ALWAYS A LITTLE BIT 40 Ft. Anna Konkle | Episode 229

https://www.youtube.com/@thecommentsectionwithdrew?sub_confirmation=1 Anna Konkle is on the show this week!! Drew and Anna talk about the lasting legacy of her series Pen-15, getting swindled in a trading card exchange, dialup Internet, the anticipation of your first period, feet-nibbling fish, and so much more. Anna’s new book The Sane One is out now and can be bought wherever books are sold. Follow Anna: https://www.instagram.com/annaryankonkle/?hl=en Follow Drew: https://www.tiktok.com/@drewafualo on TikTok https://www.instagram.com/drewafualo on Instagram Follow the show: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecommentsection on TikTok https://www.instagram.com/thecommentsection/ on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I love an underdog. Like, I love being underestimated and be like, that 10 years ago, it was like, oh, an influencer. Now they're like, it's an influencer and they're here and they're taking pictures.

• 0:13Drew Afualo?

  And you're right. And you're right.

• 0:22Drew Afualo?

  Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the comment section show. So I meet your babe. Everybody knows me, who cares about me. Onto the guests. Today, we have the iconic, the legendary, the hilarious Anna Konkle.

• 0:35Drew Afualo?

  Welcome to the show, queen.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me.

• 0:38Drew Afualo?

  Oh, my God, I'm honored to have you.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  I'm honored to be here.

• 0:40Drew Afualo?

  My sister actually introduced me to Penn 15. Have to get that out of the way.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Really?

• 0:44Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, one of the funniest shows ever. Congrats on that.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 0:48Drew Afualo?

  The whole concept of it.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Hilarious. It's a crazy concept. It's really crazy we got to make it, but.

• 0:53Drew Afualo?

  And it's been such a like iconic show that I think now younger, like Gen Z people are starting to clip a ton on TikTok. Have you noticed that?

• 1:02Speaker 00

  I have. Yeah, about a year ago, because you know, before that, it was like just, I'm 39, 39 year olds coming up to me being like, oh, my God, that was so my time, like, whatever. And then about a year ago, 12 year olds would be like quoting me saying crazy stuff. Your mom's right there. You shouldn't say that. Yeah, and being like, you're on TikTok. And like, it's also a show.

• 1:28Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I was like, I was really curious, like, if you've seen a lot of the, I've seen countless really popular edits of you and Maya from the show.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  I will say that there I discovered, because I'm not, I'm like still discovering TikTok, which is embarrassing to say, I'm exploring, but like sadcore, right?

• 1:45Drew Afualo?

  Is that what it is? Well, I've seen a lot of those, but I've seen a lot of just like love, like between two women, like friends, best friends, like platonic love more than anything.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  I will say that the TikTok videos, most of them that I have seen, and especially the emotional ones, like make me cry.

• 2:02Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, they make me cry too. Feel like I'm there right with you.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  And something that I wasn't expecting to just be, you know, gushy about it for a second is like,

• 2:12Drew Afualo?

  The comment section with teens being like, this is what I'm going through right now. And I thought I was alone and I can't, you know, Maya's going through it too, or Anna's going through it too. That really broke me.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:22Drew Afualo?

  And made me feel like, oh wow, this has gone farther than we thought it would.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:27Drew Afualo?

  It's really cool.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  And it's surreal.

• 2:28Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, like through generations.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  These new generations aren't like, ew, they're old.

• 2:33Drew Afualo?

  Some of them, actually, some of the comments are like, why does she have so many wrinkles? Like, can she get a nose job?

• 2:39Speaker 00

  They're like, why is there so much older looking than the other kids? It's like, because we're not kids, that's kind of the joke.

• 2:45Drew Afualo?

  But then they get roasted.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:47Drew Afualo?

  So it's fine.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  So it all works out. Do you know what you're watching?

• 2:49Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, it's nature balancing.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  You should probably research it. Look it up, idiot.

• 2:54Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  I'm like, heart.

• 2:57Drew Afualo?

  You secretly liking?

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Me too, for my burner.

• 3:00Drew Afualo?

  Oh really?

• 3:00Speaker 00

  I need a burner.

• 3:01Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I need a burner.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  I'm just like, heart whips? Nope.

• 3:05Drew Afualo?

  You're threatening to hurt it.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:07Drew Afualo?

  Okay, well, just to kind of backpedal a little from pen fifteen, I do want to talk about just acting as a whole, how you got into acting? Like, what drew you to it? Like, was it something that you were always like, I think I'm gonna be an actor? Or was it something you kind of fell into?

• 3:20Speaker 00

  I started doing community theater in Massachusetts where I, I grew up. I was probably in second grade. And I just like, yeah, I loved, I was like a flower in Alice in Wonderland. And I was like, always getting these terrible parts and I was so into it. And, um, yeah, I was totally a theater nerd. And eventually I started auditioning for commercials in Boston.

• 3:43Drew Afualo?

  Oh, nice.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Did not, nothing happened there, just kept going in, grinding. Um, and, and yeah, and like before that, and I loved to sing. I would, my dad would play the guitar and I'd sing and it was, but that was sort of it. It wasn't an idea of like, you know, you can do this professionally or anything. And, you know, I didn't really see that in my town growing up.

• 4:04Drew Afualo?

  Were your parents like artists? Were they super supportive of you pursuing art? Or were they just kind of like, whatever you want to do, I'll be there?

• 4:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, they were, they were always super supportive. They loved the performances. I do think in retrospect that that was part of me, like the moth to light, being like, love me. You know, and just wanting that and feeling like, um, yeah, feeling seen through it, I think was a part of it. But I also, you know, there was a lot of like discord in my house and another way I dealt with it was just like singing, you know, my parents would be like screaming downstairs and I would do my own screaming, which was belting to Celine Dion.

• 4:43Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  In my bedroom and I don't know, all those things combined. I just, I really loved it and my parents were sort of like secret artists, I think, where my dad, my mom wrote a lot of poetry, my dad always talked about, you know, a different career as like a carpenter that he had had before. And then they both sort of went towards for me, like corporate life more, where my dad became like a human resource manager for seven eleven.

• 5:11Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  My, as you do, as one does, my, my mom was an RN nurse and then, and they were, and she had multiple jobs at certain points. So they were just like grinding, there was a lot of like living paycheck to paycheck and I think watching them really both in different ways, not like their jobs.

• 5:29Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  There's a lot of note taking on my end of being like, okay, don't do that. Mom's always wishing she could like write poetry professionally. How do you like, you know, chase what your soul's gonna be happy with versus an idea of a life?

• 5:42Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  And then I kind of hyper fixated on that in a way that probably isn't totally beneficial, but.

• 5:47Drew Afualo?

  But worked out.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, sometimes. Yes, in some ways.

• 5:52Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  What about you? How did you like?

• 5:55Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I think like to an extent, I was like, kind of like you where I knew I loved attention.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:03Drew Afualo?

  But in a very specific way, like I, I love to perform.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:06Drew Afualo?

  I love to entertain and like I was a very like loquacious child, so I, I love to talk and I love to like tell stories and even now I love to exaggerate and like, ooh, I love a captive audience. You know, when you're telling a story and you have the room off that feeling, I was chasing it.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Have you done stand up?

• 6:25Drew Afualo?

  I have tried stand up.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  So bad at stand up. I bet you're great.

• 6:29Drew Afualo?

  No, I was, I was gonna ask if there were other art forms that you tried? Like, I know you're a theater nerd at heart. Love that. Many, every single one of my actor friends. Did you do improv for a while?

• 6:37Speaker 00

  You know, we did a little bit in school, but really comedy came out of me and Maya doing experimental theater in college. And then doing like characters. So we were half taking ourselves really seriously studying Shakespeare and I don't know why I quoted Shakespeare. You know, Shakespeare, whatever. And doing like, yeah, and doing just nerdy theater stuff. And then we both were doing experimental theater and you're sort of writing for yourself and directing, but it can be really self-serious, or it can just take on a really like comedic bent. And so we started doing a bunch of characters and they happened to be funny and then started writing for ourselves and yeah.

• 7:20Drew Afualo?

  So awesome.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  But I think the, the like other side of that is when I'm doing something that's serious, I'll just sort of like add lines. And they're like, you're not, this isn't comedy. Like you can't just like, I'm like, but comedies, you're like, you're just like,

• 7:35Drew Afualo?

  Comedy's in everything.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  To the scene, right?

• 7:37Drew Afualo?

  Well, that's true.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  Anything good, anything good. Yeah.

• 7:42Drew Afualo?

  You can make anything just a little bit funny.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you should. All, I mean, like, yeah, the best, the best movies that you cry at, you're laughing at too.

• 7:51Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I, I agree. I, I was gonna ask too, if you, if you did anything serious, like, like if you ever liked really serious theater too. Cause I've had some friends who are really great improv people, but they're like, oh, but I would love to do like the Shakespeare theater. And I'm like, well, that's not funny. That's, that's real serious. That's serious theater.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was never great at Shakespeare. I, I definitely like when I went to college, wanted just to do serious stuff. Like comedy was not on, on my mind. But I think I didn't real, I didn't realize how much it was a part of my life. My mom's very funny. My dad's super funny.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  But they, I don't know, it wasn't framed as like in a genre. You know what I mean? It was like, this is just how we are.

• 8:36Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, this is, yeah, this is just something fun I do.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  And, and if I, if you're not funny, like not in words. But the vibe was like, if you can't make my dad laugh, or if you can't roast him, or if you can't like, you're not getting his respect.

• 8:48Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? So it was just sort of learned of like.

• 8:51Drew Afualo?

  That's true.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, you just have to keep up.

• 8:53Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I've talked, I've talked about that before too, because my shtick, obviously, online is like making fun of men and like, that's how I built my. My platform.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 9:02Drew Afualo?

  Right, from the, from the bones and ashes of men who hate me. Ah, thank God, amen.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, bye. Cremate him.

• 9:09Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and I've get, I've get, gotten asked a lot about like, how I got good at roasting, how I got good at being funny.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  Our meal's ready.

• 9:20Drew Afualo?

  I've also said the same thing. I'm like, in the home. I got good in the home. Like, my parents are, like, I'm Samoan too, so I'm Polynesian and like, it's making fun of each other and like roasting each other has been like, a very prominent thing in my culture and in my family. So like, I had to, I honestly had no choice but to get good.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:37Drew Afualo?

  Get good quickly.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  And was it put in a way of like, oh, you're valued if you're funny, or is it just what you're shown?

• 9:43Drew Afualo?

  I think it's just what you're shown. I think it's also just like, it, it's like, again, the captive audience thing. It's like, I, I won the room. Like, if we're, if we're in a battle of wits and I won the room, and it's my family who like, my family does not laugh at things that are not funny. So like.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  They're not gonna give that to you.

• 9:59Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I got a real tough audience at home too.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Okay, okay.

• 10:01Drew Afualo?

  And we, like, I, I joke, it, well, I will pivot really quick when you mention community theater.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:06Drew Afualo?

  I recently went, my, my little brother, who, I'm, I'm thirty, gonna be thirty-one, my little brother is, um, twenty-one, gonna be twenty-two. And so he recently joined community theater, which, like, we were so happy for him because he's always been so imaginative. And we were like, my mom has been telling him, you should join community theater, and he's like, nah. And then he recently decided to join. He was starred in a play. He starred in High School Musical, and he played two different roles. He played Troy and Zeke, like, on different days.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Sorry.

• 10:36Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, big shoes.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 10:37Drew Afualo?

  But I went, we went and watched it, like, literally, my family was so, my brother is the most colorful, like, character, like, he is such a specific kind of person. So he's hilarious, unintentionally and intentionally.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  That's sometimes the best one.

• 10:50Drew Afualo?

  I'm telling you, like. Honestly, the best people to be in show business, I would say, because

• 10:54Speaker 00

  Oh, totally.

• 10:55Drew Afualo?

  Nothing you say is like ever affecting them, like

• 10:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, I mean

• 10:59Drew Afualo?

  Not seriously, anyway.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Well, but what's funny is my mom, so my dad was like more the roaster. My mom was unintentionally funny.

• 11:07Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  But she was super sensitive, is.

• 11:10Drew Afualo?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  Like now talked about it, but it's like she would get really like sad and kind of like little girl. A little bit like if we, if we were like, oh, my god, mom's voice is bad, like it's mean, you know what I mean? But we'd be like, can you stop singing? And she'd be like, I love to sing. You know what I mean? So that dynamic was really hard.

• 11:32Drew Afualo?

  That is so funny. Your dad, your dad just

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Secret, which is why they divorced. And then I later had to like, after the divorce, I have like no one in my corner to be like, isn't mom fucking crazy? And then I had to just like go off on my own and just roast her. And then that didn't work. And eventually I was like, okay.

• 11:50Drew Afualo?

  And that is why they divorced, so ultimately.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, they were not, it was not a good fit.

• 11:55Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. It's a mismatch. I, I, I agree with that too, though, in this of like wanting to be like, I had a little of this guy. And then being like, oh, god, it's gonna give everything.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  Well, and I feel like I'm a mix, unfortunately. Like I found in the pen fifteen editing room that like there were times when we're editing and like, well, that part's funny, that's not funny. And everyone's like, that's the funniest part of the scene. And I was like, oh, I didn't mean, I, what am I doing that's funny?

• 12:22Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and they're like, so you guys hate me. So everyone's making fun of me, everyone's laughing.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  That's funny. When I try really hard and I'm really authentic and loving, that's funny.

• 12:31Drew Afualo?

  That's hilarious, too. Awesome.

• 12:36Drew Afualo?

  So like, speaking of pen fifteen again, like how, how did the idea of pen fifteen come about? Like, how was that born between the two of you, like?

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, Maya and I, after, so we met junior year of college, we were studying experimental theater. And we were like watching each other do funny characters. I wanted to write a web series for us. It makes me sound so old because it, they were like new.

• 12:58Drew Afualo?

  You're real, though. That's how Broad City got picked up, too.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, there were, yeah, there were a few, few that we were like, yeah, they had made that and it was amazing. And, and so, yeah, I had done someone else's web series and I was like, there's this new thing, Maya. And we could do it, too.

