, that actually caused FaZe to completely revamp all of their contracts with talent. So, you know, I think you kind of need at least one influencer to be like a whistleblower if they're in this kind of bad situations or working with bad management. I think FaZe tried to do the right thing because they, they realized that, you know, whatever, but there, I don't know, the, the lawsuit was, is sort of ongoing. They definitely got people into some bad contracts. With some of these TikTokers, they're just so excited to be in LA and they're very swept up by this lifestyle and I think they're promised a lot of things and so they'll sign away, you know, rights to their content, for instance, not really understanding what a big deal that is.

• 49:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's pretty sad too because the, the kids in many cases probably don't actually understand it, right? And so it's one thing if you enter a contract and you understand what you're signing and then maybe later you have regrets, like, okay, that's just kind of, you know, the part of, of business, but when you sign something and you don't understand it, and then all of a sudden you realize, hey, I made, you know, a million dollars last year, but 800,000 of it I didn't see. And then I gotta pay taxes on 200K, like, eh, it's probably not the, the best situation.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's the kids, you know, it's not the kids with, for instance, Mark D'Amelio as a father who understands this kind of stuff. It's kids that often have more working class families, their parents are not, you know, they don't know a lawyer, for instance, that can take a look at it for them and it's, so it is, it's, it's really, it's, it's a bummer, you know, how many people are taken advantage of. And that's sort of, like I said, always been true in the entertainment industry as well, you know, with up and coming models and other people, it's just. Yeah.

• 50:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. You recently wrote about strip clubs on Instagram. What the hell is that?

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know, like everything else that's closed in the pandemic. So are strip clubs. And so I wrote about how, you know, they've kind of been reimagined on Instagram. There is this guy, Justin La Boy and Justin Combs, P2D's son, who were hosting this thing called Demon Time. Sort of this Instagram Live strip club show. I literally was surprised I got it into the Times because like the Times can be kind of prude about that stuff. But yeah, it's basically just, you know, women stripping on Instagram Live during these sort of pop up shows. Obviously, the handle gets banned immediately, so they'll kind of create a new handle for each show.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  And, you know, they pin the girl's cash app and then the girl, you know, essentially makes money through tips from the cash app. And since they started doing it, this guy Tory Lanez copied them and started this thing called Quarantine Radio, where he was kind of also letting women dance. And then Magic City, a big strip club in Atlanta, also was offering virtual lap dances. Basically, this woman dancing on Instagram stories for you.

• 51:56Anthony Pompliano?

  It's pretty crazy how it also falls in line with other tech trends, though, right? Like, we all see kind of these virtual worlds popping up. And so like, I don't know if anyone expected strip clubs to go virtual, right? Because of the quarantine. But it does fit within more and more things going online. And you can quickly see how, if they can figure out the monetization, they can figure out their way around a lot of the platforms, right? And that's another piece is just like constant cat and mouse game between the platforms and a lot of these creators trying to police something like this versus the kid who just gets reported, you know, in essentially a bullying situation. How do you know who to take down, who not to take down? And it feels like it's pretty complex for the platforms to navigate as well.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they're always in a race with the platforms.

• 52:45Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And the last thing is on podcasts, there seems to be this like very big trend of taking traditional podcasts where there's very little interaction with fans, right? Because it's basically a one-way communication channel and is trying to build that community around it. We see some of the top podcasters in the world doing everything from, you know, literally live in-person shows where you can buy tickets and show up to doing more of the like pay and you can get access to exclusive content, AMAs, you know, live video. But you also wrote about like Facebook groups and things there, you know, is that something where the podcasters are trying to learn from the influencers in the digital

• 53:26Anthony Pompliano?

  platforms? Or are some of those people actually both, right? You get an influencer who starts a podcast and just naturally understands the digital platforms?

• 53:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that the whole resurgence in podcast culture is driven by this growth in influencer culture. I mean, podcasters are influencers. A lot of the times there are people that, you know, their fans really look to for making decisions or, you know, shaping their outlook on life. And so they have this fandom around them that is very influencer-like fandom where they have this close, they feel like they have this close personal relationship with the podcaster, you know, and the way that they bond with a lot of influencers, right? Like it's like a YouTuber that you're watching every day. Also, I think it's all of these YouTubers getting into the podcast world and launching things like Discords and Facebook

• 54:14Speaker 02

  groups that has, you know, pushed a lot of more to maybe traditional podcasters to also get into those types of realms. But yeah, it's been really interesting to see the growth in podcasts because every YouTuber is like starting a podcast now. And I think it's just another way to monetize and kind of like, it's a natural thing, you know, it's like a lot of them do YouTube podcasts where they can, you know, you can also watch the person and.

