ColemanNation Podcast - Episode 78: Ariadna Jacob | Ariadna Masters the Maze

[Music] Hey, culminators. Today we're talking to the influencer, mistress, the master, the mistress, or would-be mistress, or former mistress. Mr. Mistress? That somehow doesn't sound good. Master lady? Lady master? It's Andre, adding to Jacob.

Hello. Thanks for coming. What's going on?

Having me? Any friend of Lorenz Taylor's is a friend of mine. [Laughter]

Oh yes, she's wonderful. You are a very busy, uh, person, for all kinds of reasons, only some of which involve Lorenz Taylor. Why don't you tell the culmination culminators, uh, a little bit of what about what you were doing, what you do now, and how that super journalist, the Clark Kent of our time—really, she is a superwoman underneath all that—um, had so much to do with the way she does, the way she does?

Okay, well, uh, yeah, so I'm kind of an internet nerd. I, I was born in Mexico City, um, and I moved to the U.S. when I was a little girl. My father died of a heart attack when I was really young, and my mom married an American, and he adopted me, so he's my dad, and I grew up in the United States. And I always felt really lucky and grateful that, um, you know, I lived here because I was always really entrepreneurial, like even when I was a little girl, I was like the one selling lemonade and all the things. So, uh, I went to San Diego State, and, uh, I actually dropped out. And back then, it wasn't cool to be on the internet, so, uh, but I was like in a sorority, and I designed the website.

All right. How far back then could we possibly be talking about? I don't want to, I don't want to date stamp you. I know I, I may—we're not—we're not talking about 1996 here.

Okay. I'm sorry. I refused. Yeah, I, uh, well, I mean, let me put it this way: when, when I was making and editing videos, you couldn't actually put them on YouTube. You had to buy bandwidth, uh, for every, you know, bit or whatever that was, for every minute that was on, you had to pay x amount to put it on the internet and share it.

That's pretty early adoption. So that's, that's probably before Google bought YouTube.

Yeah, I mean, I think YouTube was like 2009, and so—and I mean, I was editing videos when, you know, when I was in high school, so that was, uh, before that. Let's just say I'm not gonna date myself, but, um, but yeah, I just, I like the internet. I, I was watching at the time Gary Vee, uh, was Gary Vaynerchuk, as an entrepreneur, big in the internet, or sorry, in like the social media. He's a big social media entrepreneur. And, uh, when he had his first book out, I was the first person there at the book signing, and that's how I met him. And so, you know, when I was, when I was younger and I was interested in all these things, there was very few people that could mentor me and show me the way. And so, um, once I, you know, and, and I couldn't really focus full time on it because once you're dropped out of school and your parents cut you off and they're like, "Hey, honey, you're on your own," you know, respectfully and nicely, but they're like, "You're not going to be on my dollar, you know, my dime," starting your own company, if you want to start your own company and you're going to drop out of school, then you got to do it on your own, on your own time. So I, uh, you know, I wasn't able to just make videos all day long. I mean, I, I did, and I learned how to—once YouTube was out, I learned how to use YouTube and edit, and I taught myself how to code. So anyway, I'm a computer nerd.

Were you a YouTuber yourself? You yourself were appearing in these videos. I mean, so in 2009-2010, you could be a YouTuber, but you weren't generating revenue. There was no way—you weren't getting sponsored deals, uh, there was no way to really sustain, you know, a career. I mean, I think the Maker Studio and the people that were part of that, uh, were able to make money, but at the same time, even if I had dedicated myself to it at that time, you couldn't, you couldn't make money doing it. So I guess I was, I was learning how to be a YouTuber, but I wasn't making money doing it.

No, no, no. I'm sure. Yeah. So but then, so then, um, I worked for digital agencies. I always had like three jobs. I worked at like—I was a VA, positive nightclub, I was developing an app, and I was working for a digital agency, uh, and I was just always working and trying to figure things out. I would, I would go and find the important people, uh, that were doing the things I wanted to do, and I would work for them for free. So it was a grind, uh, but then finally I kind of found my way, and, uh, and then I realized, you know, I, there's not that many people that are helping young people that want to be content creators because there's not that many people that even understand the space. And I, I, I wanted to be sort of the mentor that I never had and try to help some of these people because I know how it is—you're a teenager, and you're, you have big ideas, you're excited, you're creative, you have something to say—are you telling your parents, and they're like, "I don't know how to help you." So that's kind of how I launched into sort of being the influencer whisperer and working with brands and influencers, sort of being a bridge.

So were you fairly early in that space, because it's obviously a pretty crowded one now?

Yeah, very—it's totally different. I mean, yeah, it's totally—it's crowded, and you know that I think they did a point something like 86 percent of young people in, uh, junior high in high school want to grow up to be YouTubers, influencers. So imagine a career path that 86 of kids want to be, but there's like 10 teachers, you know, or hundreds, 100 teachers. It's, it's whether people like it or not, you know, this is a path where, where people are going, and I think that there's a way to do it ethically and, uh, teach the, the young people that they can be on the internet, and they can be doing all these things, but they can focus on their mental health, they can still go to school.

Okay, so right, so let's, let's take a, a moment to talk about that because before we get into the article, when you say ethically, before the, you know, before the defamation, what, what did that mean to you, and what, what was it that made you realize that there were ethical boundaries that were there for the, that were there for the recognizing, you know, that—

Well, I watched Logan Paul and some other content creators sort of rise and fall because they—from what it looked like on the outside and my interactions with them—they didn't have great people around me, around them, telling them, "Hey, you know, you've crossed the line here, or let's not—we're not going to post that because xyz," you know, and thinking about content. So you're talking first content-wise, what kind of stuff do they put up?