• 13:14Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  And all you have to do, whatever. And so she was living, we both went to school in New York, but she had moved back to LA. She's from here. And I was still in New York. I was going through a breakup with my boyfriend, really dramatic. And I was like, I'm coming to LA. We're making this web series. And I packed my car and drove across the country and stayed on our couch for a while. And we did Kickstarter. We raised like $7,000 or something like that. And we shot maybe seven episodes, I think.

• 13:42Drew Afualo?

  Damn, off seven grand?

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:43Drew Afualo?

  Period.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it was shady. Like, we were going to Goodwill and getting the costumes and then returning them. I'm sorry.

• 13:51Drew Afualo?

  Had to do what you had to do.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  At the time, we make mistakes.

• 13:54Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  We grow.

• 13:55Drew Afualo?

  We've grown.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  They've changed their return policy.

• 13:58Drew Afualo?

  Probably because of us, but that's neither here nor there.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  No, they caught on after one. I was like, okay, I'll keep it. I'll keep the 12 men's shirts.

• 14:07Drew Afualo?

  Thanks.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  I wanted them. You're right. And so, yeah, we made this web series and it was, every episode was about, like, it was a different pilot of a reality show, a different reality show that didn't get picked up. So we got to do all of these fun characters. And then, like, girls had come out at that time. And so it happened to be a moment in the industry where we were being taken seriously just for the fact, ironically, that we were making our own stuff and starring in it. I think because there had been that blueprint that it worked. They were like, so thank you, Lena Dunham.

• 14:41Drew Afualo?

  For real.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  They were like, okay, what do you got? And we really didn't have much. And, but there was one executive who we met with and she said something like, because I think we were talking a lot about, like, well, our agent thinks this and our agent thinks that. And she was like, your web series is so fucking weird. Stop listening to your agent.

• 15:00Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Like, what do you love? What would you love to make that everybody else hated that you loved? And we immediately were like, playing rejects is the thing. And playing like rejects in middle school. You know, and talking about all of these stories that we have that feel like inappropriate to talk about. Like, we haven't been able to see it on, you know, Lizzie McGuire. And I'm not gonna give it to a real thirteen year old to do this.

• 15:26Drew Afualo?

  For real, yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  We wanna do it. And slowly it became, we started with an idea about a cult and that went away. We knew we wanted to play thirteen and eventually it became, yeah, we'll be, you know, best friends in the year two thousand. Two rejects, like barely getting by, surrounded by real thirteen year olds. And everyone thought we were insane. And they were like, most people, not everybody. And there was also the question of like, that's illegal. How are you gonna? How are you gonna do that?

• 15:56Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  But it was, yeah, so it took a really long time to get made, but we got to make it. And it was very.

• 16:02Drew Afualo?

  And thank God.

• 16:03Speaker 00

  Lucky, thank God.

• 16:04Drew Afualo?

  Well, and it is one of those things where you like, you have something so new and so like groundbreaking. That it's like, it takes like a very specific and special person to be like, you know what? This is worth making for sure, which is the worst part, I feel like, of pitching and trying to get stuff greenlit.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  And it's so, I don't know how you felt with this, but like having your friend next to you. When you have an insane idea and you both laughing at the same moments.

• 16:30Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  And kind of cheering each other on was very necessary. Like, I don't think either of us would have had the courage. Cause it did take bravery to go in and have all the dudes in the room being like, I don't gotta. And being like, well, we do, you know?

• 16:48Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  And doing that over and over and over until we really believed ourselves and convinced ourselves that this was like, this had to happen one way or another.

• 16:56Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  You know, sometimes that only happens with like, you know, your friend or your sister or your whatever, your like ride or die cheerleader.

• 17:03Drew Afualo?

  Absolutely. It's like that Lady Gaga quote when she's like, ninety-nine people in a room. You only need one to believe in you.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 17:09Drew Afualo?

  And thank God if it's your bestie, like, thank fucking God. Like, I'm curious, how do you like writing versus starring in it? Like, do you like writing more? Do you like them differently in different ways as opposed to acting, actually?

• 17:22Speaker 00

  I think it, well. Doing both at the same time, because we were show running and writing pen, directing a bit of it, and then starring it like wrecked me. Like it was the best thing creatively ever that I could have ever imagined. But it was like sixteen hour days for years. You're like in a bind, you know.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  You're like adding hairs to your face every morning and then you're like rewriting and telling, you know, like, can we change the camera to this angle and whatever? And people are like, you're thirteen. Like you're feeling kind of, honestly, like having to convince people still, I think because of the nature of the characters we were playing, that we were in charge. That was like a constant weird thing.

• 18:06Drew Afualo?

  Really? Because you're like, you know, I'm not actually thirteen, right?

• 18:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it was psychological. You know what I mean? I think people would be like, are you talking to me? You know, because you've just been like doing like a crazy dance or you've just been like, I don't know, like looking at your vagina and like, you're just, you're, it's such a, it's such, it's a show filled with such infantile and not infantile, um, uh, confessions.

• 18:34Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  That there's just a level to it. I think that when the scene was, you know, done, that people would be like, forget that we were writing it and in charge to some extent.

• 18:46Drew Afualo?

  You go sit in the director's chair and they're like, little girls are not allowed here.

• 18:49Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly.

• 18:51Drew Afualo?

  You have to go to school on set.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Exactly. So, yeah, that was, that was weird and, and it was just, yeah, it was very, very, very long days for many, many years. And also there's the nature of like, you're writing it and then you're in pre-production and then you're shooting it. And then you're in editing and then you're in press, because now it's out and then you're back to the writer's room. You know, whereas if you're just acting, like you're gonna get like a little bit of a break or whatever and so. But I, I really love writing and I love acting too, but writing is a little bit less stressful to me.

• 19:24Drew Afualo?

  Oh, that's fair.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:26Drew Afualo?

  I think, do you like writing your own stuff or do you like writing other, for other people? Like, do you have a preference? I'm so curious. I'm starting to venture into writing, so I'm,

• 19:35Speaker 00

  I was gonna ask you.

• 19:36Drew Afualo?

  Selfishly, I'm asking.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:38Drew Afualo?

  For me.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  I, well, what are you writing? I feel like I read.

• 19:42Drew Afualo?

  Well, currently, right now, I'm writing, I'm working actually on a show with my sister who's over there and Amanda, who's my producer, we're actually writing a show together. That we're, we've, are pitching or in the process of pitching, but it's, I know, it's very exciting and it's like baby's first time writing.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  Baby's first time writing.

• 19:59Drew Afualo?

  Game baby's first time writing for TV.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  It's gonna be great.

• 20:01Drew Afualo?

  And it has been like really fucking fun and like, and very creative. Yeah, it's like, it's scratching a completely different itch I didn't even know I had. Because I feel like I have such a, I really want to get into acting. That's like my newer thing that I've been working on the past year. So like, moving into writing, because I've written a book and I'm writing fiction books currently, but like writing for TV feels so daunting to me because I was like, because I love comedy on TV and I love watching TV and I love consuming. So I feel like I was making it real grand in my head to the point where I'm like, I can't even venture that mountain.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  Did you feel like that with the book? If you don't mind me asking, sorry, I don't mean to turn the, you're like, this is, I'm asking the questions. So I'm like, so, um, I have a few.

• 20:44Drew Afualo?

  That reminds me.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  That reminds me, yes.

• 20:46Drew Afualo?

  Honestly, no, with the book felt different and I think that was maybe the weird distinction in my head because like, the first, the first book I've already put out was like memoir slash self-help. Which like, I was very like adamant about, like I didn't want it to be too memoir-y because I'm in my 30s. So it's like, I really need to live a little bit more life to start like for real doing memoir, but it was a lot of self-help based stuff because that's like my, my platform that I've grown and everything about like, decentering men and confidence and that kind of thing. Um, so that one felt very like hard for me in the sense that it feels hard to be vulnerable publicly because I, in the book I wrote about a lot of really traumatizing personal experiences that have kind of shaped me.

• 21:29Drew Afualo?

  And so like that was the only part that really felt difficult. And then the fiction writing is really fun for me because it's like, it involves world building. It involves like banter and like writing different characters and colors and that kind of thing. But for TV, I feel like I'm like writing for a completely different room and audience. I don't know, like it feels so daunting to me. Totally.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  I think I felt, and, and now in retrospect, it, I, I definitely, I think imposter syndrome is something like most artists deal with to some extent, I think, although, I heard someone else recently say that, that that's like something as women that we've actually been told and it's like dudes aren't saying that, which is very interesting.

• 22:08Drew Afualo?

  That's a good point.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  You know, I'm dealing with imposter syndrome. Although I have heard friends, but like, I don't know, anyway.

• 22:14Drew Afualo?

  Theirs is performative, ours is for real.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  Maybe, yeah. But like, yeah, with, in the theater scene in New York, like when I, I went to theater school, I was, I was, I really struggled with that, I think. And feeling like it was hard for me to hear my own perspective. I didn't realize how much I was posing, how much I was just trying to be like, my idea of like elite theater, like high level art, whatever. And then moving to LA was such a moment for me on many levels, but one of which being like,

• 22:50Speaker 00

  I don't know, seeing people writing in coffee shops, something about that like blew my mind. Like, they just bought final draft. They just are doing, it's like accessible. They can, and it's the same in New York, but something about it just like turned a light on in a different way. And of going like, and there was more overtness here versus in New York about people being like, yeah, I just want to sell a show. In a way that I actually appreciated, where in New York it was like, I'm making the best thing that's ever existed, you know what I mean?

• 23:21Drew Afualo?

  And I'm not doing it for money.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Right, exactly.

• 23:23Drew Afualo?

  For art.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Well, right, that's exactly it. Like going to college was like, I could live on a mattress on the floor. If I'm making art, I'll be happy. And then three years later, I'm working eight hours a week and I'm like, I'm exhausted. And not doing theater, by the way, I'm waiting tables, I'm fucking, I'm like, I'm depressed, I'm out, like I thought I could, I can't, I'm out.

• 23:42Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  And, but it was like, and then going to LA and people being like, yeah, I just want to sell a fucking procedural. You know, and I was like, okay. But it felt like permission. I don't know, it's probably sort of a sad mission statement, but I started to go like, I can make something bad too.

• 24:01Drew Afualo?

  No, that's such a good way of looking at it though.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  Why do I, who am I that I'm like, I have to make the best thing like, what if I just wanna fucking have the privilege of being paid to make something creative?

• 24:12Drew Afualo?

  That's so true. That is such a good point.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  And how many thing, I mean, first of all, it's all subjective.

• 24:17Drew Afualo?

  Right, yes.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  So the thing that I think is garbage.

• 24:21Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  Somebody else's beacon.

• 24:23Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  And there's room for all of it, and we need all of it.

• 24:26Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, bad art is also important.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Bad art is important, and one person's bad art is another person's everything.

• 24:32Drew Afualo?

  Exactly, exactly, and you're so right about it being subjective, which is what I've been kind of working on, uh, through the audition process and everything too.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  Yes, oh my god, I wanna hear all about this!

• 24:41Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, it did very, like, I mean, obviously, I started doing it after I became someone, um, even though...

• 24:46Speaker 00

  After I became someone.

• 24:47Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, after I became...

• 24:47Speaker 00

  You were someone before it too.

• 24:48Drew Afualo?

  Yes, you're right. This does not add value to my life, you're right. The money and, and attention is just a nice plus.

• 24:55Speaker 00

  It's just a nice plus.

• 24:55Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Just a cherry.

• 24:57Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. Nothing more. Uh, yeah, I feel like, when I started doing, I, I've always wanted to act, like, that, that is really...

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Really?

• 25:05Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I just, when I was in college, I just never thought it was an option, I, I, like, for me. And just like, how I look and everything, I'm like, I know I'm not ugly, but I know no one really looks like me on TV, I know that too. Like, that's like how I would think a lot, so I feel like, when I was a kid, or a teen...

• 25:20Speaker 00

  You're so gorgeous, by the way, but I know you know that, but...

• 25:22Drew Afualo?

  Thank you!

• 25:22Speaker 00

  I'm just saying, anyway?

• 25:24Drew Afualo?

  Thank you. I appreciate that, Anna, as are you.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Oh, me too.

• 25:27Drew Afualo?

  Um, but I really do think that I was like, that would be awesome, but I need to have, like, a real job, probably. And then maybe, like, that's what I would think about it, like, I...

• 25:37Speaker 00

  You had a plan.

• 25:37Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, so I was like, and I'm a Virgo, so I feel like that was another thing of me, like, safety netting before I even dared to dream. I would like, think really big, but I'd be like, well, I need to be logical about how I get there, like, that's kinda how I would like map it.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Wow, that's amazing. Wow, how true to, like, the map have you been, if you don't mind me asking?

• 25:54Drew Afualo?

  Not at all, honestly, like, uh, cuz my initial plan in college, I majored in journalism and communication, so my mid- initial plan, cuz I grew up an athlete, was to work in sports, and I wanted to do, like- Broadcast journalism.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 26:05Drew Afualo?

  But I really like, I wanted to do sports commentating, like I, I would have loved to do that, I think at the time, but really what I wanted to do was follow like athletes and do like long form narrative storytelling. So I wanted to do like, you know, when you see like those really long pieces written on people in like Vanity Fair, like that was the kind of writing I wanted to do was like, see who they were off the field, see who they were in their personal lives, like that kind of thing. Cause I enjoy spending time with people, getting to know them. So that was kind of like what I really wanted to do, but I was like, well, I could do the journalism route. I can learn how to talk on camera and edit and cameras and lighting and sound and all of that stuff.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:41Drew Afualo?

  And I didn't say any of this stuff.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  But you told them what to do.

• 26:45Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and I'm using my journalism degree.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  You are.

• 26:48Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, so I'm getting hard truths in this chair.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  Yes, what do you want to know?

• 26:52Drew Afualo?

