Episode 1600 - Bobbi Althoff
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All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck Knicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. How's it going? What's going on there? Everything all right with the thing? How's that spot? Did you get it checked out? What's going on with that issue with the kid? How's everything going with your foot? What's going on with the... What are you going to cook for the thing?

Is the car running better now? When can you go back to the gym? That seems crazy. Oh, really? You had it for what? Two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. It's going around. How's everybody doing? Okay. Okay.

Did I mention I'm Mark Maron? This is my podcast. Did I mention that? It's called WTF. What's happening? Going strong since 2009, a new show every Monday and Thursday, and now new bonus material every Tuesday and Friday. Jeez, that's a lot of yapping. Today on the show, I talked to Bobby Althoff. I'd like to talk to you about her if I could, because it's an interesting thing. Look,

I'm a bit out of the game in terms of keeping up with whatever youth culture is or whatever the cultural momentum is to make us all part of youth culture. If there is even a culture that we can kind of

frame is that, but Bobby Althoff is somebody who, you know, I scroll, I have a problem. I have a, I have a scrolling problem and, uh, she pops up occasionally. She, maybe you've seen her. She does these, uh, she kind of does these, I don't even know if they're snarky, but she does these very intentionally awkward interviews with, um, a lot of black entertainers,

But I don't know. Maybe you've seen the one of her and Drake where, you know, she she has this disposition that's very kind of subdued and a bit pointed. And maybe you've seen her. She got long hair.

But I saw her do a bit with my friend Andrew Santino and my friend Bobby Lee. And I was kind of curious about her. I didn't know if she was a comedian or where she fell in the world. And I don't know a lot of that. I don't know most of the people that are stars on TikTok or YouTube or Instagram. I don't know who these people are. I always assume I'm always surprised when I'm when people are like, oh, yeah, I sold out an arena. What are you? What do you do?

I do conversations with my dog. I'm like, I have no idea who you are, but congratulations, I guess. But Bobby, I was curious about her. I think it was driven initially by the fact like, well, I mean, if Bobby and Santino talked to her, I mean, why am I not part of this party? Why am I not part of what the kids are doing? Where's my time? But I did find her kind of curious. And, and, and,

I don't know a lot about this new landscape of show business. I do know that it shifted. I do know that there's a new kind of tribalized show business that revolves around YouTube podcasts and comedians and right wing garbage. I know that somehow or another we live in a time where old school mainstream show business has contracted, you

into something that seems confused and without relevance in a lot of ways through streamers and whatnot.

But then there's this whole other very exciting, it seems, area of show business that occurs on TikTok and Instagram. And it's not nothing. I mean, some of these people are getting, you know, ratings or at least views of short content driven stuff that, you know, parallels what TV shows used to get when they were when there were three networks on the air. So there are.

big stars in this world. And I think it's a tenuous world. And it's primarily self-driven by the people that are doing it. And it can all go away rather quickly, I believe. And that seems to happen. All of a sudden, someone is celebrating for having a candid moment out in public on camera about spitting on a dick. And next thing you know, she might be in trouble for some sort of crypto scam. And

Then they kind of fade into the woodwork. But fading into the woodwork is more like fading into the digital atmosphere where you're still kind of there, kind of doing what you always did. It's just no one really gives a fuck. All that said, I wanted to talk to Bobby. I did her show recently, but I wanted to talk to her about this new show business.

And, you know, her journey into it and how she became a kind of viral star. I mean, she started doing TikTok videos and developed a following around those with that character she does. And she's now the host of the really good podcast, which is what I was on. And we shot it at Sante D'Or, the cat shelter, which was funny and it was fun. But I knew I had to be kind of, you know, standoffish and bust her balls a little bit.

And it's not really my nature, especially now with somebody I don't know that well. But I did it after I talked to her. But anyway...

I found the interview to be enlightening, and I liked her a great deal. And it is a good story about what it takes to be, whether it's an influencer or a viral phenomenon, which is really, sadly in some ways, where most of show business lies now.

to the point where you've got old school show business just glomming on to whoever can generate some money one way or the other, any way or the other. And so they're shifting as well. So that's,

That's who's on the show today. My 2025 tour kicks off in Sacramento, California at the Crest Theater on Friday, January 10th. I'm in Napa at the Uptown Theater on Saturday, January 11th. Fort Collins, Colorado at Lincoln Center Performance Hall, January 17th. That's a Friday. Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on Saturday, January 18th.

Those Colorado shows might be sold out. I'll be in Santa Barbara, California at the Lobero Theater on Thursday, January 30th. Then San Luis Obispo, California at the Fremont Center on Friday, January 31st. Monterey, California at the Golden State Theater on Saturday, February 1. A lot of other dates coming up and a lot of red states. It almost looks like a red state tour.

Which I don't, you know, I didn't anticipate. And I think a few months ago I was nervous about, and I'll probably be nervous about it as well as I head into them. But I know you're out there. I know you're out there in Kansas and Oklahoma and the Carolinas. I know that what's going to happen.

After January 20th is, you know, somehow or another, these shows will become kind of a safe space to speak our minds or hear me speak mine. I'll do what I can. I'm right there with you. But you can go to WTF pod dot com slash tour for all my dates and links to tickets. But I am right there with you. I, you know, I think we have a weird kind of menacing lull going on right now.

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People I know that, you know, are very successful to the point of like, wow, what do you even do with that level of success? And they've got everything they want and they go out and they do things. They do stuff. They buy fancy cars. They'll stay at a fancy hotel. Look, I'll fly business and I, you know, I'll eat, you know, wherever I want to eat. But I don't I don't know what it is with me. What are the good things?

I guess that's something everyone has to decide on their own. And I think about stuff. I'm like, oh, why don't you buy a nicer car? I'm like, why? You know, why don't you, you know, go on a nice trip? I'm like, I don't have to. After a couple of days, I'm just me in another place, and it's not amazing. I've got to figure it out. Time is running short. I've got to figure out what the good things. All I know is that I was with Terminex yesterday,

exterminator guy in my crawl space under the house yesterday trying to figure out where these fucking rats are coming in. And I thought I'd plugged all the holes, but he said, no, look at these holes around these pipes. I'm like, they can get in those?

And he's like, yup. And I'm like, that's crazy. How do they even do that? He's like, well, I don't know. It's all cartilage. And they just kind of make themselves, they can kind of worm their way in there like a rat. And I'm like, oh my God. And I had some of that foam, you know, that, that foam stuff that you fill holes with. And I was just like squirting that around the pipe holes. And it's like, it makes this big foamy thing that gets hard. And I thought that was great.

And I'm like, this is the good stuff. This is what, this is one of the good things. I guess it's the little things. I don't know, but you know, I could, man, I w I could spend a morning or at least a couple hours just foaming holes. You know, I, maybe I'm in the wrong line of work. You know, when you find that kind of stuff, you know, totally rewarding and think like, you know, this is, this is what I worked for. I don't know. Most people would just have some guy do that, but I'm like, I got the foam stuff.

He's like, you should put it in there. I'm like, oh, my God, this is amazing. I'll do it. I'll do it. Okay, so Bobby Althoff, I will tell you again that I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation to the point where I told Brendan, I'm like, you're going to like this one. This is a good episode. As I mentioned before, Bobby Althoff is the host of the Really Good Podcast, which you can listen to where you get podcasts or watch on YouTube. I think I'm going to be on there.

Mid-January at some point, and this is me meeting and talking to Bobby Althoff. I got a lot of travel coming up. Going to New York, New Jersey. I got the tour dates next year. Once I'm on the plane or in the car, I'm good. Leading up to that moment, a little stressed out.

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Is it too loud? No, no, no. It feels so cool. Does it? Yeah. It's audio. I never do. It's old school. I never have the headphones. No, really? Yeah, I like it though. Well, I mean, I think when you do video, you don't really need it. No. Yeah, it helps when you do audio to hear yourself. Yeah. So, like, why were you late?

Let me tell you. You better have a good one because I was about to get mad. No. Okay. You know what? What? So many parts of this. Okay. I...

I fucked up. I really thought that it was at 3. So I planned my whole day around it being at 3. And I was like, so my kid goes to her dad. Both of my kids go to their dad on Wednesdays. So I like to see them for a little while. So my kid gets out of school at 2. So I said, okay, I'm going to go pick her up at 1 early out of school so I can spend time with her. Then I'm going to leave the house at 2 o'clock.

