Fame Isn’t Everything: The Pressure To Be A Good Artist And Content Creator With Brittany Darby

 

Social media has made it so easy for anyone to be viral. With apps like TikTok, there is so much content that it’s hard to find the good ones. Everyone thinks they can be a star, but if you’re doing what you’re doing for fame instead of the art, then it’s going to be difficult to succeed. People need to have the motivation to understand that not everything has to go viral. Join your hosts, Jason Wrobel and Whitney Lauritsen with their guest, Brittany Darby, on what it takes to be a content creator. Brittany is a Los Angeles-based creative producer and digital creator. She is on a mission to teach entertainment industry realism to up-and-coming content creators. Join in the conversation to learn how you can be an excellent artist and not worry so much about the clicks and likes. Learn what it takes today!

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Fame Isn’t Everything: The Pressure To Be A Good Artist And Content Creator With Brittany Darby

We have the amazing Brittany as our guest. I’m excited about this because I’ve been following her on TikTok for quite some time. We were emailing back and forth after she agreed to come on the show. She recommended a book that I had not heard of so I started reading it. It’s called Death of the Artist. I feel like it is such an amazing place to begin this episode with because of what we intend to discuss. I want to share at least one quote from it to start with which is, “First, we had fast food then we had fast fashion. Now, we have fast art, music, writing, video, photography, design and illustration made cheaply and consumed in haste.”

This ties into this episode because we’re going to talk about the entertainment industry. What it’s like to be a content creator, the ups and downs of those worlds, how they intersect and how they’re different from one another. We’ll talk about comparisons, expectations, maybe body standards and all of these things that tie into our relationship with entertainment and media whether we are the consumer or the creator. Brittany, I’m curious for you, what is it about this book that resonated with you? Why was it top of mind? Is it one of your favorite resources on the subject matter? When did you read it?

I’m someone who, even though I’m a naturally optimistic person, would love to know the real things. I want to know what’s going on. This book came across my Amazon recommended list and the name was provocative so I was like, “Are the arts dying?” I’ve been working in the entertainment industry since I’m in my twenties and I’ve seen a lot of changes. I’m pessimistic in my screenwriting groups. We’re like, “This is dying.” I didn’t realize that it had some data behind it. This wasn’t us being pessimistic writers on Twitter.

The more I read the book, the more lightbulbs went off in my head and understanding, “This is going on. I’m experiencing this. I see this happening.” I come from a film TV background, specifically independent non-studio films. I’ve seen many changes happen in that world. I understand them from working in it but not necessarily the market dynamics. The more I read this book, I understood not only what was going on in my own career but what I was seeing going on with content creators. It helped me put into words a disconnect that I was seeing happening that was hard for me to explain to people. It’s definitely become a favorite.

That makes so much sense why I’m drawn to you. Both Jason and I have backgrounds in entertainment. For me, I thought that that was going to be my whole career. It seemed to make a transition of some sort because when I was in film school, we didn’t have YouTube. When I was growing up, I was doing a lot of the things that I’m doing now but not digitally. I was doing them on VHS tapes, Hi8 tapes and eventually, film to an extent of recording, documenting my life and making journals.

When YouTube came up, it was like, “This is what I’m already doing. This is exciting.” As I was reflecting on what you post on TikTok and the things you want to talk about, plus that book. Some things feel the same and some things feel different. There’s a lot of confusion. What I mean by things that feel the same is when I look back on all these short video projects I would make as a teenager and in college, that’s not far off from what people do on platforms like TikTok. The big difference is that I was doing that for myself, family and friends. It was satisfying, Brittany.

I’m curious if you were doing those things, to hear more about what led you to your career. Jason was doing those things. I’m looking at these old VHS tapes or whatever medium I transfer them to. It’s similar to what I see people posting on TikTok and I was surprised by that. I thought, “This is the standard thing that teenagers do.” If you have access to a camera, which most people do these days when I was growing up, it’s not as common but still fairly common. You pick up the camera and your document with your friends. Maybe make some skits. All that stuff we’ve seen evolve on platforms like Vine and TikTok.

Now, it’s a form of expression but the big difference is now there’s an opportunity to make money and to become famous. That makes it incredibly confusing. I feel grateful not to be a teenager during this time because if I had the same state of mind that I did when I was a teenager, art would feel insanely confusing. I feel like I would have little sense of identity. That’s something that I want to discuss with you, too. I see you coming up in your amazing commentary on TikTok and how you explore things from a data and experience perspective.

It seems like you’re trying to support people that are confused. That’s part of what I see in your channel. You’re addressing the things that people are struggling with and verbalizing themselves but they don’t have the data or they’re not looking at it from the same perspective as you are. You’re bringing in that research and that experience. I’m curious behind the scenes, you must be seeing even more than you have time to post about. As you’re scrolling through your TikTok feed, I’m sure you’re seeing a lot of confused teenagers, too.

They see people who are succeeding, not the people who are failing. Click To Tweet

Let’s say generationally, you’re seeing confused Gen Z but also Millennials and maybe some Gen X-ers like Jason and an older generation that are on TikTok. It’s interesting to see how the different generations are struggling with this. Where we have the same struggles and where our struggles are different. I’m curious what are the common challenges that you’re noticing through people’s expressions on TikTok? Where do you think it’s going? If you’re feeling pessimistic about it, do you think that TikTok is good or is it going in a dangerous direction for mental health?

For one, as you were talking about being a teenager and creating, I did a lot of the same things. I was a writer and I had a never-ending book that I was writing in elementary school. The biggest difference between that time and now is I wasn’t trying to be good if that makes sense. I was just making stuff and writing. Where I feel terrible for the kids now is that they feel pressure not to create but to be good at 17 and 18. That’s where I agree that I’m not jealous of these kids at a certain point because I know for a fact that I created a lot of shitty work. I felt free to do that. As someone now, I look back and say, “That was shitty,” but at the time, I honestly wasn’t even thinking of that. I decided, “This little video I directed was shitty. Maybe I’m not a director. Maybe that’s not my thing.” I then wrote things that I decided I loved writing and I kept going with it. I then found out I love organizing so I started going more into producing.

What’s the most damaging for a lot of people creating on TikTok is the pressure not to create but to be good. Not just to be good but be good enough to go viral and then not to be good enough to go viral but good enough to get paid. What’s tough for me to watch people do is have expectations that they’re going to pick TikTok up and be good at, learn the ins and outs of it quickly and then be successful on it long-term. There’s no other realm in the entertainment industry where you’re going to learn a skill, do the skill, be good at the skill and then monetize the skill. There’s nothing else that works like that.