Yeah, yeah, uh, and then once I was, I was managing, uh, TikTok houses, which was essentially kind of like a collective or an incubator of sorts, you know, they have tech incubators, and they have, uh, mentors that go in and help you go to like a three or four month camp essentially, and every day you're learning and building your company. That's what we were doing for TikTokers.

Okay, so houses—were you renting a house, and they were all living together in it, like one of those reality shows kind of, but it was bootstrapped. It wasn't—we're not ABC, we don't have, you know, 10 producers, and it was really—and I hope and I'm sure it wasn't nearly as sleazy.

No, no. Yeah, and, and the thing is, I had a lot of mentors that—it was kind—I'm the kind of person that always ran before I walked, and then I had—but I've always had really great people around me that are like, "Okay, it's not—you can't do this, but if you're going to do this, here's how we're going to do it—slow down." And I had to learn that as an adult, so I can only imagine these 18, 19, 20 to 23-year-old kids were going a mile a minute, and, and I had to then pull them back and say, "Hey, slow down. If we're going to do this right—"

How much, how much older than they were you at the time? Again, it's not—it's not like you were the, you know, Shirley Partridge, you know, you know—

At this point, I'm in my mid-30s, so I'm at least, okay, you know—all right. Which, which is in today's world is like a generation—the difference between being 30 and 20, you know, in the 21st century can be quite huge.

Yeah, and I think that they liked me initially because I understood them and I could speak their language. But you, gross the time, you picked up on the, on the, on the potential of TikTok—it's what—as soon as you saw it?

Yeah, I said, "Wow," this—people didn't, didn't even—they didn't even acknowledge TikTok as a thing, even some of the big creators like Jake Paul and them—they had me come over with TikTok people that I was working with to show them how to work the platform. Like, I literally brought this girl, Addison Rae, to Jake Paul's house, and she was teaching it how to TikTok. And now Addison Rae hangs out the Kardashians, and she's got a three-picture movie deal with Netflix. So these people blew up, and it was really exciting time for me because—

Let me ask you like a really fundamental question, especially because I have a teensy weensy little TikTok account that I just, you know, which—why do I have it? Why does a 59-year-old man have a six—

Doctor? Again, because as a creating—as a platform for creating, it offers certain, uh, fun options. Yeah, you could do another—you could do with other software, or you could even probably do on YouTube, but it's pre—the presets on TikTok are really cool and fun. And yeah, so you know, uh, yeah, I mean, I was learning on it too. But explain to my fellow codgers what the difference—what—let's assume that they've even seen TikTok, but is TikTok anything other than YouTube for people with incredibly short attention spans, or is there—there's more to it than that?

You might have it right on—you might hit it right on the nose actually. I don't—I think the allure of it in the beginning was that Instagram was already oversaturated. It's huge; it's really hard to grow on Instagram. Same thing with Twitter, same thing with YouTube. So all of a sudden you have this brand new platform, and you have all these brand new faces that have to be creative. There's a reason why Vine was so popular when it was popular, and, and because you had to be real creative—if you're going to put out a six-second video, you have to be extremely creative. And that's how a lot of these internet stars were born. Like—although it's also—it's also conceptualized for creating on a mobile device.

Yes, which YouTube wasn't and still really isn't. I mean, you could—you can, but usually YouTube you're sitting in front of a camera on the edit desktop or in a studio. Yeah, and it's less—it was less about being somebody you weren't because Instagram is all about posing, edited photos where you're on a beach and living this great life and whatever, whereas, uh, I, I think TikTok was more authentic and fun, and young people could—they were doing fun dance videos, even some of the people with their parents, right? So it was kind of a fun thing you could do with your family and whatever. So at the time, the way I try to like kind of describe it is imagine a really popular TV channel, uh, that only like your—you can hop on at any time, but you have to—you have to perform. And so in the beginning, millions of people were on it, but not that many people wanted to perform. And so if you're willing to perform, like the people I was managing at the time, then you're getting all the airtime. And so, and then you're learning this algorithm and you know how to manipulate it so that you, you get all these views. And in the beginning, because nobody—no talent agents, no people in my space were focused on these people—it was kind of like open sea. You know, I said, "Okay, I can work with anybody I like on here," and I really kind of fell in love with some of the people on there. They were just creative, and they were just happy and bright.

It really is such creative stuff on there.

Yeah, it really is. It's so—it really is, you know, and I saw where it was gonna go, like at the beginning it was only dance thing and things like that, but I—now it's food and education and all that stuff. So that's perkin—that's percolating along, and you have these—you have—you're setting up TikTok houses where you're basically—it's a boot camp for aspiring TikTokers. And by the way, I'm not the one running the boot camp the way that we do it because, uh, I'm not somebody with a lot of money at the time, as we essentially had to figure out how we're gonna pay for this house. So I went and I had my contacts from when I worked in the digital agency days, I went to the brands, I put the decks together, you know, when you're selling to a Fortune 500 brand a project like this, it doesn't take three weeks—it's a six-month, uh, from pitch to contracting to getting signed on as a, as a vendor—all those things that you have to do—

How do you know how to do—how did you know how to do that? Are your contacts with the brands you had made when you were in the digital agency?