And then be on time. Yeah. So I picked her up at 1. We went to Baskin Robbins. And then we get back to the house. My assistant sends a text to my sister and is like, are you guys on your way? She's like, on our way. And she's like, Bobby, it starts at 2. We don't leave the house at 2. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. So I was like, bye, kids. Gotta go.

Ran out of the house. I was able to shave off 11 minutes. So I was like, okay, we're not going to be that late. I regained the whole 11 minutes by missing the turn onto the, is it the two you're off of? Kind of, yeah. Okay. I went that way. Oh, okay. And then I was supposed to go that way. And I was like, no, I got all the time I saved came right back off. Well, you know, if there weren't kids involved, I'd be more angry.

It was truly me trying to plan my day around seeing my kids for a little bit. How old's that kid? She's four, so she's in preschool. Oh, wow. Yeah, my youngest is two. Oh, wow. That takes a lot.

It does. High maintenance. They're so high maintenance. And they get very sad if the days that they go to their dad's, because they go at five, they don't get to see me between school and then their dad. So I try to sneak in. So I got her out of school early to make it, and I still messed up. It's so hard. Yeah. Do you have kids? No. No? I do. I didn't do it.

It's the hardest thing in the entire world, but it hurts how much I love my kids. Well, I think that's the way it's supposed to be. I mean, I think if it was any other way, it would be bad. That would be. But you had them so young. I did. I was 22 when I had my oldest, 24 when I had the second. Was that always the plan?

Honestly, yes. But I was a nanny before. And I love... I've loved kids my whole life. But you can leave. You can. I didn't... You know what, though? I would...

dream about the parents letting me have overnights with them. I'd be like, if you guys want to go on a vacation, just let me take care of them. You can leave. Don't even charge me. That never happened. I started dating my kid's dad when I was

21. Yeah. And by 22, I got pregnant. You had kids. Yeah. It was all on purpose. They were both on purpose. Yeah. And you're thrilled about it. I love being a mom. It's like the most exhausting. I think my life would be a little bit easier without them, but I just...

I love it. I want 20 more kids if I could have them. Well, how many kids in your family? I am one of six, but we have different dads, different moms spread through there, you know. No, I don't know. No? Never heard of that. I've heard of it. Lots of half-siblings. Oh, okay. Yeah. But you were all in the same house growing up? No, no, no. But my mom had a daycare in my house growing up for my first seven years of my life, and I think that really made me love babies.

Yeah, I think that would do it. But some of my siblings ended up hating kids, but some of us, it went one or two ways. They loved it or you hated it. Yeah. So wait, so how did it work? So your dad had... So my mom...

I had three kids before she met my dad. Oh, okay. And then my dad recently, as in within the last 10 years, found out that he actually had. So he thought, when he met my mom, she thought he had no more kids. What do you mean? But he did have kids? We found out in the last 10 years through ancestry that he had a son 40 years, at the time it was 40 years ago.

Wait, so when he married your mom, he had no kids that he knew about. Yeah, no kids. But now there's one. Yeah, it was the pastors. So I'll tell you, my aunt one day calls my dad and says, hey, does the last name blank ring a bell? And my dad goes, no.

And yeah, that was the daughter of the pastor that I used to, I mean, like it was a pastor's family of the church that I used to go to. And she said, okay, well, through ancestry, it's saying that he has, like he's been looking for his dad his whole life. And it's saying he has a close relative in our family. And my dad goes, oh,

Because he knew he slept with his mom. Oh, my God. She never told him or anything, though. So once he turned in his adulthood, tried to look for his father and used ancestry, connected to my aunt and found my dad. And now I'm going to take my kids in December to go spend two weeks near his house. So you just met him when? How many years ago? Five years ago.

Was it totally weird? It was so weird at first. At first, I was like, who is this guy? Now, my brother. I was pretty mad at first because I was like, my dad... So, your dad had an affair with somebody and had this kid? No, it was before my mom. No, but I mean, right. But was she married when he... No, no, no. Because it was the daughter of the pastor. Oh, the daughter of the pastor. So, they were both young. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, my dad lived his whole life thinking he waited to have kids late, but really, he had a kid when he was younger. Oh, my... So, how did he react to that? He...

I so nonchalant that he truly was just like, yeah, I have a son now. And then started spending all of his money buying Disneyland tickets and everything for that family. And I was like, dad, you don't have money to be doing this. What are you doing? But then he was just trying to make up for lost time. How old was the kid? 40, 40 years old when he met my dad.

But he has kids. So my dad was taking all of the kids to Disneyland. Oh, so your brother's 45. Yeah, now he is. My dad is 76. Oh, so your dad's got these grandkids too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He got the whole...

He loves it, too, because he became like... It was right before I had my first kid, so he became a grandpa to three kids. I mean, two kids really quickly. And I was like, so he took that title from my dad before I got to him. And he has a relationship with them? Oh, yeah. My dad is so close with these... Over the last five years. Yeah, we go there...

I went this last year, I took my kids to Hawaii and we all were in Hawaii for their birthdays. Are the grandkids your kids' age? No, they're like 10 years older. Oh my God. It's like this whole other family tree. It's amazing though. So you grew up with three half siblings. Yeah. And then I got one more. So you're the only kid of your parents? Me and my little sister, the one that was sitting on the porch. And you grew up here?

Yeah, we lived in Claremont, which is pretty close to here. So you grew up in LA-ish? Kind of, yeah. My grandma lived in Pasadena her whole life, and after high school, I spent a lot of time at her house. In Pasadena? Yeah. So, like, I know you deal with a lot of friends of mine. Yeah, I do. Yeah.

But you never asked me to be on your show. Now I am. No, it's too late. It's not too late. It's never too late. But I think you're different now. I'm the same person. No, it seems like you're doing something other than that character. No, you know what? You're right. I kind of stopped for a second. I think the thing is about comedy is I started more trying to be...

And then I started to read way too many comments, read way too much about how much people hated this character of mine. And I tried to become too likable, I think, but that doesn't do as well as the character. So I've recently gone back to the same character. So like in the next season that's coming out, the next season.

Like, we need to completely bring back the character and just have it be the old days. Because that's how it does best. That's how it's more fun doing it like that. It's just... Yeah. So, yeah, I'm going back to it. And, okay, so... Because, like, I started in podcasting in 2000... What? Nine? That's crazy. Yeah. And I do it the same way I always have. So, like, when I started doing it, it was sort of similar to, like... But a whole different...

Like, there were no podcasts when I started. Yeah. And then it just became this thing that kind of grew up around me and the other guys that were doing it. But a lot of them have gone to video. So you started in a whole different sort of world. But it was equally as unknown in terms of how you were going to make a living or do whatever you were going to do. So when you—growing up, I mean, what was your plan? My plan—

I don't know. I think I had a crazy childhood as in I wanted to grow up so bad. I wanted to be... Crazy how? Just chaotic, never at peace. But your parents stayed married? They were divorced when I was 10, but they lived in the same house till I was 16. And they just fought all the time. And it was just, it was really... There were five kids there? There was only...

Me and my little sister at that time. My older siblings were older than me. So when we moved to, are you familiar with Paris, California? No. It's like, do you know where Riverside County is? Yeah. It's out there. Okay. So we moved to Riverside County and it was just me and my little sister. My older sister ended up moving in with her dad and my older brothers were in college. Okay. So it was just me and my sister and we grew up.

We just wanted to grow up really, really bad. Because it was crazy in the house? Yeah, it was just not a peaceful environment. It was an environment that I very much wanted to have kids and give them something completely different. So you wanted to be a good parent with a vengeance. Yeah, like, look, this is what I would have turned out like if you guys were good parents. How's that going? Are you doing it? I think so. I would say I think...

That I'm a pretty good mom. I am very much, that's all I do. I'm mainly a mom and sometimes I work. So, okay, so you grew up in this chaos, but you like your parents. Love them. They're different now than they were then. They didn't know how to raise kids. My dad lacks patience very much. So he...

Like if we were bad and stuff, he didn't know how to handle things. So he wasn't going to... I would beg my dad to ground me because I was like, can you have some just regular parenting rules? I want you to ground me. I want you to like...

Treat me like my friends get treated. But instead, he resorted to unhealthy ways of disciplining and my mom, too. So it's like I never had hitting and screaming and cussing and just saying the meanest things. But how were their lives? Were they miserable? Yeah, they were broke and they fought a lot about money, like a lot. When the recession happened, I remember my dad was at home crying.