  And I, I think like, that was my way of getting on camera. Like I was like, okay, well, hopefully that will lead to maybe on camera and then maybe I'll be so charming and awesome that I'll do other things. Like that's what I would think.

• 27:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:02Drew Afualo?

  And then, um, I ended up graduating from college, really hard to get a job, obviously. And then I did PR for a while, which is funny because that's like the enemy of journalism in a lot of ways. So I kind of PR trained myself low key by doing PR for a while. And then I got a job at the NFL. Um, which they hate when I mention it, but it's true. And, uh,

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Who's they?

• 27:23Drew Afualo?

  The NFL.

• 27:23Speaker 00

  Why?

• 27:24Drew Afualo?

  Oh, because they fired me and they don't like when I talk about it.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Okay, well, you worked at the NFL.

• 27:29Drew Afualo?

  And they fired me.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they fired you.

• 27:31Drew Afualo?

  And they fired me.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  And we're talking about it.

• 27:32Drew Afualo?

  And they have like legitimately told people that have told my team, like, we really don't like when she says that. And I'm like, I don't like that you give people CTE.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  So what are we supposed to do about that? We don't all get what we want.

• 27:43Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I don't like that you hire abusers. Now what? Like, I guess we both have things we don't like about each other, but anyhow. I was like, and I am not angry about it anymore. And listen, there is no hard feelings.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  Okay, well now I want to ask so many questions, but I won't.

• 27:57Drew Afualo?

  I won't.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Well, what happened?

• 27:59Drew Afualo?

  Oh, when I got fired.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Well, what happened is essentially like, well, not that.

• 28:04Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I was like, I was like, honestly, how inappropriate of you.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  Fair.

• 28:08Drew Afualo?

  I brought it up. But I got, I honestly got fired because what they told me at the time was that they were letting me go. Like every time I was like, so you're firing me, they, they would correct me and be like, no, we're letting you go. And I'm like, who gives a fuck about the verbiage? Like I no longer work here, correct?

• 28:23Speaker 00

  Right, like, I wish I had your strength. Oh, I'd be like, absolutely. What time do you need me out?

• 28:31Drew Afualo?

  And you know what's funny is at the time, like, the day before that, um, my manager, who hated my guts,

• 28:39Drew Afualo?

  I told her, I would like to transfer teams. Like, I had told her that the day before she fired me.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  No.

• 28:44Drew Afualo?

  Uh, because I was like, this isn't working for me. Um, I feel like you fucking hate me and you make it really hard for me to do my job well. And what's ironic is my job there at the time was to grow an account from scratch to specifically target women.

• 29:01Drew Afualo?

  Turns out I'm pretty good at that.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:03Drew Afualo?

  Uh, if they had only listened to me, wow, where could they have been? But you know what? It worked out because when they fired me though, the reasoning was just like, this, this position no longer works in this capacity. Like, we don't need it anymore. That was kind of what they told me.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  All the women died?

• 29:18Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 29:20Drew Afualo?

  Or have done something awful.

• 29:20Drew Afualo?

  I don't know if you know, we're about to, uh,

• 29:23Speaker 00

  That's not funny.

• 29:23Drew Afualo?

  Mind you, when I like, was like, about to get fired unbeknownst to me.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:29Drew Afualo?

  She slacked me and was like, can you come to the conference room so we can finish our conversation from yesterday about me transferring teams? And I said, sure. Brought my work laptop to the meeting. There's a woman in HR. I'm like thinking, okay, well, we're gonna talk about transferring. She goes, we're letting you go. I go, so no notes for this meeting? Yeah, laptop shut. Like, I guess you guys don't need me to take, okay, perfect. So then they let me go in that particular uh, fashion. And what I have not really talked about before is that when they let me go, they like, again, told me they're laying me off.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:05Drew Afualo?

  Um, so that would mean that I qualify for unemployment.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:08Drew Afualo?

  Because it's, it was out of my control.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:10Drew Afualo?

  And they told me this, right, and had me sign paperwork.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 30:13Drew Afualo?

  And I was like, okay. And then I left. And I, I was really proud of myself because I didn't cry because at that point I hated that job. And I was being like mentally tortured at that job. It was really, really bad. And so then I waited till I got to my car and something petty that I did was like, they were like, make sure you return your parking pass. I didn't because I was that mad. I was like, I'm fucking

• 30:35Speaker 00

  Was it paper or laminated?

• 30:37Drew Afualo?

  No, it was laminated.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 30:38Drew Afualo?

  That's why they needed it back. And I said, no, you guys The NFL, you can reprint a new one. So then I left.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  They probably have a laminator in house. Let's be honest.

• 30:46Drew Afualo?

  And I was like so obviously deeply upset. I had never been fired like that before. It also just threw my entire life off the track. I like.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  You had a plan.

• 30:54Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I had a plan and I was working up the courage to leave, but like I was like, I have bills to pay. I have things to do. I can't like just quit my job like. And so they gave me no choice, told me not to come back. And so then because I tech, I qualified for unemployment. When I tried to file like a couple of days later, looking through my paperwork, I, they, they wrote that I was terminated for negligence. And I didn't know that when they made me sign the papers, uh, which is like, what? Like I was so, I was very upset. So then I, I called and at this point I was like getting like my mojo back a little bit because that had nothing like that had ever happened to me. So my confidence really took a hit, which was like rare for me. Pretty confident person, but like it was very hard for me at the time. And I was like,

• 31:38Drew Afualo?

  okay, so I had to call the office and then they were like, trying to argue with, as soon as I said, I like, I, I want to talk to someone about you guys wrongfully terminating me. And then all of a sudden they were like, we'll call you back. Then they called me back, lawyers on the phone. And then they're trying to argue with me about the verbiage being used. And I was like, you guys are not going to argue with me about this. Like you told me what happened. Like verbally, you corrected me multiple fucking times throughout the meeting. And I even said, like, I was like, I just need to know if you guys are going to contest unemployment or not. That's all I need to know because if that's the case, I'm going to hire a lawyer. And they were very like immediately as soon as I said that they went, listen, if you want to tell people that you got laid off, that's fine with us.

• 32:19Drew Afualo?

  Tell people. I remember distinctly them saying that because I said on the phone, I literally went, oh, don't worry. I'm going to tell everyone what happened to me. And at the time I was not this.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  I made that on my promise.

• 32:34Drew Afualo?

  And I was like, and one thing is never sleep on me. I am coming back. So I tru- they were not counting on me getting famous in any

• 32:43Speaker 00

  That's probably not, yeah, most companies are like.

• 32:46Drew Afualo?

  They, they really thought they were gonna never hear from me ever again, which granted, I haven't reached out to them at all. Like they like at all, but as soon as they started doing this. Um, so on top of that, like basically after they let me go and threw me off track, they, they were gonna like try to ruin my life. Like I, I had no money. I had no, I had nowhere to get money from. I had to apply for new jobs. And then at that point, COVID had hit. So like right after I like got approved for it, then I, then COVID hit. But if I didn't call, they would have.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  You didn't get approved?

• 33:16Drew Afualo?

  Yes, I did.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  Thank God.

• 33:18Drew Afualo?

  And they would have dicked me over on purpose because they don't care about me, obviously.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 33:21Drew Afualo?

  I was working over twenty hours a week, which is technically not part time, even though I was under part time, no health insurance, no nothing. So like, it really was one of those things where I was like, this wasn't meant for me. Like clearly it wasn't. I was so unhappy.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:35Drew Afualo?

  I felt so not creatively fulfilled in any way. I felt not listened to. And it was like making me feel like I had no real talent or anything to offer. Which that job is hard to get with no connection, like anywhere in there. It thrives off nepotism, like most show business stuff, entertainment, sports, one in the same. So it was very like, you know, I would say, that was like my early Saturn return. I had like a pretty early one. At the time, because I think I was twenty four at the time. So it really worked out exactly the way it was supposed to. And then now I do this, and as I started telling people, oh, I was working at the NFL when I got fired and then COVID hit and then I started doing this. And I started telling people, one of the reasons they told me they were firing me in the meeting, because it's true, was that I, I wasn't capable of growing a following.

• 34:18Drew Afualo?

  And they were just kind of assumed that was part of the, part of the deal. So that's why they were cutting the position. But turns out I'm pretty good at growing a following. You just had to listen to me.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 34:27Drew Afualo?

  But thank God they didn't. It all worked out.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, everything happened as it was supposed to, but I can't help but wonder what your like pitch was for them. Not that, I mean, it was a gajillion years ago, but to grow their following and to like bring women more into the fold.

• 34:41Drew Afualo?

  I tried, yeah. I was like, even when I did. The interview because their interview process is crazy like I had to do like I had to do three rounds of interviews. And the last one was in person, but the first two were virtual. One was a phone call. One was on Zoom. The third one's in person. This is all pre-COVID too, but like one of the interviews they do on the phone is they just test football IQ. So they literally just test like whether or not you actually know anything about football. And I don't know if that's specific to women. I can't speak to it.

• 35:13Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, well.

• 35:15Drew Afualo?

  A football IQ test like so they asked me a lot about the generic logistics of football and then they asked me more specifics.

• 35:25Drew Afualo?

  So they asked me about players. They asked me about storylines. They asked me about trades. Like they asked me about all kinds of stuff. Mind you, I knew a lot. I know a lot about football, obviously. I know a lot about football, especially at the time because I was like studying it in school. But then there's layers of football that I don't understand because I don't consume it in the same weird way that men do who love football. Right? So I don't absorb it like it's me. So there's certain things I would probably miss because I'm not super into it. However. My man is a former football player, played in college, like could have gone pro, that kind of thing. So he's played football his whole life. And watched football. He doesn't love it like weirdos, but he's just, he knows a lot about it.

• 36:04Drew Afualo?

  So the night before my interview, I literally wrote down like a million things. Like I asked him about like storylines. I asked him about interesting things to say, like I asked him about opinions. So technically I cheated, but you know what? I did it and it worked. Like I was like.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  I don't know if that's cheating. You remembered it.

• 36:25Drew Afualo?

  You asked him, he told you, you remembered it. And one thing about women is they are resourceful. So I literally, I remember on that, on that call, I was blowing their minds with the shit I was saying. It was literally from him, like he was giving me all these little nuggets. I was just using them all. And I literally was like, this is me working the system. Turns out it was for not, but it ended up working out anyways. But I was like being so resourceful. I was like, you know, I know someone who knows a lot about football. I'm just gonna copy what he said.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  I feel like you'll get something. They'll be like, can you be a consultant or can you? Whatever.

• 37:03Drew Afualo?

  I, you would think, I, I feel like, I feel like I'm like enemy number one to them probably. But the NBA loves me, so that worked out.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  Great.

• 37:10Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I was like, yeah, I guess I'll love basketball now.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  I know more about basketball than I do about football.

• 37:15Drew Afualo?

  Oh, that's not, you're from Boston.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:18Drew Afualo?

  Was your dad a big sports guy, or your mom?

• 37:21Speaker 00

  Not really, but my brother, who's eleven years older, loved the Celtics, loved the Red Sox.

• 37:27Drew Afualo?

  Oh, nice, yeah.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  I remember he, I was in first grade, and he was like the coolest person ever to me, and he, you know, collected cards. Did you collect, like, any?

• 37:37Drew Afualo?

  I didn't know. That missed me.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  It's a little, it's a little nerdy.

• 37:40Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  Like, that's sort of the headline for my family. It's like, a little nerdy. And so I, I was like, got a little binder and whatever. I didn't have any, and he gave me this, like, rookie Larry Bird card.

• 37:53Drew Afualo?

  Oh, nice.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  And then I brought it into my class, and for whatever reason, my class was first, second, and third graders, and a third grader had like four very vibrantly colored, um, X-Men cards.

• 38:05Drew Afualo?

  Okay.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  And they were like, I'll trade, like, four for that one. And I was like, absolutely.

• 38:12Drew Afualo?

  Wow, you're all idiot.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:14Drew Afualo?

  You just got the worst deal.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  My brother was very upset, and I went back and I was like, I'm gonna need that back. So here's the thing. He fucking wouldn't give it back to me.

• 38:23Drew Afualo?

  No way, cuz he swindled you.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  He swindled, yeah, you know what he was, he was like, four of the, and I was in first grade, and he was in third. That's wrong.

• 38:32Drew Afualo?

  Damn, his dad was probably like, whoa, where'd you get that?

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Just framed.

• 38:36Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. They're living off your spoils.

• 38:41Drew Afualo?

  Okay, to pivot back, what were, you said you were doing like eighty hours a week when you were trying, like, you were in school and stuff? Were you serving, or did you have a lot of jobs?

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was, well, yeah, I would be, I nannied, and then I waited tables, and that was the main thing. Like, I was waiting tables, maybe forty hours a week.

• 38:57Drew Afualo?

  Damn.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then I would be doing like weird downtown theater, like, and very kind of on the nose, like freezing warehouses, and like... Just like making art, you know, like shirtless men on leashes barking and I would just be like, you know, I don't know what the fuck I was doing, but that was my, and then it was like rehearsals and then you'd be auditioning and on Actors Access and, you know, getting new fucking headshots, spending all the money that you made waiting tables on headshots that for some reason were six thousand dollars and then stapling your resume on the back and that whole thing, that grind. And, um, and then working brunch, you know what I mean? And then going out.

• 39:39Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, all at the same time.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  All at the same time. That was like early twenties in New York and it was, but it's like, I don't know, you look back, I wonder if you feel like this at all in some of those earlier times, like the web series or it's just, it's, you can't, you can't get them back.

• 39:57Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  That grind time.

• 39:58Drew Afualo?

  Especially in the-

• 39:59Speaker 00

  There's something exciting about it.

• 40:00Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, like especially in a world prior to social media, like for real, like the way it is now and the way it controls a lot of things.

• 40:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:07Drew Afualo?

  I was gonna ask you that question, like as an artist, like you've been an artist and a decorated one for a while. So like, have you noticed like a huge shift in terms of like the integration of social media with entertainment? Do you like it? Are you kind of like averse to it depending? Like, I'm curious your thoughts.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  I am personally overwhelmed by it. I mean, I know that's not the craziest thing to say.