Yeah, so I, I yeah, I worked with them. I worked with brands, and I sold—I was a salesperson, but when you're a salesperson for a digital company, you have to pretty much understand how to do, you know, 20, 30 of the things you're selling so that you can actually—it's a very technical sale, right? So but because I knew those things, it was—I think that the brands looked at me as just somebody that understood what their goals were and that I wasn't just going to sell them somebody just for the sake of making money. A lot of talent agents will just say, "Oh, yeah, work with my client," they don't care if you sell any thingamabobs afterwards, they just care that you hired their client for however much money. I always wanted to make sure that the brand had a return so that they would come back and want to buy—it's just basically like media buying. And, uh, I used to be a radio salesman. Okay, when I was in college, I was sales director for our, for a college radio, uh, station, which was 17,000 watts, so that was real, and it was commercial. So I know—wherever you speak—I mean, you could make the one-time sale, but if you're not helping the client with realization, you know, with, with getting people in the door, you don't have a long-term relationship. And it's a lot of—not fun. I mean, I'm like a creative person, but I, I, I had to sort of teach myself how to do the Excel sheets, figure out, you know, the, the how many cost per thousand views they were going to get, and, and, and figure this out. And there was no template because TikTok just started, so I had to do a lot of the back-end work that—it ended up paying off because when the world woke up to TikTok, it was like these brands—"Oh, Ari was talking about this, let's go call R, she knows about this stuff"—and then I started getting—this was where it really sort of began being like the height of my career because I had done all this stuff over the last 10, 15 years to prepare myself to be in this position. I built the relationships, I had the reputation, and I had the mentors that were around me were people that, you know, heads of, of like huge production companies, people that, you know, worked at Disney, these, these types of people that—

Where did these mentors come from? Okay, ten minutes ago you had no mentors, you, you were in—

Well, I was 18 when I was 18, I had no mentors. When I'm 35, I have mentors. Okay, but, but, but you're still a pioneer, so they're mentoring you in their—in entertainment like—in—so for example, it's like, okay, if you're gonna do a TikTok house, I'm talking to a guy that created one of the biggest reality shows, uh, in, you know, what—let's just say one of the big, big ones, like, uh, you know—and so, uh, so he was like, "Okay, this is what you need—you gotta make sure you have, you know," it's just probably simple things, but insurance and, uh, liability waivers and, uh, camera, uh, you know, uh, camera releases—all those things that—these are people I talk to every day where I was like, "Hey, here's an issue, a challenge. Okay, this is how you get—you get past it." The one thing I wish I would have listened more to is that, "Hey, that kid is toxic. You got to kick him out right now," and I'm like, "Well, he's got 10 million followers," you know, I'm like, "He's the guy I need for this," and it's like, "Well, he's giving you trouble, and he doesn't respect you." And so this sounds like some, you know, a discussion that might taken place on a, on a movie lot in the 1930s or 40s where directors are talking about whether such and such stars worth being signed, you know, producers is worth being signed again—is, is he or she worth the trouble? And but gosh, you know, you know—

But it's the word they used to use—bonds—bonzo at the box office—something—

Oh, bingo—something. [Laughter]

And, and it was a bit difficult to work with—difficult, but you're talking about really kids, immature kids. Yeah, and there's—I call them kids, but I, I, I would say they were over 18.

Yeah. Now they're all right—this is the caveat that's important for later, right? Because—

Yeah, yeah. The way they twist things. So—and, and they're making money—the performers are making money—the ones that have five, 10 million followers, they're making—they're making money, uh, the ones that maybe have a couple hundred thousand, uh, they know that they're not gonna make money right off the bat—maybe they're gonna get a couple hundred, you know, 500 deals here and there, but they're—they know they need to—it's sponsorships, right? There's—that's the only way to make—it's not like monetization on YouTube where you can have super chats or you can have advertising—it's all about the sponsorships.

Yeah, which is why influencers are so much more important on TikTok. You know, we're going to ignore Instagram, and Instagram is basically selling—is about all about selling, right? And we have production agreements with these, with this talent. So there's a difference between a management contract and a production contract, and we sort of developed this idea that we don't want to invest in these houses and then for a management contract, most of them are at will, right? So you, I mean, you can't, you can't hold someone that doesn't want to work for you—that's not legal, right? So but we're like, "Okay, if we're going to invest all this money, there, there has to be something that, that we can do to prevent them just to leave and, and ditch us with all these expenses that we put out to build them up." So we did production agreements with, uh, some of the people, which was with one of the houses, uh, that was really the most put-together house that we had that I spent the most money on the rent and all that kind of stuff. And the production agreement is kind of like a music contract where you're getting an advance—with the advances, the house—and then you can't—it's like you can't really break the agreement—you could still leave, but you still have to pay us, uh, any income that you have—something like that. I mean, we obviously are not an attorney, but we spent a lot of time and money on making sure these contracts, and we worked with the creators and said, "This is a partnership. We're not going to own you—like this is a brand that we're going to own together, and we're going to build this together." That was the whole idea is I wanted to, I wanted them to—

Have skin in the game so that they had a reason to want to make it successful, and there were rules attached to that. This is what you can do in the house; this is how you have to treat people. You can't say bigoted words and all these things, right? Because some of these kids are dropping in; they are dropping the n-word; they're—I mean, some of the stuff I saw. But listen, a lot of this stuff was supposed to be NBA's non-disparagement because you're gonna have to—any business has to deal with their ups and downs, and uh, you have to be able to manage it without tarnishing the brand. I think just like any business, right? Just like the Washington Post, they don't want their business out on the street.

Well, I will tell you that enforcing a non-disparagement agreement is one of the less—least—uh, you know, enjoyable and successful things that you can ask a lawyer to do. Because judges feel as if they—even though someone has signed a contract and for consideration in exchange for something has agreed to keep his mouth shut—judges feel as if they are depriving someone of their First Amendment right, which I understand that, and I think what's—and I'll, you know, once we get to the part of—when I get to famed—is like uh, when the journalist was asking me questions, I wanted to open it, but my attorney goes, "Don't forget you signed a non-disparagement clause," so I couldn't disparage them, but they could disparage me because I was trying to hold to the contract. Interesting. There's—there's so many people. There's a mutual non-disparagement. Okay, of course, you have a privilege for whatever goes into pleadings, but that's a different—okay, we're not up to that yet. All right, so now you've answered my along-the-way questions, so things are picking up; you're being, you know, uh, you know, you you you you've got this sort of system in place, and you've got a, you know, a decent amount of of talent that you have the opportunity to produce, and then what happens?

