I cannot believe that I'm making this episode.
I really can't believe it.
When I deleted TikTok two or three years ago now,
I truly believed in my core that I would never
in a million years redown the app.
And now here I am, redown loading the app.
I know it's shocking to me too.
And I do feel a little bit hypocritical in a way
because I made such a stink about deleting the app
and damning it as being evil.
And there's a part of me that's a little uncomfortable
with the decision I've made to go back on the app.
I feel maybe a little bit spineless,
maybe a little bit irrational
for initially deleting it and damning it to hell as I did.
I feel a little bit embarrassed, I think,
about sort of going back on my word.
But I am, you know what?
I might get banned next week anyway.
And then it's all good.
I guess I'm not on TikTok anymore.
I guess no one is.
But as it stands now, TikTok still exists
and I will be redown loading it on my phone.
In fact, I haven't redown loaded it yet,
but I'm going to redown load it right now.
And I'm going to do it with you here
so we can share this moment together.
It's on my phone again.
What a weird feeling.
Okay, so let's start from the beginning.
Actually, let's discuss why I deleted TikTok
in the first place,
because I think it's important to go back down memory lane.
So I was on TikTok,
I think starting in like 2019
and I was initially hesitant to get on the platform
because prior to it being TikTok, as we all knows,
musically, which was in app
where people just lip-synced to music.
And I personally found that cringe,
which in retrospect is mean.
It's like if people want to lip-sync,
people can lip-sync.
It's like, have fun.
Do whatever you want with your life and with your content.
But as a moody 19 year old,
I was like, no, that's cringe.
Then musically turned into TikTok
and I was late to get on the platform
because I was like, no,
this is a, like this is too cringe for me.
I don't want to do this.
But then eventually, it became this inevitable platform.
It was like everybody was on TikTok.
People were blowing up on TikTok
and it took on a new life.
It was less about lip-syncing
and more just about short form video content, I guess.
And I ironically ended up going on TikTok
and making incredibly cringy videos.
In 2020, when everybody was doing the dances, okay,
it was like the renegade, it was like Doja Cat say,
so dancing, I did all of those.
And while watching those back,
hurts my soul.
Yep, that's a tough one.
Very cringe.
And my entire sort of TikTok experience
from say 2019 to like 2021,
I don't remember exactly when I deleted it,
I didn't really take TikTok very seriously.
I didn't make high quality sort of content on there.
I would dance a little bit.
That was about it.
I really didn't do much on TikTok
because it wasn't really creatively inspiring to me.
For a long time, I was only creatively inspired
by long form video content, which YouTube videos.
And so I preferred to put my elbow grease into those videos.
And I was like, why would I put effort into TikTok?
It just seems pointless to me.
And I'm not really inspired by it anyway.
I don't even know how I would up my game on TikTok
even if I wanted to.
So this is just going to remain a casual,
non-important platform for me.
So that was sort of my relationship to TikTok.
If anything, the more significant piece
of my relationship to TikTok was me consuming TikTok,
I consumed TikTok far more than I created TikToks.
And that very quickly became damaging for me.
My algorithm, I swear to fucking God,
became borderline evil.
Okay.
I was getting videos constantly that were about me,
sometimes positive and sometimes very negative.
I was getting a lot of toxic content that I won't go into detail,
but was very promotional of beauty standards
in a way that was very toxic for my brain.
And also, I was just, in generally,
addicted to the short form content.
Like, I remember being at the gym and walking on the treadmill
and just scrolling on TikTok for like 30 minutes.
I remember laying in bed for five hours at the end of the day,
just watching TikToks.
I was wasting an insane amount of time consuming content
on there.
And so it was sort of this double evil, it seemed.
Like, not only was the content I was being fed toxic
for my consumption, but also I was consuming
unhealthy amounts of it, like extremely unhealthy amounts of it.
And it wasn't like all the content was bad.
Like, some stuff would make me laugh,
some stuff would make me think.
Like, there was some good shit on there.
And that's what kept me going.
But I eventually got to a point where I was like,
this app is rooting my life.
I'm rotting my brain on here.
I'm so addicted to it.
And the type of content that I'm being fed is just negative.
It's negative.