• 40:27Drew Afualo?

  No, but that's fair. Yeah.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  I, I have really struggled with art in general and being an actor of like, how to hear myself and what I was

• 40:40Speaker 00

  kind of speaking to earlier of like, that need that I have and that kind of started as a kid to like have clapping or to have, you know, some sort of validation around art. Me, I'm the vessel making the art is like self-esteem based.

• 40:58Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  And so it became really hard for me to, and like going back to being like, well, why can't I make something bad?

• 41:05Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  That was a revelation for me. I'm going like, I don't want to keep like- Trying to be other people.

• 41:11Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 41:11Speaker 00

  You know, but sometimes it's been hard for me in my life to even know when I'm doing that.

• 41:15Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  You know what I mean?

• 41:16Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  Um, and so, social media has like the same energy for me.

• 41:21Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Where it's like, it, of course you want more likes.

• 41:25Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  Of course you want more hearts, of course you want more followers, of course, I, I, and when I say you, like, I.

• 41:30Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a natural feeling to have when you're bombarded with it constantly.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I don't, and it's so a part of our business.

• 41:38Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Speaker 00

  It's so a part of what we do.

• 41:40Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 00

  But, the irony and the like, the, the part that I could unpack forever, and I'm, your experience is so fascinating. But of like, there's no separation between business and personal, it's all meant to look the same.

• 41:56Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  And the more that it's meant to look the same, the more followers and success in your business that you're gonna have. So how does one have a healthy boundary? And everyone has different needs. I feel like mine is quite strong of like, needing for my own mental health and sense of self-understanding, like. When does me as an, as a, as Anna, that's not a product?

• 42:21Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  That's not trying to sell my voice, my face, my brain, my body, my whatever.

• 42:26Drew Afualo?

  Totally.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  To the business part of me, that's like, okay, now I'm stepping into the day where like, yeah, this is my face saying the lines. And I am being paid for that, but I'm not gonna let that be my whole identity because I'm more than. When, well, you know, whether it's good or bad, when someone's saying, you're like, you're great, you're amazing, and you know, if you're at the height of your career, and. I'm not, you're not that great in that moment. And when someone doesn't care about me, and they're like, you know. Oh, she hasn't done something in a while, or whatever the narrative is, like, that's not real either. Who I am isn't defined by either of those things.

• 43:04Drew Afualo?

  No, yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  But social media makes it so confusing for me.

• 43:08Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and it makes it hard to dis- to discern.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  Right, and it feels like that is an intentional part of, yeah, how one does like, super well on social media. Is blending those things, and I feel like to have a healthy personal life, you probably have to be really good at. Um, knowing how to balance and separate those.

• 43:28Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, like compartmentalize.

• 43:29Speaker 00

  That's a question mark, though. Like, I don't know. How does one do it? How like, it, it seems, I, I, I have a lot of reverence for it.

• 43:38Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  Because I find it a little bit crippling.

• 43:41Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  So the people that are able to do it and like have their business and like have their art and have, and I'm sure there's some natural blending that happens, but like.

• 43:51Drew Afualo?

  No, you're right. You're, you're right. And honestly, you're not, you're, that is not. An uncommon feeling either because I've, I've talked to a lot of people who are only went up the traditional way. And are still obviously doing the, doing the, the damn thing, like really still performing and entertaining, but they, they've all asked me like. How do you like? Do that and try to still be a performer like in some regard, like you still do auditions and shit. And you also have to do this.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, never mind the like what you're just having to create every day and all the time. Like you're your own production company.

• 44:23Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, keep the wheels turning kinda deal. Which is fair, cause it's like, it has completely shifted, like the dynamics of Hollywood, like it's completely.

• 44:31Speaker 00

  Which is exciting. I love an underdog. Like, I love being like underestimated and had to be like, about ten years ago, it was like.

• 44:39Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  Oh, an influencer. And now they're like, it's an influencer. And they're here. And they're taking pictures.

• 44:46Drew Afualo?

  And you're right. And you're right. No, that's so true. And I, and I, I think that's like. Even for someone like me who came up as a dickhead on the internet, like I, I really have said before, like. The beauty of the integration to me lies in representation. So it's like, it's opened the door. For people of many different shapes and sizes and sexualities and identities to be able to, to be someone. Like there. People who look like me and sound like me and say all the things I do. Would not have made it going the traditional route because it's just not what people see. That's not what they typically cast. It's, it's one of those things where like. It has opened the door for a lot of marginalized people to have their shot, like to, to be able to be seen.

• 45:26Drew Afualo?

  And perceived in terms of like entertainment. Like they're like, I actually can do this too. And like, I don't look like. What you typically cast, but I, I also. Can do the same things. It's like, that's the beauty in it to me. The, the horror in it to me is what you were describing, which is like this complete lack of sense of self that gets lost. And like, when I started doing this, obviously I did not plan on this ever happening. So when it did, I was like aggressively normal before. I, I like, I had a normal job. I, I paid bills. I like, you know, lived paycheck to paycheck. Like I was doing the normal things that you do when you're in your early twenties. And so like doing this and like having grown up on the internet or like the right when social media like launched for real.

• 46:10Drew Afualo?

  I've always been a voyeur. So like seeing it now and then getting all of this exposure so quickly, so fast at a rapid rate was a lot to deal with and it was a real like, I don't know how to describe it. It felt like, almost like a, a new version of myself. Like it's like, now I distinct, distinguish between like me before this and the after.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Really? That's so interesting.

• 46:33Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, because it feels so different. Like the person I was before TikTok happened for me is not who I am now. And I don't really know if that's good or bad. I feel like maybe one just exists in a different timeline. Like that's what I've told myself. Is like, but I always tell myself, I know I would have been happy though, if I, if this didn't happen to me. I know I still would have been happy and like, and that brings me peace and comfort in choosing to do this. Because I'm like, I think like the what ifs would have eaten me alive. Obviously this was my dream. So I was like, yeah, obviously I want to do this like for a living. What a, what a joy and a privilege. Like I'm sure you feel that way too about art. Like getting paid to make art for a living is a dream that very few people can say they've done. So like that felt very lucky.

• 47:14Drew Afualo?

  But it was, yeah, the boundaries thing is huge. Like I did, I did have to learn that. I was pretty strict about boundaries. Initially, because obviously what I did was not, I wasn't doing vlogs. I wasn't doing like, spend the day with me. Like, like when people like get ready with me to go to the store. Like I,

• 47:30Speaker 00

  That was me doing ASMR, by the way. You're like, what's she doing? I just had to explain.

• 47:34Drew Afualo?

  I got it.

• 47:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:36Drew Afualo?

  Exactly.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 47:37Drew Afualo?

  It my thankfully, my platform from the very beginning and probably this was this was very intentional because it's just who I am as a person. I'm a pretty private person in a lot of ways in that stuff. But like I would say it's also happened that way because I was in my twenties when I got it like lots of people on social media now got it when they were sixteen seventeen years old like just this massive amount of fame and attention and money. Um, I'm glad it happened to me after I was fully formed as an adult somewhat like thank God. I was like, thank God it did not happen to me when I was fourteen.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  What was internet culture like when you were in middle school? Cause I'm thirty nine.

• 48:13Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  So.

• 48:14Drew Afualo?

  And I'm thirty, gonna be thirty one.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  Okay, so when the internet kinda like came out really and was like in our home.

• 48:20Drew Afualo?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  It was in fifth grade and it was dial up and it was there was one computer in the living room.

• 48:28Drew Afualo?

  Yes.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  And that was the family tool by the way. Like it wasn't like, you know, you could like, God forbid you bedazzled it.

• 48:36Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Do you know what I mean? I feel like there's this like optics of year two thousand that was like, oh, like tech and like we're making it cutesy and it's like, no, no, that's what we're doing now.

• 48:45Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  Before it was like, that's the family like car.

• 48:48Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? You can't.

• 48:50Drew Afualo?

  No, you're so right.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  And like.

• 48:51Drew Afualo?

  That's how it was for me too.

• 48:52Speaker 00

  And then it was like this gateway of starting to like IM and message and have an AIM and like have a connection with your friends that wasn't just on the phone. But it kinda like things took forever to load like it kinda stopped there and I try, I have a five year old and I tried to think about what it will be like for her at thirteen or before with social media and it's very, I mean, now, I mean, it's gonna change so much, but like, that's a whole nother thing.

• 49:19Drew Afualo?

  I know.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  But like, it's hard for me to really take in what it was like for thirteen year olds, you know, five years ago, ten years ago.

• 49:29Drew Afualo?

  No, you're, you're so right about that.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  Fifteen, twenty, like where was the internet when you were in middle school?

• 49:33Drew Afualo?

  When I was in middle school, it was, um, we were a little past dial up, I would say, like not far, but a little bit.

• 49:39Speaker 00

  No, no, it's okay.

• 49:40Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, but it was, I'm just trying to remember.

• 49:42Speaker 00

  I'm, yeah, yeah.

• 49:42Drew Afualo?

  Cause I do, I do remember dial up, um, when I was. Younger, but when I was in middle school, it was

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Like high speed, right?

• 49:48Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  And you can be on the phone at the same time.

• 49:50Drew Afualo?

  Exactly. So when I, when I was in middle school, that was when it was still family computer, right?

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Okay, really?

• 49:56Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, my sister and I used to have this like little timer that I think my mom still has that we would literally time it like each other. So she'd be like, okay, you have, you have sixty seconds or whatever the fuck, like you have ten more minutes.

• 50:09Speaker 00

  It's my turn!

• 50:10Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and be like, the timer went off. You made it go faster. Like, we would like argue.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 50:15Drew Afualo?

  And play computer games and stuff like, um, so like, that's kind of what it was when I was in middle school. And I remember around like sixth to seventh grade, that was around when MySpace came, came out. So MySpace was like the new hot thing and my sister was like becoming an HTML coder, like she was like customizing. Yeah, she was just customizing her page.

• 50:38Drew Afualo?

  She was getting real into like customizing the pages and stuff. And so like, that was like all throughout middle school. I think my freshman year of high school too was, MySpace was still a thing, but my freshman year of high school was when Facebook became like pretty big.

• 50:51Speaker 00

  Okay, that was freshman year of college for me.

• 50:53Drew Afualo?

  Oh yeah, so.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 50:54Drew Afualo?

  There you go. And that was like, honestly, when we did Facebook, I remember I like begged my mom to like please let me get a Facebook, like all of my friends are on Facebook. And my mom was, I mean, honestly, it worked out because my mom was very strict about the internet like and, and was making sure we knew like weirdos are afoot on the internet, like.

• 51:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:13Drew Afualo?

  My mom was, my mom was like, you can have it, but I, yeah, she would say, you can have it, but I need your like login info. And I'm always gonna go look at it. Like she would just like put fear right there, even if she didn't check it.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  That's early, like, right, seems like early parental control.

• 51:27Drew Afualo?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:28Speaker 00

  In a way, that's actually really smart.

• 51:29Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 00

  Good job, mom.

• 51:31Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and she was like, I'm gonna go in there and check. And then if we

• 51:34Speaker 00

  Did you?

• 51:35Drew Afualo?

  No. Yeah, and she would like, honestly, she would, um, when we would get grounded or something or we weren't allowed, our privileges would be revoked.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:44Drew Afualo?

  She would change the password to like our accounts. Like she would change them. So in case we went somewhere else and we were trying to log in.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  Brilliant.

• 51:50Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, she would change the password, which we never did, because my sister and I were weirdly obedient children. We were very, very good kids, so we never did that, but like, I would say Facebook's like, that's when it started taking off. And then I remember Twitter came out around that time too.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  Oh wow.

• 52:05Drew Afualo?

  So it was like the inception of a lot of like, the bigger ones now.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  What about Instagram? Cause I feel like that, I mean, I know it's like not as cool anymore.

• 52:14Drew Afualo?

  Honestly, now, yeah, I'd say they're about the same, but TikTok's like number one, I think, yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  I know.

• 52:21Drew Afualo?

  I knew that.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:23Drew Afualo?

  I was just making sure you knew.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  I'm up on it.

• 52:27Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. Instagram, I got my, my, my Instagram, I got, I think when I was like a sophomore in high school, like, yeah, around sophomore year of high school. Was my first time getting it, so I was like, and that was when, you know, at that time, that was like when the internet was, you would just post fucking anything. Like any, any, every inane stupid thought that I had when I was fourteen, like.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 52:51Drew Afualo?

  I, the, the amount of like Facebook statuses I have where I'm just like Diet Coke.

• 52:59Speaker 00

  Or it's like ironic, where it's like, it's just a picture of flowers and then you're like, Diet Coke.

• 53:03Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I'm like, Diet Coke, like, there's no thought or anything, I'm just saying things, it's almost like stream of consciousness, just into the computer, um.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Were there influencers happening yet? Where like, it could be a brand or it could be a career?

• 53:15Drew Afualo?

  I think that started happening when I was like later in high school, going into college. That was when like YouTube became a thing, so then YouTube, like YouTube was already, came out in like two thousand nine, two thousand eight, and like, I remember we used to watch. That was when YouTube was purely just like epic fails, or like, or like skits, like it was like people making sketches and stuff and like, just to entertain.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 53:37Drew Afualo?

  And I remember my sister and I used, thought YouTube was like fascinating, cause we're like, oh my god, you could just make stuff and put it on here, like, that was crazy to us. So around that time, I'd say like, end of high school was when YouTubers became a thing, so like, they were like the, in my head, like the OG influencers. Like Tumblr, I would say was one of them too, but like YouTube was when they were like, the girls were making money. Like they were getting paid to go places. They were like getting free things.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 54:02Drew Afualo?

  So that's when I think the like explosion of YouTube happened when I went into college like.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 54:06Drew Afualo?

  And everybody's a YouTuber. Everybody's doing like 10 minute vlogs, doing like edits, like that kind of thing.

• 54:12Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 54:13Drew Afualo?

  So that was like, I would say like the explosion of what we know now.

• 54:17Speaker 00

  Right. And then it kind of went to Instagram.

• 54:20Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  Right?