Way too much, and really, like, my mom and him just fought. Yeah. And we were always—my dad would often break the law doing stupid things, like trying to save money. Yeah. He would—I remember having such anxiety driving because I knew that our car had the—you know the little registration tag, the number? Yeah. It was always printed off of his printer. Like, he would get one for one of the cars, pay for one, or get a friend. Yeah.

to pay for one and then he would photocopy it and just glue it onto the cars. Oh, through the little number for the year? Yeah, yeah. Because we couldn't pay for it so he didn't want to get pulled over so he would just do that. And I remember driving all the time like, this is illegal. I'm going to get in trouble. Full of anxiety? Oh, I've had such bad anxiety my whole... I can't remember not having anxiety. Yeah.

Well, that's what happens when you grow up in chaos. Yeah. And then you either become a completely out of control weirdo or a control freak. Yeah. And I'm a control freak. And a weirdo. But I'm a very much control freak. I think that's the one benefit of growing up in chaos is that if you go that way, you're a little tightly wrapped, but at least you have your shit together. I do.

Vigilantly. Yeah, I look around and I'm like, I want to be just in control of every little thing around me. Why would you not, right? So it was all this little breaking the law that just caused you. Yeah, a lot of anxiety. But you knew it. I always knew that he was because my mom would always tell us, like, your dad just does this and this and this. And I would always be like, oh, my gosh, he's going to. She'd be like, your dad could go to jail. And I'd be like, my dad's going to go to jail.

Oh, my God. How do I, like... I lived in fear my dad would go to jail. We lived in our house but didn't pay a mortgage for so long, so the bank would come and take photos of our house, put them on the foreclosure sites, and then we'd have to, like... I remember having to...

put, we'd put like blankets on our windows and like try to cover it up. We'd park our cars always in the garage or like just make it hard to tow away. And our cars would be repossessed or we'd go to grocery stores and it was a hit or miss whether or not the card would swipe and it would work or they would be like, sorry, you're not, this isn't going to work. Or at school, my dad's favorite thing to do was to write checks that would get bounced. So it was like

Constant. Yeah. And you're older than your sister? I am three years older than her, yeah. And so... She actually is a little better than me. Well, yeah, because you took all the weight of it. Yeah. She grew up in a little bit more peaceful times. Yeah. So when I was 16, I tried to kill myself. No, not 16, 14. 14? Yeah. Do you remember the moment? The decision? I remember it. I had kind of like...

with the idea for a little while before, but as in I would sit there and cry in my bathtub and be like, I'm going to do it, but I would never actually take steps to do it. I would just kind of think about it until I remember one day coming home from school and everything was just chaos. My parents were fighting. Kids at school were just... They were high school students. I didn't fit in at my school at all. Why? Because I was...

My mom didn't want us to go to the schools by our house, so she put me in like the, we used a guy's address that was in like the nicer neighborhood. I did that with my dad's office address because my friends went to another school. Oh, yeah. But it wasn't because it was a better school. I just had more friends there. See, you had a good reason. Mine was like, I actually, sometimes I wish I went to the other school because maybe I would have fit in more. But then also, I probably would have turned out.

not very good because I would have probably done I don't know a criminal yeah I probably would have so I'm like thankfully I guess my parents did put me into but I because of all the kids were middle class and I wasn't middle class and I they they bullied you bullied you for that I just I think it was mostly in my head I did not want people to come over to my house because it was embarrassing yeah I didn't um it was just embarrassing like my house was

falling apart and it was a really nice my dad built our house it was a very beautiful house at its prime what did he do your dad built houses so he built our house so he did a good job with that he no because it was falling apart and he couldn't fix it no because we couldn't afford to he took out so many loans to build this house that he was just bad with money it was like we had times with having money but he was so bad with it that like it would go away and we would

Sometimes we'd have Disney passes and then sometimes we wouldn't because it was like he wouldn't pay that month and then we couldn't go. He had this idea of us being this perfect middle class family, but it just never... Yeah, he wanted it. Didn't work out. And he was always struggling to make it happen. Yeah. So when you tried to suicide yourself...

Was it anxiety? No, it was depression. I was so sure that my life would never get better, that things would never, ever work out for me. I was like, you're always going to be this like misfit. Nobody's ever going to like you. You'll never fit in. You'll never be good enough.

So I went to my room that night and I was like, you're done. Like, this is it. Like, I don't want to do this anymore. I could have done better planning. It wasn't like the smartest way to do it because it didn't work. Clearly, I'm here. By better, you didn't do better planning. Yeah. I mean, I ended up just like I remember taking a lot of Tylenol. I took like one of the Costco ones and just kept taking them and taking them and taking them. Oh, my God. So I just ended up in the frickin ER for two weeks. My mom woke me up.

Like, came in and was like, what? She saw the note, obviously. I had locked the door. She, like, broke into the room or something. Yeah. And then was like, what did you do? What did you do? And then dragged me to the hospital where they, like, I was in ICU for a week. Were you in a coma or something? No, my liver was pretty fucked from, like, all of the. But they ended up being able to, whatever they did in there, I was fine. Yeah.

Your liver bounced back? Yeah, which was always a big fear of going forward was it's like I had to limit like, okay, don't drink too much. But it ended up bouncing back. So I was fine. So your numbers are good? Yeah, I'm good now. But like when you didn't succeed, what was the feeling? I was so angry. And they made you feel so stupid in the hospital. Like, see, with what you tried, people don't end up dying. They just end up like quadriplegic. And I was like...

you dumb bitches. I wanted to go and now you're making me feel like more bad that I didn't succeed. Like you're just making me come back with a vengeance. I'm going to do it right next time. What do you got around here that I can do? I know. I was like, that sucks. But then because of that, my parents separated. Like they forced my parents to go not live together anymore. Oh, who did? The state? Yeah, yeah. No shit. I had to go to like therapy and stuff. Like I had to live with my brother until my parents would

separate houses. So they actually stepped in, like the domestic courts or something? Something. Someone stepped in and I couldn't go. That it was an unhealthy environment. Yeah, and I would have to go have meetings with CPS where my mom would be over my shoulder like, you tell them anything, they'll take them away. And I was like, okay. Take who away? You away. Me, they kept saying, my parents were like, my mom was trying to like scare me into thinking CPS would just

take me if I said too much. So I was trying to be very careful of like, why? So when they decided, it sounded like they were ready to break up anyways. Yeah, they didn't live. They were on separate sides. They were divorced. They were on completely separate sides of my dad's house. So he had to get out? No, she left. So she got an apartment. And you went with her?

No, I went with her here and there. My mom only had a one-bedroom apartment. How'd they decide that she was the one to go? My mom hated the house. She hated it.

From day one. So she was ready. She was like, all right, fine. That was what she needed. But you stayed in the house with him? Yeah. But that was when I was 14. And then when I was 18, I moved out. So it was four years. It wasn't too long. But the suicidal stuff left because of therapy and because of, you know. No. It always was there. It's always been there. Really? It's always there. It's not anymore. I would say. Because you're ungrounded.

I'm not grounded at all. Right. And the feelings that caused it never left. It just changed. Like to this day, the feelings are still there. I just get therapy to work through them more. But the feelings of you're never going to be what you want to be or you're never going to be the best at what you do or you're never like you don't fit in here. Isn't that interesting? Because like I, you know, I've thought about that a lot myself is that when you have parents that are like emotionally irresponsible. Yeah.

And I talk about this a lot, but I read this book. And he said that if your parents are emotionally abusive one way or the other, that you have a hard time as a child blaming them.

So you blame yourself. Yeah. And you put this thing in your head that you're the shitty thing. Yeah. And then you do that at such a young age, it doesn't go away. I've never really even looked into it. I just kind of lived this way. But you know what I mean? It makes sense, right? It does. And then you just have this voice in your head that's sort of like, you're not as good as that. Yeah. Like you'll never be as good as anybody else that does what you. So when you turn 18, where do you go? I got a job.

As a nanny. And then I... How did you... First, I used care.com to get a job as a nanny. And then I got... Well, first, I was working at... I worked a bunch of jobs. I started working when I was 16, so...