It went even beyond the content being mean about me
or the content being about beauty standards.
It was negative even beyond that,
whether it was fear mongering or anxiety-ridden sort of stories
or opinions or conspiracies, sad videos, videos
of people getting hurt.
Like, I don't know.
I felt like my algorithm was just feeding me shit constantly
that was making my brain a poisonous place.
And I think that's toxic on its own.
But I also think being a public figure
is even more challenging maybe in some ways
existing on these platforms because, yeah,
it's just sort of open season.
Like, people can make videos about you,
comment on your shit freely.
And you're going to see it.
And depending on the culture of the platform,
that can get really bad.
And at the time that I was on TikTok,
the culture of TikTok seemed to be very toxic.
Now, it's dumb and short-sighted
to make a blanket statement about a platform like that
because it's so big, it's bigger than all of us.
It's like as big as the world.
So depending on what algorithm you have
and what corner of the internet you find yourself in,
it can be completely different for you
than it is to the next person.
I was very short-sighted about it in the moment
and believed that my experience was the only experience
to have this sort of negative experience.
And I just damned the platform to hell.
I was like, I can't do this anymore.
This is actually a source of evil.
I must get off of it.
But I also think too, I didn't really respect the platform
as a whole.
I think probably because societally, it was frowned upon.
Social media in general is frowned upon
in a lot of ways.
Like being called a TikToker was not usually
a positive description of a person, right?
It didn't have an air of elegance, that's for sure.
And I think that that made me sort of disrespect
the platform in a way.
I was like, nah, like I don't fuck with this.
Like it's not cool, it's not elegant,
it's not beautiful, it's not creative.
It's just like a bunch of junk food.
You know, that's sort of the way I looked at it.
Even though I knew of TikTokers,
and I had seen many TikToks
that were incredibly creative and incredibly cool,
but the platform as a whole to me
had a bad taste in my mouth.
I think because of the way that societally,
we tend to look down upon platforms
when they're developing.
It sort of reminds me of YouTube.
Like when I first started YouTube,
being a YouTuber was not cool.
It was starting to be cool, but it was not quite cool yet.
Like it was still kind of embarrassing.
And it was not something that was considered elevated
or elegant, it felt like junk food.
You know, what was more respected was to be a singer
or an actress or a fashion designer.
Like all of these jobs that are in the public eye
that have history are the ones that are considered
to be elevated, right?
Whereas being a YouTuber, it's like,
what the fuck are you doing?
This is not art, this is not creative,
this is not valid entertainment, this is just junk.
And then slowly but surely, as YouTube became
more of a fundamental part of our everyday lives,
we all grew respect for it.
And now being a YouTuber is not really frowned upon
as much anymore.
There's a lot more respect to that.
And I think the same thing's happening with TikTok
where it's like, okay, well now,
it's such a fundamental part of our day to day lives.
It's harder to not put it up on a pedestal in a way.
But at the time that I was on TikTok a few years ago,
it still was not, it was very much not a platform
that had a lot of respect, I would say,
at least in my circles or in my world.
And so that also made me sort of excited to get off of it.
I felt like it was cooler to not be on it.
It was being ahead of the curve to not be on it.
And I also think, my final sort of feeling
about TikTok at that time was that I was very against
short form content.
I had built my career on YouTube,
which is longer form content, you know,
usually 10 minutes or longer.
And to me, short form content was like pointless.
I was like, what are you gonna,
what kind of story are you gonna be able to tell
in one minute?
How are you gonna connect with an audience in any way
in one minute?
It just to me felt pointless, which I've changed my opinion
since, but that was the way that I felt at the time.
So that's why I initially left.
It was this cluster of all these different negative opinions
and feelings about TikTok.
But I think it came at a complicated time as well
because I was also struggling with my career
on social media in general, I think.
And I have been for years because I sort of had this
golden era where it was easy for me.
You know, I was young, I was excited,
and things weren't really big yet.
Nobody really knew me, like it was still really small.
And it was such a different time for me to be creating content
because there wasn't as much pressure.
I wasn't overthinking anything.
The negativity hadn't really started to roll in yet
because I was still sort of under the radar.
And in the beginning, you don't really get any hate
or scrutiny or anything.
