Transcription
Hey everyone, we have an especially great episode, but for different reasons. As you can see, we are speaking with Ariana Jacob. So she is the CEO of a company called Influences. It's actually her second time on the show, but the last time she was on, uh, it was definitely under much better circumstances. So Ari's actually been at the center of a controversy that's escalated into her filing an unprecedented $6.2 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and Taylor Lorenz, who's the New York Times technology reporter who published a wild story about Ari in August of 2020 that made my stomach drop when I first read it.
So this article, that is currently behind a paywall, but we will share a link in the show notes, shares harsh criticism of Ari's management company, her business practices, and even her ethics. It recounts multiple stories of former clients who were either in lawsuits with her, trying to get out of their contracts and willing to go on the record about their negative experiences with her. So in 2020, when most people's businesses were struggling due to a global pandemic, her life's work was decimated overnight by a New York Times article that tried to cancel her.
So we're speaking with Ari. I appreciate her candor. I am curious what you guys think after listening to her side of the story. Everybody, everybody deserves to share their side of a story. There are two sides to every single story. I think that if you take nothing more from this conversation, it's that everybody deserves a voice and everybody just deserves the opportunity to defend themselves, especially in a situation like this where there are some pretty wild accusations going around. So this is absolutely, uh, at the core of what WiM is; it's supporting women in business. The assumption can never be that somebody is presumed guilty and they have to prove their innocence. It doesn't work like that here, and I feel really strongly that it shouldn't.
So I hope that you listen to this episode. I hope that you read the articles that you feel informed about what the story was. We sort of get into it a bit, of course. I ask her some really difficult questions. She was very candid with me, and I hope you listen to the story with an open mind, but also as a cautionary tale because this type of thing could happen to anyone, whether you're guilty or not. I think that's the wild thing about this whole story. So very curious what your thoughts are about this story. Definitely check out our Instagram, which is @iamwim, and um, sound off. Let me know what your thoughts are. It's a very intriguing story, and I'm super grateful that Ari could speak with us.
Sorry. Thank you so much for being here. I am really looking forward to chatting with you. Your second time on our show. How are you feeling today?
I'm feeling great. It's actually really good to see your face. As I was telling you before, you're somebody that's done a lot for this industry and for women specifically, and I just really am grateful to be here.
It's great to see you too. It's I'm grateful to have you on. I'm excited to chat with you. Um, the first time you were on the show, it was under different circumstances, and I think you're gonna really, really make a big impact with those who are listening today. I know that your goal for being on here, you told me prior, tell everybody why you wanted to do this interview today.
I really just want to be here so that I can, uh, offer support and learnings from challenges in my life and career that could help other women entrepreneurs, specifically as I know this is a very niche industry. So some of the things that I learned, I don't know how I could have possibly learned it without actually going through it, and I certainly don't want your listeners to have to necessarily go through what I went through. So if I can offer anything that could help, uh, people in our industry, I would really be happy about that.
I really respect that. I know that you know, you're if you Google your name right now, probably maybe the first couple things perhaps in there is going to be this New York Times article that came out, and um, that's one of the reasons why we're chatting because there's been some updates, I guess, on on that story in terms of your response to it. So I guess before we dive into it, you know, maybe people are seeing your gorgeous face for the first time, hearing your voice for the first time, walk us through that New York Times article and the impact that it's had and um, sort of where we're at today.
Sure. So to give just a quick background, I didn't really just come out of nowhere, although I started Influences. Our Influences Inc and incorporated that in 2018. I'd actually been working in the influencer marketing industry before Myspace, before influencer was really a term, and I taught myself how to code at an early age, and I really just was super passionate about learning about social media and the space and really wanted to become an expert. And I had essentially, in in 2019, I discovered and developed some of the biggest internet stars in the world, including Charlie D’Amelio and Addison Rae and many others, and influences.com, which I purchased I think in 2013, was finally becoming that vision that I always dreamed it would, and all the blood, sweat, and tears from bootstrapping, not having, you know, a big investor or any type of, you know, seed funding, it was very rewarding to finally be in a position where all the work had accumulated into this very lucrative potential opportunity, and everything was going great in my eyes. Um, it was probably around the time that I spoke to you or, you know, maybe a little bit before, but you know, a very prominent reporter at The New York Times named Taylor Lorenz, she's their star tech and TikTok, uh, journalist, she wrote a scathing article full of lies about my company, and she had to know they were lies because we actually answered all her questions factually before she published the story. And you have to understand that we had a very short window of time to answer dozens of questions, and my attorney stopped what he was doing and responded at length to all these questions, and yet these lies that we had, you know, already told her were lies were still found in the article, whether they were quotes from people or what have you, they were still published. So essentially, it blacklisted me as an expert in the industry and really destroyed my company and everything that I had to work to build, and like that.
I just want to interrupt you for one second because like just like to pause there. I mean, you did not come out of nowhere. I mean, you you had been working in this industry for years, built this entire company up for, you know, months and months, years and years, and then all of a sudden, right, like seemingly out of the blue, you get these questions, what hours, days, maybe before the article is unprovoked, and yeah, it was days before. I had heard sort of rumblings from people that there was something negative being floated around. And remember, most, most of my clients were over 18, but we're very inexperienced in this world of entertainment and social media, etc. And when a powerful company, what a powerful journalist at a big company like The New York Times calls you and says, you know, about the allegations of your manager and and very aggressively sort of puts this negative cloud over your manager, what do you think most young people are going to do? What do you think their parents are going to do? They're probably going to say, I don't mean we like Ari, maybe they do, you know, maybe they do, maybe they don't, but we're not we don't want to get involved in this, right? Or frankly, uh, maybe we need to lean into what she's saying in order for us not to get canceled as well. I don't know, but I can just imagine that that's an incredible amount of pressure and stress for a new creator who essentially is counting on their personal brand not being tarnished as a matter of their career.
Yeah, and like you're, I mean, especially you're working with like a lot of TikTokers at the time, right? I mean, TikTokers barely 18, this could legitimately be the first job they've ever had in their entire life, right? Um, certainly not experienced in terms of entertainment PR, how to handle a journalist, and New York Times comes calling, what do you do? And look, that's that's a real moment where hopefully their parents did help them out or some sort of support system in their life helped them out, but ultimately, you know, there were a handful of people who were quoted in the article, um, saying some really shocking things. Transparently, I mean, when I first read the article, my jaw was kind of on the floor because, right, like we had very recently connected to record a great podcast episode together and just talking about the successes that you had, and I think that's what's really hitting me as a fellow female entrepreneur. Um, you put years of your working life into your blood, sweat, and tears into essentially your baby, your company, right? And just so quickly have not only people you don't know turn against you, but people who you did know turn against you in this in like the blink of an eye. I mean, I think about 85 big-name TikTokers, including five of the seven creators currently listed on the Forbes top-earning TikTok creators list, have left your agency since that Times article. Brands pulled their contracts. Um, I mean, you used to work like you mentioned with stars like Addison Easterling, Charlie and Dixie D’Amelio. I'd love to hear from your perspective, like how did those relationships begin and like where are those relationships today?