• 54:43Anthony Pompliano?

  It makes sense. You talk to hundreds, if not thousands, of these influencers. I can't imagine that they are all super sophisticated, articulate, mature, etc. What are some of the most ridiculous stories you have of either communicating with them? Because you're doing it through Instagram DM and not traditional means? Or also ridiculous inbound that you get that's unsolicited?

• 55:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I did talk to the influencer who licked a toilet seat in the coronavirus challenge last week, which was an interesting conversation.

• 55:20Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm assuming that that person does not necessarily, you know, showed up to Madison Avenue and asking for brand deals.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  No, but she did launch this song, which has now been streamed, I think, a million times on Spotify, and she's making a lot of money because it went viral on TikTok. It's called Skinny Girl Anthem. She'll love that. I can't even believe that I just even gave that a shout out because this girl is like the number one clout chaser on the internet. But, and I was like, I am not writing about you. Stop. A lot of my conversations are like, I am not writing about you.

• 55:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Do they pitch you stories? Like, will kids literally just DM you on a platform and be like, hey, will you write a story about me?

• 56:00Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, Anthony. Well, as you know, I had to deactivate. I started sort of deactivating my Twitter and Instagram sometimes. The amount of messages that I get, I get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages a day, almost all from young people. I would say teenage, 22 and under, asking for articles. They know that in order to get verified on Instagram, for instance, you need a certain amount of press in mainstream media. And so they're literally like, just out being like, look, I'll talk to you, or can you write a story on me? They usually have to be like, no.

• 56:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And are they pitching like a certain angle or story? Or is it literally like, just write the story on me?

• 56:41Speaker 02

  It's a business story. It's always a business story. It's always like, write a story about my business. I'm doing this. Write a story about how I made $5,000 this summer. You know, write a story about whatever. It's always that, which is great. It's inspiring. I wish I could tell all these kids stories, but I usually just... I like to hear it or I'll read it. I'll read their DM and then kind of be like if it ladders up to something I'm writing about. A lot of kids just wanna go viral, or they send me weird stuff. I've definitely gotten like a lot of inappropriate memes. But that's fine, it's the internet. So I'd rather over, I'd rather like be getting more messages and have to filter through them than not be hearing from people.

• 57:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  I try to respond to everyone that's genuine.

• 57:25Anthony Pompliano?

  How do you pick which stories to actually write? Like if you have a hundred kids who DM you all these ridiculous things, like how do you pick which one is actually the one you write?

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Well, I don't ever really write stories. I don't, I don't really write many stories about one person. Um, that Rowan kid I wrote about because he had sort of like, he was so intertwined in so many things that I had covered that I was like, let me just like look at this one kid and use his, him as an example. Um, and so it's usually that. It's like, I'll look at one thing. I'll, I'll wanna write about some trend and I'll kind of find some people that fit with it. Um, you know, a lot of people like consider me a youth reporter, I guess, because I write about so many young people, but I really don't, um, like skew that way. It's more like I, I notice an interesting trend or user behavior and then it ends up being like young people behind it.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  But I'll, I'll usually kind of like lead with the interesting trend and then try to find people that validate it or whatever. Um, instead of the other way around, like trying to tell some kids' story, but.

• 58:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Uh, which, which leads me to the point of like, in this weird internet culture world, like you've become somewhat of an influencer to a lot of these kids. Um, and even to the point where I think I saw you tweet that you've got, you know, a hundred plus thousand people on TikTok and, and things like that. Like, how has that been for you as an experience of like going from constantly writing about it to now like, hey, I got a hundred thousand people on this one platform, you know, tens of thousands on Instagram or a hundred, or on Twitter. Like, how does that change the way you view the platforms?

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. I got four hundred thousand on TikTok and I was like, this app is so inflated. I told Corey, my boss, that if I get half a million, I'm gonna quit and join the be the hype house mother.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  But no, I I don't know. I mean, I started on Tumblr. Like, I was I was pretty big on Tumblr in my own sort of worlds, and I ran some popular tumblers. And when I started out, I ran social media for a bunch of really big brands. So I'm familiar with, I think, coming from like the ad agency world too, where you're like speaking, like, I I kind of am familiar with speaking to a lot of followers or having that voice, I guess. But I would say the thing that I don't like the most is just how overwhelmed I get with people asking me for things. That's the main thing. I don't mind if it's kids asking me for things, but just people ask me to do everything for them. And I'm like, so lazy. I want to be helpful. But sometimes I'm like, no, I can't, you know, do your whole research thing for you, you

• 59:57Speaker 02

  know, for your company or whatever. I don't know.