You're able to get away with having it as a career
and not getting that sort of backlash, I guess.
But once you reach a certain point in your visible enough
that inevitably comes.
And I think the second that it became really real
that I was a public figure.
And this is something that I'm doing that's working.
And this is real.
I think it inevitably fucked with my hat in numerous ways.
Number one, I got into this sort of content hamster real
where it was like, I need to film everything.
I need to take pictures of everything.
I need to document everything.
And I need to post as much fucking content as I possibly can.
Now the problem with that was it was so extreme
and it was so all-consuming that I did not have a life
outside of the internet.
It felt like I didn't have an identity
outside of the internet.
It felt like I lost myself in being a public figure in a way.
And it misaligned my chakras in a way.
Like, you know, like it was not healthy for me.
I did not have a social media life balance at all.
And I was sort of addicted to the hamster wheel in a way.
And it was detrimental for me because it was slowly
but surely making me really unhappy and depressed.
And I felt like, well, what's the point of my life
if all of it is just online?
Like, I don't even have a real life.
What is my real life?
Who am I?
What is my real identity?
And being somebody who gets depressed,
that made me kind of depressed.
Understandably so, right?
It's like, I started to develop this sort of nihilism
that like my life doesn't exist in a way outside of the internet.
My identity doesn't exist outside of the internet.
Without it, I don't even know what I am, who I am.
So why the fuck am I even here?
What's the point of that?
I don't get any of it to myself.
I almost feel like I was abusing myself in a way.
Like, not allowing myself to have anything to myself.
And all of that gave me sort of a depressive identity crisis.
And that was a really big challenge for me for a long time.
For the last few years, really,
it's been a really challenging thing to figure out.
Like, how do I strike this balance that allows me to maintain a level of sanity, I guess, you know?
Because I don't want to stop.
But I also can't keep going on like this because it's not working for me psychologically.
Like, I cannot maintain this lifestyle of filming in-dig photos of absolutely every single thing that I do.
I also think that as I started to grow up, I started to develop
these sort of limiting beliefs about what my content on the internet should be.
And I think a lot of this stems from my own imposter syndrome, you know,
feeling like I don't deserve the career that I have.
I don't deserve the recognition that I have.
I don't deserve the people who support me because I'm not doing enough, you know?
Like, what the fuck am I doing?
I'm just talking and hanging out on the internet.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not, you know, a therapist.
I'm not, what am I?
I'm just a normal person just posting on the internet.
I started to struggle with that reality.
And I started to feel like, oh, I need to be doing more than.
I need to make things more impactful.
I can't make something that serves no purpose.
In retrospect, I understand that entertainment is entertainment.
And having a virtual friend is incredibly powerful.
I now, in retrospect, understand that I didn't need to be doing more.
And then that was my imposter syndrome getting the best of me.
But in the moment, it was like, no, I need to make my videos more creative.
And I need to make my podcast more insightful.
And I need to do all of these things.
And I need to make my Instagram more, you know, like I need to be more creative
and come up with, you know, cooler concepts for Instagram posts and things like that.
I started to take it so seriously.
And it ended up sort of paralyzing me in a way where I wasn't, I constantly felt like the content I was creating wasn't enough.
It wasn't creative enough.
It wasn't impactful enough.
It wasn't cool enough. It wasn't inspiring enough.
And I lost track of why I even like doing this.
It's because I like talking to people about God knows what.
And it doesn't fucking matter what it is.
But I lost track of that trying to give what I'm doing more purpose.
But it's like, no, if anything, ironically, that was actually giving it less purpose.
It lost its purpose in that pursuit of trying to deepen things.
Ironically, it made things even less steep.
And it made things actually less impactful, I think as well.
But I also think that something that came with it becoming a reality that I'm a public figure was this newfound fear of scrutiny.
Sort of this fear of cancel culture, I think, because to be a public figure is to at times be burned at the stake.
And sometimes it's for decent enough reason, sometimes it's blown out of proportion, probably beyond what it needed to be.
Sometimes not though, sometimes it's fair.
So I won't take that away from cancel culture.
You know, there are moments when maybe this person isn't so good and maybe we should not, you know, be consuming content from them fair enough.