Well, I it's a great question actually because, you know, when when I started working with the first TikToker that we, you know, Influences was really a consulting firm for brands before it became a company where we represented talent, and so I was really on the lookout for, you know, creators that would match the brand relationships that I had, and as I got to know the creators, you know, a part of me saw who I was when I was 18, and I really wanted to be a YouTuber, but when I was on YouTube, that was not a career. There was really no way to monetize being on YouTube, and there were certainly very few mentors who could have assisted me in becoming that. I mean, I had a company called buyavideoblog.com where I would literally go to a company like a venue like a restaurant and just create video reviews on my, you know, little social media sandiegoexperience.com, and I mean, that was like unheard of. I was doing it with a Blackberry, so and you know, and I met GaryVee in like 2009, and he really encouraged me to keep going with with my dreams and my ideas, but I didn't have the money to sustain becoming a YouTuber as well and and be able to pay my bills. So when I saw these young people that, you know, some of them are, you know, didn't come from nothing or what have you, but their parents were very inexperienced with this whole world, they're like, how do I support, you know, Addison or how do I support Charlie? I remember before Addison's family moved to LA, they, you know, were across the country, and she was so vibrant and wanted to meet with everybody. I mean, um, I invited her to the Streamies because I was there with another client, and I remember she shows up to my house, you know, with jean shorts on and, you know, not looking like she was ready for this like kind of gala, and so I I put a dress up. I was like, wear this dress. I put some red bottoms on her and, you know, gave her a Chanel bag, and I was like, let's go, like, you know, and she and I and she wasn't supposed to walk the red carpet, but I snugged her on. I wrote her name on a card, and I'm like, you're going in, and it was so cool to see just her shine, um, as well as all the other creators that I got to, um, get to know. And so for me, it was really personal relationships. I actually cared personally about these people, and so when, you know, they exploded, and a lot of it was, I think, in partly due to Taylor's initial article about the Hype House, which, by the way, I was representing I think four or five of the creators in that house at that time, and I wasn't mentioned in that article at all. Um, Thomas Petrou really got sort of the credit for being the house manager when in fact I was representing those creators, and at that time I actually encouraged Tony Lopez and Ondreaz Lopez and the girls to figure out an agreement with Thomas that would equate to them maybe having vesting interest in the Hype House brand because they were building up that page, and I knew because of my experience representing Nick Crompton who was in Team 10 and representing Chance Sutton and Kate Spizer, these were the original members of Team 10, and they had come to me way before this to tell me if we had done it again, I wish that we owned a piece of what we built because we built Team 10 with Jake, and when we left, we had nothing to show for it. We own nothing of that IP. And so I was really encouraging my clients, Tony, Ondreaz, Addison, Dixie, Charlie, to figure out how they could, you know, basically own a piece of what they were helping create, build because I also saw a lot of the friendships fall apart once a lot of the money came into play with some of my former clients. And so that's where I think experience is so important for young creators. Like I think I heard a podcast where somebody was like, well, you know, it should be these kids getting managed by somebody their own age and whatnot, and it's, you know, it's it's alarming when an adult is coming and trying to take advantage, and that's really not the case at all. These creators need somebody with experience to be able to mentor them and give them helpful advice that will help them advance in their careers. And so I believe that at that time it was sort of frowned upon by some of the people that owned the Hype House, like why is Ari trying to do this? And I think perhaps there was some space that was created between me and my clients at that point, and when some of the creators, uh, left Influences, I was devastated because I just wanted to be part of it. Like everybody was exploding, everybody was on these huge talk shows. Imagine they were on Jimmy Kimmel or, you know, whatever, they were all these entertainment, and of course, personally, it it hurt a little bit because I'm like, I felt like I had helped them, and I felt like I was part of it, but I sort of took it on the chin because I was like, this is business, this is Hollywood. As much as I thought that some of those agreements that had been signed with some of the creators would have some weight, they realized very quickly that if you're a manager and you go around suing big talent that you might not be very popular in the future. So I decided at that point, maybe just I have this experience from building and developing some of the biggest creators that exploded on TikTok, so why don't I take that experience and help another group of people? So then I build a new group of creators that I'm investing in and developing and and really building personal relationships with. I brought them, a bunch of them to I think it's called Playlist Live, yeah, yeah, in Florida. I think I think I rented three houses and I got sponsors for those houses, and a lot of those creators wouldn't have been able to go had we not, um, helped sponsor their trips. So you can imagine my surprise when just about a month later after going on that trip, them chanting Ari, hurry and have the videos, it's not I didn't imagine this. They were very excited, grateful, excited for the future, and then, uh, the pandemic happened, like shortly after that, and then there was this chatting, you know, sort of behind the scenes. I don't know when this all started. I don't know when Taylor Lorenz got involved, although again, I know she was involved with speaking to my clients way early on. I didn't even make any type of sinister connection. I mean, I didn't I had no idea of anything at that point. I just, you know, again, I I took what I learned from, uh, those initial creators. I thought maybe maybe I did something wrong or maybe I wasn't, you know, good enough at that point. Maybe I didn't have enough experience, you know, you start questioning yourself as an entrepreneur, and I think that that I wish I hadn't done that as much. I wish I would have been much more confident in my background in everything that I knew, but we're human beings, right? And I think that confidence is, especially for women, it's something that many of us are challenged with throughout our lives. And by the way, I'm single, I have no kids. I sort of gave that up for this dream I had about this company, and in a way, the kids that, you know, even though they're over 18, the influencers were really like my family. I treated them like family. I skipped, you know, Christmas with my family to be with, you know, Brittany when she did her Super Bowl commercial and Charlie and, um, it was a really trying time for me because, you know, again, I was bootstrapped, so there was, so yeah, so that's kind of the story of how I met the influencers, and then I I signed a bunch of new people, and yeah, and so and then and then this article happened. And so, uh, you know, at your highest point, like how many influencers were you representing when you had the most amount on your roster?
Uh, I don't know. I I believe it was around 80. Now, some of them were people that had signed physical contracts, some of them were people that we just had sort of a handshake understanding, uh, some of them were people that wanted one-off opportunities, and you know, I one of the things that was interesting is that many people, many of the, you know, many of the managers, they don't use like a domain name to, for example, for like if I'm representing Charlie D’Amelio, I was using charliedamelioinfluences.com, and then all those emails that were sent into charliedamelioinfluences.com would get forwarded to me, and I had a whole system, like actually like a CRM pipeline of opportunities that I feel like we really organized in a in a way that no, no other management company for influencers had been doing, and I try to explain to people that influencers and celebrities are very different in that if you're Brad Pitt, you have an agent that is going out to figure out who is casting for a movie that you would be great in. When it comes to digital marketing budgets, there's no such thing as that. In fact, many of us find out who's spending money because these brands start to email the big, you know, talent such as Charlie D’Amelio, et cetera. And so that is powerful in the sense that if you have these huge, uh, celebrities in celebrity influencers and you're getting inbound deals, many times at that particular point, the brands didn't know who else to hire besides Charlie, but they're not they they needed to spread their budget across many influencers. So of course, it was great that they had somebody that could walk them through who is out there that would match my brand and that we could spend some of our budget with. Of course, I always and and the people that worked for me and with me, we would always make sure that that creator who the deal came in for, um, was priority, but after that deal was done, if that brand came to us and said, hey, we have more budget for this for this brand, uh, engagement, who else do you suggest? Well, of course, we're gonna suggest people that we were working with and people that worked that were, um, signed to other companies because again, like where we I think excelled and the difference between us and a regular talent agent from the past was that we were really consulting with the brand. My goal was to hit the brand's KPIs to make the brand happy so that they would come back and want to use that creator again. So I had seen so many times when a brand had hired a specific influencer on Instagram and the the paid post did not back out, and then those companies never called us again, and the influencer had a bad reputation within the marketing space of like, hey, that person doesn't convert, don't hire them. So we were doing something, I think, a little different and and disrupting this industry that's very much, I think, in the past.