But when I was around 18, I knew I wanted to leave. And my dad was like, at one point, he got really mad at me one day and was like, get out of my house. And I said, okay. And that was it? Bye. And that was it. And I left and I never looked back. I never moved back. I was gone. But you never got fucked up on drugs or anything? No. I've always just been aspiring to get rich. Instead, I got fucked up on this, like,

need for success in life. That's my advice is like trying to succeed. So that's how you fought the voice? You're like, I'll show you. I try to. That's what I'm trying to do still. I'm still just trying to make it so that I can be proud of myself one day. So, all right. So you do a bunch of jobs and you end up as a nanny. Yeah. And that must have been interesting to come from where you come from and then being these nice families. Oh, yeah. It made me

I was never jealous. I was just looking at them like, this is what I know it's out there now. Like, I know you can be a happy family and have a nanny one day and do all of these things. And I wanted it so bad. Were any of them, like, you know, impactful in your life, the families? Yeah, I keep in touch with all of them. I worked for three families and I still keep in touch with them. I check in on their kids randomly because it was so nice going into somebody's house and seeing things that...

were functional and peaceful. And you grew attachments with the kids and the family. Yeah, and I loved my first job as a nanny. And I was so grateful that they gave me that job. Yeah. I was like, because I was 18, it was my first time as a nanny. So the person who first takes the risk on hiring you is amazing because then it helps, it sets it up for all the future. Right, if you do it right. Yeah, yeah. And I...

Loved it. I had three kids. One was a baby. I think I started when he was three months old and then one was two and one was four. And I did everything with those kids. I worked 70 hours a week at points because the parents were both working. It was amazing. And then one day they looked at me and they were like, we're moving to L.A. And I said,

They were like, so I'm so sorry. And I was like, I'll move with you. So I... Did you live in their house? No, I never lived in their house. I went and found an apartment by them because I was like, I'm not losing this job. So that's how you got here? That's how I got back to LA. And so these kids...

they knew you from when they're very young and you still have a relationship with them? I haven't talked, I haven't seen the kids. I'll talk to their parents. The kids were so young they don't remember me. But I worked that job for a bit. Then I worked for another job in South Pasadena for a while. I would live with my grandma kind of like between apartments. My grandma had a house in Pasadena. How was that place? I loved. Whose mom was it? My mom's. She's my like

She was the best. I wear her cross that she had every day. I've never been able to give any picture of my grandma she was wearing this. She was the piece in my life that I would go to. And she always had her doors open for me whenever I wanted to. So when I was 18, I would kind of stay with her here and there. And for months, I would always have my own place, but I would come back to her. My last job before I got married, I lived with my grandma. And we would...

So the job was in Marina del Rey, but her house is in Pasadena. So she would wake up with me every morning at 6 a.m., make breakfast with me. I'd make her eggs on toast. She'd make me coffee, and we'd sit there at 6 a.m. every morning, have that. Then I would go, and then I got married. So I guess that coming out of...

Your childhood, this nanny thing gave you some stability. Yes. And then your grandma, thank God for grandmas, like, you know, she was stable. Yeah. And she was just, she always believed in me. And she, I was going to community college and I thought that I would, I would,

I've always known, and my siblings all say this, that if anybody was going to be really successful, it would have been me because I was the only one who had the ambition for it. Yeah. But I didn't know that I would be successful. I didn't know what I would be successful in. Did you have other plans? I mean, did you have plans? I had this really weird dream of becoming a lawyer. Yeah. But I was not.

So I got an AA in political science and I got accepted to UC Davis to go finish that degree. But I was pregnant and COVID happened and I was scared that going to class I'd get COVID and give it to my baby or something. But you went to UC Davis? I was supposed to start and then I didn't. So you just went to the community college for two years? Yeah. And you finished it? Yeah.

Yeah, UC Davis, that would have been a trip. It would have been. I've been there. I wish I finished it. Yeah, I did comedy at UC Davis. Did you? It's in between here and San Francisco, right? Yeah, it's out there. It's up north. It's closer to San Francisco, I think, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like it's the only thing in Davis. Yeah. Is that college. Did you go look at it or anything? I applied to several UCs. That was the one that I got into, and I was like, all right, I'm going to go there. So when you got married, was that...

Do you feel like in retrospect, because you're not married anymore? No. Do you feel like that was another sort of attempt at stability? Yeah. I was so... Having a kid was an attempt at stability. I thought... After you got married? No, before. Oh, you had it before? Yeah. Well, we got pregnant before, but I wanted a baby. How was that guy? A nice guy? Yeah. He's an incredible dad. My kids are on their way there right now. And he, to this day, is just...

He didn't necessarily want to have kids when we got pregnant. He was more of like, let's just...

I was like, let's just try one time. He's like, okay. And then I got pregnant. And he was like, oh, fuck. Like, that was too fast. But you knew he won. Oh, I was like, I'm happy. He was like, oh, my God. And I was like, thank God I'm having a baby. And you were, what, 22? I was 20. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 22 when I got pregnant. And COVID had just started? No, COVID started during my pregnancy. During the pregnancy. So then that's when he started recording? Yeah.

No, I started my podcast. Yeah, or whatever you were doing. I started that right after I had my baby. Oh, so no. Yeah. And you did it through the second pregnancy or? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So does COVID, that played into you? Being home and starting to do that? Definitely. I think, well, also, like I said, I've always been searching for what I would, I was never going to be just a stay at home mom. I think

as much as I wanted to want that because it was like I needed... You know what? It also comes back to being insecure because I was insecure about my... A lot of the moms I would meet were working moms. And I was like, I can't just be the only one that has no college degree, no anything. I felt so inferior to... Even if... Even the moms who are stay-at-home moms, they had college degrees. They were all just do... Like they had...

But they had husbands that worked or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was so embarrassed meeting moms that were college educated. And I just felt inferior. Were they older than you usually? Yeah, they were always at least 10 years older than me. And I just... Did they treat you like a kid? Yeah, well, they just... Yeah, I never felt like I fit in with them. And that just goes back to how I've kind of felt my whole life. But I felt like I was just not...

I tried to be a stay-at-home mom, but I never felt like I fit in with the other moms. Because especially we lived at the time we moved up north. So we lived right outside of Silicon Valley. Did you have plans for making this money that you wanted to make before TikTok? Yeah, I've always had a plan. Outside of the lawyer? Yeah. So I first, before TikTok, when COVID started, I was like...

They made a mask mandate. Yeah. And my mom had just gifted me a sewing machine. Yeah. And I was so pregnant. Like, I was eight months pregnant, I believe, somewhere around that. Like, I remember being pregnant. Waddling around. Yes. And I was like, people are going to need masks. I'm going to make them. Yeah.

So I was like, I'm going to start a mask making company. So I started selling on Etsy masks. I learned how to make them and would go to Target and buy bed sheets. You'd get sour? No, I learned for this. Yeah. And I got pretty good. Like I would, my mom, the sewing machine she got me, like would embroider, pretty shitty embroidery, but it was there. Yeah. So I would embroider.

people's names and I sold them for like $22. I made $3,000 on masks though. That's pretty good. It was so good. But I was going to turn that into something. An empire? But I was always doing little things. Were you watching TikTok? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was where I won. Because of COVID, I feel like everybody got very, they were just drowning in it. And I had always been so angry that I didn't catch the YouTube post.

wave of success. So I was like... But did you have an idea for YouTube? Yeah, I bought... I don't know if you know, but right now it's sold out everywhere, but the Canon G7X. Camera? Yeah. So back when I was 16, I bought that camera. And I was like, I'm going to be a vlogger. And I would try to record videos, but I would never...

I would always be too scared to post videos because I thought, oh, my kids at school are going to see this and stuff. What were you going to talk about? The same thing everybody else does, just little vlogs. But also, I don't know, it didn't work. So when TikTok started and I started seeing people blow up, I was like, you will not miss this wave. You will not. I told myself, you can't miss this.

So I was posting like a crazy person, like so much. Like after the masks you just started? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was during COVID. Yeah, because after the mask, I stopped the masks as soon as I gave birth because I was like, this is insane. Like it hurts to freaking sew. And you're pregnant as well. Yeah, and I'm pregnant. And I'm like, I was pulling all-nighters because these people were crazy about when they wanted their masks. They're like, I want, but I was also, I'm such a,

Like I have the mentality of like, say you'll do it and then just make it happen. So I'd be like, I can send it. I mean, I gave an option for overnight shipping. Yeah. Even though I didn't have like the mass produced or something. Yeah. But I was like, it was an extra $10. So if people would click that, then I'd be like, I'd go wake up and go sew the mask real quick and then be like, all right, here you go. So I was like, I would always charge a little extra and there'd be things that I'd have to then go do. Yeah. Just make it happen. And you probably lost a little money doing that.