• 1:00:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. What what what did you post on TikTok to get 400,000 followers?

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  Oh, well, so I honestly just was posting like behind the scenes stuff of my job. Like, I mean, I I'm with a lot. The thing is, is like, I'm I know a lot of, I know a lot of YouTubers personally, I guess, through my job. And I know a lot of like TikTokers through my job. So, you know, I'll be with them at certain points. And so I've posted some like behind the scenes videos of some TikTokers. And all of these kids started following me and messaging me being like, how can I get your job? It's so cool. And I always like to advocate for New York Times, because a lot of these kids, that's their first introduction to the New York Times. And definitely when I was young, you know, I thought that the mainstream media was so far removed. And so I always want to respond to them. So yeah,

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  then I, you know, I wrote a story about OK Boomer, this TikTok trend. And a lot of kids thought that was really funny that I was on TikTok. And so they were duetting me. And then I had a couple Subway videos go viral. And I don't know, it just added up. But now I'm stuck in quarantine. I don't know what I'm gonna do. My content's falling off.

• 1:01:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, it look, there's a lot of kids who who are in the same situation. That's where I guess they're pulling their moms and dads into.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm alone in my New York apartment. I need to get some parents involved.

• 1:01:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. What um, what are you looking to forward to the rest of uh, rest of this year? Is it just more of kind of understanding what those internet uh, culture trends are? Uh, or anything else that you got on the uh, horizon?

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  Honestly, the only, I think you were asking me how I pick stories. I have a list of like eighty stories and the only thing that slows me down is like, my editor is saying like, "Don't focus on this," or just my uh, me being slow kind of and not filing them faster. So I kind of, my goal is to just, you know, keep writing about the stuff that I care about and, you know, trying to get some of these other projects that I do, so I do a bunch of stuff on the side. So I'm trying to like, do more of that and, I don't know, I just, you know, meet new cool people. That's my goal every year is to try to like, make new friends every year, you know? And like, connect with new cool people every year, so, just trying to do that.

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  It's hard, you know, on Twitter, it's like, there's so many people coming at you and, sometimes when you um, you know, get too much of an audience, not like a hundred thousand followers or something is too much of an audience, but sometimes it's like, you know, it's hard to make those more personal connections. So I just want to make sure I'm still meeting people even on stuff in this apartment.

• 1:02:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, there's no shortage of people on the internet, for sure.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, well, listen, I appreciate you doing this. Um, where can people connect with you, find you? I know you're kind of all over the internet, where do you want to send them?

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, definitely just DM me anywhere, um, on Instagram or Twitter. I love DMs, it's never weird if you slide to my DMs, I love hearing from people. As long as they're not like, asking you to do some project for them for free. Uh, but like, um, yeah, just like, send me stuff, or you can email me as well. Uh, my email address is like, in my bio, it's just [email protected]. So uh, but, but yeah, just follow me on Instagram and Twitter and TikTok now.

• 1:03:14Anthony Pompliano?

  I am jealous of your TikTok fame because I feel like you have a pulse on a completely different part of the internet that if people aren't on TikTok, they don't see it. And Paul recently pulled up TikTok and started showing me some of the videos and I was amazed at the level of detail and obvious work that went into just like some of these dances and stuff. I was just like, what are people doing?

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  The dances are next level. I like cannot. I wrote this story about the girl that created the Renegade, which was this very popular dance. And like, she was in her room trying to show it to me. And I was just like, I forgot, I can only remember three steps of this dance. Also, like every kid now, I feel like can do a backflip. And I'm just like, how is it that every teenager suddenly can do a backflip? I didn't know anyone that could do a backflip growing up. On TikTok. I feel like kids are evolving or something. I don't know.

• 1:04:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, they probably never had to practice because the internet wasn't there, right? So now all of a sudden, it's like, hey, I can go viral for doing a backflip. We work on doing a backflip.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's a good point.

• 1:04:17Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Well, listen, I appreciate taking the time to do this. I think people will really enjoy kind of understanding all of this. And then we'll have to do it again as as more kids do crazy stuff on the internet and keep evolving culture.

• 1:04:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you for having me. I feel like I've known you on the internet for so long. So it's been great to chat.