Sometimes things are taken too far and maybe somebody did make a mistake, but it's their punishment doesn't seem to match their offense at times.
That absolutely happens. Sometimes something completely fabricated, it can be completely false.
And somebody can get canceled based on something that is not even real.
But with all things that were created for a progressive reason, a good reason such as cancel culture, it can sometimes maybe overcorrect in a way at times.
And I think we did get to a point where that was the case in some scenarios, right?
And I think that that incited a lot of fear in me, not because I am hiding something, but because I started to feel like, okay, I really cannot make any mistake because anything and everything will be blown out of proportion twisted, you know, blah blah blah blah.
It's the name of the game now. It's different. There's less room, I think, for forgiveness now than there once was. I felt that way.
And that really fucked with my head.
And I'm not complaining. I'm not the victim of this. Okay, like this is I'm not trying to like scream and cry and call myself a victim. I'm just stating the facts here.
It was really frightening for me. And it's still really frightening for me. And it prevented me from wanting to say anything.
I didn't want to say anything because I was so afraid of like, can I make fun of myself even? I don't know where the line is.
I sort of became like my own publicist in a way where it was like, oh, well, I can't say that because if I say that, then it'll be turned into this like and it was irrational because it's like the things that I was I was censoring myself to a level.
And I have been censoring myself to a level that is just unnecessary. It's like, you got to say something, but I've been so afraid for the last few years to fully just be free and feel free.
Because of the tense nature of the internet and the hunger for drama and for character assassination when it comes to public figures that it's just been a scary time to be on the internet for me.
And yeah, that's just been something that's been very overwhelming for me.
But I think last but not least, I was surrounding myself with certain people who were not conducive to me, not only being myself, but also pursuing the career that I've worked hard to build.
Because I had some people around me for a period of time that number one did not like me for me.
Okay. I have a very, you know, loud at times, not as much anymore, but still I can be loud and talkative and outgoing and silly.
And okay, that's great. Good for me. Yay. But there were people around me who did not like my soul. People who are very close to me. Right.
And when you have people like that, very close to you in your close circle, who don't like you when you're being your true self, it's incredibly damaging.
And I loved these people who did not like me for who I was so much that I was like, you know what, I'd rather change myself in a way and mold to fit what they want me to be instead of just saying, take what you get or get out, you know, like you go, you get and you don't be upset.
I didn't have that mindset. I was like, no, I love these people so much. I want them to be in my life and and they don't like when I'm really outgoing. They don't like when I'm having fun. They think it's annoying.
So I became a shell of a person for a long time. And that's happening at the same time as all these other challenges. Right. There's people in my life who just do not love me for who I am.
And that makes you overthink every single thing that you do. How the fuck are you supposed to turn on a camera or turn on a microphone and be yourself when there are people at home, people in your world, people in your circle who do not like you for you.
There's already a fuck ton of that on the internet. Okay. I got enough of that on the internet. People who think I'm annoying people who think who don't agree with, I don't know, like what I think about fashion or people who don't who think I'm ugly or like it doesn't matter.
But it's like there are enough people who do not like me. That is an inevitable part about being a public figure on the internet.
But to have one of those people sneakily in your orbit in your personal orbit. Absolutely not. And that's what I had. I had that for a long time. And you know what?
It was more than that. It was also people who did not respect my career. Who did not respect YouTube? Who did not respect having a podcast?
Who did not respect, you know, being on TikTok, being on Instagram? Who thought that that stuff wasn't cool? People who thought that that wasn't cool.
It's cooler to reject all that. And I understand that and I agree with that to an extent. I do believe that like it can be fucking badass and healthy and awesome to not be on social media.
But it's also like social media is my medium for doing what I'm passionate about, which is fucking talking to people. Where the hell else am I supposed to do it?
So I had the wrong people around me as well. And it was really at a bad time. And it was sort of like this catch 22 where it was like having this sort of identity crisis and fear surrounding my career on the internet was bringing me down.
But it was frustrating to me because it's like, God, I need to be doing more, but like I just can't like I've a mental block. And that made me overall a shell of a person, right?
Like that sort of dilemma, that challenge.
Being like, I want to post I want to be present. I want to be doing all this. But it's just like I don't know how to make it feel right.
