Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - The Future

00:00:00.000 My magical producer, Emily, and I recently took to the streets of Manhattan to crowdsource

00:00:19.180 how people feel about influencers.

00:00:21.140 And yes, sometimes I call her Noodle.

00:00:23.000 What do you think of when you hear the word influencer?

00:00:26.120 I've got to say, the reactions we got were way different than I expected.

00:00:31.660 Most people we talked to under 30 did not flinch.

00:00:34.700 They flat out said influencing is a job, it is a career, it is a very real and very lucrative profession.

00:00:40.840 I feel like it's just somebody who makes you want to buy things, right?

00:00:45.620 Like, influences you to get things.

00:00:47.120 Someone who is, you know, a provider on social media, somebody who has a following, and somebody who, you know, utilizes that following, hopefully, who could.

00:00:59.240 It's an amazing thing to be in the floor, so it depends on what you offer in the world.

00:01:04.620 Or, they might actually be an influencer.

00:01:07.640 I have an Instagram with 65,000 followers. I do a lot of networking.

00:01:12.240 Yes, I do a lot.

00:01:13.020 I was walking by, I looked at you and I was like, I know that.

00:01:15.420 This is the aesthetic.

00:01:17.120 Ask anyone over 40, and they're kind of confused.

00:01:20.880 I think it's somebody far younger than me working the Instagram.

00:01:25.180 The response to this podcast has been so intense that I am just completely boggled that I remain pretty alone in covering this world.

00:01:35.000 There are some reporters who cover influencing, but it's a small group, man.

00:01:39.500 It is small.

00:01:41.100 The mainstream media definitely still lags in its reporting on the subject,

00:01:44.940 which is crazy considering this is a multi-billion dollar industry.

00:01:49.700 Stephanie McNeil, the BuzzFeed reporter that we talked to in the last episode about blogs,

00:01:53.960 is one of the few journalists whose beat is actually dedicated to influencers.

00:01:59.420 And she told us that she often feels that mainstream media still doesn't quite understand the value of this subject.

00:02:05.780 Even in the very, very small world of media that covers this industry, most of the energy is focused on YouTube and now TikTok.

00:02:17.080 But I'm always surprised how few people there are even paying attention to anything that happens on other platforms as well.

00:02:26.020 But media isn't the only place where influencing remains an afterthought.

00:02:29.560 The topic of influencer marketing is just a one paragraph mention in our chapter on social media.

00:02:35.780 That is Professor Peggy McDermott.

00:02:38.280 She teaches internet marketing at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

00:02:42.180 I met Professor McDermott because she emailed me and asked me to come to talk to her class

00:02:46.900 to be a part of the syllabus because I created this podcast about influencers.

00:02:51.780 My students were very excited when I signed them several of your episodes as homework

00:02:56.760 and they've already submitted questions.

00:02:58.840 Yes, under the influence.

00:03:00.460 We're going to academia.

00:03:01.420 Yeah. Peggy told me that she thinks leaving influencer marketing out of her curriculum

00:03:08.120 would be a real disservice to her students. Because this industry that they're about to

00:03:13.400 enter into is completely driven by online content and all of its crazy implications

00:03:18.840 that we've been talking about for the past two seasons.

00:03:21.800 What I feel is missing in all of this is a discussion on the ethical responsibilities

00:03:26.060 of brand management. So as my students go out into the world, you know, to work either in

00:03:30.780 internet marketing or in social media marketing, I want them to be aware of the harm that many of

00:03:35.360 these social media platforms are causing both to those who consume the content and to those who

00:03:39.720 create it. But I want my students to consider these societal harms when they're making decisions

00:03:43.940 on which social media platforms to advertise on and perhaps to use their influence and advertising

00:03:49.120 buying power to be a force of change on these platforms. The world of influencers is super

00:03:54.960 nuanced. And as we've seen, things can go wrong pretty quickly. When the people, the actual humans

00:04:01.340 who are involved in all of this, are taken advantage of, that has huge implications. Not

00:04:07.500 just for those individuals, but for all of us as a culture and as a society. These days, influencing

00:04:14.380 impacts nearly everything. From how our teachers teach our kids to how we give birth. Big things.

00:04:21.580 huge. We also all have a stake in making sure that all creators are paid equitably. Why should

00:04:29.860 you care? Well, you are the one consuming their content pretty much for free. And all of us

00:04:37.200 should have a stake in ending the unpaid labor of anyone. All of these reasons and so much more

00:04:43.620 are why mainstream media and academia need to catch the fuck up to us. Because this landscape

00:04:49.700 is developing faster than anything I've ever seen before.

00:04:56.340 This season alone has changed so much

00:04:59.440 while we've been making it

00:05:00.520 because new kinds of influencers pop up all the time.

00:05:04.120 Rule 35, which I just made up,

00:05:06.200 proved to be right time and time again.

00:05:08.960 There is an influencer for everything.

00:05:11.600 And there's topics that we've been dying to cover,

00:05:14.640 but we just didn't have time to do it this season.

00:05:16.960 That's why my corporate overlords

00:05:18.660 have to give me another season.

00:05:20.640 I'm desperate to report

00:05:21.740 on sleep training influencers,

00:05:24.820 adoption influencers,

00:05:27.760 pelvic floor influencers.

00:05:30.180 Yes, yes, yes.