Like, oh, you want my client? Like, I'm just going to throw out the highest number, and if it doesn't back out for you, I don't care, right? Because that's what my client's worth, and that's just not how digital marketing people think. Sure, it's a very different world, certainly from, you know, acting in Hollywood. Like, that's the world that I come from. I, I can attest to that. I and you're learning, you know, the details and the nuances of all of this as you go. I mean, you've got, you know, 80 clients that you're representing. A team of how many people were working with you at that time?
I mean, we had like five to ten people that were like contractors and, um, you know, working with the different talents and so. And honestly, that's the biggest thing is that, you know, this article didn't just destroy me and my personal reputation. There were many people in my company that put in a lot of, you know, that we're supposed to get a lot of sweat equity from, from or, you know, that we're putting in their time and and and doing it so that we could build something amazing, and you know, it destroyed all of our dreams, not just mine. And so, you know, and I don't want to even like for a second understate that, right? I mean, I, I want everyone to sort of like really truly understand the gravity of all of this and how it played out and how many people it like affected. And like, it's not just—I mean, I don't know. I think that we, you know, you see a story in the Times or you see something on social media, and it's just so distant, right? They could feel that, right? But these are real people.
Like, you grew up in this industry for all intents and purposes. I mean, you're telling me that you, you know, you're like, "I'm a single woman, and like, I made a choice," and you made a choice for a good reason. I mean, you were good at what you did; you had a passion for it; and and you expected it to continue to flourish like it was and grow on its own. But there were definitely sacrifices made, and again, it's, it's a lot of people that were affected by this story and and by sort of the how it all dissolved. So when something like this happens in life, whether it's exactly like the story or more commonly just something startling or shocking or negative or really difficult to go through as a human, I just firmly believe that your real people show up. You know, a lot of people will go away because human beings are human beings, and they're unpredictable and they have their own agendas, but you have people that show up for you, and those are people that really show themselves, um, and you've got to keep those people around forever.
Were any of those people clients or employees? Absolutely. Uh, employees, clients, advisors—they're, you know, friends, family, people out of the woodworks from my high school. I mean, not right away, though, because when something like this happens, they tell you, "Don't go out and talk about it, because if people don't know about it, then then you're going to show it to them," right? So it's this very like weird dance that you have to do, and and I just want to say that although this happened to me on a really big stage, I know that many women are attacked in their workplace, um, are attacked as, you know, entrepreneurs with by their competitors in small ways. You don't have to have an article in the New York Times for powerful people to start rumors about you and for people to plant a seed in somebody's mind. And and many people, I think, have experienced some form of, you know, somebody being jealous of their success or who knows what the, you know, reason to go after somebody in in sort of a nefarious way is, because I don't personally have that—I don't think like in my blood—like, I, it's very hard for me to understand why somebody would want to like hurt somebody else, especially if they truly, you know, if they've been told that and shown, you know, shown evidence to the fact that what they're saying is untrue. You know, it's it's one thing to go after someone because you know that they've done something horrible, but you know, anyway, I just know that many people have experienced some type of being cancelled within a small community, and I just want people to understand that hopefully some of what I can share helps with even those situations, because again, I, I believe that some of it started, um, perhaps before and in many points in my career, different companies I've started, I've had, um, people really make things up, and and it's unfortunate because when you're a woman, you know, the things that can make up could be even worse than, you know, for a man.
For sure. Absolutely. So once you filed this lawsuit, and I want to sort of hear in your own words maybe even what drew you to ultimately take that step, because that's a huge step. Taylor Lorenz got word of that. Once you filed this lawsuit, you were sharing your story with a journalist, and that's when Taylor got word of the story and, quote, "called the journalist's editor and ranted that you were literally an abuser," that's a quote, and that they shouldn't give you a platform. I just want to know what has Taylor or the New York Times' response been to this lawsuit.
Well, they haven't had much of a response except like formally besides saying that I, you know, that my clients came out and, you know, said that they were damaged and I'm upset by what they said, but that's not really the facts. What I'll say is this: Taylor Lorenz had a financial partnership with my direct business rivals, United Talent Agency, so it's essentially could be possibly a financial conflict of interest. Okay, she—UTA is this huge powerful Hollywood talent agency, and Taylor writes a glowing article about UTA in the New York Times without disclosing that UTA represents her, and soon after that glowing article, it's announced that UTA got Taylor Lorenz a book deal. And, uh, recently, about a month ago, a New York Times journalist, I think her name's Karen Krauss, was asked to resign because she had a conflict of interest. She wrote a feature piece about Michael Phelps, and she was writing—she was hired to write the book about Michael Phelps. That is a clear conflict of interest, and it's a big no-no as far as, you know, journalistic ethics, and she was called to resign, and she'd been there for many, many years.
I've spoken to people who are experts on sort of the New York Times and the background of the New York Times, and there's, uh, an author named, uh, Ashley Rindsberg. He, uh, wrote a book—it's called *The Gray Lady*. I'll, I'll think of it later; I forget what it's called. But he goes through the history of the New York Times, and he was telling me that the the New York Times has a history of really protecting their star reporters and sort of letting them get away with things that other people don't get away with. Now, I don't know if Taylor drives a lot of clicks and traffic, uh, through her sort of being, uh, a, you know, somebody that is controversial or sort of starts a lot of, you know, fights with prominent people. I just want to say that I had no beef with Taylor or the New York Times before this all happened. In fact, I used to tell my clients that she was a really prominent reporter who, uh, you know, could really explode your career because I saw what she did with with with Charlie D'Amelio. I had no idea that Taylor Lorenz was represented by UTA. I mean, that would have just—that was like mind-blowing when I heard that, and you know, and that she was represented at all or that it was by UTA that she was represented by UTA, because when I lost many of my prominent clients, who should they go to? But many of them went to UTA.
I'm like, "What percentage are we talking? Like, how many of those do you feel like—"
I would say, you know, a large percentage of the most successful ones. And you know, I was having—UTA didn't like me from the very start. I already knew that. I heard them speaking poorly about me, like with my own two ears, you know. Obviously, in the beginning, I had kind of like a monopoly on these really prominent TikTokers because they signed physical contracts with my company, so of course there were many companies that didn't like me. There's all sorts of rumors. You know, I was going to say like, "Is it, you know, look, I've been in—I've had my own talent management agency, so like, is it just like that they're trying to schmooze your clients and just say, 'Look, oh, like, you know, you want to come with us because like no other company could do what we do?'" Or was it personal?