What’s damaging to people is that people are picking up on these apps like TikTok and YouTube and they see the survivorship bias. They see the people who are successful all the time. They don’t see how many people are failing. That’s where I feel bad for people because as someone comes into the entertainment industry, I see a lot of failures. I saw many people fail and some people say, “I went into porn because I failed at TV writing.” These are real-life stories. This is what it is. This is how most people go into making infomercials. No one decided that they wanted to work at TMZ and you ended up working at a place like that. People have such an overblown expectation of success when in reality. The entertainment industry has such a high rate of failure. I wish people would understand that more and not take it personally because people do.

What comes up for me is this notion that, on some level, is accurate but also misleading and somewhat predatory. It’s the notion that we see not only in the entertainment industry but also in wellness, coaching, spirituality, self-help or whatever the fuck you want to call it. It’s this idea that everyone can be amazing at what they do. It’s almost this pseudo childlike psychological programming. Almost like a parent is like, “No baby. Everything you do turns to gold. You’re the greatest ever.”

When I was growing up and I was playing soccer, I sucked at soccer and I hated soccer. Even if my mom would try and blow smoke, I’m like, “Mom, I know damn well I’m not good. I love you and I know you’re trying to encourage but I know I suck.” As adults, the danger is especially in entertainment because we’re talking about that, it’s this tale as old as time. This person from small-town Iowa who thinks they’re the most talented, beautiful, unique person says, “Fuck this small town in Iowa. I’m going to move out to LA or New York and I’m going to make it. I’m going to show everyone in my small town that they were wrong about me. I’m going to be a star. I’m going to be this and that.”

How many millions of human beings over the years have done that in LA and New York? We don’t need to recant those tales. The danger is that everyone thinks they can be a star. On one hand, I’m in a bit of an interesting perspective conundrum because I like social media and all the digital technology. In the sense that if I go to Guitar Center and get all the right equipment, I could cut an album out of my house. There was freedom as artists with the technology, the platforms that are making it available. It’s making it hard to find good people in certain instances because there’s so much content and many fucking people are doing it.

I’m like you, Brittany. I’m hopeful but pessimistic as hell. It’s like, “Statistically, you’re not going to make it.” I’m not saying, “Don’t go for it.” To your point where you said, Britt, about having your expectations tempered, don’t go in thinking you’re shit that you’re God’s gift. Do your art. Do it for your reasons. If you’re doing it to be famous, rich and successful, you’re probably going to get knocked on your ass. It becomes if fame, wealth and power are not the motivation. What’s a more sustainable motivation or rather a more soulful motivation than that?

Maybe some people realize they don’t even want to do the art anymore if they don’t get rich, famous or successful because that was their only motivation. I’m sure you see that a lot. In a way, it weeds out a lot of people if they realize they’re not going to get all that stuff handed to them. The question I go back to is, “What is the motivation?” I’m putting it back to you, Brittany, as a writer, as an artist, what has kept you going?

 

It’s funny you say that because I remember walking into one of my first internships. On the first day, everyone looked at me. When I say everyone, I mean the producer-in-charge and her assistant. They said, “Why are you here?” I said, “I want to write. I want to learn how to be a producer or learn how to write.” They said, “How much money do you care to make?” I said, “I’m 21 so I haven’t thought about it.” They said, “Good. Don’t think about it because the likelihood that you’re going to get rich and famous because of this is unlikely. I’m glad you’re here because you like to write.”

It’s important to say I’m from Southern California. I’m from LA. This is my home. That being said, I have never not been around people who work in the entertainment industry. In my high school, some people were working on Disney Channel and they were not rich. They were normal like us. They wore the same clothes we did. We saw them on TV but there was no material difference between them and me. Even from my formative years, I never had the impression that most people in the entertainment industry lived differently than I did. My mom had a friend who was a camera operator. One of her friends became a singer at one point. I know famous people but it’s a company town so you’re going to know people who work in a company like this.

That being said, where I have a disconnect with a lot of people on the internet is that I have always viewed entertainment in a realistic way. Some people grew up in Pittsburgh around steel companies and in Detroit around car companies. I grew up in LA around the entertainment industry so it’s not weird to me. That’s where TikTok has been a weird experience for me, to be honest. It seems so average to me. This is normal. I’m aware of the reality of the entertainment industry and it blows my mind that people don’t know. That’s where I have a disconnect, where I have to step back and learn what is fantasy and what is reality. I’m a little bit disconnected from the fantasy.

Of course, I have a hope that I’m going to make a livable wage in the entertainment industry and live an upper-middle-class life but I’ve never had the impression that I’m going to get rich doing this. Glen Mazzara who was the Creator of The Walking Dead does well for himself but he is not a millionaire. You can look at his IMDb. He’s not necessarily banking shows every season. Most showrunners aren’t. That’s not the nature of the industry. The difference in not knowing that is that you’re looking for different expectations. You’re looking at Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise. You’re like, “That’s what I’m going to do,” but it’s like, “No.”

One thing that irritates me on TikTok, even just thinking about it is making me annoyed, is when people post, “Why haven’t I gone viral?” They’ll either say that about themselves or they’ll write it in the comments. There’s so much focus on going viral on TikTok. Speaking of expectations, part of that is because, unlike other platforms, for the most part, your chances of going viral on TikTok are higher but that doesn’t mean that anything great is going to happen. I’ve had videos go viral or whatever you want to call that and it didn’t do much.

I remember I had one video go over a million views fairly quickly, which is an unusual experience for me. I felt a bit depressed about it because as it was happening. There’s part of my brain that has been conditioned to believe that going viral is going to be something important and significant. I had people for weeks congratulating me for that. I thought, “Why is having a viral video something to be congratulated? Why do you get a pat on the back when you have a viral video?” You didn’t even intend to go viral because you can’t. It’s because we have been conditioned to believe that going viral is this huge achievement but what does that achievement even mean?

It left me feeling empty inside because nothing came of it except for those congratulations. I feel that way so much about the entertainment industry once I moved to Los Angeles after growing up, thinking all those things from the outsider’s perspective, Brittany and Jason had a similar experience. I was all the way on the other side of the country growing up with this idea that LA is the place to be to make it. I remember coming to Hollywood for the first time. That experience many people have when they see the walk of fame and they’re in this atmosphere of the Hollywood sign. There’s this feeling of, “It’s exciting and special. Something magical is going to happen here.”