00:05:31.440 The only reason I don't pee

00:05:33.260 when I laugh

00:05:34.000 is because of advice

00:05:35.140 that I got from an influencer 0.94

00:05:36.420 named The Vagina Whisperer. 1.00

00:05:39.860 You should be able to laugh 1.00

00:05:41.280 with your girlfriends 0.95

00:05:42.020 and jump in the bounce house

00:05:43.540 without worrying 0.72

00:05:44.540 about leaking your pants.

00:05:46.060 There's help and there's hope.

00:05:47.720 And we haven't even touched on dad influencers or the niche dad influencing market, dad divorce influencers who are giving advice to other divorced dads about dating again.

00:06:00.540 So it's important that you develop the skill set for vetting potential prospects and assessing whether or not they align with your value system or what you're even looking for.

00:06:10.560 The earlier you can determine someone is not a fit.

00:06:13.800 Philly, the greatest city in America, also happens to be home to a very famous trashman influencer.

00:06:21.040 What's up, Philadelphia?

00:06:23.260 I have a cleanup tomorrow.

00:06:26.380 Who has used his platform to fix the broken Philadelphia Sanitation Department through influencing.

00:06:32.560 If anybody wants to meet me here, I'm going to do another pop-up cleanup.

00:06:38.760 And we're literally just going to walk down this block.

00:06:40.980 I mean, I don't have to tell you guys, you know this.

00:06:46.020 The future of influencing is only going to be bigger and bigger. 0.95

00:06:48.960 And thankfully, I truly believe that women are at the forefront of trying to make it better. 0.89

00:06:55.820 I want the word influencer to not be a dirty word. 1.00

00:07:01.380 Think about this as democratizing influence.

00:07:03.520 Like, influence is a good thing.

00:07:04.840 How do we build a pathway out of this lock-in on single platforms for creators and influencers

00:07:11.400 that really own and control their lives? 1.00

00:07:16.760 Woo-hoo, ladies!

00:07:19.660 This is the final episode of the season.

00:07:22.900 And the only thing we can do with the last episode of a season,

00:07:25.880 besides go to Esalen, like Don Draper did on Mad Men, 0.90

00:07:28.640 is look forward to the people who are trying to change this fucked-up industry. 1.00

00:07:32.560 Today, we are going to be talking to three women founders who are trying to fix the myriad flaws in the influencer economy and try to make it more equitable and enjoyable for everyone.

00:07:46.060 And at the end of this episode, we will finally reveal the date of our Women's Day off the Internet. 0.99

00:07:52.280 I'm Jo Piazza, and we are taking back the influence, motherfucker. 0.98

00:07:56.140 From the moment this show began, we've talked about how much money the influencing industry 0.99

00:08:12.080 brings in. Can I get a ka-ching? Billions. Billions and billions and billions and billions

00:08:17.620 of dollars. We've also talked about the many ways that influencers can make bank on social media,

00:08:23.120 but that more often than not, a lot of creators, mostly women, are getting taken advantage of. 0.73

00:08:29.460 Why? Because many brands still think they don't have to invest in their most valuable mouthpieces, 1.00

00:08:35.300 the influencers who sell things to you. And that's not fair. People deserve to be paid for their work.

00:08:41.380 Finally, there's someone that's trying to make that a little bit better. 1.00

00:08:45.940 There's a woman, of course it's a woman, who's created a magical place where influencers can 1.00

00:08:50.600 try to help each other out and try to figure out exactly what they deserve to be paid. 1.00

00:08:55.800 It's basically the glass door of influencing.

00:08:58.360 And frankly, it's got the greatest name of all time.

00:09:01.200 All right.

00:09:01.560 I have nothing to lose.

00:09:02.720 Like, I'm going to build this website.

00:09:04.320 I've always wanted to exist. 1.00

00:09:06.080 And I'm going to call it Fuck You Pay Me. 1.00

00:09:09.120 That's the name of the company. 1.00

00:09:10.680 Fuck You Pay Me. 0.99

00:09:12.280 Because everybody who is allowed in will know exactly like what they can find here. 1.00

00:09:19.120 That's Lindsay Lugren. 1.00

00:09:20.600 She's the founder of Fuck You, Pay Me. 1.00

00:09:24.060 Yeah, she is the one who's taken it upon herself to make sure influencers have a space to share the numbers, the data, and their experiences with different brands, all in an effort to spread equity among influencers. 0.99

00:09:36.560 It is the wild west out here.

00:09:39.740 There's no rules.

00:09:41.380 Everybody wants to know how much people are getting paid or how much they should be getting paid.

00:09:47.400 A big part of the responsibility, I feel, is trying to decide how to aggregate the data.

00:09:53.960 Lindsay's a former finance analyst, former social media marketing executive,

00:09:58.140 former marketing executive, and former freelance model.

00:10:01.800 I won an Instagram contest in 2015 for Mark by Mark Jacobs, where I was one of 11 people

00:10:11.500 chosen out of like 750,000 people who entered to be the face of Mark Jacobs.

00:10:17.080 My prize was an international ad campaign.

00:10:19.800 I was on billboards all over the world.

00:10:22.780 I was in shopping malls, on magazines.

00:10:25.460 And for all that, I got paid $1,000, which is crazy.

00:10:30.760 Yeah, which is crazy.

00:10:32.520 And the crazier part is to this day, that is my highest paid gig of all time.

00:10:39.360 Like on paper, I looked really successful.

00:10:41.740 I did like New York Fashion Week.

00:10:43.660 I was sold as wall art and Urban Outfitters.