Well, let's just say I listened to—I was privy to a conversation where the agent said, "Is Ari in the room? Because she's—you need to get away from her right now. There's people suing her," like, I guess because I had bought domains like to help to give them to the influencers that I was representing or as a way to like contact them, um, and I was just planning like that I was—oh, blackmailing—that I that I blackmail people. Um, they—he didn't go into what what he meant by that. I, I'm assuming he meant because I buy—I bought a domain name with the intention of giving it, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I, I don't really know, but it was really bad. Like, you would think of like the Wicked Witch of the West when I heard that. And the influencer was like sitting there with me like, "Uh, I don't know what to say. Like, these are like—this is like my team." Like, he had—he had this person had been trying to connect us so we could all work together because I had some ideas in XYZ, and he was like, "I really want her to be part of the team," and then this phone call comes in and it's like, "Get away from her. She's gonna try to manipulate you. She's gonna try to put ideas in your head, and once she gets in there, I won't be able to like, you know, get through to you." It was like, "What?"
And so you're over—you're hearing this conversation happening. What did the conversation sound like between you and that influencer when they got off the phone? And like, I don't know, even in that specific story, like, how did that relationship, you know, end, or does it still exist today? They, they—that person didn't really feed too much into it like after they got off the phone. They were like, "You know, man, that was kind of weird," and and I was like, "Listen, like, but he," you know, that person was like, "Don't worry, like, I get it. You know, this is like a competitive space, and you know, whatever you bring me, like, you know, we can work together." It was just really—I think I think it made them look bad, to be honest with you, because he knew me and he, uh, I had given this person other opportunities to, you know, interview with, you know, GaryVee, and I personally connected this person to other, you know, prominent people, and I was really just lending my advice, honestly, at that point without a contract for, you know, just as somebody that was helping. And this person was like, "Of course, whatever comes in, I'll take care of you," but that person actually unfollowed me the day that Taylor's article came out in the New York Times. So I think what Taylor's article did was sort of like give credibility to all these like untrue rumors from my competitors or, you know, started by her. I don't really—I can't speculate on, you know, where something started, but I can say that when you work at the New York Times and you put something on paper, uh, that's still really different than just like people talking bad about you, and it feeds it, right? I mean, it just—if anybody had any little, you know, it hurt—any rumblings of anything, any sort of negative something, or they they thought something, well, and the competitors want to pile on. If you hear something negative about your competitor, you know, most people are like, "Yeah, oh my gosh, did you hear—" but they spread it faster even just because it's that and it's somebody that's prominent, so they're like, "Well, Taylor Lorenz is saying it." And by the way, there's not that many people that explain the creator economy for the layman, you know, in layman's terms for for a wide audience. So Taylor Lorenz's role is really as an educator for the masses to understand our industry, and there are so many other journalists that look up to her and follow her beat. Of course, they're not gonna go around or against somebody that is who they want to become one day, right? Of course, they're not going to, you know, sort of challenge that person. And I—what I found out was just—man, is everybody in this industry friends with Taylor Lorenz? I'm like, you know, the Business Insider comes out, and she had come from Business Insider; she had been at The Atlantic; she had been at all these places. And then she was friends with all these other journalists that I thought maybe would tell my story fairly, and in fact, that didn't really happen. So yeah, that was really challenging.
It was challenging—was feeling silenced. And even at that point, I really didn't think there was any hope to file a lawsuit. To file a lawsuit against the New York Times is incredibly challenging, almost impossible. I had very intelligent people that I respect who told me, "Ari, you can't—you, you know, we don't think that you can sue the New York Times and be successful or even just have the means to sue them in the first place or find an attorney that will, you know, help you," uh, because it's a very challenging thing. And so I sort of licked my wounds and and that thing—I've had a lot of terrible things happen to me in business and just as a woman that I just got up from and and was able to endure and and just be like, "You know, my goal is this company. Like, I'm not going to like feed into this negativity and and people talking bad about me or whatever things that are completely untrue." I've had attacks on my on my reputation in the past, but but not ones that hit this hard. This one hurt, I think, because imagine being broken up with by 85 boyfriends all in one day. I mean, these are people that you love, that you care about, that you wanted to see succeed, that you hope care about you as much as you care about them. Obviously, we know this is a business, but it's really hard to separate when you are in that position of mentoring and helping and and whatnot. And even with the brands that I had, you know, many brands hadn't invested budget into a creator house, so I had to build all these decks, like, for months. I had been pitching and, you know, so with some of the big companies, it takes months to get a contract signed, and so I'd finally gotten those contracts. And so when, you know, when the the DocuSign gets cancelled on the day of the article, like, it's just—it was heartbreaking. And so I didn't really have any recourse. There's not much recourse for someone like me who's a non-celebrity to get the truth out after somebody this powerful sort of smears you and and says things that are untrue. And and on top of it, I probably sounded like a conspiracy theorist because I didn't know what was going on. I'm like, "Something is weird. I feel like I'm being attacked. Like, I don't know why," like I'm—and you start questioning yourself, like, "Am I a terrible person? Did I like do anything to these people?" And I knew I didn't, but used to—like, I really almost started going a little crazy. I mean, if enough people—if enough people start saying something—I mean, what's the common, you know, the commonality? It's you. And and yeah, exactly. You know, and but it's like, you know, it's in the New York Times. I mean, even you, I'm sure, before you're saying—I, I pointed people to her articles before. I mean, she has to check her her resources, and she has to check the people that she speaks with, and like, this can't be—we have these ideas of how things are. You trusted these people; you worked with these people. I know that you know—yes, of course, it's a professional relationship. Managing talent is incredibly personal for anyone who is watching, listening. I can vouch for that. It does feel like—and I'm one who—I always like to keep a distance between myself and clients; it's just my personal preference. And inevitably, you just form very personal relationships with these people. You have a client list of, you know, 80-something people. I'm sure not all of them were as close as others, but a significant amount of those people, and they—in the blink of an eye—I just—I don't know. Again, when I read this article, when I first learned of this story, my heart sank because I, I just relate to your position so much. I know how hard and it's challenging it is to devote so much of your life to building something that you believe in, that you're good at, that you feel like this is my purpose—to just have all of these people—hopefully it wasn't all of them, but so many of these people just turn on you, and people just believe the story based on the fact that it's simply published in a publication like the New York Times. So I mean, you—I want to ask some pointed questions that were in the article as well, you know, accusations that were made, because you know, I'm—I know that there are going to be people who immediately are going to empathize with you for a number of different reasons, and I know that you're still going to have some critics who are listening right now and they're like, "What about this? And what about that?" And I want to give you the opportunity to address these specific things. So if we're okay with it, can I ask you about a few?
Absolutely, friends. I, I think I, I want to hear what you have to say about them, and I think a lot of other people would as well. So you got into the TikTok house game like right at the beginning of its popularity, and it's continued to be a thing. It was written in a bunch of different articles. I mean, it was such a thing with TikTok houses. These are not just your run-of-the-mill houses, though. These are homes that very few people in the world can afford. So let's first just talk about the, um, Kids Next Door house that recently sold, I think, for 3.7 million dollars. When did you get this house, and like, what was the plan to pay a mortgage that costs over 16,000 a month?