I love living in LA. It hasn’t been that magical experience but that’s okay because there are other benefits to living in Southern California and working in this industry, in production offices and seeing how miserable most people are. To your point, Brittany, even the top people onset or in the office don’t seem that happy regardless of their status or how much money they might be making. They’re thinking about the current project. That ends and they’re on to the next project. As we’ve seen happen through the media, a lot of those people are doing awful things. They’re not necessarily good people.

They get away with it because part of this veil of mystery, mystique and we put so much emphasis on fame and money, collectively, we have turned a blind eye to the awful things that people are doing. I feel like we’re paying more attention. We’re calling people out. We’ve got cancel culture and accountability culture but there’s still that idea. We’re seeing that happen on platforms like TikTok. A lot of young people on TikTok are waiting for their chance to go viral because they still believe that it’s going to change their lives and make them happy.

People have high expectations, but there's a high rate of failure in the entertainment industry. Click To Tweet

There are many things I was thinking of when you were talking. Number one is that the interesting parallel between virality on TikTok. It’s what happens with a lot of musicians when they tour a lot and they’re on stage. You get that dopamine high of that hit. It’s unsustainable. It’s such a high that there’s nothing in real life that can match that high. That’s why some musicians get into drugs because there’s a certain high that they’re missing out on when they get on stage and they get through that approval from their art. That’s why musicians are more susceptible to drug problems because of that dopamine hit to their brain. That works similarly with virality on the internet. You hit that high note, that attention but it’s super unsustainable to maintain that type of thing.

TikTok is the app where you can go viral most often but it’s important to note that it’s because of how it works and it’s supposed to work like that. Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm works on a network effect. You’re going to see what people in your network are connected to. The bigger your network is, the more your content is going to get pushed out. If you have a million followers on Instagram, Facebook, that Facebook is going to use that information to assume that people like your content and push it out more. It’s the network effect.

TikTok uses content buckets. It doesn’t matter how many followers you have. They don’t use that in tallying up if you’re going to get it out. Everyone’s videos have the same chance of going viral. You have a two-hour window when your videos are first posted. If the test group likes it, you get another test group and another two-hour window. That process keeps going as long as people like your video. What it’s important to know is that you can’t predict virality. By the nature of TikTok’s algorithm, you can’t predict if you’re going to go viral or not. That sucks for creators because creators will get that one viral hit and then because of the way our dopamine works in our brain, you’re going to keep trying to get another viral hit.

TikTok is not designed to give you a viral hit every time unless you’re a super account but that’s a different conversation. For the bulk of accounts, you’re not designed to go viral for every hit. TikTok is not going to let you. One of the important things to know about TikTok is that TikTok needs content. It’s the content app. If people aren’t making content, they can’t keep you on the app. That’s the basic business model. It’s important to give creators incentives to keep creating.

The biggest incentive you can give somebody is an addictive model. People can call it gamification, which is what they call it in tech a lot because it sounds a lot nicer. You can call it a gamified model. They’ll take that gamification. You get a viral hit. Your brain says, “I like this.” You will keep making another video possibly in that same content. You’re going to keep going until you get another viral hit but you may not get another one. How TikTok works are they’ll try to give you more viral hits.

The point in the matter is that the algorithm is made to keep content creators making content. That’s important to understand because this is different than content creators making their own content for YouTube and getting a kickback or making something they love. This is not that. This is an encouragement to keep creating with little kickback to creators. That’s where personally have a concern with TikTok. I don’t necessarily advise people to invest so much of their content creation time there.

One thing this brings up for me is how tempting it is as an artist to follow the trends or follow what is popular or what’s viral. A lot of people start perhaps with not necessarily the intention to make content because people will like it. I’m sure there’s a ton of people who want popularity, fame, influence and all those things. What I’ve seen with a lot of people and the struggle that I often deal with too and other artist friends is the line between making your art for yourself. It’s like what you were saying, Brittany. When you were a young lady, you were creating and you weren’t doing it for any other reason than to do it. It’s like, “This sucks but I’m creating to create.”

When you have something go viral, a hit record, a hit TV show, we could give a million examples here. It’s tempting, “I’m going to hit that note over and over or try and recreate that note in the same way.” Back in the day on YouTube, we would meet different content creators and we’re like, “You’re the dude that made that video that got 50 million views.” They then try and do part 2 or 3. It would never do anywhere near as good as that first one. They’d be like, “I did this follow-up. We had the same theme, the same character.”

One that comes to my mind, Whitney, is Bane Cat. It’s this YouTube videos where a guy dresses his cat. God bless that video. We met the guy who made it and he’s trying to duplicate that ballistic success of that first video but he couldn’t do it. The temptation and the danger is we try and replicate that success because of the dopamine. What are we sacrificing in that process? Oftentimes, we sacrifice a ton of authenticity because we’re trying to make art to get the likes, hits and dopamine. We’re not necessarily creating from the most authentic place when we keep chasing that.

 

It’s damn tempting to do it, isn’t it? We get that first taste of fame depending on how you set up, in YouTube, your AdSense. You might be making a pretty penny if you get 50 million views. “I got to make that money.” It’s easy to lose our true instincts, our deeper, authentic sense of the art we’re putting out. We’re almost trying to gamify it. I’m trying to gamify the system. I’m trying to get that other 50-million-view video.

The other part of this, too, is sponsorship. Everybody’s like, “I want to be an influencer so I can get brand deals.” The thing with brand deals, oftentimes, you also lose your authenticity because now you’re doing what the brand wants you to do. You’re making money. I’m not assuming that. You’re making money as an artist. In my experience and many friends of mine, there’s almost a resentment that sets in because you lose part of yourself trying to get paid and do what the brand wants you to do. My reality is everyone wants brand deals, “You get free sneakers, free jackets and $5,000 a month.” It’s not necessarily what you think it is.

A hard to swallow pill that people will have to accept in that case is they are not being an artist. I know this is going to be hard to hear. When you were making commercial content for a brand, you are now doing commercial work. It stopped being art. People don’t want to hear that because it sounds better, “I’m a free artist.” Art is not taking brand deals. That is something else. That is commissioned work but it is not the pure essence of being an artist. Everyone has a different view of art school and film school. Where people miss out on skipping a learning process with professionals is having a come-to-Jesus moment where people give them definitions of terms.

In a typography class that I took, the professor hammered in the difference between art and design. If you’re making art then the person who is looking at the art can take whatever meaning they want. When we all look at Mona Lisa, we all genuinely have different views of what that painting represents. The point of the Mona Lisa is not to have a unified view. The Apple logo is designed. That is not art. The Apple logo is supposed to communicate something distinct, something direct. Once you understand the difference between those two things, you start to understand what you’re doing.