00:10:47.080 Wait, wait, what does it mean? What does it mean to be sold as wallet?

00:10:49.340 In their print shop. They sold a picture of me for, I think, a year or two. And I didn't make

00:10:58.000 any money off of it. So she went to grad school, worked in finance,

00:11:03.440 dabbled in influencing with an Instagram called Ms. Young Professional. As she grew her account,

00:11:08.300 brands started to reach out to work with her. But just like freelance modeling,

00:11:12.060 the compensation part of that gig was impossible to navigate.

00:11:16.300 You don't know how much to charge.

00:11:17.660 You don't know what to ask for.

00:11:19.100 This is why I always wish that I had a website

00:11:21.780 where I could just look up different brands

00:11:23.860 and get a baseline.

00:11:26.280 She kept thinking,

00:11:27.420 what if there was a website that told influencers

00:11:30.000 how much other influencers were being paid by a brand

00:11:33.240 or other important things

00:11:34.760 like how they're treated by a brand? 1.00

00:11:37.480 And so Fuck You, Pay Me was born. 1.00

00:11:40.160 I sent it around to my own community 1.00

00:11:43.560 of workwear bloggers and meme pages

00:11:45.540 who do similar things and I asked them like would you contribute and almost all of them were like

00:11:51.960 yes oh my god I've been waiting for something like this thank you and we still get messages

00:11:58.600 like every single day from ordinary people who are like thank you for building this website I've

00:12:06.100 been able to survive the pandemic because of your website stuff like that like I was gonna charge

00:12:11.700 zero, but then I signed up and I saw I could charge a thousand and I asked for it and I can

00:12:18.600 pay my rent this month. You know, that's, that's absolutely what keeps me going every day.

00:12:24.480 You sent me a compensation distribution for influencers who put themselves in the parenting

00:12:29.620 family niche. And only 53% of those influencers had a positive experience during their brand

00:12:38.960 collaboration. That's crazy. That's barely half have had a positive experience and only 69%

00:12:47.280 received cash compensation and 96% of these people were women. Those numbers alone show

00:12:58.520 why we need data, like what you guys are creating and why we need advocates and just transparency

00:13:05.360 in this space. There's great brands and there's bad brands. There's great influencers and there's

00:13:09.560 not so great influencers. Fine. But we all deserve to just have more information and for people to

00:13:17.080 take this seriously. So what is your overarching goal in the next couple of years? What do you

00:13:22.340 want to accomplish with Fuck You, Pay Me? I want the word influencer to not be a dirty word. 1.00

00:13:30.020 I hope it becomes a respected profession.

00:13:34.920 I hope it becomes normal for women to demand to be paid for doing influencer work, creative work, any work.

00:13:44.400 I hope that by seeing what everyone else is making, it will hire the bar. 0.50

00:13:52.400 And my goal is to help women control a greater portion of the global economy. 1.00

00:14:01.240 I think, like, it all comes back down to capital, you know? 0.99

00:14:04.680 Like, who has the money?

00:14:07.740 I think that that so aligns with the values of Under the Influence 0.99

00:14:12.900 because we don't want any woman's work to be considered a dirty word.

00:14:18.720 Men are so rarely called influencers.

00:14:20.640 When men are influencers, they're almost always, they're always creators or they're entrepreneurs. 1.00

00:14:28.940 And that is fucking bullshit. 1.00

00:14:30.940 Influencer only has a negative connotation because it is mostly used to refer to women. 1.00

00:14:36.820 Yep. 0.99

00:14:37.880 Hey, you're preaching to the choir.

00:14:39.680 This is the future of work. 1.00

00:14:41.520 There are so many like structural barriers to women making money, like in society and 1.00

00:14:48.840 from a fundamental level.

00:14:50.140 And at this, like, early age of the internet, you know, especially, like, when people are talking about Web3 and all that stuff, I get really nervous. 0.97

00:14:58.360 I'm like, oh, God, women need to play a part in building this from the ground up.

00:15:06.380 We do. 1.00

00:15:07.760 And luckily, there's women like Lindsay who are taking the reins of this brave new world on the internet. 1.00

00:15:13.360 Lindsay mentioned Web 3.0, and we're going to get to that in this episode.

00:15:17.500 Don't be scared.

00:15:18.540 Don't be.

00:15:19.560 But there's a few other ways I want to see the internet change before we take that leap.

00:15:24.200 Because we can advocate for ourselves all we want.

00:15:27.420 But eventually, platforms need to change.

00:15:30.560 And brands just need to understand how they can make our experience better.

00:15:34.000 As consumers, I don't want to be constantly faked out and sold too.

00:15:38.140 So after the break, we're going to talk to someone who's trying to fix that problem on the social platforms.

00:15:43.640 The problem of how we interact on these platforms in the first place.

00:15:46.320 and it's going to happen

00:15:47.880 by putting the social

00:15:49.340 back in social media.

00:16:00.580 It's not just creators

00:16:01.900 that are frustrated

00:16:02.700 with how Instagram

00:16:03.420 is working these days.

00:16:05.260 It's us.

00:16:06.220 It's the normal people.

00:16:07.240 It's the audience.

00:16:08.660 Viewers, consumers,

00:16:09.740 whatever you want to call us

00:16:10.720 these days.

00:16:12.000 Sometimes I wake up

00:16:12.820 and everything on Instagram 0.99

00:16:13.740 feels like a goddamn ad. 0.98

00:16:15.220 Everything. 0.99

00:16:15.540 It makes me feel like I woke up inside an infomercial.