So the pandemic happens, and I will say that uh, you know, some of the houses—like one of the houses—it was like I think in May, so we already knew the pandemic was there, but we didn't know how long it was going to be or whatever, and so we had—there was like six people that were wanting to do this house, so we're kind of like moving and grooving. But the—I think that the pandemic—like I said, it's not ABC, the Bachelor, so we don't have all these things where you're testing—so it became a little bit—now I'm like, "Am I sitting in a liability situation?" Because um, if someone gets sick—you mean—yeah, yeah. This is in the very beginning, and I'm like, "Okay, you guys got to get tested." And so the idea was if all—if let's say there's six people in a house and all six of them get tested and they're all—they're not sick—as long as they stay in the house, there's no way—but they can imagine me trying to keep these people—and uh—and while I'm trying to sort of be the mother hen or the uh, you know, the the the dorm monitor—I'm also trying to sell to brands—and I have other clients, by the way, besides the people that are living in these houses. So, and some of those clients were doing great on their own; I mean, the ones that weren't in the houses were actually more profitable, and I wish I would have recognized that early on and just cut—cut it off. Because—but you know, when you're just so far into something, and you're just—I couldn't let go of it. I'm like, "We just did all this work; I'm excited; I see the vision." It's like—I anyway, so we keep going with it, and then I hear some rumblings that Taylor Lorenz had done one article about sort of all the houses that was so semi-popular, and she had done an article before that—the same thing. And so we were friendly, and I had known her when she was at The Atlantic. Um, I had been warned that she was not uh somebody that I guess should consider a friend—that I should uh be—have my warnings up with her—but that she could—because of what—because of just that—what she does is hit pieces—or because of—in particular something about you or your politics? No, I—no, yeah, I think just because I—I—I think she had done that hit piece on uh Claudia and Jackie Oshry—um, where the girl with no job was a content creator and their mother—um, I don't even know really what their mother did, but some—you know, she wrote a really uh exposing piece where—where people didn't know who Claudia Oshry's mom was, and once that they—once she exposed it, I think there was like a hit out for her mom by ISIS. And so then Taylor put her—the daughters—in a bad position by exposing who their mom was. Anyway, in a way that's kind of like doxing, and if you—right—if you—that's not public information. Uh, but anyway, she's just done some controversial things in the past, I guess, and so I was warned by a publicist, "Hey, just be careful; she can help you; she can help—if she does a good piece, she can really launch people's careers and whatnot," and I had witnessed it. So she had done a couple pieces, and I only mentioned this because—well, just remember she—she'd done a couple reasons, and then she had added—she had called me for a quote, "Hey, what do you think about this?" And whatever, and so she put a quote in one of her articles about me, and—and then she—she featured some of my—my talent, which—that's the whole thing—you have to bring the talent into mainstream consciousness because if they're only on TikTok, then Target doesn't know—you know, the executives at Target don't know who they are; the executives that—whatever brand—like these people have to enter mainstream consciousness where an ad executive is going to be like, "Hey, I've got a great idea; let's put this person—" Really? I mean, you know—so I don't watch TV, and I, you know, I don't consume a lot of, you know, youth-oriented media, but how—how does that happen? I mean, there are only so many articles in the Times and Atlantic that could be written. How does someone—before they get signed to that Target deal—you know, what does it look—what does that look like? Well, there are people—you'll probably remember—I mean, there's—remember uh, I don't know, James from Target or something like that, or to—like—like there's—there was a kid that got popular—there's these people that sort of become memes, or they're super popular, and then Ellen has them, or Good Morning America has them on, or somebody writes a big-time feature story about them. Uh, that's how these people get discovered. And okay, yeah, and because the ad executives aren't sitting there on TikTok all day long being like, "Oh, this guy would be really good," they don't know, right? And at this point, they don't—I mean, as far as they're concerned, TikTok is not going to be enough. Well, at this point, I think in—in May of 2020—10 million followers, you would think that would be enough, right? Yeah, in May of 20—so I'm talking about—what they didn't know was December 2019 was when I was working with them, and they—the ad execs—didn't know about them. But by May of 2020, now you're talking about pandemic; there's no music touring, and there's no uh productions happening in Hollywood. So if you're an advertiser, the only way you can advertise is on TikTok or on Instagram or YouTube, and because everybody's at home, and there's no productions happening, so this became a really lucrative space because of the pandemic in a way. And so all of a sudden, I hear that Taylor—"Hey, watch your back; Taylor is snooping around about you." And of course, I'm very confident, and I'm like, "Well, what's she going to say about me? I've got my ducks in a row; I'm—I'm not doing anything bad; bring it," you know? And I wish I would have been so naive as to—I just thought that like The New York Times can't print lies, so uh—that's—I think that's what the normal average American would think—that's not in the media—that's not in—you know, doesn't understand maybe legal and all this stuff. I just thought The New York Times—if it can't—it doesn't want to—it's not—it doesn't have any incentive to do that because that would undermine its credibility, and what would be the purpose? Why would they go after—you know? And I definitely felt there was a lot of—there was a target on my back at this point because so many people—they didn't like the fact that these big Fortune 500 companies were calling me directly when they had a million dollars to spend on advertising. I understood that; I mean, I wasn't completely naive, but at the same time, I just thought—um, I'm—do you know—you—you do all this stuff to prepare, and you have attorneys, and you—you feel at least confident—what you have, and if there—if somebody's going to take it from you, I'm thinking that's illegal; they can't—you know, interfere with my contact—contracts—tortious interference—if they just go and pull these people that are in contracts. Well, I didn't think about—if they just ruined my whole reputation, then the contracts don't even matter anyway. And by the way, everybody's like, "Well, just sue them." Okay, you're bootstrapped; you just can't go around suing everybody; you don't have the money to do that. So uh, she starts doing snooping around, and uh, I don't talk to her at this point. Matt Shoop is one of my good friends—just family friends—and he's like, "I don't know; my spidey senses are sort of going off; you may want to just refer her to your attorney." And because I asked her, "What do you want to talk about?" Or something like that, and she didn't—she didn't give me a real answer. And so he said, "Something's—something's up," and—and I would refer to her lawyer. I wasn't expecting that she was going to come back with, you know, 50 questions or whatever it was; it was, you know, definitely a couple dozen questions like she came back with—and uh—and—and just prior to this, one of the talent agents from—that I thought we were working symbiotically, but now it's pretty clear they were competing with me—he—he goes, "Oh, yeah, you should talk to her; she likes you; you know, she just wants to hear your side of the story." And um, that was when I'm like, "These people think I'm stupid," and I—I'm Latina, so my—like Latin fire was starting to come through, and I'm like, "These people are not gonna—they think I'm stupid, and they're gonna just walk me into the lion's mouth," and uh—and yeah, no, so I—I do uh what my, you know, people tell me to do, and I refer them to the—I refer uh Taylor to the attorney, and she starts asking all these questions, and—and one of my attorneys who is like the hot-shot attorney that I'm not—you know, it's just getting a percentage basically of what I make—we were looking at doing a much bigger deal, and I think that's why he got brought on. But anyway, my point is this attorney kind of like—I don't think he wanted to get into it maybe with UTA and with The New York Times, and he's like, "Just tell him no comment; you know, she'll go away." And I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, "You don't understand this industry; it's so small that if I get a hit piece about me right now, then I'm gonna lose all these brands; nobody in this industry is going to want to work with me." And I really believe that uh some people, you know, like I said, some of my—one of my—turns was like, "I don't think so," and then—but I had a contract attorney that was really like in the—in the weeds with—just every time there was a contract that came through—and—and he said, "Listen, Ari, I'll answer because the other attorney doesn't really want to put his name on it—doesn't—one doesn't want to have anything to really do with it," and he's telling me to walk away. And at this point, I also didn't understand relationships, right? Like if you have a big Hollywood attorney that's doing deals with a big-time talent agency—UTA or whatever—I'm not—I really actually really like that attorney, but um, I understand that he's not going to want to get in a huge fight over a little tiny client. Yeah, this is—this is a problem in many—in many areas, but probably none as much as in—you know—as an entertainment. Yeah, so my—my other attorney who is awesome—he—he's like, "Listen, all good," and he basically pulled an all-nighter and answers all these questions in depth, and I said, "Let's just give her everything; I said, 'I don't have anything to hide here, and I—I'm not doing anything wrong, so let's answer all the questions; let's talk about—" Did you talk about the time—the time frame that you were working under here? I don't think you mentioned that. Oh, this is like—I think eight hours—I think we have eight hours to get back to—anyone who's ever read our lawsuit—our firm's lawsuit on behalf of Carson Griffith uh against The Daily Beast will be familiar with this. Okay, yeah, listen, we—they were doing an article about you; it's gonna be—you're gonna love it; we've got a few questions; we're going to press in 14 minutes. So they gave you five—five business hours as your—as your lawyers put it. Yeah, okay, yeah, so uh—and—and we offer her—so she says—so there's these allegations, right? She's like, "Did you pay people on time, or did you not pay people? Did you do this? Did you do that?" And there's documents that we could show that would exonerate me, so I told the lord, "Just give her everything." He goes, "Well, hold on a second here; number one, do you want to get sued by XYZ big huge company?" He's like, "Well, then you probably can't just send all that stuff over on the record." Okay. Uh, and then he goes, "Also, you signed these—this NBA non-disparagement, so you can't show—not disclosure—you can't show all these contracts that you have with these influencers. And by the way, even if you did, and you broke your non-disclosure—do you want to give up all your intellectual property that we just spent a year working on—these contracts and how we do things in the production and all that stuff that really was—um—it was—it was intellectual property—not a lot of people knew how to structure these deals, right?" And so he's like, "Do you just want to give that up and put that in The New York Times for your competitors?" So there was all these things that my attorney was like sort of warning me. I'm like, "Oh, I don't want to do that; I want to—I don't want to break the law; I don't want to disparage this person and get sued." So he said to Taylor, "Well, we'll send you all the evidence to exonerate Ari, but we'll send it on background or off the record." And she says, "Nope, I don't want it if it's not on the record; I don't want it." And we'll see in—in the—in the lawsuit that it's like my attorney essentially says like she set up the game so that Ari was going to lose no matter what, and that I think is—is—I think what they say is like kind of proof of the—the malice—is like she had uh awareness that—it doesn't matter—that she wanted to set me up to fail, and she didn't want the truth. Uh, so—and—and that's just a caveat, you know; it's kind of—a lot of people would miss that—that about the other people are allowed to—the people that she interviewed that are trashing me—they're allowed to put stuff on background—give stuff on background—there's probably people she talked to that she never even mentioned in the article; they're allowed to give that stuff on background, but I'm not allowed to uh exonerate myself on background. So bingo.