What a lot of people don’t understand is what they are doing. When I am writing a TV show, that’s a different piece of art than if I am writing a commercial for AT&T. If you’re writing a commercial for AT&T, you have an expectation that AT&T has to improve every single word. They’re paying for the commercial. This commercial would not exist without AT&T paying for it. The real situation is you got hired to write an AT&T script. It might be cute and creative but at the end of the day, AT&T is funding it so it can sell a product. That’s the clarity in the commercial world.

Where people like influencers have a lack of clarity is they’re not understanding their job. When you’re taking a brand deal, you’re selling a product. I know it might sound sad that you can’t be your authentic self but you have signed up to sell a product. You’re using your authentic self but you’re blurring the line between yourself and a commercial actor. A lot of people don’t understand that that’s what they are doing to themselves. When AT&T goes to hire a commercial actor and gives them a script and says, “Go pretend to be Bob.” That actor is being Bob in that commercial and then they’re going to go home and live their actual lives.

What influencers are doing is they’re becoming commercial actors alongside their real life. You’re creating a complicated relationship within yourself and the work that you’re doing because you’re not doing art. It sucks because that’s what people want to hear in what they’re doing. By the nature of what you’re doing, it’s not art when it’s supposed to communicate something very specific to an audience. That’s design. That’s commercial work.

What I would hope for people is to take a step back and to learn what it is that they’re doing. Learn what it is that you have asked yourself to do in a job. A brand is not giving you money because you’re cute. They’re giving you money because they’re trying to connect with an audience that you have acquired. That’s a straightforward thing. A lot of people get confused like, “I want brand deals. I want this and I want that.” I’m like, “Why don’t you go be a commercial actor? You’ll get paid more and you’ll get paid more consistently. There’s a union. You can go home after work. You don’t have to maintain a social media presence. There’s plenty of people who do that. If your only goal is to get brand deals, you can do that.”

There’s a lot of broke artists. Artists don’t make money like that. Are you an artist or are you a commercial actor? Are you a commercial sponsor? Once people have an honest discussion with themselves. They will begin to understand what it is they’re doing. Their frustrations will come into view because people are less frustrated about the work they have to do. The brands are not the problem, in my opinion. The brand deals are not the issue. The issue that a lot of people are having is they need some more clarity on what their relationship to those brand deals is.

The biggest incentive you can give people is an addictive, gamified model. Click To Tweet

This is giving me many a-ha moments because I reflect on this often in terms of where I fit in. It sometimes feels confusing. Going back to what I was saying earlier, I’ve noticed the nuances and the differences between how different generations approach this work. Someone who’s a Gen Z is growing up with social media. This is part of their whole life and identity. A lot of their identity has been shaped through social media, which I have a lot of concerns about from a mental health standpoint. It’s natural for them to be sharing their lives online.

It felt natural, exciting, enticing for me to pick up a video camera when I was a teenager but I wasn’t sharing it with thousands or maybe millions of people. It wasn’t public in that sense. It was private and controlled. That self-expression we talked about, the different forms of art. Unfortunately, because social media is that main common outlet for people, they get on there and they’re sharing. They don’t even understand how this works. We see these documentaries coming up like The Social Dilemma and Childhood 2.0. They’re talking about how social media is made.

This is part of this conversation. Even adults don’t fully understand social media. The way you broke down TikTok, Brittany, makes so much sense. If you’re used to the way that Facebook and Instagram work, you have been conditioned to think, “That’s the way Tik Tok is going to work, too.” People then feel depressed when their videos don’t go viral. The shifts that have happened in our culture around our addiction to validation through social media and how people have shaped the way they appear online, even if it’s not for their professional careers. The average person who’s using social media is getting something out of it without fully understanding what’s happening and how they’re being manipulated.

We’re getting more transparency around advertisements and tracking. What about all these years where we’ve been tracked and manipulated by advertisements? It’s a huge concern for me from a mental health standpoint. We then get into the creator side. To your point, Brittany, there’s still not enough education and transparency about what it means to be an influencer. The a-ha moment for me is I have a little bit more clarity because I’ve been doing it for so long. I’ve had a chance to experiment. I’ve had a chance to watch it a little bit from the outside as it’s been evolved. I see many people being influenced.

There’s also that documentary, Fake Famous. You watch that and you would think that would be concerning for people. Honestly, Fake Famous is showing what’s happening and what people are doing without fully understanding what it is that they’re doing. It’s this superficial awareness. to Jason’s point, the cookie-cutter model that not only influencers take but brands also take. For example, there’s a brand that I love. I’ve been watching them evolve since the beginning. I saw their social media take a turn. It feels like it’s the wrong choice for them, for me, at least. They’re trying to appeal to the masses. They’re working with influencers who don’t seem to know themselves. They’re working with influencers who are doing the cookie-cutter things and selling their appearance and audience.

Not just this one but many brands are taking that cookie-cutter approach to work with influencers and it can perpetuate itself. The brands think, “These are the type of photos and videos we need to market ourselves. We need to hire this type of influencer or work with this type of influencer.” Those influencers think, “I have to be a certain way to work with the brands.” It feels like somebody has got to interject and be like, “It doesn’t need to be done this way.” To your point, Brittany, it’s very confusing if you’re an artist, if you started on social media to express yourself because the natural inclination is to try to make money. You see other people making money from it.

I know, Brittany, you read that episode we did about bundle sales. Jason and I were talking about our experiences being in this group of 60-plus influencers who are all selling their products and how there was this bizarre cookie-cutter way of business that didn’t make sense, Brittany. The people that started the bundle sale are copying what somebody else did. I’ve noticed this over and over again with influencers and brands. Most people using social media are copying what somebody else did.

A lot of it goes back to people like Gary Vee. He sets a standard and everyone’s like, “Gary Vee says I should do it this way. I’m going to do it this way.” Somebody else goes, “It’s so and so did it this way and had success.” I’m not blaming Gary Vee. I’m saying he’s ahead of his time with a lot of things. The reason I’m on TikTok is because of Gary Vee. How many people got on TikTok because Gary Vee said to do it, myself included? You get on there and you’re following someone’s advice.

To your point, Brittany, there’s no guidebook to it. You also said in one of your emails to me that it would be unacceptable in nearly any other profession, “No one would hire a part-time plumber who learned via YouTube.” I love that quote from you. It’s well-articulated. Brands are hiring influencers who are copying other influencers who are copying something that some guru said years ago that probably doesn’t even work anymore. No wonder there are many failures. No wonder many people are confused and losing their identity and having mental health issues because nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing. There are no guidelines around it. I can see all of us crashing to the ground if we don’t get our act together.