00:16:22.540 Our next guest feels kind of responsible

00:16:25.280 for a lot of the reasons that people hate Instagram these days.

00:16:29.680 Listen, we created the problem.

00:16:33.240 I have a very complex relationship with this product of influencer marketing.

00:16:38.020 I feel responsible for what it has become in the world.

00:16:44.580 That's Jenna Cerini.

00:16:46.340 She worked for one of the very first 0.99

00:16:48.000 influencer marketing agencies.

00:16:49.900 It was a company called Who Say.

00:16:52.480 At first, they just worked with celebrities

00:16:54.360 who were trying to figure out

00:16:55.540 how to be on the Instagram in the first place

00:16:57.600 back in the early days.

00:16:59.660 So think about, you know,

00:17:01.100 Tom Hanks gets on Twitter

00:17:02.260 and starts posting pictures of himself at home.

00:17:04.940 His agents and managers, publicists,

00:17:06.800 they were just like, you know,

00:17:08.500 the animals are getting out of their cages.

00:17:10.520 We're supposed to have control over their message

00:17:12.840 and their voice. So Husay was created as a way to help celebrities to navigate this new space.

00:17:20.140 But then brands started to get in on the game and they could connect brands and influencers

00:17:25.160 so they could form relationships and start making all of the money.

00:17:29.340 Now, this was the very first influencer marketing agency. It wasn't called that for a very long time

00:17:34.880 because that term didn't exist. But essentially what we were doing for the past 12, 15 years

00:17:39.940 was productizing what influencer marketing looks like today.

00:17:44.500 So this has directly driven money into the pockets of creators.

00:17:48.480 This has driven money into the pockets of platforms.

00:17:50.740 And for brands, it helps them to really understand the audiences

00:17:54.000 that are interacting with and converting on their brand

00:17:58.220 so that then they could capture these audiences,

00:18:00.420 retarget them, and drive more sales.

00:18:03.320 The productization and monetization of influencer accounts

00:18:06.740 made the social media app a much less pleasant place

00:18:10.360 for the audience who was consuming this content.

00:18:13.140 It's gotten out of hand.

00:18:15.060 Social media was invented to be social,

00:18:17.900 a way for people to connect with each other.

00:18:20.100 Now it's just kind of gotten to a point

00:18:22.220 where there are hundreds of influencer marketing agencies

00:18:24.820 spending billions of dollars on, you know, casting talent.

00:18:28.880 And, you know, I learned for a long time,

00:18:30.980 I hired every talent you could name,

00:18:33.440 and it's all pay to play.

00:18:34.900 You know, some of them will say I only take on authentic partnerships that are really

00:18:39.380 fitting to my brand and kudos to them.

00:18:41.560 But most of the talent that are out there, ultimately, this is their job.

00:18:45.420 They need to make money.

00:18:46.400 So it's just not authentic all of the time.

00:18:50.640 Authenticity.

00:18:53.300 That word, that word.

00:18:56.020 Remember when we did a whole episode on that one word in season one?

00:19:00.180 Well, the crux of that episode, if you didn't listen to season one,

00:19:03.160 is that it is so completely impossible

00:19:06.200 to understand what is actually genuine

00:19:08.740 on Instagram these days.

00:19:10.720 If anything is genuine, 0.91

00:19:11.820 if anything is fucking real at all, 0.95

00:19:13.520 the more the brands take over our feeds, 0.98

00:19:15.340 the harder it's going to be to cut through all the noise. 1.00

00:19:18.200 That is the part that Jen is trying to fix. 0.98

00:19:20.840 And she's doing it with her own new platform. 0.94

00:19:22.800 It's called Hands Down.

00:19:25.040 So I have founded a social commerce platform

00:19:27.600 that is a way for you to connect with

00:19:30.880 and feel closer to your friends

00:19:32.280 by sharing your favorite things with each other.

00:19:34.960 And it's all limited.

00:19:36.600 So we're not trying to trap anyone in an endless scroll.

00:19:40.120 There are no sponsored posts allowed.

00:19:42.480 So we welcome influencers and creators,

00:19:44.320 but they can only put what they actually love on there.

00:19:47.660 They cannot get paid to post anything.

00:19:49.840 And it's a place where you share your 10 favorite things

00:19:52.480 and then you get nine additional lists of up to 10.

00:19:55.720 So you could share your favorite,

00:19:57.280 you know, playgrounds in Brooklyn.

00:19:59.300 You could share your favorite skincare essentials,

00:20:01.440 your favorite fitness routines, your favorite cozy hoodies. You know, you can decide what your

00:20:07.220 nine categories are, but it really is meant to paint a portrait of you and who you are in a

00:20:12.120 given moment so that the people around you can not only get great recommendations, but also can

00:20:16.800 feel closer to you in a way that doesn't mean you have to post a Photoshopped photo of yourself on

00:20:21.500 Instagram. And so talk to me about the logistics of this. When is this launching? How do we sign

00:20:26.120 up? And also, how do you make money if people aren't getting sponsored posts and you're not

00:20:29.300 any kind of sponsored posts gosh joe you sound like my investors i know i know and my next

00:20:35.900 iteration is going to be venture capital i think oh that's great i think you'll be wonderful

00:20:39.620 i do too thanks so hands down is currently in its minimum viable product so you can use it today

00:20:46.740 at its hands down.com and currently you can share a list of your 10 favorite things and invite your

00:20:53.060 friends to share theirs too in the end of april we're going to be launching our official beta

00:20:57.720 product. It's handsdown.com. I've spent so many years in the world of influencer marketing and

00:21:04.680 in performance content and in media. And I just want to completely blow up everything that I've

00:21:11.560 worked on and created and just totally kind of start from scratch based on what brands really

00:21:17.200 need and what brands really deserve and what consumers need and deserve. So what do we deserve?