• 54:20Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, then I think Instagram exploded and then YouTube was still like long form. Then it was like when YouTubers started like monetizing on multiple platforms, so they started moving to Instagram. And then TikTok just came and like completely shifted everything, I think.

• 54:35Speaker 00

  And Snapchat.

• 54:36Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 00

  Right?

• 54:36Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 00

  Wasn't that a moment?

• 54:37Drew Afualo?

  I used that in college, yeah. And that was actually where I initially started posting videos, but they were just to my friends because I was like private on everything.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 54:45Drew Afualo?

  But I would like post rants, like what I did eventually on TikTok, like I would just post me complaining about shit like. You know when you're in your early twenties, like you're like, I'm hilarious and everything's annoying, so I'm just gonna like complain. Like that was like my thing. I was like, I'm just gonna bitch about things that I think are annoying and like, or things that I think are funny. And so like.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Were you scared?

• 55:05Drew Afualo?

  No, because I was private, so I was like, ah, because I always, my mom was always like, imagine if a job like employer sees this. So I was always keeping that like top of mind, like me having.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  Such a good mom.

• 55:16Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, for real. Honestly, really setting the table for me to start doing this now, so it all worked out.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:22Drew Afualo?

  But um, yeah, it was like, that was around the time like I was like getting more comfortable talking on camera. And I think that was because I um, was doing journalism in college at the time. So I, that was my first time like recording myself and seeing myself like and hearing my own voice. I was, I'm curious, like when you first started seeing yourself, did you ever think like, wow, I sound weird?

• 55:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 55:41Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I, I couldn't stand the sound of my voice or anything.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  Well, and in college, at first I went to school for singing and so I, like my voice teacher was having me record my voice and then listen back and critique it and I, yeah, and she would always be like, well, you're hearing yourself through your bones. So you're more resonant through in when what you're hearing in your head than what we're hearing. And I was like, oh wow, I sound so annoying to everybody. You know what I mean?

• 56:06Drew Afualo?

  My bones are telling me I'm, I'm so annoying.

• 56:08Speaker 00

  My bones are telling me I'm deeper and it's better. Out there in my, like it's not good. But yeah, and then, and then um, now I'm just thinking of bones. I forgot what I was.

• 56:20Drew Afualo?

  Well, I also felt that way too when I like heard my voice on camera for the first time. I for real thought, I was like, I do not sound like that.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  What did you, did you think you sounded, what, like how, like?

• 56:32Drew Afualo?

  I felt like my voice was about twenty octaves deeper than I assumed it was, which I do have a pretty low tone, but like, like a deeper tone.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Hearing it back, it sounded deeper to you.

• 56:41Drew Afualo?

  Hearing it back, I was like, who the fuck is that? Like, I would hear my own voice and I'm like, oh my god. And I remember too, I was, when I was a journalism student in college, I had this really, really terrible professor. And she was a woman, that's such a bummer. But she, she was like so misogynistic.

• 56:56Speaker 00

  There's some, there are a few of them.

• 56:57Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that's such a bummer. But she, I remember she, one time, like in a, a critique of my video that I had like put like my package, she was like giving me notes. And um, one of the notes she gave me was that I should um, intentionally raise the register of my voice when I talk on camera. Because it would appear more feminine and therefore be better to listen to. And I was like, now you make me want to talk in a deeper voice. Like, I literally was like, that's not, that's fucking dumb. And I remember like she controlled the fate of my grades, so I was like, okay. So I, I started talking in a higher register. The reason why that haunts me to this day is because when I started making TikTok videos, for real, like if I go,

• 57:36Drew Afualo?

  if I for some reason see someone comment on one that's really old, like five, five-ish years, and I go back and I look, I feel like I sound like Mickey Mouse. And that's because I'm like, I'm raising the register of my voice.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  Because she fucking put that in your head.

• 57:50Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and I start like, talking almost nasally, which humiliates me when I watch it.

• 57:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

• 57:56Drew Afualo?

  That is not what I sound like.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  I relate to that in, in our, like, the, it was musical theater.

• 58:01Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 00

  There was a voice teacher and she just spoke up here. And she was trying to get everybody to speak like this. And I was like, I would rather die. Like, I would rather.

• 58:11Drew Afualo?

  Never book a job.

• 58:12Speaker 00

  Sorry, but like, yeah, first of all, is there any world where I went in for an audition and was like, Jordan? I can't stand you. Like, I'm never getting hired as an actor. First of all, you know what I mean? And then, yeah, I guess she sounded nice when she sang, but like, most of us have to talk when we're not singing. You know what I mean?

• 58:32Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, typically.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  She was trying to get over it. But like, also, we all were changing the, where we were speaking.

• 58:38Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 58:38Speaker 00

  And there was, yeah, there was just so much, like, insidious messaging, always, and that, where it was like, just because I wasn't a dancer, and a lot of the other kids there were like, professional dancers, and like, or professional singers, or whatever. So they were used to hearing all of the misogynistic things that were just like, kind of threaded into that industry.

• 59:00Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  But for me, I wasn't. So I was like, well, why, why do we have, like, little things of like, the heels have to be, the tap shoes have to be healed for us, or, you know, all the insinuations of like, you know, you're looking at yourself constantly in the mirror, dancing, like, no one's thin enough, everyone needs to get thinner, everyone needs to like, it was sort of endless and, um, and subtle, but that is like, being on this earth a little bit.

• 59:28Drew Afualo?

  Right, as women especially.

• 59:29Speaker 00

  But it's really exciting that, that people are finally, in a public way.

• 59:34Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  Talking about it.

• 59:35Drew Afualo?

  For real.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  I grew up with my mom being, and I'm curious, like, how you learned it, or if it was just innate for you. But my mom was, and she was an RN nurse, but she was also like, an energy worker and did Reiki and like,

• 59:48Drew Afualo?

  Oh.

• 59:48Speaker 00

  Therapeutic touch. Yeah, and it really embarrassed me as a kid. Like, my friend would come over with a hurt ankle, and she'd be like, come here, I'll fix it. She like, wouldn't touch it, and I'd be like, oh my god. Like, I mean, be like, your mom's a witch. And I'd be like, I know.

• 1:00:04Drew Afualo?

  I know, I hate it.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know, it's so embarrassing. She's also a regular nurse, but.

• 1:00:09Drew Afualo?

  She believes in real medicine too.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Drew Afualo?

  Not just the spiritual.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Confusing for people. Um, but she also, like, to her credit, she was just, like, went to the beat of her own drum, and spoke about the things she wanted to speak on, and what she believed in, and she was always, you know, had this sort of alt mentality at the time, in our, you know, Irish Catholic town that we had moved to, was very vocal about like, women are magic. Like, we have always been magic, we like, literally can create things from our body out of nothing. Like, is there any more wizard, wizardry?

• 1:00:45Drew Afualo?

  She's so mean.

• 1:00:46Speaker 00

  Than that. And I'd be like, Oh, but in retrospect, I'd be like, yeah, it's called like getting pregnant, like.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, like it's not a big deal. And in retrospect, I'm like, wow, so iconic that she had the wherewithal to speak to it like that. And she had, and now I feel like it's so in the zeitgeist, but she was like, the patriarchy was created because they were threatened by our indescribable magic.

• 1:01:15Drew Afualo?

  Amen. Yeah.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  And.

• 1:01:16Drew Afualo?

  Very true.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  And we became controlled and it is our destiny to, you know, be free, essentially. And to keep like going towards that light of being heard and being seen and not being minimized and.

• 1:01:29Drew Afualo?

  Absolutely. Your mom was ahead of her time.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  She was. She was. Yeah. In a way that now, you know, it's slowly, I tried not to let it in, but it really, it did. Like it got into my brain and it is throughout pen fifteen and these ways of going like.

• 1:01:44Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Speaker 00

  Um, oh, periods are gross. Like, oh, we're gonna show it.

• 1:01:48Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? We're not, we're not skipping that part. Like, we're gonna, like, all these little things that were meaningful.

• 1:01:54Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 1:01:54Speaker 00

  Kind of try to.

• 1:01:55Drew Afualo?

  Well, that's, and that's one of the beauties of that show, honestly, I think, is, is in its authenticity, but also, and it's like, it's not afraid to talk about things that are very real and relatable, but also like, we've been conditioned to believe are like bad, bad, gross, not good, like whatever the synonym you want to use. Like, and they're almost always.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  Tied.

• 1:02:17Drew Afualo?

  To women.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:02:18Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, like exclusive to women and women alone.

• 1:02:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, what's gross about a dude?

• 1:02:23Drew Afualo?

  No, for real. Oh, how much time do you got?

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  I know. Well, no, in real life, but like at thirteen, it's like.

• 1:02:29Drew Afualo?

  Especially.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  Well, especially, but I feel like it was reserved for, like, guys could be talking about masturbating at the lunch table and it'd be funny or it'd be whatever. And it'd be like, Jordan, I don't know why I keep saying Jordan. You know, and if a girl was doing that, at least when I was thirteen, I think it's probably the same, unfortunately, that it was like. Okay, it's your slut. Like you just would never, ever, ever make a joke about that, at least when I was.

• 1:02:55Drew Afualo?

  No, same, likewise, and it was also.

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  Just so crazy.

• 1:02:57Drew Afualo?

  Even for me, like I, growing up, I was a very tall child, so like.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Same.

• 1:03:03Drew Afualo?

  Oh, really?

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Drew Afualo?

  I, I have been a big, big fucking girl for a long time, like when I was young, when I was in middle school, I was five, four. Um, when I was a little, ten, eleven, so like, that's pretty, pretty daunting height for that age.

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  How tall are you now?

• 1:03:18Drew Afualo?

  Six feet.

• 1:03:19Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:03:19Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, so I, I was five, four when I was in sixth grade, my sister stopped growing at that point, and she's two years older than me. So then I like grew past her, and I remember from seventh to eighth grade, I grew four inches in one year. So I went from five, four to five, eight, so when I was in eighth grade, I was five, eight.

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:03:36Drew Afualo?

  And I remember too, like, even like something like that, like I hated my height, I hated being tall when I was a kid.

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  Fucked up.

• 1:03:43Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I hated it, and I felt so like, and it's also ingrained in me to hate it, like it's ingrained in me to despise my body and like, everything about it, and why it doesn't look like other girls' bodies, and like, that was something I think is like unfortunately, a very common experience, especially for women. Uh, and at that age, like that very, very young age, impressionable age, and I think the good thing is like, I've talked a lot about this, too, with like my parents, my, my, my dad is a very large person, which is why I am as big as I am, my mom is very small, which is why my sister's built like her, and I'm built like my dad, um, but it's like my mom was very adamant about like, how like our bodies are never gonna look like specific other women, because we are not the same race, the same ethnicity,

• 1:04:27Drew Afualo?

  and we also are just different people, like, and, and that doesn't make one better than the other, my mom was like very adamant about instilling that in me, from a young age, and you know, like when, like you said, when you're young, you're like, oh, you don't fucking know.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Drew Afualo?

  You don't know anything, you're an idiot, you don't know anything.

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Drew Afualo?

  But it's true, like, and like you said, like, I think I was, um, I was like, you don't know, and then it just noodled its way in there.

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  Same.

• 1:04:47Drew Afualo?

  Thank God.

• 1:04:47Speaker 00

  I try to remind myself that as a parent now, even where I'm like, she has no idea what I'm talking about, she thinks I'm an idiot, and that's just gonna get way more extreme, like you're five.

• 1:04:57Drew Afualo?

  Intense.

• 1:04:57Speaker 00

  You know, like you're just, but I'm just gonna keep saying it, and that's enough, cause I can drive myself crazy of being like, am I being good enough a parent, am I thinking like, oh, I'm saying all the things that I need to say, and like, life is so complex, and being a human is so complex, and am I giving her enough, and I just.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

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• 1:05:50Speaker 00

  I'm myself, okay. My mom said the craziest shit. And she, that's all she needed to do. Was just to say it and say it and say it and say it. And it's still, even when I didn't want it to noodle in, it noodled in.

• 1:06:00Drew Afualo?

  Right, exactly.

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  And thank God it did.

• 1:06:01Drew Afualo?

  No, I feel the exact same way. And I feel like it was like, it was pivotal for me even when I was in like the throes of my like, uh, pick me phase, like my internalized misogyny phase through high school. Like, it would still come up, like even then. And sometimes I joke because like a lot of times I get asked like if I was always this way, like so adamant about like independence confidence and like being mean to men who are awful. Like have I always been that way or did something happen? And I was like, generally speaking, yes, I've always been a very hard-headed child. So I always felt like I knew everything, even though I didn't. But also I felt like it was a combination, it was like a perfect storm of like how my parents raised us and then my just unbelievable confidence and like borderline delusional confidence.

• 1:06:43Drew Afualo?

  Like I was always so sure of myself, even if I wasn't. Like I felt like, even in moments of like somewhat doubt, I felt like, well, I know who I am.

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  Wow, really? That's amazing.

• 1:06:55Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and I think that was like rare for me. It's rare for women in general, but especially teenage girls. Like it's extremely rare. And so I think like I would tell, I told my mom, like, if I'm being honest, I really do think my like disdain for how men felt just inherently better than women. I, I used to hate that, like I recognize-

• 1:07:13Speaker 00

  And could you see it and recognize it early on?

• 1:07:16Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, from a very young age.

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  Fascinating, that's fascinating.

• 1:07:18Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:18Speaker 00

  That you were like saw, it's interesting what different humans like- Focus in on and can see in a way that other don't, you know?

• 1:07:25Drew Afualo?

  I agree. I think part of that might have been-

• 1:07:28Speaker 00

  It's a superpower.

• 1:07:29Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I think part of that honestly might have been attributed to because I was so big, like physically bigger than most of the boys at my age or older than me. I think that othered me in a way that I could like remove myself a little bit and be like, well, of course you're not fucking with me. I'm taller than you. Why would you? Like I would like think that all the time. I would be like, well, of course not because you wish you were my height and I wish I was your height. So now what? Like that's like, that's just one of those things I guess we have to deal with.