No, just sleep. I was just going fast. Yeah, because they paid for their own shipping. Oh, okay. Oh, I see. So I was just losing sleep. Did you have a brand name for your masks? No. No? No, I think it was just under my name at the time. I don't know. It was just... So when you decide to do TikTok, was there a model? Were you watching certain people that you thought, like, well, this is the way to do this? I would look at viral videos and be like, how do I get on a trend? What do I do? I watched a lot of... I had a kid, so I watched a lot of mommy.

vloggers um the first thing i tried was to get my sister to help do something i said lexi um let's make a sister page so we both logged in if you like if there's somewhere in the world where you can see the name history i wish they would do that on tiktok you could see how many times my name has changed because it started off as lex and bob yeah and it was going to be just a sister page so i was like but she wasn't doing her end of it she's never had that yeah like i would be

Like, I need to be super successful. She was just in the military. She was like, I'm doing what I... Your older sister? My little sister. That one, she was in the military? She was, yeah. She just got out. Now she helps me with my life. Oh, she's part of your team? Yes. So you were... It wasn't really about celebrity. It was really economics. I just wanted to make enough money. Make enough money to be self-supporting and not live the life you grew up with. Yeah. But did you have a sense of...

How one made money by making a viral video? Yeah, just people would post how much money they would make on social media and stuff. But was that from brand? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I knew that I needed to get followers to get brand deals. So I was like, how do I... Well, I knew what I needed to do was become one of the people who's known on there. Not just have viral videos, but have people who follow you and who want more from you. So it's funny, though, because you grew up in this age where... Like, I come from, you know, basically...

over a lot of years, you know, not really making it in regular show business. So you... That wasn't even on your radar, really. No, not yet. Right, to be an actor, to be a comedy person. No, it came...

Pretty early in it when I remember a few directors had reached out to me when they noticed I was acting in them and would be like, oh, do you want to do this? And I was like, actually, yeah, that'd be great. And as a kid, I would like, of course, everyone has that dream of I love to act. But I never did any like steps towards acting or anything. Right. So when you first start doing the videos, just you and your sister and that didn't pan out. Yeah, that didn't work. And then you switched to... Then I...

I don't know. I try to think back. I don't know if I was always sarcastic or if that... Like, I had to have been because my first video that I made that was...

I had seen this viral trend where you pretend your kid's name is, like, your name is spelled backwards. And then I was like, look at my daughter. It's iBob. Yeah. And I was like... But then I really leaned into... Because I've always been very aware of, I guess, how dumb people look sometimes. Yeah. So when people would believe things like that, I was like, they believe anything. So I was like, let me just make... Believe things like what? Like, my kid's name is iBob. Oh, okay. I was like, there's no way people could see this and think that it's real. But they did. So I was like, oh. Then I said...

Her name was Richard. Yeah. And people were like, you would name your daughter Richard? And I was like, I doubled down. And that's when the character was born. I was now a parody of a shitty mom. And I was like, yeah, I named her Richard. And somewhere out there, that video is there where I'm like, I named her Richard. I wanted a boy. I had a girl. So I named her Richard anyway. And then I went down and I kept doing it. I went and thought of the most insane things that I could think of. And people would believe anything. With your kids. Yeah. So I was like...

I'm taking Richard to get braces today because her two front teeth grew in and they're not straight and that pisses me off. So, and people believed anything I put out there and it would go so viral. But what I was really gaining was the people who knew that I was kidding and were like in on it. Those are the people that followed me and have supported me through this.

So like just thousands of comments like you're a shitty mom. Yeah, yeah. Of like, fuck her. I was going viral on like on the random little, you know, the little news things that were picking up stupid stories. It'd be like, mom names her daughter Richard. Clickbait stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I started doing parodies of like, I became not only a shitty mother, I was a shitty wife too. So I would have my like ex-husband and husband at the time, he would play a part of like this cheater. Yeah. And then I would be...

I would pretend that, like, I'm an oblivious housewife who has no idea. People would definitely make—I was getting a lot of attention on TikTok because I was getting, like, 40 million views on some videos. And TikTok was pretty new at the time? Yeah, it was right when people started to grow on there, when it became really popular, because it was right when COVID started. So, okay, so you got 40 million views. How did you make that money at the beginning? In the beginning, I wasn't—

Making crazy. I signed to an agency probably pretty quickly into it. And then I started to get brand deals. So I would make like 10. Was an agent specifically for TikTokers to get brand deals? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like a management team. No, yeah, it was just around TikTok and all of that. So there's a whole world of show business just around influencers, obviously. Yeah, just around TikTokers even. Why didn't I assume that? Of course there is. Yeah, I was so blown away when I saw just how much money you could make.

From just TikTok. And then I was able to transfer my, I was like strategic in transferring followers over to Instagram. So what was the first brand? The first brand I worked for, I want to say it was so long ago. And it was probably before I signed to a management team. It was FabFitFun. What is that? It's like a subscription service for this box they send you full of things.

Oh, right. No, we did some of those. Like when we started the podcast, yeah, we had like Adam and Eve sex toys and stuff. Was it a subscription? Well, no, it was, you get a package and you get, you know, of stuff. And then it wasn't a subscription, but we did those boxes. Okay, yeah, where they give you boxes of, yeah. Yeah, and we did the like food boxes and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yep. And that was like just somebody, uh,

aggregating other products. Yeah. Usually it'd be a box. Yeah. So it was like branding on branding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, so then... All right, so when... So...

then you start to move up people over the Instagram? So also you're making money on the TikTok creator fund. And I've always made a lot of money on that because I've always had viral videos. How does that work? Per view you get. After a certain amount? No, it's once you get, I think 10,000 followers, you can apply to be in it. And then it's like as, um,

As long as back then it used to be any video. Now it's over a minute. So if you notice, all of my videos are over a minute. Yeah. It's because you want to stay in the fund? No, it's because you don't get paid unless the video is over a minute. Right, right. Yeah. So if I want to get paid, I have to make it over a minute. So all of my clips are always over a minute. So you're making money, right? You know, pretty close to when he started. Yeah. Just from that. Just from that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, I remember...

And my dad, too, was so funny. I remember him saying early on, he would track my followers. I remember he'd be like, you're going to hit a million by the end of this month. And I was like, no, dad, that's not how it works. I'm not going to get there that fast. And I did. And he was like, see, I told you. And he would send me, every time I'd go up like 0.1, 0.2, 1.3, he would send me a screenshot and be like, you did it, you did it. He's finally given up on sending me my stats. Yeah, but he's proud of you. He was so proud of everything. He still is. He's so proud of everything I do.

do online. He's like my, he loves to tell literally everyone that I'm his kid. He gets a kick out of it. Yes. And your mom? Yeah, she's equally, I think no one's as proud of me as my sister. Yeah.

The one out on the porch? The one out on the porch. She has inside. So she lives in, I have an ADU. Yeah. And she lives in it. Yeah. And in her house, she has like a shrine of all of my achievements. And every time I go somewhere or get invited to something, she keeps something from it and puts it to it. Oh, that's sweet. And she's just so, she's such a proud little sister. She's never cared to be in the spotlight. She just likes to like see me. So when do you, when do you, what do you consider your big break?

In terms of when everything changed. So you got a manager who's like brand representation. But then like you shift from, you take the sarcastic, snarky character and you decide to engage with people. So,

It's really hard to come up with content every day when you don't have someone else to do it with. And you have to do it every day. Yeah, you lose relevance fast. My goal was that every day I needed to post a video that hit a million views. And if I didn't, I'd fall so shitty. So I would try to... What, you'd just beat yourself up?

Oh, no, I just keep posting. I would be like, I can't sleep until like, yeah, I need to get a video with a million. And I almost always hit that goal. I just had to like, okay, that video is a flop. Delete, try again, delete, try again. Like I was so determined every single day for almost three years that I had to get a video that hit a million every day. I needed to stay relevant. So I was like, yeah.

So you did it? Yeah, yeah, I did. And then... Was there a science to it ultimately? I mean, it was just figuring out... You never know if... You really don't know. It's like even to this day, I don't know what's going to actually take off and get really like... Sometimes you can have an idea, but for the most part, you really never know. Some things can just...

Some things you can think are going to hit and it just doesn't. Yeah, I got a guy doing mine and like this weird thing hit. Like it was crazy. It could be so random. And it's like, what is that? It's not 40 million, but it was sort of like, why would that one? Yeah, that'll happen to me too where I'm like, okay, that's interesting. But then I'll post something that I'm like, this is definitely going to and it doesn't. And I'm like, okay, that's what. But there's like some science to it. Like there is some science.

Like I know clickbaity things to do or ragey things to do to get people to pay attention. Yeah. Yeah. Like what? Like if you say something in the first three seconds that makes them watch it till the end, the video is going to do better. So it's just if I say like, I can't believe my sister did that at the end. Or if you show like a little preview in the beginning, something crazy that happens, they'll sit through and watch the whole thing. For a minute. Yeah.