Listen, at least you were—I mean, at least you still have social media to tell your story. I mean, I've got clients who were kicked off social media because—whatever—because of what was published about them and have nowhere to go to tell their story. Well, and that's the thing that people understand is that Taylor has relationships with the platforms, and I did get blacklisted by the platforms—in my eyes—they stopped picking up my calls, and it's—you know, you can't get your clients verified; you can't get your clients on the shadow ban, and nobody wants to be your client because what are you going to do for them? If you're in this industry, you have to be able to have relationships with the platforms. Of course, the platforms wanted to talk to me when I was representing Charlie D'Amelio and Addison Rae—all these big people—they don't pick up the phone, and they don't—and they don't—there's no sort of recourse for them because it's not—that's how it is for most people, right? But you can't go from getting all that access to not getting that access and expect to stay in the—in the game. So the one thing I will say that I don't think Taylor like thought about is that—because she's thinking, "This girl doesn't have any money; this girl isn't going to be able to sue me; she doesn't have relationships in the press like the way I do," and now she doesn't have the relationships with the influencers. But the one—she thinks—she didn't think about it—I've been doing social media, and I've been in this game since I was a little girl, so—and of course, Taylor was already a grown woman in those days, right? So she doesn't really have quite the sense for the social media—unlike most people my age—she doesn't really have that sense for social media influence. Well, I don't know about—I just know—I mean, I taught myself how to code when I was a kid. What do you mean? What were you coding? What were you—what kind of code were you writing? I'm going to call—I'm calling you on it. Yeah, HTML. Okay, you're quoting web—web pages. Okay, yeah, yeah. Friend, and design, and I was doing—I was, you know, amazing at Photoshop, but you know—and this time where you don't have apps that just do all the things for you. So—and I was using Dreamweaver and all the things. But anyway, uh—and I did video editing. Taylor, this is why—when I went to VidCon and I tweeted—my tweet has—I think 14,000 likes—and she didn't—I just don't think she expected that—at least—now I—I don't really know quite why, but I think Ari—people like you—people seem to like you really just like—"Oh, no, not—Ore"—that's a given; people don't like you—Lorenz—Taylor—people don't like you. Please continue. Um, the word—so anyway, so she writes the article; comes out; and uh my mentor at the time—by the way—calls me, and I'm like humiliated, and I'm thinking my life is over. He's an anonymous mentor; we're not allowed to know who he is. Yeah, no—no, I—I don't—I don't want to name him, but uh he's a big—big-time guy. Uh, yeah, big-time guy and former CEO of the Television Academy type of guy. Uh, and so he—so Jeffrey Katzenberg calls you—so this guy uh calls me, and he's like something to the extent of, "Welcome to the freaking big leagues, Ari," and I go, "Did you read the article? Because uh it's not good," and he goes, "You know, I know you; I've been watched; I know everything that you've been up to; I've been on these group chats," because I included him on some of the group chats with like the houses, and he—he would call me, and he's like, "You can't write this; like these kids are crazy!" He's like, "The things that they were writing back and forth—he's like, 'I cannot believe it!'" He was like, "You could do a reality show because it's so insane what's going on." I mean, there was a point—there was a point where the influencers wrote "F you" all over the walls. I saw that picture. Yeah. And Ari is a B-word, I mean, so whatever. So he calls me, and he's like—and—and when he said, "I think you could survive this," was like the one little piece of hope that I had because everything went sideways; it was—it was so weird—from going from really the height of my career where I thought, "Finally, all this work, all—"