That made me very sad in a shell of a person. But then on the other side of things.
My personal life, the people that I was surrounding myself with were also turning me into a fucking shell of a person. So now we have me, even more of a shell of a person, I can't go and address my identity crisis and my fear of the internet when I have people who do not love me for me and who do not fully support me.
I can't do that. I can't address that.
But then I also was struggling to address the people in my life were bringing me down because it was like I don't have the strength to go do that because I'm so weak from from feeling unfulfilled by my career and in not understanding how to like get it to a place that feels good.
So sort of this thing was like I could not fucking get myself out of it and I tried different things. I tried so many things. I tried a thousand things and it's been a really big challenge for me and it's taken a lot of time and for fuck sake is there a pressure when you have a career on the internet to not take your time.
Like there's a fire under the ass of all who are public figures to never disappear to never be confused to never make mistakes to never like have a moment where you're not feeding the beast that is the internet.
You know what I mean? The beautiful beast shall I say but the beast.
Now I broke the cycle mainly by shedding the people who that was the first step I think for me was shedding people in my life that did not truly support me.
I had people who judged me who made me feel uncertain in what I'm doing and not for a good reason like not for like a valid reason like it's one thing if somebody in your life is like yeah maybe you shouldn't do something like that because it's damaging to you or it's damaging to others or it's disrespectful or something like yeah that's one thing.
But if what you're doing is harmless and you enjoy doing it and someone's judging you for that that's not somebody that you should have around.
No, no and it really started with with getting rid of that energy out of my life and replacing that energy with people who genuinely respect me and respect what I do.
I'm like choked up thinking about it because all it takes is like one or two bad apples to fuck with your head and and make you turn you into a shell of a person make you insecure make you you cannot have people in your fucking direct orbit who do not believe in you who do not respect you who judge you you cannot have people like that around you and you can love them.
But it doesn't matter it will ruin you and it ruined me for a long time and I didn't even realize who's happening as with most things you don't realize it till it's gone.
I also think that I'm somebody who tends to make final decisions okay like when I end a relationship for example platonic or romantic I like that decision to be final no take backs it's done when I you know say okay I'm I'm no longer going to do it.
I'm no longer going to go out on the weekdays okay that is a choice that I'm making no exceptions I'm very final with my choices because for me it simplifies things a little bit it's like now I'm clearing up more brain space to sort of figure out more important things if I've sort of like a half choice that I made lingering in my peripheral it will clutter my brain I can handle it and I did that with take talk.
I was like I'm deleting this and I'm never fucking me downloading it and this does not exist in my world anymore I'm done and I made this very final decision because that's how I tend to do things now I'm working on that because I've noticed that a decision can be final for now right you can say for the indefinite future this is a final decision but if my mind changes down the line that's okay that's not a failure something wrong with that.
But I think that my problem has been sort of my stubbornness about the finality of things and I think that that's why I've refused to even analyze like hey is there a world where I go back on take talk maybe the issue was not take talk as the platform and there is an issue with me personally in the way that I was using the platform like I refuse to even look there because I was like no I'm done I made my decision and I'm done.
But more recently I've become more intrigued with short form content because I've been consuming a lot of it because I watch reels and YouTube shorts I don't watch take talk exactly but I watch things that are quite literally reposted from take talk to other platforms I'm very much.
Consuming take talk like content and I've recently sort of had this inspiration like you know I kind of want to make short form content now is like maybe I'll dabble in that like that could be something that could be fun for me for many reasons.
But I was like but I won't go back on take talk because I'm I've made that decision and I'm never going back and I felt that way for a long time until I sort of had an epiphany a few days ago where I was like you know what fuck that fuck that okay if I want to make short form content because that's
something I genuinely am interested in doing and I think it would be fun for me and I have some ideas that are like maybe you know that feel exciting to me that's
something that is intriguing me and I want to start dedicating time to that in my life it's just stupid not to involve the largest short form content platform that exists.