 

If AT&T is paying to make a commercial, they’re spending $3 million on one commercial. They then have to spend money to place it on X, Y and Z networks. Influencer marketing will never cost that much. It’s important for people to understand that influencer marketing compared to traditional advertising will never cost that much. Brands throwing money at influencers in the way you’re describing doesn’t cost them as much money as you think it does compare to the other verticals they have in advertising. Why it’s important to mention that is because when your exposure to the marketing industry is as an influencer, you’re not understanding the entire ecosystem of what you’re doing. You’re looking at it like, “This brand paid me $5,000. They paid these twenty people $5,000.” That’s still under $50,000. You’re doing great.”

When I was working and running an influencer marketing program at a cannabis company I worked in, spending $10,000 on a marketing campaign was cheap. That’s like, “We saved money.” To that influencer, that’s a lot of money. It’s important to understand that the money and balance between traditional advertising and influencer marketing mean brands should do better with influencers. If influencers don’t work out, there are still commercials, magazines, ad rolls on podcasts. There are still other forms of marketing.

It’s not to say that influencers shouldn’t feel important but they should understand they’re part of a larger ecosystem. It’s a larger ecosystem of marketing that exists. If they weren’t using influencers, they would use actresses, models and stuff like that. You’re making a point that people don’t know what they’re doing and the lay of their land. One of the dangerous things with social media and how easy it’s made people jump into it is that I encourage people to push past an education point.

When I made that quote about how you wouldn’t hire a part-time plumber, I was thinking of the fact that I had an interview for a podcast producer. I’ve produced content before but I haven’t edited the podcast so she wasn’t interested in hiring me. I understood that point-blank. There’s no issue with that. I have an understanding that it’s a big gamble. It’s a big risk to take on someone who is not fully aware of what they’re doing. There’s a lot of influencers who jump in.

The companies I have specific issues with are Apple, YouTube and then Google after they bought YouTube. There was such a way that Apple made their products and everyone can do it. Everyone is using a MacBook Pro and you can make a whole YouTube video. Not just Canon but there was an entire push into making prosumer cameras, it’s what they call them at first and then dropped the prosumer and called them consumer and making technology available. It was a big market in the early 2000s to push this prosumer equipment onto people.

Where that made a disconnect is a lot of people are jumping into something. One, they don’t feel like they need more education. They wonder if they need more education. Two, they don’t go forth and seek it. What I see on TikTok a lot are many people who are like, “I’ve been shadow-banned. I’m not getting views.” One, TikTok is made like that but many people don’t take the time to go learn that because they don’t feel like they have to. Two, a lot of people don’t consider if they’re making good content. I know that sounds harsh. Sometimes you’re not making the type of content that’s going to go viral.

The companies made these things so easy that people rush to jump in to do them. It’s easy to use a Mac book. It’s easy to pull up and make a video, edit it and upload it to YouTube. There’s not a lot of friction in that process. It’s because of that lack of friction, people are like “It’s easy.” They then look at someone who’s big on YouTube and getting brand deals like, “I can do this.” The ease of the tools made it hard for people to grasp but they need to learn how to use them if that makes sense.

That reminds me of another quote from The Death of The Artist. There are two parts. One, a woman named Molly Crabapple said, “Winning does not scale. It’s easy to say that if people are good enough, work hard enough, ask enough, believe enough then they will be successful. That’s a lie because it’s easy to think that it’s easy once you’ve made it. If you make good art, put your stuff out there, make your own rules, ask, are reassuring nuggets that have become a cottage industry especially among artists who have managed to find success amid the new conditions. There’s the myth that if you don’t succeed, it’s your own fault. It is not only a form of victim-blaming but it makes the classic American mistake of seeing economics as an individual rather than a systematic term. The myth that if you don’t succeed wasn’t meant to be, which of course, is a circular argument.” When you look at this phrasing, it’s like, “Wow.” You see this so much on TikTok. People blame themselves without understanding the actual system, to your point.

In a way, it weaponizes hope in the sense that, “You’re a pretty good guitar player.” Prince made it. It’s like, “What the hell? Tom Brady is a real good football player. You should keep going. You got a good arm, kid. You’re a pretty good tennis player. Venus Williams did it. You could, too.” It weaponizes hope in the sense that companies, coaches, businesses and advertisers want to convince you that you can be rich and famous too. It’s true in that sense. They dangle the possibility of fame, money, riches, success and influence if we keep going.

Influencers have a lack of clarity because they don't understand their job. Click To Tweet

People get taken advantage of like crazy, not just in this town in LA but in general if that’s your motivation. It reminds me of one of the videos I saw on your TikTok channel, Brittany. You did a video about this photographer in New York who did not accept money for his art. I will use the word art because it was. He shot people on the street in their fashion. It appeared that it was like a CNBC thing. People wanted to dress up in their fanciest, most dope duds because they knew this guy would be taking pictures of them.

You also mentioned that he lived a destitute lifestyle. He lived in his studio in New York City. It goes against everything we’ve been conditioned to believe, which is the only way you’re going to be seen as a success is if you massively and grandly monetize your vocation as an artist. It reminds me of what Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in her book, Big Magic. The danger of you trying to force your art to make you money is you strangle the life and the authenticity out of it. Why do you demand your art make money for you? When the fuck did that become a rule? There are no rules.

For me, it goes back to almost this schizophrenic mentality we have in American culture. I’m sure there are other cultures around the world that feel this way. Let’s say you’re a kid and you’re like, “Mom, I want to be a writer. I want to be a TV host, a musician, a chef.” The typical response in a lot of families is like, “How are you going to make money out of that?” It’s the classic conversation with the parents. “You should be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a plumber.”

In our culture, we vilify artists for being destitute, broke and struggling but if you happen to be Lady Gaga, “Congrats, Lady Gaga. We celebrate you. You are now a deity. We now make you God-like.” Here’s a question, “If Lady Gaga wasn’t rich and famous, would we be making her God-like?” Probably not. I’m not taking anything away. She’s a tremendously talented musician. The only reason that we celebrate them is that they are rich, famous and successful. What about the supremely radically talented, soulful artists that never reach those levels? Will we vilify them? “You picked a hard road.” To me, it’s a schizophrenic relationship we have with artists where we’re only going to celebrate you if you’re rich and successful. If you’re not, we kick you to the proverbial gutter a little bit. I can’t stand that part of our culture.