00:21:26.300 Do we deserve a place where all the big companies aren't buying up all the ad space?

00:21:30.740 A place where you can actually see your friends?

00:21:33.240 And maybe even some products in places that you might actually like?

00:21:37.420 Do we deserve a place that reminds us of the early days?

00:21:40.460 Of platforms like MySpace, Friendster, and even the early Facebook,

00:21:44.980 when it was just like, hey, here's a picture of my cat,

00:21:48.800 and maybe here's a smoothie that I actually like.

00:21:51.700 The early days of social media were actually social.

00:21:54.120 I really did feel more connected to the people in my world.

00:21:57.660 And that was a good thing.

00:21:59.860 What Jenna and Hands Down are trying to do is a good thing for consumers.

00:22:04.620 But it's also a good thing for smaller brands that don't have all of the venture capital money to compete with the big-ass brands.

00:22:11.920 So they, with these smaller budgets, can't compete with these larger brands who are shoveling all of this money, not only into influencer marketing and the platforms.

00:22:20.060 And I would love to see, you know, a world where these brands could have more authentic conversations with potential consumers that are believable and trusted and based off of real recommendations and not just off of, you know, paid placements.

00:22:35.160 So that's an area that I'm really passionate about. And I think that relates directly back to consumers who are looking for those types of brands and aren't really finding them as easily or seamlessly as they should be able to.

00:22:47.280 When, you know, in a world of this mass capability of targeting and placement and exposure, ultimately, it's all about money. It's not even about creativity anymore. It's about how much you spend is how much access to consumers you get.

00:23:01.700 Hands Down is providing a wider platform that can give anyone a chance to highlight what's important to them.

00:23:07.980 And then when they do that, they can actually be seen by the people that actually know them and like them in the real life.

00:23:16.420 We also kind of think about this as democratizing influence.

00:23:19.880 Like, influence is a good thing.

00:23:21.780 Word of mouth has served us for thousands of years as humans.

00:23:25.060 It's just never been properly productized.

00:23:27.120 and you know this whole uh you know chaos of what influencer marketing is today has had to happen in

00:23:33.260 order for us to get here this is only about curating the absolute best things in your life

00:23:38.940 we have a person who has broccoli rob on their list of top 10 favorite things

00:23:43.560 can't agree personally but appreciate broccoli rob yeah and then you know we have somebody who

00:23:50.220 has a psychic on her list um and and of course there's tons of great skincare and all kinds of

00:23:56.560 outdoor gear and and meditations and yoga routines and all that fun stuff too so it's the things that

00:24:02.420 truly make or break people's day which make it really extra interesting to um to discover all

00:24:08.800 right well i'm joining hands down now can i get a beta link can i be part of it you sure can

00:24:13.060 in fact all of you can start using hands down don't just sit here and listen to me

00:24:19.780 get online check out what might be the next big thing in social media

00:24:23.880 go to itshandsdown.com.

00:24:26.520 They didn't pay me, by the way. 0.88

00:24:28.320 itshandsdown.com to check out what Jenna created 1.00

00:24:30.900 and give it a shot. 1.00

00:24:33.860 So Hands Down is trying to create

00:24:35.740 a more authentic relationship

00:24:37.280 between brands and their audiences

00:24:39.180 on social media platforms.

00:24:41.520 But what happens if one day

00:24:42.900 these social media platforms

00:24:44.260 that you worked so hard to build an audience on

00:24:47.120 just quit working?

00:24:49.560 They just go away.

00:24:51.640 We've seen this happen before. 1.00

00:24:53.300 We've seen the poof. 0.99

00:24:54.380 We talked about the poof.

00:24:55.800 And when the poof happens, 0.81

00:24:57.260 the audience that you've worked so hard to build, 1.00

00:25:00.020 they're just gone.

00:25:01.520 That is where Web 3.0 comes in.

00:25:04.280 Web 3.0 and the ushering in of a decentralized internet.

00:25:09.560 Those things could make it possible

00:25:11.420 for creators to grow an audience

00:25:13.140 independently of social media platforms.

00:25:16.580 And for consumers, for you guys,

00:25:19.760 to interact with the creators that you like

00:25:21.720 without being bombarded by ads 0.86

00:25:23.820 and all of the other crap on those platforms.

00:25:27.500 Now, I know that Web 3.0 sounds intimidating. 0.72

00:25:31.760 I am also intimidated.

00:25:33.940 But don't you worry.

00:25:35.240 I'm here to walk you through it 1.00

00:25:36.760 because there are women on the ground floor of this 1.00

00:25:39.420 that are helping other creators figure out how it all works. 0.99

00:25:43.300 And after this break, 1.00

00:25:44.500 we're going to ask one of those women 0.99

00:25:46.000 to explain Web 3.0 to me 1.00

00:25:48.140 as if they're talking to a very, very dumb child. 1.00

00:26:05.920 Here's where we're at. 0.99

00:26:07.920 Hands Down is trying to create a more authentic

00:26:10.040 and real experience for everyone on social. 0.98

00:26:13.700 Fuck You Pay Me is trying to eliminate the unpaid labor 0.99

00:26:16.660 that is rampant in the world of social media marketing. 0.99

00:26:20.800 And the final company that we're talking about today

00:26:23.320 is trying to find a way to make all of us

00:26:26.140 less reliant on social platforms in the first place.