• 1:07:51Speaker 00

  Still, that's pretty profound to be able to think that way, I think.

• 1:07:55Drew Afualo?

  I, yeah, no, you're, I've heard that from other people. They've been like, that's rare, like to have that because I really do think I've had body neutrality for a very long time. Which is rare, like my, I've always been, you know, body positivity, I think is cool, but I think it has been warped and twisted into something I don't love. Like really, um, so I strive more for body neutrality, which is like, I don't want to feel anything towards my body other than grateful. I want to feel grateful. It moves, it keeps me alive, it breathes, it laughs, it smiles. Like that's what I want to be grateful for. That's how I want to perceive my body. And I think that's a great way of looking at it because it, good or bad, it's, it's, it's keeping me alive and that's what I feel grateful for. I just want to feel grateful. That's all I want to feel towards. So that's what I've been working towards for a long time, but I think I had that inherently until I started doing this.

• 1:08:40Drew Afualo?

  Honestly.

• 1:08:42Speaker 00

  Oh, I so appreciate your candidness. I think it's important too.

• 1:08:45Drew Afualo?

  I got my period in seventh grade when I was 12, like about to be, well, I turned 13, um, and on my birthday.

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  And on seventh, oh, really?

• 1:08:54Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, on my birthday. In seventh grade, yeah.

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  Did you tell your mom?

• 1:08:58Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I did immediately, but I, I like was so glad that it had, first of all, I was like, oh my God, when I pulled down my pants because it was the red wedding down there.

• 1:09:07Speaker 00

  Were you waiting for it?

• 1:09:09Drew Afualo?

  No.

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  I was waiting. I was like, still not here. Because my friends were getting it and I got it when I was in eighth grade.

• 1:09:17Drew Afualo?

  No, my mom, my mom had told us about it, like, um, I think around like fifth grade, like when we were going into middle school. So I like knew of it, but I was like, nah, it'll, it'll see me when it sees me.

• 1:09:28Speaker 00

  Well, also, this is different, but kissing.

• 1:09:30Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Speaker 00

  Was to me was like Saved by the Bell. Did you watch Saved by the Bell? Probably two, like.

• 1:09:35Drew Afualo?

  No, I'm very familiar with Screech and Slater and the gang.

• 1:09:38Speaker 00

  Okay. Well, Kelly and Zach's kissing was like, I was like, perfect, can't wait. You know what I mean?

• 1:09:44Drew Afualo?

  I, I'm with you on that.

• 1:09:47Drew Afualo?

  Closed mouth, moving the head.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  Really long time.

• 1:09:50Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, just a lot of neck work.

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  Probably like sex, like fake sex, right? Like hugging?

• 1:09:55Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  You're like, they're having sex on TV.

• 1:09:58Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, yeah, I literally, and I was, I felt like you too about kissing. I was like, but even then I would like tell my mom, I was like, well, what if I don't want to kiss? And my mom was like, then you don't.

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:10:08Drew Afualo?

  Like, I was so averse.

• 1:10:09Speaker 00

  Empowered, like immediately.

• 1:10:11Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I was so like, how can I do this alone?

• 1:10:15Drew Afualo?

  What if I want to be alone when I do it? Then what? I was so like contingency plan, like I was so like. Cause I was just so. Yeah.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  You're like very aware of boundaries. I didn't know boundaries were a thing till my twenties. I was like, oh, I'm allowed to have my own sense of self. I'm allowed to be like, yeah, sadly, I, I really wasn't aware of it. My first kiss with my boyfriend, I was in eighth grade, like devastated me. Because it was not Zach and Kelly.

• 1:10:45Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Speaker 00

  It was like.

• 1:10:47Drew Afualo?

  I feel that.

• 1:10:47Speaker 00

  A tongue to the back of the throat for a minute or two.

• 1:10:51Drew Afualo?

  Being attacked.

• 1:10:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  And then having to be like.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  Bye, see you tomorrow.

• 1:10:57Drew Afualo?

  I loved it.

• 1:10:58Speaker 00

  And then I cried a lot after, because I was like, and that was a feeling of like, nobody told me.

• 1:11:04Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Speaker 00

  That if that's what kissing is, I will never do it again. No, I was like, I'm never doing that again.

• 1:11:10Drew Afualo?

  Had I had the information going in.

• 1:11:13Speaker 00

  That wouldn't have.

• 1:11:14Drew Afualo?

  That wouldn't have happened.

• 1:11:15Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:11:16Drew Afualo?

  That would have transpired differently.

• 1:11:17Speaker 00

  And I could not believe that people wanted to do that after that. I was like, that's disgusting.

• 1:11:24Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and you guys are perverts. How's that?

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you're all per- it did sort of, you're right. It did kind of change my idea and probably that you're, you learning about what sex was.

• 1:11:35Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 1:11:35Speaker 00

  Was like, bunch of perverts.

• 1:11:37Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, yeah, I literally was horrified. Like, I was like-

• 1:11:40Speaker 00

  It is crazy to really think about it.

• 1:11:42Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and I think it was around that time too, um-

• 1:11:45Speaker 00

  Like, what are we doing?

• 1:11:46Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, my mom, my mom and dad had been trying for my brother.

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:11:49Drew Afualo?

  So I think that was also like, it just lined up perfectly.

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  And you knew? Not the details, but you knew that they were trying to have another baby?

• 1:11:55Drew Afualo?

  No, we didn't know until after. Yeah, until like after my mom explained the talk to us, then we knew.

• 1:12:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:12:01Drew Afualo?

  At that point, because at that point, I, I think it just lined up perfectly for us going into middle school, like-

• 1:12:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:08Drew Afualo?

  At an age where we're probably gonna hit puberty and then also my brother's gonna get, my mom's gonna get pregnant. So it was like a win, a win-win.

• 1:12:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Drew Afualo?

  To have that talk at that time.

• 1:12:16Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:12:17Drew Afualo?

  Um, yeah, I was like, I think it just lined up perfectly, honestly, the timing of everything.

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:21Drew Afualo?

  But I was like, like you, without the, the boots on the ground experience, I was horrified. I was like, no way that's what you guys were doing. What?

• 1:12:31Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:12:31Drew Afualo?

  And I was, I remember being horrified and that's why I asked my contingency plan question and I said, okay, cool. Once you answered that, I'm good. I don't need to be, I don't need to be scared, cuz-

• 1:12:39Speaker 00

  It's still crazy to think about it. Like, obviously, I've dabbled. But it's still somehow, isn't it weird?

• 1:12:47Drew Afualo?

  It is weird.

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  Like, why are we here?

• 1:12:49Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, when you really think about it, it's a little too much. It's a little, it's spooky. It gets spooky real quick.

• 1:12:55Speaker 00

  It's very, yeah, it's very strange.

• 1:12:57Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I was, and that was like, my general understanding of it until obviously I went to high school and then I like, learned a little bit more about it just through friends and like, people talking, experience, that kind of thing.

• 1:13:07Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:13:08Drew Afualo?

  Then I learned more at that point, but like, at the time, I was like, if I don't wanna do it, I'm not going to. That's what I like, would always tell myself. I was like, yeah, no way, Jose.

• 1:13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's great.

• 1:13:21Drew Afualo?

  I was real North Korea, you know what I mean?

• 1:13:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I didn't lose my virginity till college.

• 1:13:27Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, so, I mean, same.

• 1:13:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:28Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, so like, that's fine.

• 1:13:29Speaker 00

  But most of my friends had earlier, so it was.

• 1:13:32Drew Afualo?

  No, same.

• 1:13:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:32Drew Afualo?

  But I was like, I, again, I was North Korea, so that's why I was like, yeah, no way.

• 1:13:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:37Drew Afualo?

  And every dipshit kid in my school, I was like, yeah, you're nuts, like, you're fucking crazy, in fact. And, which is ironic, because the, the man I'm gonna marry is, he went to high school with me.

• 1:13:48Speaker 00

  No!

• 1:13:49Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, he did.

• 1:13:50Speaker 00

  Did you know him in high school?

• 1:13:51Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, we were friends in high school. We are not high school sweethearts, though.

• 1:13:54Speaker 00

  Wow, no dating, no flirting.

• 1:13:58Drew Afualo?

  No, he would, yeah, there was flirting in the sense that, like, banter, I guess, but like, no.

• 1:14:02Speaker 00

  Like you're stealing his hat and wearing it?

• 1:14:05Drew Afualo?

  Or like, what? No, more like, he would steal my hat and wear it, like, he would like, he would annoy me, and I'd be like, he's annoying. And that was another reason my sister said she should've known that she was gay in high school, because we all went to high school together.

• 1:14:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:16Drew Afualo?

  And she was like, my sister, as gay as she is, always had boys as crushes, like, throughout all of high school, she would have two or three a year. She'd be like, yeah, I'm rocking with him, I'd be like, he's ugly, what is your problem, like, what, what is the matter with you? And I, now I know she was just looking for something, like, she was like, okay, that one doesn't work, okay, okay. And, um, I think, like, my sister jokes that, like, that's how she should've known she was gay, because my man was the only man, and arguably, the most handsome guy in our school. At the time especially, like, she was like, I, he was the only one, I was like, yuck! And she was like, and I think that's how I knew, I should've known, like, even then, like, I liked every ugly bitch that went to our school, but for some reason, him, I was like, yuck! Now we know why. If anything, that was the most clear indicator.

• 1:15:00Speaker 00

  Wow, fascinating.

• 1:15:01Drew Afualo?

  All, all roads lead to the same lesbian.

• 1:15:04Speaker 00

  True.

• 1:15:06Drew Afualo?

  But weird transition from lesbian, but I do have some fun facts about you.

• 1:15:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:15:11Drew Afualo?

  And you can tell me if they're fun or not. Okay, well, this one we actually talked about, which is, before PEN15, Anna and Maya funded a web series together called Manna, Mana?

• 1:15:21Speaker 00

  Manna.

• 1:15:22Drew Afualo?

  Manna.

• 1:15:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:23Drew Afualo?

  And what was the, was this the one you were already telling me about?

• 1:15:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, weird, because I haven't been asked about that in so long, it's so funny.

• 1:15:29Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, we have our own in-house Nardwar, like, she does a lot of research.

• 1:15:32Speaker 00

  Got it.

• 1:15:33Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, it was the one that I said before about, um, every episode was a different reject reality show pilot. Yeah.

• 1:15:41Drew Afualo?

  And everyone was like, no, thank you, anything else?

• 1:15:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, basically.

• 1:15:45Drew Afualo?

  Okay, this one says, "In 2013, your mom once sent you a care package containing a wind chime, one-fourth of a Yankee candle, a tea steeper, hair ties, and a floss sample."

• 1:15:58Speaker 00

  To camp?

• 1:15:59Drew Afualo?

  I, I, it doesn't say where. Amanda, was that to camp?

• 1:16:01Drew Afualo?

  It was an Instagram post you had sent.

• 1:16:03Speaker 00

  Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, I mean, that sounds about right. I remember, I remember, um...

• 1:16:09Drew Afualo?

  Quite the haul.

• 1:16:10Speaker 00

  I remember at Christmas, she was really into regifting. And that could be something already in your house. Like, true, like, I, there was a stocking stuffer one year, and they were, it was pantyhose that have, like, not been opened for like a dollar from CVS, and I was like, "This was in my drawer."

• 1:16:31Speaker 00

  She's like, "Well, you don't wear it." "You forgot about it."

• 1:16:34Drew Afualo?

  And maybe now you'll wear it now that you remember you have it.

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  No, a hundred percent. Yeah, she's like, "I bought it for you at some point, and now it's rewrapped."

• 1:16:42Drew Afualo?

  And what?

• 1:16:43Speaker 00

  Okay, you want a gift or not?

• 1:16:44Drew Afualo?

  To bury her, yeah.

• 1:16:48Drew Afualo?

  That's a, a wind chime based off what you've told me about your mom makes sense.

• 1:16:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Drew Afualo?

  A wind chime.

• 1:16:53Speaker 00

  Chimes.

• 1:16:53Drew Afualo?

  And like a tea steeper.

• 1:16:56Speaker 00

  Wow, was that, I'm trying to think of that post. That was an old one, right?

• 1:17:00Drew Afualo?

  It was like from the, in the mail. It like came in the mail.

• 1:17:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, by mistake. She accidentally, she sent me a care package, that's right. And she accidentally included like a piece of used floss. That's right.

• 1:17:18Drew Afualo?

  She's like, "Well, I was multitasking. What do you want from me?"

• 1:17:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, and she's, right, and she's always clearing out her house and sending me whatever she's clearing out, has the like half Yankee candle and stuff like that. Just whenever. No, she's still doing it.

• 1:17:31Drew Afualo?

  To this day, she's like, "Well, I had to clear out the pantry. You want it or not?"

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  Basically. Basically.

• 1:17:37Drew Afualo?

  Reduce, reuse, recycle.

• 1:17:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the good part.

• 1:17:40Drew Afualo?

  Oh, one time I got a care package from my mom because I like my mom would send awesome care packages when I was in college, but one time I called her because remember when you were under twenty one, your your license is like vertical and then when you are over twenty one, they made it horizontal when I was in college. So like, and that was an easier way of determining obviously who's underage.

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  I wonder if that's a California thing.

• 1:17:59Drew Afualo?

  I think so, yeah. So like our, my sister had already turned twenty one and I was nineteen, I think. And so like I asked, I called my mom and I like gave her a pitch to like send me my sister's old ID, which was the vertical one. Uh, I was like, so I could drink and I was like, all my friends are twenty one. And like, well, with the exception of like my one girlfriend at the time, because she was younger than me. And I was like, but I'm gonna be really responsible. I swear to God, like, I was like, can you please send it to me? Like, I'm missing out on so many things. Can you please send it to me? And then my mom was like, okay, yeah, I'll send it to you, but if you get arrested, don't call me. I was like, oh, you know what? Deal. God, I'll, hey, you know what? I was like, you got yourself a deal, brother.

• 1:18:41Drew Afualo?

  And she sent it to me and I used the hell out of that thing.