It’s not that far off from social media accounts, too. Look at how we treat people that have a ton of followers. All three of us know from the LA scene that if you’re rich and famous or you have a lot of followers, people want to talk to you at parties. They want to invite you to parties. They want to give you things. It’s the sickening thing because it ties into our core desire to be accepted, loved and validated. You see all these people getting all that attention that you want. That’s a huge thing that’s happened in influencer culture.

People see someone like Charli D’Amelio on TikTok. Especially the younger kids on TikTok, they’re like, “If I dress like her, dance like her, make videos like her, maybe I too can make that much money, get that much attention, be invited to the parties and get the role.” Addison Rae, too. Especially we see what’s happened with her career and getting TV movie deals and songs and hanging out with the Kardashian’s. It’s like, “She started on TikTok. Maybe if I follow in her footsteps, I can have those things as well.” It’s unsettling but we’ve been seeing this happen. To your point, Jason, most of our lives of celebrities in the classical traditional fame, the classic version of celebrity versus Instagram celebrity.

The photographer’s name is Bill Cunningham. He’s a street fashion photographer from New York. If your industry is fashion photography, you’ve 100% seen his work. The point that I brought up TikTok was I was talking about why freelancing as an artist is not necessarily better and more freeing than a 9:00 to 5:00. Bill Cunningham was someone who had an ethos of being a fashion photographer but he didn’t get paid for a lot of his work.

It wasn’t until the last few years of his life where Grace Coddington of Vogue forced him to be employed so he can get health insurance. He only took it for that reason. It’s important to consider people like Bill Cunningham because he’s an artist in every sense of the word. His work was published in a lot of places. He’s in Vogue. He had a column in the New York Times for years. It’s not like his work didn’t get out there. It’s important to understand that his relationship to his work mattered.

When Instagram, the social media generation has taken over, people have lost intimacy with their work. Instead of being intimate with their work, their work is between themselves and the audience. Bill didn’t consider the audience because he didn’t have to because he shot for himself and then people did what they wanted with the photos. It’s important to understand stories like that because we still have a choice. Social media exists but everyone has a choice still to define their relationship with their art.

 

To a big point, people who are artists have to ask themselves, “Is it worth it to make money with my art?” From my perspective, I am a writer but I don’t choose to make money that way. I do not choose to make money as a writer. I want to be a good writer. It’s hard to be a good writer when you’re a working writer. It is a fact of the matter. I wanted to talk about fame especially when people look for money. The reason why a celebrity is attractive is that it’s getting people’s approval without asking their permission. It’s important to understand that.

Lady Gaga is an extreme version of herself and didn’t have to ask anyone to do it. Stefani Germanotta isn’t there. Who is Stefani? That real person’s not there. It’s Lady Gaga. It’s the power of the fact that she created a character out of her being and perform that character. Not only does that character exist but that character also has a name, a wardrobe, a smell I’m sure. It has a way that Lady Gaga sounds. What people are attracted to is that she’s a weird person who wore meat to an award show but people still loved her. People can’t get that type of approval in their real lives.

When we look at someone like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae, they’re getting that from their generation. They’re getting that approval without having to ask people. In fact, people already agreed without asking. They have two of the biggest followings on TikTok. That’s where the fame and fortune question gets murky when you’re a celebrity. I also know a lot of rich people but they don’t have approval. You can be rich. You can hit all the notes. People love Kim Kardashian.

People look at celebrities and identify themselves in them. They look at a person and say, “You’ve been through something. I have been through that, too.” They then watch twenty episodes of Keeping Up With the Kardashians and see how they’ve dealt with life. I understand that people think it’s only because they’re rich but the reality of the situation is they have edited a version of their lives that makes people relate to them. It might not be us in this room but it’s the people who watch the show. I know a lot of rich people who you’re not going to watch a reality TV show of their life because they’re not that vulnerable. They’re not that open. They’re not crying on camera and letting you see what happens when their husband cheats on them.

That is a common thing that happens to people. People going through family breakdowns. People may not do it where there was so much money in Calabasas. You see people go through stuff. It’s important to understand what a celebrity is. What sucks in our culture is how much fame and fortune have been put together. I did say in the original Tiktok that, “Famous people aren’t rich and rich people aren’t famous.” It’s easy to look that way. The distinction is important. There are reasons why rich people do the things they do to try to get fame. I don’t care who you are. Everyone is looking for a form of approval. That’s the same thing people are doing on social media, they’re looking for approval.

In our culture, we have fewer ways for people to find that. People have work, families, don’t have social clubs. People aren’t going to church. There are fewer community theaters. There are fewer people having community basketball games. My grandmother had a bowling club and a bridge club, she wouldn’t be on TikTok because she had a robust social circle that was giving her approval. These days, people don’t have those same social structures in their lives. We’re seeking approval in different ways. Social media is the way that we’re able to seek approval.

When it comes to celebrities going there, we see people who are able to get approval without that much work. They are themselves even though a lot of it is a constructed version of themselves, which is attractive. It’s attractive to want to be approved by a massive amount of people. Social media makes that murky because it makes everyone feel like they can access it even though it is something hard to access and maintain.

You said something, Brittany, that I wanted to zoom in on. When you talk about your writing, you said that you are not writing for money. I have two questions, A) Have you written for money? With those projects, what was your internal experience of writing for those things versus writing of your own volition without any intended purpose to make a commercial? B) What we’re talking about flies in the face of what the conventional societal messaging is, which is cashing on your passion, monetizing your talent, fucking side hustle. We’re obsessed with monetizing every God damn thing possible. It’s almost like psychotic. That’s not necessarily a question. I’m curious about your decision to not seek to monetize your writing. At any point, if you had done it for money, what was that like for you?

I’m at a point of not monetizing my writing because I want to be good at it. I’ve taken some time off of writing. It’s not that I feel like I suck but for this period of my life. I want to create without that pressure. I do create well under pressure but there has to be an underlying sense of confidence. That’s why there are certain writers who I know who could crack out an entire TV movie in eight days. I would love to be that confident. Something that I had to learn was that confidence and ability come from a lot of practice. A lot of taking time to write a lot of shitty things and being comfortable with that to get to that point.

People have lost intimacy with their work. With social media, their work is between themselves and the audience. Click To Tweet

I had an experience where I worked for a TV writer and did a little bit of ghostwriting. I had an experience where I co-wrote a TV pilot with a comedian. I enjoy those experiences. Internally, I enjoy the collaboration. TV writing is collaboration. It’s not a solo endeavor and I love that. For me, I didn’t feel the confidence that I wanted to feel like a writer. The benefit of working under professional writers before I took my time out is it’s amazing to me the ease in which certain writers can crack something out.