00:26:30.280 It's part of Web 3.0.

00:26:33.520 3.0.

00:26:34.680 3.0.

00:26:35.620 That is one more than 2.0.

00:26:38.980 Have you guys heard that term, the Web 3.0 yet?

00:26:41.660 Yes.

00:26:42.500 I have, and I don't know much.

00:26:44.820 I know that it is the big next thing in the tech, but I don't totally understand what it is.

00:26:52.060 Thankfully, I'm very good at asking questions.

00:26:56.040 For our audience that is just kind of catching up on what's happening in the tech world right now, what is Web 3.0?

00:27:05.000 Yeah, that's a great question.

00:27:06.880 And it's a broad term that folks have described in a lot of different ways.

00:27:10.780 That's Kim Nordman.

00:27:12.740 Kim is the founder and CEO of a startup called Tele.

00:27:16.060 Tele is using the foundations of Web 3.0

00:27:19.060 to revolutionize the influencer industry.

00:27:22.320 So think about Kim as kind of our Web 3.0 guide.

00:27:25.600 Web 3.0 is a decentralized internet

00:27:28.420 that's powered by the blockchain and decentralized servers.

00:27:32.540 And that essentially means that

00:27:34.520 there's millions of people out there

00:27:36.480 sort of validating and verifying activity.

00:27:38.800 It's not happening just by the giant companies on the platforms that you're interacting on.

00:27:45.560 In case you know nothing about any of this, blockchain is how information and data is

00:27:52.060 tracked and stored in Web3.

00:27:54.320 It's decentralized, which means there's not just one company that controls how data is

00:27:59.700 recorded or used.

00:28:01.660 It's just embedded in the entire system.

00:28:05.100 For example, with something like Bitcoin,

00:28:08.000 blockchain is how transactions are recorded in a permanent way.

00:28:11.940 For influencers, blockchain would mean that records of their content

00:28:16.020 would exist independently from the platforms that they made it on.

00:28:20.760 Essentially, and this is just my words,

00:28:23.340 blockchain could free creators from the shackles of Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

00:28:27.640 So that if those companies go away, the creators still have their fan base

00:28:31.360 and the fans could still interact with creators.

00:28:33.500 So what you're doing is really helping creators to own their own content in a way that they do not on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook, right?

00:28:44.680 That's right. How do we democratize access so that all creators who can find an engaged fan base can directly own that relationship with their fan base, but also have the design and storytelling tools they need to express their creative output and ultimately make a living by standing up what is essentially the new age decentralized fan club.

00:29:03.500 And so that's really the roots of what we built in Telly.

00:29:06.860 We're powering the New Age fan club by building a Web3 starter kit for every creator that works really well within the existing social platforms that they live on today,

00:29:18.320 but also allows them to transition over to directly owning their relationships with their fans and ultimately being able to make a living from them.

00:29:27.140 The thing that I find promising about Telly is that they're not just building a whole new platform.

00:29:32.960 What they're doing is helping influencers transition gradually to this next stage of content development based off how they're already comfortable working.

00:29:41.640 We've really approached it from the perspective of allowing influencers to use the existing tools that they already use today.

00:29:49.540 So at base with Telly, you can stand up a link in bio website portfolio in minutes and you can aggregate all of the platforms that you live on today.

00:30:01.200 So you can embed virtually every social platform, every content platform into one landing page experience that looks incredible on desktop and mobile.

00:30:11.040 And then you'll actually be able to allow your fans to purchase NFTs directly from that landing page.

00:30:17.780 And then you'll be able to create gated experiences for your fans. 0.99

00:30:22.840 When Kim said NFT, I was like, oh, fuck me. 0.99

00:30:28.560 Because I'm just sick of acronyms. 1.00

00:30:30.240 Is anyone else sick of fucking acronyms? I mean, and I don't really know a lot about NFTs. I know 0.97

00:30:37.720 some things. I know that the acronym NFT means non-fungible token and that the definition of it,

00:30:46.220 because I love a definition, is that it is a digital piece of data that can be bought or

00:30:51.320 traded. But what I didn't understand and what made my head go was how can an influencer

00:30:59.500 use an NFT? You know, an NFT can be paid or it can be free. So it can really just be an

00:31:07.360 establishment of that relationship and that support of an influencer that then allows you

00:31:14.180 to kind of communicate and provide access and other things to those folks who are supporting

00:31:21.680 you. So it's about establishment of that relationship and that support between the

00:31:27.620 people who follow those influencers and the influencers themselves. If those influencers

00:31:32.320 are selling experiences, any kind of access, really anything, it can all be associated with

00:31:41.320 this unbroken verification of identity. And you can essentially use that NFT as an access key

00:31:49.080 to get any kind of access in that influencer's world. And it can really be on the influencer's

00:31:57.080 own terms of how they're trying to build a business from their influence. Which I think

00:32:03.600 is a big deal, especially with what we saw happen with Instagram going down because of a glitch.

00:32:12.480 I think a lot of creators are scared that one day, everything that they've put out into the world,

00:32:19.340 everything could go poof. Yeah, I was thinking about this today. It's like you've explored

00:32:25.120 the world of influencing on these social platforms.