The working for free for people, all the you know, working until four in the morning because I had three jobs. All this is going to pay off, and you hadn't really gotten a payoff yet, no, right? And I hadn't gotten the payoff yet. It was, it was coming, all but I mean, all this pioneering, all this groundbreaking, all this novel stuff, all it did was get you to the next level, to enable you to set up the payoffs. You well, and the contracts were, the contracts were there, so I would have, you know. But people paid 30, 60, 90; a lot of the stuff was already there, so we were gonna, it was already set up to get paid, was waiting for, for that. And, and I was allowed into all these sort of RFP situations, which is a request for proposal, so for a big brand to let you bid on a million-dollar account. And, and they only let like five people do that, or five companies do that, and it's a long process, so I was in; just that was a big uh, accomplishment for, for me and my, for the company. And so uh, especially because once you're a contract, once you're in the system for a big Fortune 500 brand, guess what? They gotta, they come, they keep coming back to you because you're, it's a long process to get in that system, but once you're in, you're the one, you're the tick-tock rep, you know, person.

And my, my clients at that point had uh, been on a Super Bowl commercial, GaryVee. So when you, when you look back at my mentor from back in 2009 or 2010 that I met now all the way in, in 2020, these people, this company, Gary's company is hiring my people for Super Bowl commercials because of my relationship with him and because they were good clients. So sort of everything that I was working on was, it came to a T, and, and it's exploding. And then to lose it pretty much overnight was, I'm a pretty mentally stable person; I was not. Well, I had friends that were like, "Ari, do you need me to come over? And are you gonna be okay?" And um, obviously I was, you know, it was just a really emotional time. And I tell everyone it's like 85 boyfriends breaking up with you on the same day, because you're, it's an intimate relationship you have with, with clients like this that are, that you're mentoring and that you're managing. Uh, I'm glad I don't feel that way about my clients; I mean, they will throw you under the bus, especially in litigation. I think the business, business lawyers don't have as much of a problem with that, because I think they're, the relationship in the long run really pays off, but litigation, they'll second-guess you in a second, and never mind, oh really? And that last invoice will never get paid; the last one is always.