• 1:18:45Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 1:18:45Drew Afualo?

  I used the brakes off that thing.

• 1:18:47Speaker 00

  I made a mistake when I was eighteen and dated still a virgin, a thirty eight year old restaurant owner.

• 1:18:56Drew Afualo?

  Whoa.

• 1:18:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the benefit was that I got an ID.

• 1:19:02Drew Afualo?

  That was your, your win?

• 1:19:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, he gave me an ID, which sounds really shady. Yeah, he get one that was left, yeah, it was, yeah.

• 1:19:10Drew Afualo?

  I remember I lost the ID because I went to a concert that was eighteen and over. But and I was twenty at the time, but I gave him the wrong one on accident. I put them right next to each other. And I was already kind of drunk when I got there, so I accidentally gave him that one. And I, obviously you can't be like, oh, sorry, I gave you the wrong one. Can you give it? Mind you, like that, that one said I was five, three and like a hundred and twenty pounds. I was like, that, that's I am not that at all. Like, I had a whole backstory of like, oh, I was like, when I got it, I was fifteen and like, you know, like, obviously now I'm bigger and I'm older. Like, that was that was like me making up bullshit. And the guy kept, he was like, um, yeah, you can go in. And then I was like, oh, I, I need my ID back. He's like, no, I'm gonna hold this. And then the person who it belongs to can come get it from me. And I said, no worries.

• 1:19:55Drew Afualo?

  Then I just walked inside, like I gave up. I said,

• 1:19:57Speaker 00

  Good call.

• 1:19:57Drew Afualo?

  No worries. Hey, that was a test and you passed. I'm an undercover cop.

• 1:20:03Drew Afualo?

  Okay, another fun fact, you once did the foot treatment where you put your feet in a water tank and tiny fish nibble on your skin?

• 1:20:10Speaker 00

  Yes, in Thailand with two of my best friends and my partner.

• 1:20:15Drew Afualo?

  And how was that?

• 1:20:16Speaker 00

  Not good. I don't like it. They, they were like, great, our feet are so smooth. No, don't like it.

• 1:20:24Drew Afualo?

  Why? Is this overstimulating the feeling?

• 1:20:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's very, I mean, it just feels like little fish are eating little parts of you. Like, I'm not into it, you know?

• 1:20:32Drew Afualo?

  Turns out I hate that.

• 1:20:33Speaker 00

  It's very literal what's happening, but that, it doesn't, it's not, I'm not into it, yeah.

• 1:20:38Drew Afualo?

  Did you last the whole time?

• 1:20:39Speaker 00

  A lot of people, no.

• 1:20:41Drew Afualo?

  You said, oh, never, no, thank you.

• 1:20:43Speaker 00

  A lot of people enjoy it, though.

• 1:20:44Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:45Speaker 00

  Have you ever dabbled?

• 1:20:47Drew Afualo?

  I've never done that. Honestly, probably not, but that's just because sea creatures freak me out.

• 1:20:52Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:20:52Drew Afualo?

  I am a very afraid of a lot of animals, but like.

• 1:20:55Speaker 00

  Stop.

• 1:20:55Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. And it's more so just fear in terms of like, I respect them and their space. And the entirety of the earth, I'm like a guest in their house is how I feel. So like, they, they just like scare me because they're a very real threat in a lot of ways and I don't want any problems.

• 1:21:11Speaker 00

  What about like a little fish that was just gonna like eat the dry skin off your feet?

• 1:21:16Drew Afualo?

  I'd be like, no, thank you.

• 1:21:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:21:18Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. And also like looking at them would, would, would freak me out.

• 1:21:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Drew Afualo?

  Like seeing them do it.

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  There's hundred, there are hundreds of them. And they be, they be come apart, like they're just, like they're all attached to your feet. It's really disgusting.

• 1:21:35Drew Afualo?

  And unpleasant.

• 1:21:36Speaker 00

  It feels crazy.

• 1:21:37Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I, I would probably not at all. Like, there are certain things in this life that when I see people doing them, I'm like, I could go my whole life and never do that and I know. Skydiving.

• 1:21:49Speaker 00

  Same.

• 1:21:50Drew Afualo?

  Bungee jumping of any kind, cave diving.

• 1:21:52Speaker 00

  I don't even like a high, um, diving board.

• 1:21:54Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, yeah, same. Yeah, like hot air balloons, like.

• 1:21:58Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 1:21:58Drew Afualo?

  I could never go on one and I'm sure I wouldn't be missing out.

• 1:22:01Speaker 00

  What about roller coasters? How do you feel?

• 1:22:03Drew Afualo?

  I like roller coasters, depending. Like if they're, I really like roller coasters, but the ones that go straight up and down, I'm not a fan of.

• 1:22:10Speaker 00

  Would you say you have a fear of heights?

• 1:22:12Drew Afualo?

  I do, yeah. So like, it's when I'm suspended, and I can see it for too long that I'm not a fan of. When it's going so fast, I can't, I can't even register.

• 1:22:21Speaker 00

  You don't even know where, how high up you are. So it's fine.

• 1:22:24Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, like it's just like, it's spinning me around like before I hit a pinata, that's how I feel. So it's like, so when that, with that, I'm like, yeah, sure, why not? But if it's like a extended period of time, yeah, no, I'm good. There are so many, even a cruise, like I don't, I don't ever want to go on a cruise.

• 1:22:42Speaker 00

  Well, there's so many scary Netflix documentaries now about.

• 1:22:44Drew Afualo?

  About women going missing on cruises, or pooping on the cruise. Have you seen that one?

• 1:22:48Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:22:48Drew Afualo?

  There's one called Poop Cruise.

• 1:22:50Speaker 00

  I saw the title, I was kinda like, can't, I can't.

• 1:22:53Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:54Speaker 00

  What's it about?

• 1:22:54Drew Afualo?

  I honestly don't know, I didn't watch it either for the same reason you didn't.

• 1:22:57Speaker 00

  It's too literal, like just keep it a little more abstract.

• 1:23:01Drew Afualo?

  I've seen it all.

• 1:23:02Speaker 00

  I would have turned.

• 1:23:03Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, once I watched the little preview, I said, I'm good. Don't need to find anymore.

• 1:23:07Speaker 00

  Everything overflowed, is that the idea?

• 1:23:09Drew Afualo?

  I think so, right?

• 1:23:26Speaker 00

  That makes me want to tune in. I'm not even kidding, something about the lasagna imagery.

• 1:23:32Drew Afualo?

  The poop lasagna, if you will.

• 1:23:34Speaker 00

  Didn't expect it.

• 1:23:35Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I feel the same way about, about cruises where I'm like, I also had a very weird hyperfixation with the Titanic when I was young. So I did a lot of research on the Titanic and I was like, yeah, fuck a cruise, like I, from a very young age, I was like, I don't need to be on a big boat. No, thank you.

• 1:23:50Speaker 00

  We didn't really go on vacations until my parents divorced and then my dad started taking me on cruises.

• 1:23:56Drew Afualo?

  That's a real dad thing to do.

• 1:23:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, there was a casino.

• 1:23:59Drew Afualo?

  Oh, nice.

• 1:24:00Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? And then I'd go to the teen club, I'd get crazy. And, yeah, I loved it, but I didn't think about the Titanic being a thing. Mm-hmm.

• 1:24:11Drew Afualo?

  Most children don't.

• 1:24:13Speaker 00

  Or poop lasagna.

• 1:24:13Drew Afualo?

  For some reason, I, I was very concerned, but like...

• 1:24:17Speaker 00

  So you were like, we're gonna hit an iceberg.

• 1:24:19Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, it was more, yeah, it was more so the logistics of the Titanic that I was like genuinely concerned about, like, I don't know what put me, I think I, I like kinda learned about it a little bit in, in school, which piqued my interest, so then I like,

• 1:24:33Speaker 00

  Went deep.

• 1:24:34Drew Afualo?

  Really was like, I need to learn.

• 1:24:35Speaker 00

  No pun intended.

• 1:24:36Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, exactly. I need to learn everything there is to know about this. And so like, my mom would buy me like children-friendly books on like the Titanic, but then I was like, going through them so fast, and my mom started getting me like adult books on the Titanic, so I was reading all of them, and I was like studying up, and then when Titanic, the movie came out, I was like, you know, wow, like, oh my god, I need to watch it. So then like, my mom showed me the movie Titanic, and then I remember when I watched it, at the very end, I was like, are those people real, like, was that story real, like Jack and Rose? And my mom goes, no. And then I go, fucking stupid ass movie. Like, I watched it, and I was like, they didn't talk about the ship, they didn't talk about the captain, they didn't talk about the lack of preparation, they didn't talk about this was the first ship ever to, to set sail at...

• 1:25:21Speaker 00

  Ship expert.

• 1:25:22Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I really was like, wow, you missed all the good parts of the Titanic. Like, I was so like,

• 1:25:27Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:25:27Drew Afualo?

  This useless ass movie. That's how I felt about Titanic when I was a child. Uh, cuz I was like, here I am looking for the info, and you guys are making up a story about two lovers. The hell? You're talking, what are you talking about putting the poor Irish people down below deck? Why don't you talk about that?

• 1:25:42Speaker 00

  Talk about that.

• 1:25:43Drew Afualo?

  Why don't you talk about that? Let's get into that.

• 1:25:45Speaker 00

  You've always been like aware of injustices.

• 1:25:48Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:49Speaker 00

  And like, or the thing that should be central.

• 1:25:52Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 1:25:53Speaker 00

  Being marginalized.

• 1:25:54Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I've been a very, I've had a very curious perspective, um, as a child.

• 1:25:59Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 1:26:00Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and I, and my mom, like, we joke about it too, like, cuz I was, and this is not me gassing myself, this is a true fact. I was a very smart child. Like, I, I started reading, I started reading very young, and like, I was supposed to skip... A grade like which technically speaking I started school early so that that would be two grades ahead of what like So they suggested I skip a grade to my mom a couple times because they were like I think this is too easy for her. Um but I wasn't a bad child so I would never like

• 1:26:28Speaker 00

  I'm getting such a fuller snapshot of you like truly I just feel like I saw you at like and you're brilliant.

• 1:26:37Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:26:38Speaker 00

  That's not an easy

• 1:26:39Drew Afualo?

  No, yeah, like well even like my mom it's funny because they told my mom multiple times like you should move her up probably like it might be better for her. My mom literally was like no and she was like I first of all

• 1:26:50Speaker 00

  How'd she know?

• 1:26:51Drew Afualo?

  I I think she well first of all she was like I that's like too much pressure to put on my child like first of all like putting her Because then I would be with people who were like two or three years older than me which is like a whole nother thing. Um that would put me in the same grade as my sister which my sister was also brilliant but so painfully shy when we were kids. Uh so my mom was trying to create autonomy between us. And then the last one which is the realest one and the funniest one my mom was like she's already Too big for her britches like you keep her where she needs to be okay like we don't want to gas her too much like that's A supervillain waiting to happen which I think is a fair assessment like And I even said recently to one of my friends I was telling them like in fifth grade I we had to pick a

• 1:27:32Drew Afualo?

  A disease to do a research report on and I picked lupus because my friend's mom had lupus. And so this was a very long report that I did my teacher literally had a meeting with my mom because she was convinced I plagiarized it. Because of how it was written which I was like how could I have done that the computer is barely anything.

• 1:27:49Speaker 00

  How what grade was that?

• 1:27:51Drew Afualo?

  Fifth grade so I was in I was ten yeah nine or ten.

• 1:27:53Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 1:27:54Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I think I just like Yeah, I've been a know it all for a very long time too so thankfully I turned out smart otherwise that would suck I would always be like every other man. You know what I mean like just so confident no nothing to back it up.

• 1:28:05Speaker 00

  Did you raise your hand a lot like were you?

• 1:28:07Drew Afualo?

  All the time, all the time.

• 1:28:09Speaker 00

  Did you ever do it start to do it less when you realized that it wasn't because for me for example not as not as courageous? I, once I realized that I was, you know, othering myself in a certain way by raising my hand a lot as a girl.

• 1:28:25Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:26Speaker 00

  Which is devastating to say.

• 1:28:28Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, it's true.

• 1:28:29Speaker 00

  But I stopped for a long, I stopped for a long time. Or I didn't stop, I guess, but I didn't do it as much as I wanted to.

• 1:28:34Drew Afualo?

  I mean, that makes sense. That's very common, like for, especially for women.

• 1:28:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, definitely.

• 1:28:39Drew Afualo?

  Unfortunately for me, my hubris was just, was just out of control. I, I, perception or not, like I just loved knowing things. I was like, I loved knowing a lot of things. I loved knowing the most things. Like I, I looked at it almost like a competition between no one but me and myself. But like, I was very like, I loved being smart and I loved knowing things. And like, that was just my thing. So I was just, I was very confident about it. And I honestly, I think me being humongous maybe helped like, people not want to believe me that much because I was enormous. I was an enormous child and I was smart too. So like, you know, deadly combo when you're in grade school.

• 1:29:18Drew Afualo?

  But yeah, I think like, me just being so like, my intellect was something I drew the most confidence from. And I think I still do now, even now. Like, uh, my confidence comes from everything you cannot see. And so my intellect was one of them. And so when I was a kid, like, I always joke that like, I think, me feeling so unbearably smart to people, like, like me being perceived that way, outpaced my need to like be liked by men. Like it was like, I was such a know it all that it was like, I don't give a fuck if you think I'm attractive, as long as you know I'm smarter than you. Like, that's what I used to like, that was like my like intensity. And so I had a lot of anger too, when I was in high school towards men.

• 1:30:01Drew Afualo?

  Like I had a lot of like animosity towards them because I felt like they were just awful, which, especially in high school, they can be. And so it was like, I think just a perfect cocktail. Of like my upbringing, just generally speaking who I am. And then also me getting smart at a young age is probably, for the best that my mom kept me tempered.

• 1:30:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:23Drew Afualo?