00:32:27.740 And I've been spending the last couple of years

00:32:29.860 really figuring out how do we build a pathway

00:32:32.240 out of this lock-in on single platforms

00:32:36.320 for creators and influencers

00:32:37.620 that really own and control their lives

00:32:40.780 and give them more freedom and flexibility,

00:32:43.640 not just to be able to own their content,

00:32:45.300 but also to say, like,

00:32:46.640 if the next TikTok, for example, stood up tomorrow,

00:32:51.020 you could actually take your whole audience

00:32:53.040 and take advantage of the services

00:32:54.920 of a new platform that existed because it's not all controlled by one place that could go down

00:33:01.200 or that could have an algorithm change, which is just a terrifying thing if you're trying to make

00:33:05.480 a living that way. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting way of putting it. And that's a

00:33:10.820 phrase we haven't used a lot before, owning your own audience. Because right now, you don't. You

00:33:17.680 don't own anything. And I think that the possibilities of using blockchain and using

00:33:25.120 Web3 to get to that point, because the creator economy, it's not going anywhere. It's just going

00:33:31.860 to get bigger and bigger. And so the possibilities here, I think it'll really give people a lot more

00:33:38.760 stability that they don't have on the other platforms. Yeah, I think so too. You know, I think

00:33:44.960 I'm we're really big believers that in the future identity and relationship will be owned by

00:33:52.580 individuals. And we're just incredibly passionate about helping influencers, you know, build that

00:33:58.940 unbroken chain and relationship with their fans and then being able to use the blockchain, you

00:34:05.140 know, use NFTs to unlock meaningful access in their world. But we want them to really own that

00:34:11.720 relationship so that I think more than anything else, ownership of that relationship is going to

00:34:16.720 give them flexibility and remove that sort of lock-in of single platforms owning and controlling

00:34:24.240 their lives and give just a level of freedom to really be able to bring to life the vision of

00:34:31.220 being able to make a living off of a smaller number of superfans. 1.00

00:34:41.720 these three women are trying to clean up social media's messes 1.00

00:34:46.300 to make things better for brands, for creators, and for consumers.

00:34:51.000 All three of them are trying to solve the ways that social media

00:34:53.960 has been fucking with all of our lives for the past decade.

00:34:57.940 But, always a but, it's definitely not enough. 0.98

00:35:03.300 Here's what I want more of. 0.98

00:35:05.100 I want someone shutting down all of the goddamn misinformation on social media. 0.97

00:35:10.040 I want someone to verify the credentials of people who say they're doctors and therapists on social media. 0.96

00:35:16.440 Anyone who is giving out any kind of information that could actually impact someone's life, you should be verified.

00:35:25.020 I want more regulations for how we use children on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok.

00:35:31.040 I want a slowdown of the virality and nastiness that is making all of us worse people.

00:35:36.220 as a recent Atlantic article stated

00:35:39.480 social media has both magnified

00:35:41.720 and weaponized

00:35:43.300 the frivolous

00:35:44.700 this is so

00:35:47.000 so true 0.93

00:35:48.820 but the fact that there are women out there 1.00

00:35:51.600 trying to figure out how to make this wild 1.00

00:35:53.560 wild west of a world just a little bit

00:35:55.740 better that's comforting

00:35:57.640 to me

00:35:58.100 but there is still a lot that I don't totally understand

00:36:01.860 and the first

00:36:03.820 person that I needed to drag

00:36:05.520 go back into the future with me is the Glynnis. In this scenario, I am Doc Brown. She is Marty

00:36:13.360 McFly. We're hopping in my DeLorean, which is this episode, and we're going to figure

00:36:18.900 out the future together. I'm humming the Back to the Future theme song right now because

00:36:30.140 we can't afford to license it.

00:36:32.380 Great Scott.

00:36:35.000 Welcome to the future, Glenn.

00:36:37.980 How do you feel about it?

00:36:39.460 I was thinking

00:36:40.260 like how after the,

00:36:42.720 shortly after the war,

00:36:44.200 there was like the World's Fair

00:36:45.560 in Queens

00:36:46.220 and people went to it

00:36:47.620 and everything seemed dazzling

00:36:49.100 and how women in the 50s

00:36:50.940 when they got their first, 0.98

00:36:52.100 you know,

00:36:52.780 washer and dryer at home,

00:36:54.180 how it was life-changing.

00:36:55.400 It doesn't feel like

00:36:56.540 there's anything now,

00:36:58.820 any development,

00:37:00.020 any sort of future development

00:37:01.100 that is actually making our lives better.

00:37:04.180 Considering how much easier life is supposed to be right now,

00:37:07.140 everyone I know is exhausted.

00:37:09.960 Well, with that, that's so cheery.

00:37:13.120 You're so cheery.

00:37:14.640 I am actually quite cheery.

00:37:16.300 I'm fine, but I actually just think like

00:37:18.320 the people in control of creating the future

00:37:20.100 do not feel like they have anyone

00:37:21.920 but themselves best interest at heart.

00:37:23.820 And maybe that is the really concerning thing.

00:37:25.920 There's literally nothing happening in the world right now

00:37:28.240 but suggests that people with the control are envisioning a future for all of us to enjoy. 0.54

00:37:34.340 This is the reason that I want us to have the women's day off the internet.