When people are professional, it’s impressive. It’s impressive to see somebody pull together a complicated thing and something that I know would take me three months and within a couple of days because they have the confidence of experience. I have that perspective of not wanting to monetize everything to death because most of the people I admired didn’t. Most of the people I admire have more projects that are sitting on their computer unproduced than they have on IMDb. The truth is that, even if you’re the greatest batter in the world, you’re not going to hit a home run every time. It’s not statistically possible.

I learned under a writer named Bill Taub who is an old-school writer. He wrote Cagney & Lacey. He had a perspective of writing. It’s going to suck but maybe by page 50, you’ll be good. It’s having that sobering reality of the fact that writing is hard and it’s not hard because you’re not good at it but it’s because writing is hard. For me, it’s to take a step back, respect the craft and become more confident in what I’m doing.

I love you sharing all these perspectives, Brittany. Going back to these fantastical perspectives people have on getting into entertainment, writing, art, whatever it is, it’s hard. Writing a song script is hard. I use the word grind not in the sense of hustle culture but it’s a grind in the sense sometimes I’ll be sitting in front of my keyboard or front of my screen and waiting for something to come out. Something will come out and later on the day, I’ll look back on it and be like, “That was trash.”

The illusion is that everyone’s going to be great. It’s like, “I’ll go to a weekend seminar to become a writer. All of a sudden, I’m a writer. I’m going to go to a coaching seminar and after seven days, I’m suddenly a coach.” It’s like, “No, you’re fucking not. Just because you throw the title in your bio, it does not mean you are that thing.” Some people might be like, “You’re taking away people’s autonomy by saying that. People can be whatever they want.” You can call yourself whatever you want. That’s my perspective on it.

There’s another thing that came as you were talking. I don’t know why it came up. I don’t necessarily expect a response to this comment. I was reading an article about music, improvisation and spontaneous creativity. The quote was from Miles Davis. I’m going to butcher the quote but the essence will be there. He said, “Playing music is 20% technical prowess of playing the notes and 80% is the attitude of the motherfucker playing the notes.” That hit me in a way. It doesn’t mean that we abandon technical mastery or the practice of the craft. At a certain point, you move beyond technique to a degree to put your spirit, your voice and your soul into the thing.

I want to go back to that point you made about people having an intimate relationship with their art. I love that framework, Brittany. That’s going to sit with me for a long time. For me, the more that I commercialized what I was doing, the less connected I felt to it. Whitney knows this. I’ve talked about this ad nauseam. Once the money started coming in, the brand deals came in. The TV series, the things I’ve done, I felt more disconnected from what I was doing, which is schizophrenic in a way. It’s like, “Everyone’s celebrating it and saying, ‘Look at all the money you’re making. You’re successful.’”

Behind the scenes, I’m feeling empty because I feel completely disconnected from what I’m creating and I had lost the intimacy. You dropped so many gold nuggets but that one, in particular, is like Scrooge McDuck-level gold for me. That’s like me swimming in the gold coins. It’s like, “Thank you, Brittany. I need to swim in this intimate pile of gold coins even though I don’t need the gold coins anymore.” Thank you for that is what I’m saying. That was gold.

What did you expect? She’s wearing gold tones. The second Brittany appeared I was like, “She’s going to be dropping some gold nuggets.” I also love your point about it being hard, Brittany. That’s incredibly important. It ties right back into what you were saying about things being easy. I love the creative side of Apple. It’s all about being against the status quo. It ties so much into our culture. People want to be unique.

 

It’s interesting. I feel like I read a book on this or an article at least. A lot of the time we feel like we’re being unique but we’re not as unique as we think. Many other people are like that. We want to be special so bad. It might have been that book Selfie that we’ve talked about a few times on the show. I don’t know if you’ve read that, Brittany but it’s great. It’s along the lines of The Death of the Artist and getting into the psychology around the selfie generations.

I also read an amazing research study about selfies and how those impact our self-esteem and our mental health. I’m fascinated by that. Also, tying into the relatability that you spoke on, Brittany, that universal desire to be special to be important to stand out. Sometimes it’s simultaneous with people’s fear of standing out and being in the spotlight and wanting to hide. I see a lot of this exposed on TikTok. That’s what draws me back. Even though TikTok triggers me sometimes and I get irritated by this desire that many people, myself included, sometimes have to get attention, fame, make money, get approval and go viral.

One thing that keeps me coming back if not the thing that keeps me coming back to TikTok is there’s so much relatability. For better or worse, you see that you’re not alone in a lot of your experiences and thoughts. Also, going back to the community, Brittany, that’s what’s great about TikTok. At least up until this moment in mid-2021. It’s a place where people are unfiltered for the most part. You see people wearing lots of makeup and doing dances that they’ve practiced. You see fancy videos that took a long time to make.

There is comfort and ease on another level of people that turn on the camera and share a thought. Suddenly you realize you’re not alone and you feel connected. You feel a sense of community in the comment section. Somebody makes you laugh and you need that uplifting. The danger I feel every time I open up TikTok is I don’t know what I’m going to get. It’s a bit of that Russian Roulette experience. Sometimes I get on there and I feel comforted, I’m laughing, I feel entertained, triggered. I feel like I fall into the comparison trap.

I see diet culture and beauty standards being thrown in my face and ageism in terms of pitting those generations against each other. Millennials versus Gen Z is such a big trend now and that bothers me. There’s a simultaneous sense of unity but also a sense of separation on there of this person versus that, this type of person versus that type of person. We see a lot of politics, at least my algorithm. There are so many Democrats pointing out the flaws of Republicans and vice versa. We see racism on there. We also see people fighting against racism there. The Russian Roulette feeling, I’m not sure if you relate to that as well, Brittany. I get a little nervous opening up that app not knowing what experience I’m going to have because it’s all over the place, for better or worse.

Interestingly, you said that because when I first downloaded TikTok, I was taken aback by the variety of experiences. I’m someone who’s curious. I am lucky to have friends working in a lot of different industries. I quickly dig into how TikTok worked. After I learned a lot about how TikTok worked behind the scenes, I now approach it with a sober logical mind as much as I can. The thing about TikTok especially as soon as I started to create, it’s a different experience on TikTok when you’re a viewer versus if you’re a creator. That was an interesting thing to experience.