So the leader of the Kids Next Door, which was Marcus Olin—him and his girlfriend came to me, and they said, "We have to get this house. We, we already looked at all the houses; we want this." And I believe they tried to get it on their own because they were apprehensive about having anybody share in their profits of of what they were making as creators. And I thought that they had a lot of potential, and I had been working with them for, you know, months before that, you know, letting them film at another one of the houses, you know, taking them to Capitol Records. I mean, really just opening up the door so they could get to know me because I never want to just be like, "Hey, you need to sign on a dotted line," but you know, I think that it's like a relationship—you have to get to know each other and trust each other. But they came to me and they said, "These are the people that we want in this house, and this is what we want to do, and well, we need to"—essentially they needed a co-signer because nobody was willing to sign a, you know, lease with on with two young people with green hair. I don't know—it was the green hair tax, but I, you know, I, I liked their idea. I thought they could build like sort of a Nickelodeon meets, uh, uh, Rolling Stone. That's what I saw the Kids Next Door as. And, uh, it's a little sort of, you know, they were adults, though, so it's confusing when you say "kids," because I think people in their mind, and I think maybe when Taylor Lorenz's article came out, they're like, "Oh, the Kids Next Door, they must be, you know, 15 or whatever." No, I think Marcus was in his early 20s and same with his girlfriend. So yeah, so basically, I decided that I could invest a piece of of a deal that I—
Had gotten for those creators that was a long-term deal that I had gotten for uh, Marcus and his girlfriend. And that I could essentially, instead of keeping that commission, that I could reinvest it into their project. As well as I got them a recurring music deal uh, that paid into that and a couple other things. So, and then they had to pay their share of the rent. So essentially, between the brands that I got together and the money that I uh put back in, I was gonna—we were gonna pay on I think it was like half of it or or something like that or eight thousand or something like that.
What about like the down payment and stuff like that? Like, who is responsible for that? I got them a brand deal to get the down payment, the half of the down payment or something like that. Um, and then they were responsible for putting in their own deposit as well.
Got it. And so like, was there an initial plan, you know, like of okay, we got the first piece, we've got this covered—that sounds handled. Looking back on it now, do you feel like there was enough of a plan that it could—that you guys constructed together that it would have been successful moving forward?
I do. I think that—I think that that I didn't anticipate how much people would push back on rules and sort of what we agreed to in this production agreement that we work with with them uh, we that we did with them. And and that we actually uh spent dozens of hours and eyes paid for an attorney to work with the creators so they got this perfect agreement that they could stand behind that really they felt like they did not get taken advantage of. They had consultants looking at it; they had all these people. And you know, we we get this agreement done and I'm like, okay, you know, let's let's move forward now. I probably should have noticed a couple red flags with some of these creators that were a bit manipulative, um, things that you know they had said because they wanted to get the house and sort of to push me in this in the direction of getting it for them. But I sort of chalked it up to like them being young and hungry and like just wanting to move fast and and these things.
Marcus had done something a little odd uh, when we when I gave my financials to the realtor, um, somehow he talked the realtor into discussing that my my financials to get approved for the house. And I got word of that and called him out and I was like, "Don't ever do this behind my back again because like, you know, like what do you—who what are you—who are you tricking?" I mean, these are very intelligent people, although they're only 21 or 20, they're smart, right? So you're getting somebody that's really smart getting a realtor to give up this and yeah, at first I was mad at the realtor, but then I'm like, these little manipulations so I I those were red flags I wish I would have caught and just said, you know what, I'm not gonna do this—this is too much money to be investing in and somebody that would be sort of willing to cross a line like that.
Like, why didn't they just come to you and ask you about your financial information? Like, why—like, could do you feel like they could have come to you and just asked you if they had any questions about it?
Yeah, they they certainly—I mean, they knew what the requirements were to get the house. I wasn't going to give them my past, you know, four statements of bank statements to these influencers I was representing—absolutely not. I mean, I would have just said, "Sorry, but I'm not going to share that information with you; it's confidential."
Sure, sure. Valid. Super valid. And so that brings me, I guess, to Brittany Tomlinson. Um, so she's another influencer. I believe she was also a client.
That's right.
Right? Is that right?
Yes.
Okay, so she was also a client. She's another—she sued you and claimed you were withholding about I think like 23 thousand dollars in fees. She said that you dem—quote—"demanded unconscionable fees of up to 20 commission." I charge 20 commission, just for what it's worth. And that you bought and are squatting on a domain name of brittanybroski.com, which today is actually inactive, so I don't know what became of that. She also claimed that you were acting as a talent agency without a license. Um, this is a hot topic in whim people learn about that and what's necessary in each state. Is this case still active today? Like, where does that stand currently, or how did it resolve itself?
Well, it's been resolved, and we sort of moved on, but I I wanted to say that—we'd influences discovered Brittany, and soon after a United Talent Agency got in touch with Brittany, and Brittany decided she wanted to work with United Talent Agency. And I said, "Great," because I spoke to an attorney and he said, "Listen, Ari, you can represent Brittany as long as you're only doing social media deals, because if she does enter entertainment deals, you have to work with a town—a licensed talent agency, and she has to be assigned to a licensed talent agency." He also said, "As long as you're working with a talent agency, you know, you are allowed to negotiate deals or what have you." So UTA is sort of involved at this point, and they they are seeing all these brands that are coming into Brittany's email account, you know, big brands—Chipotle and you know all these brands that that worked with with Brittany—you can go and look at them. And I believe that at that point they came in and they said, "Hey, this is going to be great; you are going to be Britney's manager; uh, we're going to deal with all the incoming brands; you don't really need to talk to any of them." And the way I looked at it, I was like, "So you guys want to be order takers? You guys want to, you know, take these relationships and I'm sure give some of the brand opportunities for people that they represent, but I'm like, hold on a second here. If you guys bring a deal for digital, then we're happy to, you know, do the the split and whatever." I don't want to get into the details, but I was willing to work with them and in a way with Brittany that was fair, so she didn't get charged more than 20, right? So uh, and I was doing this legally because again, there's there's no—there's been no precedent that says that uh you have to have a talent agency license to represent influencers who are not—well, this is all before there was even a guild for the influencers. I guess now there's this uh there's—they can join the SAG, but this is before that. So you know, I'm not an attorney, but I really researched this uh specifically, and we weren't doing anything wrong. If Brittany went to a meeting with an entertainment company like Viacom or anything like that, her agent from UTA came along. And I just think that they were getting frustrated because they saw how many uh incoming brand deals um Brittany was getting, and then they saw that we that we met Charlie D'Amelio and that we began to work with Charlie. And so again, I I was on a conversation where I I heard, you know, an agent that was saying that they should go to her company and that you know maybe we were inexperienced. I don't really, you know, I don't want to go into that, but what I'm going to say is that this particular influencer or you know creator was really, I think, being pushed in so many directions, like you know it was unfair to her because I mean, she would call me "Mom." I have text messages from her and she's like, "Mom, I'm so happy; like, I can't believe this has like changed my life." Initially, she didn't even want to be a creator full-time. She was like, "I'm going to stay at my job," and I'm like, "Amazing," like, you know. And then all of a sudden, I think that you know when when the Hype House around the same time when that Hype House article—that initial Hype House article—exploded was around the time where uh Brittany decided she wanted to leave. And I don't know about you, Jesse, but have you in the last two years experienced when a brand pays late?