My relationship with my, like the, the, the, I actually really um, fell in love with the law after everything that happened, because all I did was obsess about, "This has got to be a way to combat this." And initially when I went to uh, attorney, you know, to look for an attorney to help me with this situation, litigation, it was a different attorney than the people I was already working with, just because it's litigation, it's defamation, which also requires a certain kind, certain amount, exactly, exactly. And what's actually interesting is that Taylor, some people that are friendly with Taylor online at one point were tweeting, "Well, this Ari switches lawyers all the time; she's had several lawyers; that should tell you something." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" These people are like, like Taylor to me, like Taylor's going to tell these people, "Oh, she also has multiple lawyers." It's like, Taylor, if you ever ran your own business, which clearly you haven't, you would understand that you, if you were in litigation, you have to get a different attorney than if, than an entertainment attorney, like, or whatever. But anyway, so I go to the attorneys and I'm like, you know, "What can I do?" And my options were pretty bleak. And uh, I could sue the New York Times; I could sue the influencers; I could sue uh, the talent agency and that was interfering, or I could just try to pick up the pieces and keep going. So that's what I did initially; it didn't really work; nobody would pick up my call. She said I leaked nude images, or there was a quote that said I leaked nude images of a client for revenge. This wasn't true; that client leaked his own images all over the internet. I asked him why, and I sent uh, the whole situation to someone essentially that was working in an HR type of position within my company that was NDA'd, so I didn't leak nudes anywhere. Uh, but anyway, that was probably one of the worst things that, that they said. And also that I was allegedly filming the team; they allegedly, they just said I was filming the influencers without permission, which is clearly not true, because there's contracts that said, "Hey guys, there's cameras here." So everything that was in there was not true, and, and it's also very much, I think for somebody that's reading it, it's so inside baseball for the average person that if you're like, "Well, this is fake," the person's like, "Well, how could this be all be not true? Like, it doesn't make sense that all this is not true." And but it's not, none of it is true. And so it's these little, it's either twisting of the facts or twisting of the way that she put a sentence, and this, the next sentence, but the way an average person reading it would be is just really terrible, and you just don't understand, "How could this whole thing, how could all these people be lying, or how could all these things be twisted?" And she included an influencer that said, uh, "Ari, my manager did this and that to me," but this person, or this did this and that to us and yelled at us and whatever, and then, but I didn't even manage that person. So it's like, imagine you have a, you have a company and you have an employee complain to the press, and then you look at them, "Well, we didn't even employ this person, so how could she include these people in the New York Times?" Right? So it was just very poorly uh, researched, and Taylor's editor left like a couple months after this, so I actually think that maybe these people, kind, she's a career killer in, in more ways than one, apparently. They moved forward to, they moved her to the recipes section, I think last week, but she denies getting demoted, of course. No, it's what she's really always wanted, didn't I deny, deny? That's her whole thing; victim blame, victim blame. Um, so yeah, so my whole life is amended, but then I obsess about legal; I start googling, you know, "Well, normal people who are in, who get them, find themselves, you know, for the first time engaged in litigation," and litigation that's really very personal; it could, it's a pretty traumatic experience, isn't it? I mean, it's, I mean, I don't think most people do it; I don't think most people move forward with anything, and that's not, that's, I know they don't, but they shouldn't. And, and in fact, Harmeet and I and our partners routinely advise people, I mean, every single day, and we get a lot of inquiries, especially for defamation; you're either, either of course you, there's, you don't have a case, or you don't really have damages, even though your feelings are hurt, or it's, it's not gonna solve your problem, even winning, even if we could take it on, even if you could pay us, because we don't do defamation on a contingency; that's just not, most people don't, like, no, because it's, you know, I mean, it happens, but you have to, after you have to really, it's like things to strike, but then once you get involved in it, you begin to wish, you know, I mean, and a lawyer should tell you how private it's going to get and how personal it's going to get, and even if you don't demand damages for, you know, emotional distress, which is really risky because now your entire, your entire emotional psychological life becomes relevant, public, right? And then public um, which for you would be fine, but for me would be a disaster; I mean, you know, just the list of the prescriptions alone would be the hottest thing on the internet. So, so now you're picking up the pieces; you're trying to still work in the business, or she killed it, no, she killed it, she killed it. And uh, and now we're in the pandemic, and, and, and deep into the pandemic, and I, I like, I'm actually looking for a job, right, a regular job, like, to yeah uh, well, no uh, this is in 2020, so it was, you know, like six months after the article, I still, you know, wasn't able to get work. And before this, you know, the last I think the job I had offered was in the, in the uh, it was like around I think 250,000 or more that I had been offered on a contract to, to be uh, to work for somebody. So, and then you're going from that to getting like offered a 50,000 a year job, which it's very humbling, and it's like, I don't know what else like I can do, right? And, and it's obviously very, that's emotionally, psychologically uh, too, because uh, or it's painful because you're like, "I just gave up 15 years of my life to dedicate to my career, and it's, it's all gone." I don't, and, and for me, I'm like, I'm single, I'm not married, I don't have any kids, and I gave up those things too because I believed in my career and I knew I was gonna be successful; that was the part that was the hardest. And then to know that it was Taylor Lorenz, who's a privileged like debutante from, you know, Greenwich, Connecticut, that's never done like that, it just, it really, it really hurt my soul. And she gets to go from screw-up to screw-up to screw-up, and instead of losing her job as most people who would screw up as much as she has would, whatever proteccion it is that she has seems to be never run out; it seems to be limitless, whereas you're on your own, building from scratch; you've been working toward this goal for decades.