Yeah. So you're basically producing shows that are a minute long. That are a minute long, yeah. And I kind of do that. I have to do it every time. So that's the nature of the business that you had to kind of figure out for yourself. Yeah. And just get really. So the focus was like, this is working. Now I've got to nail it every time.

It was just, I need to get bigger. And I always, so there's like different tiers to online fame, I would say, right? There's like, oh, she's a TikToker. Then there's a few people that break through that and then get known everywhere and then get, are now like, I would say kind of go into celebrity. Like who?

So right before I ever took off was there's Alex Earl. I don't know if you've heard of her. Yeah. I remember watching her and being like, oh, my God, she's like she she did it. She broke that threshold of like now she's invited to like fashion shows. And she's like, right. She gets into like now you get into the next level of top tier. Yeah. Yeah. Now you're you're really up there and you're still an influencer.

Yeah. That's the title. If that's what you're doing, right? Right. Because it's like she could have also, if she was like into acting and stuff, she could have broken out. Or like, you know, like Addison Rae, she broke out into acting. Yeah. Or Charli D'Amelio, I think she was on Broadway recently. Really? Yeah. So it's like there's different levels of like breaking out and then doing. Another thing. Becoming bigger than just your TikTok platform. That's the model like now. Like you can't, like if you want to make it.

to one of those places this is the way you do it no one's going to help you yeah you're gonna just have to you know figure it out you just need to you need to start trending and if it's like i knew i was i was always getting views but i wasn't the most popular thing and i knew i needed i wanted so badly i remember being like i need to have my moment where i i become so popular that i transform that yeah i knew you didn't know really how you know i had no idea i had no idea and um

I knew it would happen because I know that anytime I set my mind on something, I will make it happen. But I had no idea what would be the thing that would push me into that. I just knew that I needed it to happen. I wouldn't be someone that would just be a mommy vlogger on online all day because that's not what I wanted. And that's.

Not what I was going to settle for. And so what was the turn? So I was getting very burnt out by just making videos every day that were kind of the same. So I was like, I need a way. Sometimes you would do, what was like the most amount of times you had to redo a video? I would post like 20 times in a day. And just delete them into one hit? Yeah. So I was just, it was exhausting. I wanted a way to collaborate with people because anytime I would collaborate with other influencers, it would...

Do well. So the thing was, is that everyone and their mothers, and you know this, I'm sure, start podcasts. That's the thing. Everyone starts a podcast. And I thought that was the stupidest thing. I was like, podcasting, I think there's a joke right now where it's like, they need to make podcasting equipment more expensive. Right. Because everyone starts one. And I was like, I would make fun of- But this is the time, not a video podcast. There's a difference. Yeah, yeah.

You know, it was I think at the beginning was mostly audio. Like there were a couple of people doing video, but it was still that that streaming capacity. And it wasn't really quite there yet. Yeah. And we're audio guys. So we stay in this.

But at that time, because what I would call a podcast is, you know, it's like an hour or what. It's like a long audio thing. But by the time you're coming around, what is the definition of a podcast? I don't know. Because it seems like there's a lot of people sitting on TikTok with mics and they don't have the podcast. Yeah, for sure. So that's why mine was born. It was a parody of a podcast. And that's how it started. I was making fun of people who had a podcast because I was like, this is the dumbest thing. For a minute. Yeah.

Mine truly was a parody. It wasn't even on pod. I tried not to have it on. I wanted it just to be video. I wanted it to be a full parody, which is why it was called The Really Good Podcast. It was just a fucking stupid name I could think of. And like, it was just, it was a parody of a podcast. I was like, everyone has a podcast. So,

So I had listened a lot. So you didn't have a podcast? No, I didn't. I didn't want it to be. It became one. And it became like, I became, and I would say too, I've recently said like, I feel like when my podcast started to get less views, it was when it became into like, it started to turn into a real podcast. And it became so like, I was starting to do so many ad reads. So I was like, I remember having a talk with my team maybe a week ago where I was like, I don't want this to be a real podcast anymore. I want to go back to when it's not a real podcast because that's when I do best.

And I don't do well as just a regular like podcast host because that's not, I'm not, I'm not good at it. Like I don't have the. You're a minute person. I am. I'm a, well, I can do a conversation, but I need to be in a character. I also just don't, I don't know. It's like you have to be, if you want your podcast to be what sustains you, you got to be like in that. You got to be doing all those ad reads. You got to be like, I don't, I'm not, I don't have the, I wouldn't say work ethic. I guess I'm just not focused enough on it or I don't have enough work ethic.

Well, you're not necessarily a broadcaster. Yeah. You do bits. How often do you put out an episode? Monday and Thursday. See, I couldn't do that. And that's where I was losing them. I was like, guys, I'm not doing this once a week. I'm doing it when it feels right to me. I want to do it when it's like...

That's how it started was like, I do one whenever I found someone I wanted to do one with. Yeah, no, you got to have the same consistency. It's just a longer arc and it's a different audience, I guess. Yeah, and I don't have that in me. Really? Because it seems like you had the motivation, but you just... I think because I have...

What I've learned from my podcast is that really where my goal is. I like comedy. I think that when you start to become too... I don't know if it's palatable, but I was becoming too... Real. It was just becoming me talking like this in the episodes. That's not what I... That's not what you're known for. Yeah. So when you start to do the parody, that's when you get the big guests? Yeah, that's when I... Yeah. So to take it back a little bit, I...

throughout my whole pregnancy, throughout, however long this podcast is now, I listen to, you know, Guy Raz's How I Built This. I listen to that religiously. I listen to that because I was like, you know, I've said, I want money, I want success. So I listen to this and I,

I've always wanted to start a company. I've always wanted to start something. But so when I started my podcast, I was like, I'm going to make it a parody of how I built this. Yeah. Because Guy Raz is a great interviewer. I'm not. So I looked up how he interviewed people and I was like, he does a lot of research. I'm going to go into this with no research. I'm going to go into this.

With nothing. And originally it was actually called So You're Rich. And I was just going to interview rich people and figure out how they got there. But I was like, this is kind of hard to be Guy Raz. So let me just like the first agency I was with at the time, or that was the second agency, but they were like,

They accidentally sent me an email thread of internal emails about my pilot episode that I had sent them where they were like, she thinks this is going to do well. That's so it was so mean. And I was like, I'm not going to post this. This podcast is stupid. It was like I

I was like, this is not going to work out. This sucks. And I wasn't going to, I saw, I think I sat on it for like a minute. I sat on my first episode for a minute. Then I was like, everyone in my life was like, post this. My ex-husband was like, I believe in this. It's going to do well. It started off as me genuinely thinking I could be a well-researched,

But, like, it was still going to be, like, a spin. It was still going to be just video. It was going to be acting. Like, I was going to go in there. And my first episode, I was ruthless. Like, I was, like, a cold-hearted, like, I don't actually care about you at all. I would, like, be very mean to the guest. I would be very just, like, I was in such a character. And did they know that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they knew. And we would break, and I'd start laughing. And I'd be like, okay, okay, let me just, like, compose myself again. Who were those guests? Um.

Rick Glassman was one of my first ones. On the real one, the hour-long one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was one of my first ones. It was always long. And it was on Instagram or where? YouTube. YouTube. Yeah. But I was mostly posting clips of the long one. How'd you get Rick Glassman? Why Rick Glassman?

So random. Well, my very first guest was someone named Colleen Ballinger. Yeah. She was big on social media. Yeah. And she had a Netflix special and stuff, but I had just DM'd her because I was friends with her. Then I want to say Rick was my second guest, and I had posted basically a thing where I was like,

Hey, well, I figured out that I could not pay for like I couldn't pay for celebrities to come on, but I could make I could guilt trip them in with money. And at the time, all I had to spare was $300. So I was like, if you comment on this video and you tag a celebrity and it leads to me successfully coming,

interviewing that, I'll pay you $300. So I think someone tagged Rick or something. He was like, all right, I'll do it. And I paid that person $300. Rick came in and did it with me. That one was only a 20-minute episode, but the clips did great. Yeah. I think. And then I kept doing that strategy until I landed. $300 strategy? Yeah. And then I landed Funny Marco using the same strategy. Who's that guy? He's a comedian. He's...