So I've decided that I'm going back to take talk and here's why I want to come back okay number one I think I've
solved or gotten really close to solving a lot of my prior issues with social media I've already sort of touched on this but
number one I feel far more solid in my identity as I've grown up and stabilized I started on the internet at age 16 and I'm 22 now and from ages like 16 to 20
there was so much growing going on I was a mess as we all are in that time it's so turbulent there's so many changes there's so many
epiphanies there are so many morphing opinions and morphing beliefs and morphing like morals and values and it's all happening so fast and it's
overwhelming as it is but then to do it in the public eyes even harder I think now I'm still very young and there's still a lot of learning to do for me
but I'm so much more stable in my identity and who I am online and offline which is pretty much the same for the most part but I feel comfortable with that
things have settled down things have stabilized I think that that just comes with age and maturity.
Number two I'm really practicing maintaining a healthy social media life real life balance I do not have it perfectly figured out I literally just made an
episode a few weeks ago about how I do not have it figured out however because it's something that I'm so actively working on and for the last two
weeks or so I've been doing pretty fucking good about it I'm confident that going back on TikTok will not just derail me completely like I used to have a terrible balance when it came to
consuming that content and I think it'll be fine and then also you know I have a better understanding of how to balance what I film and what I
keep to myself that's just gotten easier for me over the years as I've gotten off of the hamster wheel and set myself free from feeling like I need to film and document every single thing that
fucking happens to me in my life I broke that cycle I'm free from that cycle so I feel confident that I won't fall back into it from making
TikToks like I think it's fucking fine it's all good I'm also not as afraid of scrutiny anymore and I think because number one I've worked so hard over the past
few years to truly become the best person I can be at times to a point that's almost damaging for myself because it's like perfectionism to a point that is debilitating that's something I'm
not sort of figuring out the opposite extreme but I know that I'm a good person and if people scrutinize me they hate me they don't like what I said they don't
like how I look they don't like what I'm wearing they think that I'm annoying they think I'm dumb they think I'm a bad person they think I'm this I
think I'm that I'm at a place now where I know that I'm a good fucking person have I made mistakes in my life absolutely as we all have blah blah
whatever everybody always fucking says I've made mistakes I'll continue to make mistakes I'm not fucking perfect however I know there is not a sell in my
body that has a doubt about whether or not I'm a good person I know I am in the only way that you can survive being on the
internet in a healthy way is to come to that conclusion like that must be who you are and it cannot be a facade it never
was but I feel like it was never as much of a priority for me like am I really a really good person what does that mean what how can I be
that was younger I didn't focus on that as much you know it wasn't like actively a part of my thought process like I was far
more concerned about other things like how do I look cool at school how do I get good grades and get into a good
college for honestly bragging rights like you know shit like that much more surface level much more juvenile far less
spiritually fulfilling but you know we all have to go through that phase at some point in our lives I know that I'm a good person
and also there are people in my life again I've shed the people who did not believe in me who judged me who made me feel
bad about being myself and I've replaced those people with people who fucking root for me and I've strengthened relationships with people
who have always rooted for me I've sort of figured out what that looks like what that feels like in my life and that has set me free
I am not afraid of scrutiny on the internet anymore I'm fucking sick of it and I'm not sick of it when I say I'm sick of it in an
angry tone I'm not talking to the internet I'm not even talking to the people who say mean shit about me because that's
par for the course that is a part of this job that is a part of what doing this is I'm mad at myself I'm mad at myself for letting it
get to me but also I can't be mad at myself because it was just a part of my journey but I'm not afraid anymore listen I'm
about to start fucking like saying crazy controversial shit it's not even that it's that I was afraid of saying
anything I was afraid of existing online you know like it was just merely existing showing my personality at all
showing my sense of humor at all I was afraid of all of that right also I'm really trying to drop all of my
limiting beliefs about what it means to make good content what platforms are good and what platforms are bad and
what makes for respectable career and what makes for respectable content like I'm trying to drop all of that
because I think all of that is ultimately limiting I think that it is good to be analytical and
critical of your own content because you know especially if it's something that you do as your job you
should be analytical and critical but in ways that are constructive believing that a platform is inherently
cringe or bad or whatever is sort of ridiculous I think and I've definitely had my experience with those