Any thoughts on the law of defamation? Any thoughts on, on this concept, which I'm sure you have explained to you now quite thoroughly, of actual malice, because Justice Thomas just expressed his very recently? Oh, that's, it's so awesome; I know I posted about that. I, of course, they're trying to say I was a public figure. Now what's interesting is they're trying to use the, they're trying to use the quotes that Taylor included about me and her previous pieces as evidence that I was a public figure. So in my eyes it's like, "Oh, so they can make you a public figure because they know they're gonna do a hit piece about you? Give me a break! I mean, that shouldn't, I don't think that's gonna fly," but that's where they go, right? Also, we've reached the point where to say that somebody here, they have a Twitter account, here they have, look, they're a public figure. No, no, okay, I have 200,000 followers; I recognize the names of maybe, maybe 1500, yeah, which is almost about the number I follow, and then there's, you know, four or five who don't follow me back, but I, they're, I'm following him anyway, you know, I mean, yeah, and then there's the President. Uh, what do you think about uh, I guess um, like when, when they, so what, what is a public figure? A limited-purpose public figure is uh, they say that it's something that's inserting themselves in a controversy, too, right? Which you never did; you didn't, certainly. So I think in the complaint back they're like, "Well, she's inserting herself in the influencer world; she's commenting on influencers." How can they blanket statement that I commented on the influencer and just, that's not a controversy, right? Not a controversy. And, and also you're, you're doing your job; your job is, to some extent, a public job. I mean, I don't want to happen; these people weren't celebrities, right? These people weren't celebrities yet. So I tell people it's like, if you own a bakery and you, you, then you know, the news comes by and you're like, "Hey, I've got the best blueberry muffins," and just because you have a quote about how great your blueberry muffins are, that doesn't mean you're a public figure; you just own a bakery. You get what I'm saying? That's literally what it was; it's not like I was representing Britney Spears; I was representing unknown people at that time, but it real, and you know, one of the reasons I wanted to have you, one, I mean, I'm not a, I don't have 10 million followers, you know, I don't even have a million followers or even half a million, but everything I can do to get people who have been unjustly ruined, and you know, to tell their story because it's true. You haven't been knocked off Twitter, which is my, you know, my main stomping ground, but if you know, you've got, you got to deal with the algorithms, and you have to deal with the pack, and the pack stick together, as you said at the very beginning; people have relationships with the, you know, these people, the so-called traditional media or corporate media, as Mike, as Michael Mouse calls them, regime media um, have relationships with the social media companies, which are, they're essentially the same level of elite right now. Yes. How about your relationships with these people who, who had worked with you before? I mean, are, are any?

Oh, yeah, I, I just went to VidCon, and I, there were so many people that were like, "Ari, we miss you; what are you doing?" And then, and then, and now they're like, "Oh, we screw that, Taylor Lorenz," like, now the tables are sort of, you know, the tide is churning. But uh, at the same time, those people have new managers now; those people are in a different place, and I'm not gonna go and do the things that people did to me; I'm not going to go poach people's clients and do unethical things like that; this is not who I am. So if I'm going to make it in the space, I have to come up with something new; maybe I'm managing people in the NFT space; maybe I'm managing a, you know, college athletes now that they're allowed to make money; I don't know what the sweet spot is for me, obviously uh, and I'm trying to figure it out. But even just getting back in the game, I'm just realizing that regardless of how much experience I have and the relationships I have uh, it's a different, it's a, it's a different world; it's more saturated, and nobody can bring me back to that one point where I was, where everything sort of came together magically in this moment. And that's why I'm suing, and that's why I'm being outspoken about, just so that people understand who Taylor is and what she can do, so this doesn't happen again. I think that not only is Taylor very dangerous, but also it's dangerous that other journalists want to be like Taylor, and you look at the Cat 10 barges of the world and Felicia Samnez and all, all these people that sort of, you know, even if you watch Taylor's VidCon misinformation panel uh, she says Gamergate like 25, 30 times; she says bad actors, radicalized uh, she just puts everybody in a box, but she can't put me in that box; I'm not a radicalized, right-wing, whatever. I have friends on the right now, because guess what? They helped me when nobody else would, and I was even telling that I'm like, you know, he's like, you know, some of these people that, that are very conservative that are leaning in your corner, you know, some people may look at that and, and, and not be happy about it, especially in Hollywood. And I told Matt, I said, "Especially because I went on Tucker Carlson," which you know, I'm really glad I did that because I was able to tell my story to millions of people, but at the same time there was a lot of people that said, "Why did you go on Tucker? And that's the worst thing you could have done ever." And, and I tell people, "Okay, so if you're bleeding out on the side of the road and Tucker Carlson comes over to bandage you up, you're going to tell me that you're going to tell him to screw off? I don't think so." And by the way, once he bandages you up, you might say, "I actually like this guy; I appreciate that they did this for me." How could you not? I am so happy to speak to you, Glenn Greenwald. [Laughter] You know, I mean, people, you know, people find that once the opportunity to be heard on the, actually put it, the channels of the pack, of the herd uh, evaporate, then you go where there is at least an intelligent opportunity, and Tucker is a very intelligent man. Um, Ari, thank you so much for telling us your story; you've been real; you've been a very good sport, and you've answered some really. I'm the biggest fan of yours; I watch you on YouTube; I'm obsessed with LawTube, obviously, and I'm glad that you go in there, and I go in from time to time; they, you know, I can't really compete with those real streamers; they're, they're, they're, and this is what they do all day long. I take an hour out every week and talk to somebody charming and interesting like you, but um, I think it's great; I think you guys all give really great uh, and just different perspectives, and I appreciate that you, I, I do think that, and for the most part everybody that I've talked to, and a lot too, you do care about the little guy, and just about the truth, and that's really all I really want is, I'm a little guy, so you know, as a fellow little guy, I've gotta, you know, I gotta look out for my peeps; lawyers are my heroes. So anyway, thank you for having me on. My pleasure. Okay, so long; have you stay in touch; we'll talk. Okay. [Music]