Um, he does social media and most like he blew up with like, um, pranks online and stuff. Yeah. He, so I did his, um, I interviewed him and that was the one right before I blew up. And that one, that one definitely like set me over the, like that one got so many views, our interview together. Um,

And then from that interview, I interviewed Drake. It was like him, Drake was mutuals with Marco. Oh, okay. And saw our interview. And he got a kick out of it and he thought, I'll do it? Yeah, because he saw like it's a fun way for people to figure out like how they would react in that situation, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Drake put you over the top? Yeah, then that one, obviously, like that was my life changed. Yeah? How so immediately? Yeah.

Well, as soon as it filmed nothing, but it took a month probably to actually get it out from when we filmed it to when it actually saw. Why you cut it? No, because it just, it was the, like I was working with, you know, Drake is Drake. And I was working with his team to make his team filmed it and everything. So between waiting for it to actually be ready to go and our first clip going live, it was

I remember just, you know, you're sitting on something that's going to be seen by everyone. And you're like, oh, my God. I remember just being like, this is crazy. I have this video. So you would clip it and you put it out in clips? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. How long were the clips? 60 seconds, two minutes sometimes. So you do an hour, but the model was still a TikTok model or an Instagram model. Yeah, because to this day, I don't mean like... You never show the whole hour? No, I do. I always do, but...

Like my team, like my podcasting studio stuff. Studio 71. I don't so much focus on the whole hour, though. I still focus on my clips. It's still about clips. That's what I care about is my social media clips. So Drake goes crazy, and then, like, what changes for you immediately? Yeah. Outside of visibility, money? Yeah. As soon as the Drake episode, I...

Signed with WME. As soon as the first clip went out, WME, I got a DM from someone there. Signed to that agency. They helped me put it out. I was actually like, yeah, it's just a YouTube video. I don't really put it out as a podcast. And they were like, no, you have to put it out as a podcast. This is huge. Like this is your chart. This is the whole chart. Yeah, like you'll be up there. And it did for a second. I just, I was like, okay. So I signed.

They kind of helped me with everything, and they were really amazing with how they came, and they all rallied together to quickly get this ready, because it wasn't really a... So they've just totally adapted to the new model of show business, which is what you are. Yeah. And since then, so how long ago was that? That was...

Last July. So it's been over a year now. And so now you're self-sufficient, solvent. You bought a house. I haven't bought a house yet. I rent a house. Okay. But so what happens? So now you say you're returning to the character. Yeah. What was the decision making and influence on you to do what?

After Drake, what did they tell you to do that now you have to pull back from? Because you thought it was more successful before. Yeah, I think I kept on it for a while. I kept doing the character for a long time. I've seen a few of them. I've seen ones with you and Santino on the golf course and you and Bobby. Yeah, there still is a lot.

Yeah. Playing. It was probably recent that I stopped. But the golf one and the tennis one with the guys I know, those were hours, but you clipped them up. But yeah, they were posted on YouTube and the YouTube videos do really well too. They get. With those guys. Yeah. I think I have like 1.7 or something million followers on YouTube and they do well. Yeah. They'll still get a

around like 300,000 to a million views per episode. And how do you make money from that? Through YouTube? Yeah. Okay. It pays well. Yeah. It's pretty great. So now you're at this point where you've decided that you're going back to the character because you tried to not do it for a while? I would say that I didn't so much try not to, I just started to care too much about...

You know, because I told you that I built my career off of like needing those comments that are like believing this. Like, oh, my gosh. You go viral when people think you're just actually like this. And it's more like it was funny. I think that I started to get... It's funner to fuck with people. Yeah, it's fun to roast people. It's fun to have them roast you back and stuff. But then people sometimes would be like, oh, look, so-and-so is coming on her episode and roasting her. As if, like, I know...

when I did an episode with Offset, he roasted me the whole time and I loved it and it was so great and we were friends after and everything was great. The internet was like, see, he's like putting her and her, like they took it so seriously and they were like, see, like these people are saying what, and it's like,

As if I didn't post this episode myself and I didn't choose to have this guest and I didn't sit there and then, like I said, take this and then post it. Why would I post it if you genuinely was being mean to me? Right. Genuinely. But people believe they're just online. They're so dumb. They believe anything.

Yeah, and they believe things without even doing one second of thinking. That's sort of like what's wrong with the world. It really is. They can't think about things for more than two seconds. They have no—it's just like they see something, they react. They don't have any sort of deep thought process. But that's interesting because that's why politics is so fucked up. It's why everything's fucked up. Because nobody listens to them. It's because people engage with the phone.

As if it's like FaceTime or something. For sure. Like as if, it's just so stupid. And it ruins, it's like, my mental health has always been bad because of social media. So it's funny that I came into a career with

Or it's all on social media. But you realize it. Like, I guess that's the double-edged sword of it is that, you know, it's good that you're not putting anything toxic into the world. You're just fucking with people's heads a little bit. But the number of people that can't see the joke or don't process it in any other way other than this is real. Yeah. There's more of them than anything else. So many. They believe – I saw Andrew Tate did a video recently about

saying that I said I was going to leave the country. Like he said, list of celebrities that said they're going to leave the country if Trump won. Yeah. And he said me too. He's like, Bobby Altaf, fuck you. And I was like, first of all, that's just so, what the fuck? I was like, where did I even know what? And so I get a lot of comments now being like, leave the fucking country, bitch. Like you said you were going to leave the country. And I was like,

Why did he pick up? I actually don't know where he got that information from. I was like, yeah, I was like, I never, I've never said I was going to leave the country. I was like, I posted a Kamala thing and I guess he decided that I was going to leave the country because of that. But I was like, now I get people saying I'm going to, because he has the most lovely diehard people online that will come for you. And they like, they

They come with a vengeance. I was like, guys, chill. It's okay. Like, I didn't, why do you care if I said that even? Well, he's working, he's got a grift going too. I mean, he's just trying to hold on to followers too. Yeah. And they don't really take into mind necessarily the destruction that they're unleashing. Not at all. I don't, I don't understand how you can, I'm so careful.

About what I put online and what it'll result in. And I feel like a lot of people kind of just... Well, I think they want that result. They're trolls. Oh, they do. Yeah. And they know they've got the attention of a very specific type of emotionally immature and angry bunch. Yes. They're like tribal warlords. They're waiting for something to piss them off. Yeah. Go attack that girl. Yeah. Yeah.

So how are you handling that? I don't know. I'm handling it. I mean, I think that I don't really care about that stuff too much. I think what I start to... So after the Offset interview, I had a hard time

staying in the character because I felt like I want people to know I'm nice. I want people to know I'm this real person. I want people to like me. For who you are. Yeah, I'm like just like me because I'm not, like this is a character. So I think that I started to lose the character because I was like

trying to become likable again like I wanted to show people like oh I'm a real person I have feelings like it's so um but then it didn't work and it's like that's and it does well but it's not it's not doing what I need it to do it's not doing the crazy numbers that we're doing because it's like I've lost that uniqueness now I've become like every other podcast that just

blabbering people. Yeah, I'm not, I have no, I'm still not doing research. It's not a good podcast. It's still a shitty podcast, but like, it's like, now I'm trying so hard. Yeah, now it's, now it's too much. It's become too real that it's just, so I'm like, I want to go back to what was fun about it, which is just roasting people and being roasted. Like, I want to be roasted. I want you to, I want, it's just,

It's fun like that. Yeah, yeah. So how long were you experimenting with being yourself? I experimented with being myself for probably, I don't know, like maybe two seasons. Okay. What's a season in this world? Whenever I decide. I don't even know. Just whenever I get bored of filming and I say that's enough. That's season two, season three? Yeah. I don't know. But now I'm – and this one I kind of have done a little bit more. And now this next one I'm being very like –

mindful to keep into that, even though it's sometimes hard because... So you're back, this sort of snotty girl is back? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's the very... I hate... Like the hated girl who just sits there and... Is it working again? Is it... What do you mean? I haven't started it yet. Oh, you haven't gone back? I've done one episode and it did really well and I was worried that...

People would think I was mean. And again, I need to stop reading comments. Everybody tells me this. Everyone who has a platform is like, stop reading comments. Yeah. It's so bad for you. Yeah, but you know that that's just part and parcel to doing the character. Yeah. I need to separate myself and know like if they hate her, then it's not me. So it's fine. And it is what it is. So now that you're kind of a...