feelings content doesn't have to be this high brow sort of thing all the time it shouldn't be in fact
it should be fucking fun it should be fun and it should be entertaining that's it it should be fun for
me to make and it should be fun to watch that's all that fucking matters it doesn't need to be some
sort of life changing sort of thing for every person who watches or maybe it is life changing in some
ways but it's not in an obvious way it's not in the way that maybe music impacts people it's in a
different way it's in a more modern way that didn't exist years ago but there's still value to it
and I also think that social media is what you make of it TikTok is what you make of it there are
negative parts of TikTok there are also negative parts about Instagram there are also negative
parts about YouTube there are also negative parts about Twitter and there are also negative parts
about threads I don't I'm not on threads but I bet there are negative parts about that okay there are
negative parts about Twitch there are negative parts about fucking reddit that plays scares me
but with all of these platforms as well there's positive they're absolutely as positive and it is
up to me to decide how I want to look at these platforms do I want to choose to see them for only
their negative where does that keep me you know I think I need to change my lens a little bit the
way that I view social media and say yeah these things are dangerous in some ways they're damaging in some
ways but also they are the tool for me to do what I'm passionate about which is talk to people and
hang out with people and discuss things that excite me and things that I'm struggling with this is my
canvas in a way and I must make the decision to see these platforms in at least somewhat of a
positive light or ideally in a neutral light because that's the light that they should be viewed in
blaming tiktok or any sort of platform is not taking responsibility for our decisions and choices as
adults I'm an adult if using these platforms in certain ways hurts me then I need to not use them in
that way it's my job to figure out how to use them in a way that works for me and the only person
responsible for that is me so that's been an important you know conclusion for me to come to and I
think you know what this shit's fun like tiktok was fun when I used to be on tiktok before it got
kind of toxic for me it actually was kind of fun I didn't take it seriously but it was fun I'm excited
now though to get back on it and try it again I think it's going to be fun and I know that a lot of
you are probably thinking right now you're such a freak Emma you just made a fucking hour long
episode about tiktok and you going back on it like it's not that deep I get it it's not that deep
but it kind of is that deep for me a little bit because I don't know I think I'm just somebody
that tends to make everything deep sometimes to a fault but anyway I'm excited to be back on tiktok
I have sort of this excitement around being on social media in general and I think short
from content is fun and it's inspiring to me right now I also love long form content to I've
been editing this one fashion week video for literally a month now but I had five hours of footage
just taking me it's like so fucking long that it's taking me a month at it but I'm excited about
all these things I'm excited to be on the internet again and you know it's been a fucking journey
and it's been so turbulent for me but I'm proud to say that I've done I think that I've done
the work in a way to hopefully get to a place eventually where like this is just all positive
for me I mean it nothing's ever going to be all positive but I'm keeping it together I'm keeping
it together and I'm really determined to find the way to do it in a healthy way and I love you
all and I am so grateful that you've all sort of stuck with me through these many years of
somewhat turbulent times there's been a lot of fun times too but a lot of turbulent times
and you know I've spent easily half of my career thus far battling this complicated relationship
with arguably my canvas which is social media you know I've spent so much time struggling
with my relationship with it and that's no one's job to deal with but mine but you know there
have been a lot of you who have stuck with me through it and I'm so grateful for that truly
truly truly more than you know I'm just very grateful for you all for hanging out with me for so many
years now and hopefully you love my TikToks so go follow me on TikTok now I love you
thank you for everything go follow me on TikTok now I'm fucking I'm so kidding but I'm excited
I'm excited and I'm feeling inspired and I'm feeling really good and hopefully no you know
not hopefully it's gonna say and hopefully it lasts it will last although if it doesn't and I end up
getting like emo again you can say I told you so but I really my fingers crossed that I'm
starting to reach social media Nirvana okay I have to go now I love you all I appreciate
you all thank you all for listening and supporting me in all the ways that you do I'm so fucking
grateful listen new episodes of anything goes Thursdays Sundays anywhere that you stream
podcasts all the videos exclusive to Spotify you can check me out on Instagram and Emma Chamberlain
check out my coffee company at Chamberlain coffee we have coffee we have match up we have cute
accessories we have canned lattes you can find us in a store near you or order online
coffee.com and it will come straight to your door that's all I have for today see you all
on the fucking internet baby oh my god see you all on the internet okay love you talk to
you all on the fucking internet. Bye.