In the last two years? I've experienced my entire career where brands pay late; they never pay on time; it's so rare.
So imagine if you were being blamed for withholding money from your client because a brand paid late.
Oh, that was all the time. All the time. Yeah, you because they're—you're—they can't—you know, you're the one with the face-to-face, right? With them, the interaction. Um, you're the one who's supposed to be moving mountains and you know, holding a gun to somebody's head. Um, so yeah, you know, when when Brittany had brands that had brought—been brought in by UTA that had been paid late, none of that was mentioned, of course.
Well, it's interesting. I don't know how UTA works transparently, um, but you know, I'm just imagining a large, huge company like UTA or any other company—they might have more money to float around, let's say. At least in my experience, they didn't float any money, readers, when the brands had paid. So in fact, I found it odd that you know they didn't even pay for Brittany's lunch when they when they were recruiting her. I mean, look, the article says like I you know like almost in a way like I like you know lured them in with like by paying for lunches and dinners. It's like, I was broke; I literally was like using the relationships I had in LA—my friends owned restaurants, and I would you know they would let me bring the creators in and take care of them because that was all I could offer. And and I don't know, I'm Mexican; I come from—you know, I was born in Mexico City; that's how we are taught to sort of be a host. If you're trying to—and in sales all my life—if you're trying to woo a client, you know, you take them to lunch and you you pick up the bill. I thought it was bizarre that you know in the initial stages when UTA was um you know trying to sign Brittany that that she's like, "Oh yeah, we split the the bill for lunch." So I don't know. I mean, maybe they're not—that's not allowed, but I didn't feel like I was breaking some type of crazy rule or like grooming someone because I was taking them to lunch. It's like, "Give me a break," you know? And that's sort of what the article was like insinuating—exactly—somebody like me that comes from really no wealthy, you know what I mean? So I I was—when I was sort of raised in you know with other talent agents and things like that. I mean, yeah, absolutely. It's you—that's just something that you do; it's a gesture, and it's very common. So I certainly don't see it as uncommon. But um, I want to say, too, when Taylor wrote that article, I already had my talent agency license, so I went out and got the agency license because I was like, "Listen, I don't want to be dealing with this situation anymore where I'm being questioned," even though there had been no precedent set on influencers with that talent agency—what I mean is nobody has gone to court and won a case for an influencer situation like this on behalf of the of the labor commission—that has never happened. And you know, this case was resolved—in my opinion, I felt like it was resolved in my favor. I can't really talk about anything more than that, but I'll just say that you know Brittany was not owed tens of thousands of dollars; in fact, you know, it arguably was the other way around. And so I'm glad to put that behind me, but you know, Taylor didn't explain you know that in her in her article. In fact, she goes—she sort of lumps all these creators into one thing where she's talking about a management contract, you know, a production contract, a handshake deal—she doesn't distinguish between any of these things. And you know, she writes that we were filming people without permission, when in fact, you know, everybody that came into the houses for their own safety signed a uh you know a liability form—exactly—with rules attached to it—XYZ—it was everything was very done above board for this particular reason that I never wanted to be accused of something terrible because I really was trying to look out for these these creators. They were jump—you know, if I wasn't around, they would have been jumping off the stairs, like you know, doing all sorts of you know tricks with skateboards in the house—I don't know what they would have been doing, but I had to draw the line somewhere. I wanted them to have fun, but they certainly didn't didn't want anyone to hurt themselves. And I think this is, you know, look, in a lot of ways, this is a cautionary tale in a lot of instances. But um, I don't know what comes to mind with what you just said is like, you know, people just feel compelled to just go like willy-nilly like into business and what could happen and you know, I'm just gonna make money and I'm just gonna figure it out as I go. And like, there is an element to that in a lot of instances, but you know, you're talking about you know I needed to cover my basis—you need to protect yourself. It's a little—and I mean, it sounds unfortunate that you have to go into business from like a defensive place to protect yourself, but what would you tell anybody listening today?
I underestimated, you know, really having a base to protect yourself. And you know, I wanted to do a lot of this on my own. I felt like I didn't—you know, if I felt like if I if I could get a brand to pay for something that I wanted to invest in that I would rather do that than take investment from you know an investor or a friend or whatever. And I sort of—if I wanted to continue what I you know doing what I was doing, I probably should have partnered with somebody that had you know megabucks that could really fund a project where people would have been you know sort of scared to sue me. Um, you know, when you look at some of the big house projects uh like TalonX with Sway, I think that was very well funded. Team 10 was well funded by several people. And when you look at the Clubhouse brand, I read this article—I forget how much money this company was worth or how much they were investing, but they had real estate properties across the country, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, putting into this to their projects. I was able to build three three different projects with really nothing but my own ability to sell and and explain this concept to the brands. So I'm proud of that because you know when you look at it—apples to apples—I mean, these guys, I think they went public, and at one point they were worth like 750 million dollars. And you know, even those guys were smeared, I believe—I think in Business Insider. So I don't know if because of how the media works—these creators are starting to get smart in the sense of understanding how to manipulate press, and I think that's really scary because one of the things I wanted to teach the creators that I worked with was ethics and morals and the ability to understand that just because something is going to get you a step ahead today does not mean that you're never going to see that person in the future. So you can't just step on people and do things for clout that are unethical and you know not have to face challenges for those things and repercussions for those things later. I mean, several of the people that were critics of me in the article or or outside of it have come to me since and apologized and said that their behavior was shameful and that they are very sorry that they were dealing with drugs at the time or that that they felt pressured by this journalist to lie and or by their own fellow peers because you know those people didn't want to pay the commissions that they agreed to pay; they didn't want to follow through. I had to ask a creator to leave one of the houses because I was sent—I was emailed multiple videos of him using homophobic, racist, incredibly just disturbing videos of this person that I didn't stand behind. And those—and it was in the contract that if if you broke certain rules—I mean, remember this is all happening during the George Floyd—to see what I saw, I was like, you know, I can't be associated to this—not only that, this person needs help on their own, but I can't have them be part of this brand that I'm trying to build. And they know it, right? But when those—that person was asked to leave respectfully, it was a huge blow-up from many of the leaders in the house. So I'm sorry, but there was a line that I had to draw, and and that's why you know we—I don't know what sparked a lot of the things, but Taylor Lorenz—from the outside—I didn't even want to expose these things when she was asking me the question. I could have very easily thrown these people under the bus and been like, "Here are these videos; you know, these these people are the ones doing all this stuff." I mean, I you know, in the lawsuit you can actually see that one of the houses wrote "Ari's a—Ari" all over the walls so with spray paint. I didn't you know I didn't want to disparage these creators to that extent because they're young, right? They're learning; they don't know what they're doing—is how I was saying—but I certainly think that Taylor Lorenz and her editors—the New York Times—know what they're doing. But Taylor Lorenz's editor that was there at that time has left, and there has been some controversy about him leaving. I read an article—something about you know he wasn't able to sort of control or like you know reign in this person that was tweeting uncontrollably and recklessly, etc. So her boss is no longer there; um, he's a different company now. So you know, as far as the creators go, I really don't blame them or they're an experience; I don't like hold a grudge or hard feelings against them. I really just feel bad because many of them are not doing as well as they were doing when we were creating our project.