  And even like when I did, I joked about this on the show many times, but like in, in fifth grade, we had to do this like wax figure presentation where we had to pick someone we admire. Throughout history and then do a whole report on them and then dress up as them on like back to school night and then do like a whole monologue. And so I picked King George the third. I did not admire him at all. He's one of the worst English monarchs in history. I just thought, I found him fascinating. He's, he's responsible for a lot of the things that are still in play today in the UK. So I literally was like, this is fascinating. I'm gonna write about him. And even my teacher called my mom and was like, I feel like maybe she should pick someone else. Like, is there maybe someone that she likes that maybe? And my mom was like, is it against the rules? And then she was like, no. And she's like, well, then just let her do it. Like, who cares?

• 1:31:06Drew Afualo?

  And I just found him fascinating. He was a terrible monarch and I really wanted to research it. And I was the only one who cross-dressed, so there's that too. So I was like, yeah, was I concerned about men or boys at the time? Cause I was dressing like a boy. And I was faking a British accent all day. And maybe honestly, that's part of my performance. I was just like, this is gonna get me so much attention if I do this.

• 1:31:30Drew Afualo?

  Whether it's good or bad, not concerned. Just need them to look at me. I just need a minute of your time.

• 1:31:36Speaker 00

  It's all it takes.

• 1:31:38Drew Afualo?

  It'll feed me and keep me alive for the next year, so I appreciate y'all. Okay, I have another last fun fact. Uh, do you remember the context of this childhood photo? Where you are in, I think it says cat face paint.

• 1:31:54Speaker 00

  I actually, uh, I don't really remember. I asked my mom too. I was like, what the hell is that? Cat face paint.

• 1:32:02Drew Afualo?

  You look like Cat in the Hat, like, like Mike Myers version.

• 1:32:06Speaker 00

  That embroidered pillow I vaguely remember. I look like.

• 1:32:11Drew Afualo?

  You look real serious, like you are there for business.

• 1:32:13Speaker 00

  That was definitely a part of, there, there's that in me always. That's like, what's happening next?

• 1:32:21Drew Afualo?

  You know, ready to perform?

• 1:32:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:24Drew Afualo?

  At a moment's notice.

• 1:32:25Speaker 00

  I'm turning forty soon. Like, I was always kind of just like, a little bit forty. You know?

• 1:32:31Drew Afualo?

  I love that about you. Me too.

• 1:32:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:33Drew Afualo?

  I love an old soul.

• 1:32:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:35Drew Afualo?

  Hell yeah.

• 1:32:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's, yeah, I don't, I mean, maybe I'll feel differently when the time actually comes for that birthday. But right now, I'm like, yeah, I'm reaching the age that I've always been, finally.

• 1:32:45Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:45Speaker 00

  You know?

• 1:32:46Drew Afualo?

  Thank god.

• 1:32:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:48Drew Afualo?

  That's how I felt when I turned thirty, because I was like, I hated twenty-nine, only because I just hate the number. It felt like I was holding on to my twenties.

• 1:32:55Speaker 00

  Hmm, I know what you mean.

• 1:32:56Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I felt like I was like.

• 1:32:57Speaker 00

  I'm twenty-nine. And you don't want to be the cliche of being like, ah, almost. I feel like, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like whatever everybody else is doing or feeling, there's sometimes, for me, a vibe of being like, let me do the thing next to it. I don't want to feel like everyb- I heard a, an interior designer said recently something about like, I, I don't look next, I, I hate looking next to me for inspiration. I only look, um, in front of myself or behind.

• 1:33:25Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:26Speaker 00

  Felt seen by that a little bit.

• 1:33:28Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that's so true. And I, I did feel like that too, in my twenties, I felt like very, because I, now that I'm in my thirties, and I, I, I think about how, when I was working at the NFL, I like had this conversation with this woman I worked with, and she had just turned forty. And I remember we were talking, and I was like telling her, you know, I just feel like I'm behind, I feel like I barely got here. And then she was like, how old are you? And I was like, at the time, I was twenty-three. So I was like, oh, I'm twenty-three. And she was like, oh my god, you have so much time. You are so young. And I was like, really? You think so? And she's like, yeah, like, I just turned forty. And she was like, and if I could pick a decade of my life to go back to, I would pick my thirties.

• 1:34:06Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:34:06Drew Afualo?

  And I was very like, really? Like, at the time, and she was like, yeah, because in your thirties, like, your twenties are meant for stumbling and resetting your table and figuring out who you are and like, what you want and like, purpose and all of that. It's like, it's like the most tumultuous, awful time, but also the best time. And she's like, in your thirties, you like, level, like, in some regard. You like, know who you are, you know what you want. Typically, at that point- You're surrounded by friends that you like, love for real. You're not going through phases and cycles of friends. And it's like, that's where you really start to live life. Like, she was like, my thirties was my favorite time of my life. And I remember holding on to that. I felt like it was so profound, especially hearing it from other women, because it's like,

• 1:34:47Drew Afualo?

  they've ingrained in us to like, be so afraid of aging and getting older, which I'm not anymore, thank God.

• 1:34:54Speaker 00

  That's the thing though, is like, I really want to feel like that about every decade.

• 1:34:59Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:35:01Speaker 00

  Like it's behind you.

• 1:35:02Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that's so true.

• 1:35:04Speaker 00

  We have a lot of, hopefully, if we're lucky, so many decades ahead of us.

• 1:35:07Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:35:08Speaker 00

  How do you make like, you know, seventy to eighty like wild? Or whatever it is that makes it special or.

• 1:35:17Drew Afualo?

  Totally.

• 1:35:18Speaker 00

  You know, something else that you need. My, my mom has always been,

• 1:35:24Speaker 00

  and I've, this is all in a book at this point, so I don't feel so bad saying it out loud, but she's always been very,

• 1:35:31Speaker 00

  insatiable in her life, in a way that was, and back to the theme of not appreciating her in the moment, of like, in a way that was frustrating for me, of going like, can't, can't you just like, stay with that fiance? Do you have to like, keep looking for like?

• 1:35:47Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 1:35:47Speaker 00

  The thing, but it's something that I've really come to admire about her. She's just, she just turned eighty and she's like, yesterday was a little boring, like, you know what I mean? Living, you know? And there's something about finding a balance, I think, of like, being comfortable being bored or comfortable with life being.

• 1:36:07Drew Afualo?

  Like content.

• 1:36:08Speaker 00

  Content. But also still hungry to like, imbibe it or something, you know?

• 1:36:14Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, like, speaking of that, like, because you've been a creative your whole life, what would you say you do when you like, want to re-inspire creativity? Like, if you feel like, especially working on pen for so long and it doing so well and you're putting so much into it, like, how do you, how did you, or how do you refill your cup after?

• 1:36:32Speaker 00

  It's always really challenging, I think, and especially, and I'm thinking of you here, like, TV writing and going into that, and even though you've done a lot of professional writing, but like, going into that next step, there's such a. Now I appreciate being on the other side of it, such a special moment of like being quote unquote green in it where it's like there's a reverence in the business side of things for newness.

• 1:37:00Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:00Speaker 00

  Once you're like in it, even even with me coming in in a way that's like experimental.

• 1:37:06Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:06Speaker 00

  Which my vibe is like, well, I did something experimental that kind of like hit in a certain way. Certainly you'll believe that I can do that again.

• 1:37:13Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 1:37:13Speaker 00

  And yet there's this feeling of like, no, no, no, you're in the traditional cog now of business like the like TV shows are made this way, they look this way, this is the act structure, whatever. I love something singular. I love something experimental. I love doing something that feels fucked up. If I have the strength or you know, uh, vision to like allow myself to do that again is the question because you have to be I have to find something within me that is comfortable looking at all of those faces again that are going like and just going like, yeah, it is gonna work.

• 1:37:53Drew Afualo?

  And that's the pitch.

• 1:37:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, but something that helps is like one little mantra that that I went back to a lot with pen fifteen was no pressure, just purpose.

• 1:38:03Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 1:38:05Speaker 00

  Something that helped. And then also art being subjective.

• 1:38:07Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:08Speaker 00

  And why can't I make something bad?

• 1:38:10Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:11Speaker 00

  Why can't I get paid to make something bad?

• 1:38:13Drew Afualo?

  For real.

• 1:38:14Speaker 00

  Um, and yeah, those are sort of the little, my little like mind places that I go sometimes to like help me. What do you do?

• 1:38:24Drew Afualo?

  I mean, I'm, I feel like I'm new, I'm so new to that world. Like, that's why I was asking selfishly again.

• 1:38:30Speaker 00

  Because I feel. I mean, you're you've like in this world, you've like really charted your own path.

• 1:38:35Drew Afualo?

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:38:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, thank you. I feel like i- in this specific world, I feel like it's a very like.

• 1:38:42Drew Afualo?

  I think as as like ironic or like corny as it sounds like I really need to get off my fucking phone like that that's what re inspires me. Even when I talked to Alana Glazer. Getting off of it? Yeah, getting off of it for real and not looking at it and like going and doing real life things like. Alana Glazer when she was on my on this show, she told me like. I realized that I have to like go live life like in order to to continue to be a creative, I have to go live life and like she went had a baby. And then came back, right? And so she was like. I realize if you continue to be an artist throughout your life, like you have to go live life in order to like. Write again in order to create something new like. Uh it's something that you have to. Prioritize as a creative like is to continue to.

• 1:39:25Drew Afualo?

  Live my life in real life in real time and have experiences so I can draw from something otherwise you have nothing to pull from. And she's like, or you just keep revisiting the same wells like and then it it creates burnout because you're like, I don't have anything else. I don't have anything else to give. And it was the same thing I I'm sure like. Uh the with her like with Broad City as it was for Penn, which is like. I gave this my everything like all I wanted was for this to do well and it did. And then now it's like, well, now what like now and she was telling me after Broad City, I was like, well, like I I I already wrote all my shit like this was my real life. Yeah. This was my real life. Yeah. I put it all in there. So like, what am I supposed to do? And she was like, then I realized I have to go live life like I have to like go. I love that. And continue to do so. And that's where I do want to say too, before we wrap, I want to say like. I think you are incredible, you and Maya together especially, but.

• 1:40:10Drew Afualo?

  Like you really did do something completely different and new and fun and amazing and so deep. It had so many layers. But that's where I will say you are braver than me in that regard, because that's that's where I'm feeling inspired by you to be courageous. Because it it really does. When you're in this now and the way I came up through the internet. It's like I have to do something that works like I have to do something that hits like that's how I feel about the writing process. It's like I have to create something that they're gonna buy. I have to create something that people are gonna love immediately, like people online are gonna love immediately. And it uh gives me paralysis like a little bit because I don't wanna. I don't wanna, obviously, I think flopping is just part of it like when you when you make bad shit, like you said, like which bad art is just as important.

• 1:40:51Drew Afualo?

  But I think the way that you were describing, looking at it where it's like, I, I'm gonna make something that I love and artist's objective. And like, the people who get it will get it.

• 1:41:01Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41:02Drew Afualo?

  And if not, at least I fucking did it. And I did it the way I wanted.

• 1:41:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:41:06Drew Afualo?

  Right? And so I think that's, you are way braver than me in that, and I'm gonna pull from that.

• 1:41:10Speaker 00

  You're doing it.

• 1:41:10Drew Afualo?

  As I continue to write, yeah.

• 1:41:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:12Drew Afualo?

  And I, and many of my friends who do have done what you've done too, so successfully as well, have told me like, sometimes you gotta write your own shit. Like, auditioning is great and getting cast is awesome, but sometimes, you gotta do it yourself. And I really do think I'm gonna have to do that. But I'm happy about it, and I feel very inspired by you in this conversation.

• 1:41:30Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you, same.

• 1:41:31Drew Afualo?

  And I can only hope to emulate even an ounce of the genius that is Pen15. I think you are so amazing, and I think Maya's as well, but I love your show, and I think you're incredible.

• 1:41:41Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:41:41Drew Afualo?

  So thank you for coming on the show.

• 1:41:42Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for having me, this has been so amazing.

• 1:41:44Drew Afualo?

  It's been what a blast talking to you.

• 1:41:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, blast.

• 1:41:46Drew Afualo?

  You're a hoot.

• 1:41:46Speaker 00

  You are.

• 1:41:48Drew Afualo?

  I spilled water on myself also. Thank you all so much for co- joining us on this episode of the Comment Section Show. Thank you so much to my amazing guest, Anna Konkle, for maybe the one or two people that were born in the 2000s that maybe have never been able to follow you, where can they follow you?

• 1:42:03Speaker 00

  Uh, I think my, this is very embarrassing, back to the social media problem. Um, I think it's @AnnaRyanConkle.

• 1:42:10Drew Afualo?

  There you go.

• 1:42:10Speaker 00

  On Instagram. And, um, yeah, and my, my little memoir that's out is called The Sane One.

• 1:42:16Drew Afualo?

  Yes!

• 1:42:16Speaker 00

  And, yeah, that's it.

• 1:42:18Drew Afualo?

  Amazing, and ob- obviously you can check out Pen15.

• 1:42:21Speaker 00

  And Pen15 is on your list.

• 1:42:22Drew Afualo?

  If you'd like, and if you'd love to, but I think you're incredible and amazing, thank you so much for coming.

• 1:42:26Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:42:26Drew Afualo?

  And thank you for inspiring all of us today, all of us writers in the room, obviously, we have a writer's room going in here. And we can only hope to be picked up soon.

• 1:42:33Speaker 00

  Woo!

• 1:42:34Drew Afualo?

  Hopefully, manifesting.

• 1:42:35Speaker 00

  I wanna hear so much more about that.

• 1:42:36Drew Afualo?

  Oh my gosh, I know, I, and I will fill you in.

• 1:42:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:42:38Drew Afualo?

  On all the details.

• 1:42:39Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:42:39Drew Afualo?

  But thank you all so much for joining us, thank you so much, my amazing guest, Anna Konkle. Don't forget, new episodes of the Comment Section drop every Wednesday, and you can stream the audio on all streaming audio channels, I guess, me forgetting now that we changed the outro, and you can also find us on YouTube at the Comment Section Pod. Thank you all so much for joining us, thank you so much, my amazing guests, and I'll see you next week, bye!