It doesn't sound like the pressure is ever off you. The pressure, no. Either from you or from your handlers or whoever you call them. I think there's always going to be pressure unless I somehow magically cure all of my mental problems. But the pressure to work. Yeah. No, it's never. I think a lot of people would look at me and be like, oh, you're doing well. And I don't look at myself like that at all. I see myself as...

the same, like slightly, slightly better than I was. Right, right. Not, not, not at all where I need to be. And not, I see myself still, I think what's funny is people will, a lot of the things people say, and I think that's why it'll hit me hard. And that is stuff that I believe about myself where they're just like, you're... Sure, that's why, and the trolls are good at that. Yeah, because it's like, I believe this. It's like you're, they're like, she's whatever, her 15 minutes are up. And it's like, I, I...

I'm like, they're going to come back, though. Just know me, because I'm not letting it... It's like I've successfully employed a lot of people now. I know what I'm doing is doing well, and I... And you know how to do it. And I do, yeah. And I've become good at my job. And you're a good boss.

But there's so many bigger goals that I have. Like, I really want to get into acting. And I know that when I set my mind onto that, it's like something that I'm going to succeed at. So the part of the goal is now to, like you said, to get into that next tier. Yeah. And how's that going? It's going well. I got to be the very tiny, tiny role in a movie. And it was really exciting.

that experience was so cool. It was such a small role and it was literally over. Like I was a zoom character. Um, but it was so much fun working with the director and having them tell me what to do. And just that experience of acting. I was like, I love this so much. But it's funny. Like it seems like financially you're probably making less doing that. Oh, for sure. That was like my lowest paid day to day and all of my, so much less. That's that. I would, I love acting.

I mean, I've really, like, come to love acting, and I really, I would love to make that my next thing. So the podcast, and then on the same note of the podcast, I would love to have, like, a talk show, like a some sort of, like. Are someone trying to put that together for you? WME or anybody? Well, I'm now with UTA. Okay. But, yeah, they're definitely working on a lot of different things. They know my goals, and they know what I want.

what I want to do on there. So would you, would you sacrifice some of your control to be part of a bigger project? I would love to. I hate being, I want someone to be my boss. Yeah. Like I don't, I loved, I loved having like working in a house for parents. I like that. I don't,

And really, I don't have to as much of a control freak I am. I like having a boss like I like having someone who goes like, well, maybe we should do it this way. Oh, I would love that. I would love someone. I hate it for the last year and a half or two years. It's like it's been all on me and it's so much pressure to have it on you. And it's easy to doubt yourself, but it's harder to doubt someone else. That's like, no, this is what's going to happen. This is what we're going to do. Yeah. But you but you do like in relinquishing a little bit of control.

then when it doesn't go the way you want it to go, then you probably retract back to like, well, fuck, if I should have... Yeah, if I could just... I could have... Yeah, I'm sure that... But, you know, I thought of it like even... And I'm sure this is what happens is you kind of start in acting even, right? I'm obviously starting on the lowest. Like I'm... You have people like... I mean, I guess at no point do not, but like having the director be like, do this, do that, do this, do that. It's like...

Like, I love that feeling of being told what to do and, like, being told how to better myself. Yeah, and also just to take chances that you wouldn't necessarily do or you wouldn't think of or challenge yourself in a new way. Yeah. Right now, I'm trying to—we're in the process of hiring a producer for myself.

For what? For my podcast. Oh, okay. And I'm so excited to get one. I'm like, please, somebody help me. Help me do that. My brain's about to break. Yeah. Like even hiring a booker, we're going to hire like a... You're going to do live shows? Oh, you mean booking guests? No, but yeah, for booking guests, I really want...

It's so hard to come up with that all on my own. Oh, no. Yeah, we've had a booker for years, and we just get a list of people that are around or available. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That'd be good. It's so much easier. Because even Andrew Santino and Rick Lawson, I would have never known them if I hadn't, like, comments hadn't connected me to them. Yeah, yeah. And even with my, like, I have a booker who's just, it's just him working on his own. Yeah.

I want a team that's actually going to be able to know like what's trending or what's, you know. So this is the next stage. Yeah. There's a lot going to change in this next year and I'm very ready for it to change. Well, it was great talking to you. It was great talking to you. Are you going to come on my podcast? Yeah, of course. Oh, you changed your mind in the worst. Are you, are you sponsored by Liquid Death or do you buy it? No, they like, they literally sent me, I don't think we did one ad for them, maybe one years ago. And over like a,

period of months, they sent me like a hundred cases. So I had like, like in my, in the kitchen of the ADU here, I had like just stacks and stacks of liquid debt. You're just drinking them all. Yeah. Now they're like, I'm like, I'm literally starting to get low on them. And I'm like, I don't know what happened, but I could use some more of the sparkling. Yeah, they're there. I'll tell Morgan. What did I turn down your podcast at some point?

No, I just, they asked me today, they were like, we should, but they were like, we're going to talk to him about it. I was like, oh, that'd be great. I would love to have him on. But when we do it, are you going to do the snarky girl? If you roast me, I'm going to do it. If you promise to roast me. Like roast means just kind of try to take you down a notch? Yeah, just do the, Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee were amazing. Andrew's really good at that. He's like a...

He's a born dick, that guy. He is. He really is. I was like, oh my God, that was my... Was that my...

My first time meeting him was on that. I was like, oh, my God. He's really good at it. He's so good. He's quick. He's quick with it. He's so quick. And he's just like, well, this whole show is just beating up on Bobby. Yeah, it's amazing. I love that for them. And Bobby's a sweetheart. He really is. I know. I felt bad because I was beating up on Bobby during my episode with him. Everyone beats up on Bobby. I was like, that's what sometimes happens to me, too, is if I get a...

Sometimes I feel bad because I have a guest that's so nice that I'm like, oh, my God. And with Bobby, I was like, I had a hard time at points being mean to him. Because I was like, he's not. He's so nice. I have a hard time roasting because innately, I'm trying to hurt somebody. Yeah. Yeah. So you got to be pretty... And I don't... I'm not great at it, but I think I'm up for the challenge. The banter back. Yeah. I know some people are...

I think with, I have a lot of guests that are so excited to come in and get to roast me because they're like, we've done, we've watched all your episodes. We were like, we're going to do such a good job. And it's just like funny, but yeah, it's also just like whatever happens kind of happens. Okay. I'm game. All right. That'll be great. All right. Good talking to you. Thank you very much.

That was great. I guess maybe because I'm like, I'm learning what the kids are doing. I don't know. I liked her. I liked her story and her moxie and her ambition and just, you know, learning about how the new show business works. Again, you can watch the really good podcast on YouTube or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Hang out for a minute.

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If you go back 10 years ago this week, that's when we had a great WTF with Jenny Slate. It's episode 558 and it's funny. It's emotional. And it's available to listen to right now in whatever podcast app you're using. And then he was like, well, I think you'd be a great addition to the show and we're going to get you an office. And I was like, so I wanted him to say it. So I was like, so I'm going to be on Saturday Night Live. And he was like, yeah. And I was like, that's so great.

And I was like, I know you've probably you've seen this like happen a million times before where people are like, I can't believe it. But this is my childhood dream. And I'm so excited. And he was like, OK, well, don't tell anybody because, you know, we haven't announced it yet. And I was like, can I tell my nana's? And then he laughed and he was like, how old are your nana's? And I was like, they're this age. And then.

And he laughed and I was like, can I give you a hug? And he was like, sure. And then we hugged and I went outside and Seth was waiting there. And he was like, well, what did he say? And I said, he said, I'm going to be on the show. And Seth was like, whoa, that doesn't really happen. And I said, he said I could have an office and stuff. And then Seth was like, let's try and go find John Mulaney. So we went into the offices and because I knew John and we couldn't find him. And and then.

I was like, well, I'm going to go. And then I went outside and I went into the courtyard of Rockefeller Center and whoops, I'm getting emotional. I called my parents and I said, I'm going to be on Saturday Night Live. And it was really exciting. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Where are my Kleenexes? I don't need any. Okay.

I never cry when I just, you know what? It is a beautiful story. And sometimes I forget that. Yeah, now I'm crying. Oh. I had cleaning. Oh. Because it is like cool to achieve something that you've always wanted and to do it kind of on your terms. Yeah. To call my parents, like, they were just so stunned. Like, we were all so stunned. Just...

I came from like this fucking haunted house with these two artists with the woods on fire and just like had this one dream and went to college and didn't become an asshole and, you know, did that. And it didn't,

I was there for just the right amount of time. But, you know, to just call them and make that phone call. Right. Honestly, I forget about that. Right. And it was really, really meaningful. That's episode 558 with Jenny Slate. To get all episodes of WTF ad free, sign up for WTF Plus. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

This is a good tone. I like this tone. Boomer lives. Monkey and La Fonda. Cat angels everywhere.