So Devion Young—is that who—pronounce it—so he was I think the founder of the Drip Crib. This one—I think this this sort of stood out to me in the article—is like, was very shocking to me. I really want to hear what you have to say about this one. So he claimed that you leaked nude photos of him. Um, he said quote, "Right before we parted ways, she leaked my nudes and sent them to business partners, people in my house, and potential investors to slander my name, saying that I was unprofessional," I guess because he had nudes—I don't really understand that completely—but your lawyer said that you did not quote publicly leak the nudes. What does that mean? So I would really encourage anybody watching this to go to YouTube and search Taylor Lorenz. There's a whole video called "Content Cop"—it's a a creator journalist—his thing is Boast Wiki—um, Alistair Boswick. He did about a 10-minute piece that goes into a lot of this with receipts—evidence that he that I showed him. I'll just say that I was sent—that we—that I saw messages from somebody alerting me to these pictures of Devion. And when Devion was asked by me on text, "Why are you essentially—why are your nudes on the internet?" he has this long story about how his iCloud got hacked and how somebody sent all these nudes out. So I would just like to say how how could I have leaked Devion's nudes if he admitted to me that his nudes were leaked some other way? So people should really go on the video and and on that uh Content Cop video—you have to scroll—it's a really long video—you have to scroll to like 41 minutes and 30 seconds or something like that to get to my section. But if people want to dig into this and sort of go down the rabbit hole, I really encourage them to watch that video because it's just—it's just black and white evidence that shows you know that should exonerate me.
And so are you saying that you did not leak those photos?
Correct.
Okay. And we'll link that in the show notes for anybody who wants to go there. We'll link that time stamp to it. I do want people to be able to see this if it's—
A long story. It's already been explained. I'd send them there. That's perfect. I'm glad that that exists. That was just a pretty serious accusation in the story. I think that, yeah, like I think everybody's sort of like maybe like one or two things really stood out to them. That's sort of what stood out to me the most. I don't know this person. I I I wanted to hear from you, so thank you for explaining that in that other video. I will take a look at that as well, and we'll link that in the show notes.
Um, Ari, yeah, in Las Vegas, right? Yeah. And I see you as like you're recovering from what I'm sure has been like a really challenging, probably traumatic experience for you. How are you dealing with, you know, the last year or two having gone through this experience?
So there was a period of time where I had to take a beat because my advisors and everybody was just like, "You need to focus on your well-being, your health." I was not well. I was I couldn't sleep. You know, I had went to a therapist, and you know, I just had never had such like depressive like thoughts and stuff. And and and because I really try to be positive and I'm like a go-getter, I have a lot of energy most the time, and this like really like weighed on my soul because I'm like, you know, just I think because I had worked in personal branding and like when you mentioned earlier like googling your own name, like I always was the one that was like telling people, "You need to make content so that if like something bad happens, like you know that's not the only thing that shows up," but like when your time writes a story about you, like it's really hard to get that off of the first page of Google. And I'm like, "Wow, it's just so terrible that like I invested, I gave up my whole life to do this, and then now when people Google me they have to find this thing that's untrue," and I have no really like way to show that it's untrue except if I see if I file a lawsuit, but that time it didn't feel like it was very um a viable opportunity to do that. So I sort of just went along, and then, you know, I just was watching a lot of what was happening in the space, and Taylor Lorenz sort of started to step in it on her own. Um, she started to she she attacked uh Netscape founder Mark Andreessen after being on Clubhouse and, you know, essentially lying and saying and tweeting that he said a slur that he didn't say, and she sort of started getting called out by all these, you know, tech uh people, and then she attacked uh Steph Cory, you know, the original uh CEO of Away luggage, and in a way that was I thought was really unfair. She was sort of like looking at her social media page and, you know, which had like 5,000 followers or something like that, and then tweeting criticism of of Steph Cory who had already gone through some stuff in the media. So I was just sort of watching, and then, you know, people started to talk about how, you know, it's not right for the New York Times and, you know, there's their star tech reporter to sort of make up these lies, and then Glenn Greenwald started to criticize her, and uh Tucker Carlson started to criticize her, and as soon as Tucker Carlson criticized her on his show, all these other media corporate, you know, media or journalists are writing stories in defense of Taylor saying that, you know, she was being attacked by, you know, uh privileged white males or, you know, I don't I'm not really sure, but I I would just I started watching the whole thing and I'm like, "This is insane because Taylor doesn't just go after, you know, it's it's not just these wealthy powerful people going after her. It's like I'm was not wealthy or powerful. I'm a female and a Mexican immigrant, and she went after me," so she doesn't have a specific, you know, it's it's not just powerful people that she's attacking or trying to expose whatever. And so I think at that point I got a little bit of hope that at least maybe some justice would come of it or maybe some people would start to see that not everything that she writes is is is factual.
And then it was when uh Christy uh Smythe reached out, and she had actually gotten canceled on her own, so she it was empathetic I think to me as just an entrepreneur, but she really just wanted to write my comeback story and like learn about this new platform that I was developing because after everything I learned from the management world, I'm like, "What could I build that could still put me in this world without putting me in this world in the same way," and you know, put some distance between me and the people that I'm helping. I felt like a tech platform could do that, and I always have wanted to build a tech platform. So Chrissy Smythe, she she published she publishes the story, and then she lets you know that Taylor Lorenz is going behind the scenes calling prominent people in the media ranting that I'm a literal abuser essentially because I think she wants to silence me and make sure she cripples my career permanently because maybe she doesn't want all this stuff to come out of her conflicts of interest and all the stuff that nobody was really interested in until get a little bit of, you know, I get a little bit of press around a a new venture that I'm doing eight months later, eight months after she talked me. I'm like, "This is personal. I mean, I can't even imagine destroying someone's life uh with an article and then going back for seconds and really like, you know, making sure that that they don't get up." I mean, that to me is similar, it feels personal.