00:37:38.000 Oh, first of all, I think this is so important increasingly. And the fact that I'm increasingly

00:37:43.940 hearing from mostly women who are so all, all of them exhausted and literally just looking around 0.98

00:37:49.820 and watching protections fall left and right. Like women taking a day off the internet is 1.00

00:37:54.140 the Lysistrata for the digital age. 1.00

00:37:56.700 Like, let's forget about withholding sex.

00:37:59.400 Just, like, withhold commerce.

00:38:02.780 Let's call this the Lysistrata for the digital age.

00:38:06.440 There you go.

00:38:07.400 There you go.

00:38:09.440 All season long, I've been asking our guests

00:38:11.480 if they would join the Women's Day Off. 1.00

00:38:13.700 Because we gotta start somewhere.

00:38:15.600 I'm also asking people on the street.

00:38:17.500 I asked my butcher the other day.

00:38:19.460 Yeah, my butcher's a lady. 1.00

00:38:21.180 I wanna know who's gonna join our badass coven. 0.73

00:38:24.140 There's so many people from this entire season

00:38:26.640 who are already on board.

00:38:28.200 I mean, we've got pretty much everyone.

00:38:30.020 What a gift that I would never give myself

00:38:32.380 if it weren't an official day.

00:38:34.100 So thank you.

00:38:34.900 I would love to participate in that.

00:38:36.640 Perhaps maybe you can invite

00:38:37.840 some of these big brands to participate. 0.61

00:38:39.780 If they're willing to take on Russia,

00:38:41.760 take on climate change, 0.87

00:38:42.960 take on mental health,

00:38:43.960 then why not take a pause

00:38:45.080 on social media platforms as well?

00:38:47.220 I am all behind that.

00:38:49.300 Maybe like a month would be,

00:38:51.560 a month off would be more effective.

00:38:54.140 You know, our power lies in like inside of us and what we know to be true, not in how someone reacts, not in how someone responds to what we say, not in what someone gives us.

00:39:05.720 Right. But in actually just how we show up owning what feels right inside.

00:39:10.800 I'm all in.

00:39:13.940 Yes. Love that.

00:39:15.900 Women influencing has such a huge financial impact on some of these platforms. 0.99

00:39:22.460 and I think it's completely underrated.

00:39:25.400 Well, you know I'm in.

00:39:26.740 We are the ones who make up,

00:39:27.920 I think it's 92% of Facebook's revenue.

00:39:30.360 And so if we all together collectively

00:39:33.780 get off of Facebook for just three days,

00:39:36.420 we can really hit their bottom line

00:39:37.920 and show them that we are a force to be reckoned with.

00:39:41.040 Welcome to our coven.

00:39:42.300 Thank you.

00:39:46.620 I'm going to need a drum roll to announce this date.

00:39:52.460 the women's day off the internet the digital lysistrata is september 12th on my birthday 0.59

00:40:01.480 this is a good day i know this is a good day it's also the day that glenis married me

00:40:09.860 in a vintage halston i will wear my vintage halston for our day off the internet and no

00:40:15.080 one will know about it because no one will be able to post a picture of it that's perfect no

00:40:19.280 No, exactly. You can't do anything. We're going to come up with the rules. This is the last episode of our main season, but we'll be doing some minis over the summer. This season, I'm going to say I think this season was better than last season.

00:40:34.480 And I just I continue to be surprised and shocked at this world and mostly surprised that we are part of a such a small group of people actually covering it and paying attention to it.

00:40:50.280 And it is it's a world that that needs this kind of lens put on it.

00:40:56.640 So we're just going to we're going to keep going.

00:40:59.460 It's not over.

00:41:00.160 and this world is just um proliferating like gremlins yes is it gremlins after midnight

00:41:06.900 does that when they start yes you can't you don't get them wet don't get them wet somebody got the

00:41:13.660 internet wet let's let it stay up after midnight because it's just all over the place it's all

00:41:20.100 there's influencers everywhere someone fed them after midnight

00:41:24.000 the internet

00:41:29.000 it just keeps growing

00:41:30.980 and growing

00:41:32.140 and we will always be here

00:41:34.460 to report on it for you

00:41:36.180 and keep making bad 80s references

00:41:38.960 that at least half of you

00:41:40.680 don't understand

00:41:41.940 season 2 of Under the Influence

00:41:45.740 has been hosted and reported by me

00:41:47.780 Joe Pianza

00:41:48.860 Emily Marinoff is our senior producer

00:41:51.260 Gwyneth McNichol is our story editor

00:41:53.840 and my very best friend.

00:41:56.300 Abu Zafar is our producer.

00:41:58.340 Lauren Phillip is our associate producer.

00:42:00.580 Mixing and sound design by Jackie Huntington.

00:42:03.660 Jackie Huntington and Jessica Kreinchich

00:42:05.420 have written the music for this whole series

00:42:07.180 and Jessica Kreinchich wrote our theme.

00:42:10.020 Production help this season from Aaron Peterson

00:42:11.920 and Anna Stumpf is our consulting producer.

00:42:15.580 We are executive produced by me and Nikki Torr.

00:42:19.480 Most importantly, special thanks to everyone

00:42:23.800 All of you who talked to us, sent us DMs, lent their voices, and listened.

00:42:28.720 We couldn't have made this without you.

00:42:30.920 And we all owe you an honorary NFT of my heart.

00:42:35.980 Is that how they work?

00:42:36.940 Still not completely sure.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - April 14, 2022

The Future

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