When I was viewing, I looked at that differently. I was more open to passive, not tailoring my algorithm if that makes sense. After I started to create on there, it’s hard to understand but I shifted my point of view and I needed to understand that more. TikTok is, in some way, a complete amalgamation of everything the internet’s already done. I remember deleting ICQ and Friendster. I’ve been on social media for a long time. I was a heavy Myspace and Tumblr user. What’s interesting to me is to see a lot of the same Tumblr arguments come up on TikTok and see a lot of the same things happen.

I like to match patterns. I learned a long time ago that things aren’t new. TikTok is genuinely another one of those but TikTok is smarter than the other apps and they’ve learned from everything else social media has done. What’s interesting to me is to watch a younger generation re-engage with things that I feel like my friends and I already had to deal with, like body shaming, body culture and these various political arguments on Tumblr. TikTok accelerates internet trends that have already happened with other younger generations.

Ageism is interesting on TikTok because there’s never been another social media website where many generations are on at the same time. Previously, teenagers were on Myspace and then college kids were on Facebook. It then became adults on Facebook. Adults were not on Instagram. In TikTok, you have everyone there at the same time. It’s interesting. Everyone needs something different points in their lives. I’ll see someone from Gen X. My parents are in that generation. You’ll see someone from Gen X and they’ll be talking about something about their kids but then you’ll see a Millennial who might be their kid’s age attack them because they feel triggered about something they said. You’ll see the vice versa.

The reason a celebrity is attractive is because it's getting approval without asking for permission. Click To Tweet

Number one, TikTok loves that for engagement. That’s a great way to build engagement. Two, it’s something unique that socially we haven’t seen where casual spaces of generations are linked up together. To me, that’s what I observe more than absorb. It’s unique to have teenagers hanging out in the same space 40-year-old doctors are hanging out on. That’s weird. There are good aspects to it but there are negative aspects to it as well. What’s interesting is that I do see older people getting offended by teenagers on there. What those people have to confront is their inner teenagers being bullied.

It’s interesting to see people reacting, like, “Why are Gen Z people telling me I can’t do it?” My first thought is, “Why do you care?” My second thought is, “You care because you’re not getting approval from a teenager.” That might not even like you at 40. That could be your inner 17 or 15-year-old who is jumping out and wants approval. Your 40-year-old brain is not stopping that inner fifteen-year-old say, “We’re not here anymore. We’re an adult. We don’t need that approval anymore.” That’s interesting to observe on TikTok because most people walking around are not aware of their triggers and what they emotionally bring to TikTok.

Because of the way TikTok works, there’s a communication brand theory that names this. Essentially, when you see images quickly, you don’t have time to analyze them. If you’re watching an hour-long documentary, you have so much more time to analyze that over a 30 second TikTok. Your emotions are triggered quickly on TikTok because of the medium. It’s not even a malicious thing TikTok built into it but it’s how your brain works. If you see something for 30 seconds, you’re going to think about it for maybe five seconds after that. The nature of TikTok creates a lot of these dynamics even if it’s not an intentional dynamic to be created.

I encourage people especially content creators, to learn so much more about these apps and learn so much more about how the internet works. Swipe to Unlock is a good book about the internet in general and how it works. Once people understand these things more and they’re able to be more objective then you can approach these spaces with less emotional vitriol. You’re like, “It is not normal that I am seeing teenage content. It is not normal that I am seeing the opinions of 20 million, 50 million people in fifteen minutes These things are not normal. My brain is not reacting to them in a normal way because these things are not normal.” If you can help yourself understand that, you can approach the medium in a better aspect.

The final thing to wrap up with is that it’s important to understand mediums. It’s important to understand that the medium defines the message. We understand TV, YouTube, we watched them much longer. It’s important to take time to understand the medium you interact with because that’ll help you understand the context and what you’re looking at. That’ll even help you take away some of the vitriol, “TikTok was doing this. The internet is doing this.” Maybe it’s not doing this. Maybe if you understand the medium better, you’ll have more realistic expectations for what to expect when you approach it.

That’s sagacious advice. Speaking of encouragement, we want you to give Brittany Darby some love on her TikTok. Brittany, you’ve given me a lot to reflect on. I love your pragmatic, real, authentic approach to this whole thing. I know that our readers are going to get a ton of value from this. Go to her TikTok feed. She’s got so many truth bombs that she’s dropping on there for all of you. If you’re going to ask this young lady to write for you, it better be something great where she gets total creative freedom.

Once you understand how social media works as a medium, you can approach it with more context and less emotional vitriol. Click To Tweet

On that note, Brittany, in mid-2021, what would you like to play out for yourself in the near future? What are some of your objectives and hopes beyond the pessimism of social media and the entertainment industry?

I am going to keep my pessimistic self in the entertainment industry because that is where my skillset is. Other than that, by the end of the summer of 2021, I plan on releasing my podcast. I’m long-winded and there are so many things on my TikTok that I want to go into more depth on. That’s what I’m focusing on now. I’ve been in the development phase for that. By mid-August 2021, we’ll see Brittany Explains It All on podcasts everywhere. That’s my biggest thing.

I love researching. I love imparting knowledge to people. I love breaking through to the uncomfortable truth. It is one of my favorite things. I have found via TikTok the world needs a little bit more of it. I’ve been dedicating a lot of my time to building that show. I’m excited about that. It’s going to cover the entertainment industry, economics, the cannabis industry and a lot of things that I’m interested in. The entire crux of the show is that we’re going to be talking about a lot of truth and breakthrough a lot of the noise. If anything, I hope to connect with people, help people reach their goals and help people reach their highest self. Sometimes you have to do that in a way of delivering the truth. I hope to do that for people.

You’re going to achieve that, beautifully. I can’t wait to listen. Thank you for getting uncomfortable with us, Brittany, and being long-winded. We love that. With the combination along with research, you’re our dream guest!

 

Important links

*We use affiliate links in our show notes. This means we receive a small sales commission if you purchase an item based on our recommendation.

• Brittany Darby
• TikTok – Brittany Darby
• Death of the Artist
• Glen Mazzara – IMDb
• Bane Cat – YouTube
• Are We Being Manipulated By Discount and Free Offers? – Previous episode
• Big Magic
• Bill Cunningham
• Selfie
• Swipe to Unlock

 

About Brittany Darby

Brittany Darby is a curious, creative Los Angeleno that produces content for brands and production companies. She formed her background in content early on as the Director of Development at Esperanza Productions on the Paramount Lot, and later taking story development on the road as a freelancer, working with independent producers, podcasters, and bloggers to help them tell their unique stories. Most recently, Brittany produced commercials at consumer goods startup Flower Co, additionally taking on the role of Marketing Manager.

 

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