It definitely feels personal. Yeah, for sure. So so I filed the lawsuit, and uh now when you Google my name it's not just, you know, her article, but this is really more about justice and accountability than it is about, you know, press. I I I I have sort of um gotten past that whole like, you know, my reputation being crushed. I think I found that the people around me are what's the most important, what the people around me who work with me think of me as a lot more important than what's on Google. And I think, you know, putting out my own content, I think that anybody listening, what you have done, doing a podcast, you know, it's even somebody like me who's always preaching about building your personal brand, I let that go for a time because I was so focused on building other people. I stopped making my little videos, you know, they're they're buried they were buried in YouTube or on on Facebook video. And so obviously I wanted to revive some of that stuff so people could see like, "Hey, look, I didn't just come out of nowhere," but truthfully like this wasn't about me being famous ever. I really like that's what I wanted you to do when I was a youth when I wanted to be a YouTuber, but then I just realized like I could give these people so much more, you know, from what I've learned being behind the scenes than it would ever take to for me to like all of a sudden become this personality. And but but now I really feel like I need to stand up for myself and so this never happens to somebody in the future because it's really devastating, and I would hate for, you know, somebody not to be a strong enough and and take this to something really, really dark place, you know. So I just hope that people know that if they I hope that people know literally like if you've gone through something like email me, please, like read influences.com. I will help anybody that I can. I I've been, thank God, like I reached out to Rose McGowan, somebody who's been a victim and who's been called crazy and and all these terrible things have happened to her, and she's so brave. I would encourage anybody that is a business or like read her book if you're in entertainment, read her book. It's called Brave, and it's just so interesting about how the sort of entertainment world works, and I hope that that world does not feed into the influencer world. It could very well, a lot of the bad things that happened in old Hollywood could happen in new Hollywood, and I hope that we sort of put a pin in it before those things happen. And I think the only way that we can put a pin in it is if people like me like and anybody else who has been attacked unfairly stands up and fights back.
So you recently tweeted, quote, "No one will understand how hard you've worked until they see how many times you've tried, failed, and succeeded." So my question to you, our last question of today, is what else would you want to share about what you hope everyone listening just takes from our conversation today?
Well, it's so cliché, but truly like at your like most devastating point in your career, like you have, whether it's financial, you have barely any money to keep going, you know, or you have been attacked or your business partner does something that you know you didn't expect, like there's always a way to rebuild if you focus on rebuilding your inner confidence and and really take care of yourself and your in your health because, you know, like going to the gym, like getting back up, getting out of bed and going to the gym, getting out of, you know, going and helping other people, that's one thing that really I think helped build me back up is a lot of these influencers started calling me like, "Hey, like um, do you still have that Twitter contact? Like, hey, do you have any advice about this thing?" Like, and they were kind of like doing it like, but you know, behind the scenes because they didn't want to get attacked by Taylor or all of these people, but I just started, and I realized I'm like, "Man, like I really made a difference to these people, and I want to keep doing that because that fed me in a positive way is is helping people," and it was like I wasn't even wanting to make a living off of it anymore. But yeah, just take care of yourself, be a mentor to other people, like I think it's all about giving and having empathy. Everything that I've learned, I think I can hopefully this unfortunately in this world that we live in today, being canceled in cancel culture is going to become a part of everyday life for many young people and adults, and if you can have if there's somebody that can give a support system to people that have been canceled so that so that they continue to can continue to thrive, and if they've been canceled for reasons that are fair even that you know you should be able to rebuild yourself and and you know just because you know that one kid or whatever released those videos that I saw in the house and he had to leave the house doesn't mean that I want terrible things to happen to him. I just want him to like be, you know, get better. And I think that so that that's really been what has helped me, and you know, I work at the Win, I got I was, you know, thank God I was offered a position there. I'm helping with social media strategy and their influencer program, which, you know, sort of hasn't existed until I got there, and it's such an amazing brand. You know, I think there's going to be a lot of positive things, and and I'm really hoping that uh we get this this tech platform funded because what it's going to provide is sort of fractional business management for creators and aspiring creators. So imagine that you might need a publicist for an hour or 30 minutes because you tweeted something that you regret or whatever and your creator and you don't have three thousand dollars a month to pay a publicist, you could actually pick up the phone or, you know, use our platform and be able to talk to an expert for 30 minutes or an hour or a manager. Let's say you need a lawyer to look over something really fast, so it's going to provide that to a bigger audience. I think there's something like 750 million people that want to either have a an audience larger than 10,000 followers or aspiring, so that's the part that I really loved anyway is like finding those little gems and helping them turn into unicorns. Uh, so hopefully this platform allows that, and it's gonna allow for collaboration and all sorts of cool things. So that's sort of what's on the horizon. It's a story of triumph. It really truly is.
Um, look, the reality is that I've personally experienced, as I've sort of like watched you go through this, it's not the first time it's happened to someone, and unfortunately it's not the last. Um, I'm just proud of you for speaking up about it because in instances where people go through, you know, similar things where there's somebody more powerful than them who just sort of like, you know, says a lot of stuff and they they're silenced, they're not free to, you know, they're presumed guilty before and they have to prove their innocence, um and that's not a society that we live in. We need to just we just really need to be kind and lean in to people despite what you might think and be open to hearing out someone else's story. If you read something about someone, especially if it's in our industry, and and before you begin to spread those things, like really take a moment. I mean, even myself when all this happened, I was encouraged to talk to some of the other people that Taylor had smeared, and I remember being like, "Oh, I read that article. I don't want to talk to that guy. Like, he's he's obviously a fraudster," and then I got connected and I'm like and I learned his whole story, and I'm like, "He wasn't a fraudster," and you know I and so we have like this little support group of people that have been attacked, and I think if people really want to dig into it, um they can go to nyt do better.org. It's sort of a it's just we curated a lot of the articles about, you know, that sort of tell these stories of people that have been damaged, and and I think it's important for people to be able to read those things despite them maybe not being as, you know, published as widely or seen as widely as some of the New York Times articles, but um it's just important to learn. And I'm not saying, you know, the New York Times, I'm sure has some amazing journalists, and I actually that's the biggest thing I want to get across is that I think there's somebody incredibly talented that could have Taylor Lorenz's position and really use that microphone of the New York Times to showcase the creator economy and the people in this industry in in a way that is fair and ethical and does, you know, more of a service to to the hard-working people out there because, you know, despite creators going through burnout, I'm sure a lot of female business owners in the industry space we go through burnout too, and we deserve to be paid for our work and, you know, be fairly covered in the in the media.
Yeah, absolutely. That's all that it is. It's about the truth. It's about fairness. But you know, it has to be true. You can't I mean, ethically it feels very wrong and very misleading if something isn't true. So if, you know, if that's what happened, I hope the truth comes out about the story. I've been I'm grateful to hear your side of it. I'm here, and I'm glad that we could, you know, tell your story and get your version of things. It's really important, and I want people to understand how important that is that you've done. I mean, despite whether you agree with me or not or just being able to give somebody a platform to say their side of the story when something that has affected them this greatly, I just think that that's commendable. And I really just want to say thank you because you'd be surprised, but many journalists and podcasts, other people, there have been people that have said, you know, "I'd love to have you, but I'm just a little worried about if that's gonna put a target on my back with with you know certain journalists." So I just I just want to say thank you for your own sort of courage and bravery to have me on.
Yeah, I wouldn't be here if, you know, I wasn't telling the truth, and that's all that I I just wanted to hear your story. You deserve a platform, to be in my opinion, you deserve every platform. You deserve a platform the size of the New York Times to be able to to say your response to what was said about you. Everybody does, and that absolutely loves you. Um, so again, thank you so much, everyone listening. So we're going to list all of these resources that Ari shared in the show notes, um so you can visit all those websites, email her if you want to get in touch, and just super grateful for you to come on, and I'm excited to learn more about the rest of your journey. Thank you. [Music] Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, we gotta have you back. Check out our website for more ways to get involved, including all the information you need about joining our collective. You can check out all the information at iamwim.com.