Welcome to episode three of the Creator Spotlight Podcast. Today's guest is Casey Lewis, who writes After School, a newsletter tracking youth consumer trends and Gen Z insights.
Casey has been writing either about or for teenagers since she was one and had a blog called Teen Fashionista, but she never thought of herself as a creator until this past year.
After School is actually one of the few newsletters I actively read. So this was a particularly fun episode for me personally, and I hope will be a particularly fun one for you to listen to.
For our readers, for our subscribers, give me the little quick who is Casey Lewis background. Oh, gosh. So I, I, I think I would self-identify as, as a writer and editor first and foremost. I went to journalism school.
I grew up obsessed with teen magazines. I, I really saw, like, a life for myself as, like, moving to New York and being an editor at a teen magazine.
And then I did go to journalism school, and I did move to New York, and then the journalism or the media industry as we know it sort of, you know, was already crumbling.
Like, I had an inter- I had a, um, I was an intern at Teen Vogue one summer, but then I was a,
um, ASME intern, uh, the next summer, which they place you and they pay you, which is great 'cause no internships at that point were paid.
But shortly after I did this internship, the magazine folded, and I hadn't even graduated yet. So then I s- I, I...
So there were signs of what was to come in the media industry, and, um, but I would identify as an editor and, and a writer. Yeah.
It- that's the through line through my career, though I- it has sort of manifested in different ways.
Which is interesting because, like, the whole idea of, like, what is a creator, how do you define that, like, is kind of complex. And, like, I place you in that camp because you have this newsletter.
But, like, with Clover Letter, I don't know. Would I have called you a creator? I think now maybe yes, um, with... My definition's kind of broad. Uh, but, um, anyways, let's let, let's go back to the beginning.
Let's go back to Teen Fashionista. [laughs] I can't believe you found it. Uh, which I... Well, I found it because I, I was, I, I've, I was looking up, like... I don't know. I was, like- Yeah...
just trying to find thing- Yeah... like, things that, surprising things about you, and I, I looked up, like, you and your college graduating class.
I found this article from you, about you from December 2006 in the Columbia- Yeah... Missourian. Am I sitting in a closet? I'm sitting in a closet here. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. [laughs] I, I've got it up right here.
Um, yeah, and, and so I found it all through that, but it was really cool. And I, I don't know, tell me, tell me, like, about starting Teen Fashionista and then what happened with it.
'Cause it still exists, but- No, it doesn't. It doesn't... it's just kind of like an affiliate marketing show. Well, no. No, no. The, the URL does, but it's just, like, an affiliate marketing show. Oh. Oh, wow.
But clearly you're not involved with it. Yeah. I let it- So tell me, tell me about that. I, I let it... Oh, wow, I actually have not looked th- this up. Wow. Okay, so it lapsed a long time ago.
Um, obviously I'm no longer a teen, but- [laughs]...
when I was, I just grew up truly obsessed with media and loved writing and started a, like, um, it was an email newsletter, but it was, um, it was a Listserv about fashion when I was probably 12.
And that was the sort of first iteration, I guess, or the first, like, my first life as a creator sort of effort.
Of course, we didn't identify as creators then, but I had this Listserv about fashion, and then, um, tools like Blogger came out, and so I started experimenting with a blog.
And back then, i- it was pretty early days of, of blogging, and the blog role on the side w- was sort of how you would get, you know, es- essentially, like, referrals.
I don't know if you're familiar with the b- you know, the, the idea of a blog role, but it w- it was, like, the top echelon of the, like, sort of fashion blogs would all recommend one another, and then if, if you could, if sh- show up...
It, it's, it's just like a co-sign on Twitter, like, you know, any newsletter platform these days. But it, it really... I, I sort of just wrote every day.
I remember, um, either reading or someone gave me a piece of advice that if you wanna be a writer, just write every day, and I took that to heart.
And so I would sit down on my family computer and, like, write a musing about, like, Chanel or, or, you know, just whatever, Gap. Like, it didn't...
It, and I'm from a small town in Missouri, so I, my exposure to fashion was limited to basically Seventeen magazine, then Teen Vogue, but I was obsessed with fashion and loved, like, to l- l- learn about it on the internet.
Um, so yeah. So I started this blog, Teen Fashionista, and I wish I could remember traffic numbers, but it grew.
And so I, you know, l- living in rural Missouri, ended up going to South by Southwest and speaking on a panel called Meet Judy Jetson.
And I remember the invite came into my inbox, and I had to tell my parents, like, "I've been invited to South by Southwest." How old were you? I think I was... I could look back, but I think I was 13 or 14. And,
and then my senior year of, of high school, I went to Fashion Week in New York, and living in New York was my dream. I'd never been to New York.
And I remember I saw Atoosa Rubenstein, who was the editor-in-chief of Cosmo Girl and then Seventeen, and I went up to her and I gave her a Teen Fashionista card that I had made, um, from, like, a family friend who was a printer.
That's so sick. [laughs] And then, so I read that you, uh... Actually, be- before, before we move on, when did you shut it down? As best I could tell, it was, like, kind of 2010- Hmm... right when you graduated college.
You looked at yourself and did- Yeah, so, yeah. I, well, like, you know, as I got older... Like, I started, I started it probably when I was literally 13 or 14- Mm... and then
as I got, like, closer to 20, it, I was sort of like, "Huh." Like, "This can't continue forever."
But then I also, I did move to New York after I graduated, and then I started working at Teen Vogue, and at that time, Condé Nast or, like, any corporation was not-...
enthusiastic about you having like a side gig and like side hustles weren't a thing.
And so I remember like, I don't know if anybody ever said that I should not do that on the side, but it was sort of implied that you shouldn't have like side gigs. Yeah. How times have changed. Yes. I know.
I mean, it's, it's crazy.
I remember an editor getting chastised for being too much on Twitter, which like that goes to show how different platforms are and how important it is for these magazines to, that their editors have followings.
But at the time it was sort of like your personal brand, quote unquote, should be your brand that you work for. [laughs] Like- Yeah.
I also found your, um, fashion.about.com, um- Oh my gosh, you like really went for- Yeah. Oh, yeah, so that's- Casey's Clicks. Yeah. [laughs] Geez. Yeah. Well, you're reminding me of things that I...
Yeah, so that was how I went to fash- uh, Fashion Week actually. So I, um, had my blog, and then the editor of fashion.about.com, um, became sort of a mentor of mine. And- Sylvia Mendez. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm.
And, um, was just, is an amazing woman. She no longer works in media, as so many people who started in media, you know, but, um, she was amazing and, uh, let me write about teen fashion for her site.
And at that time,.about.coms were like pretty big, and it was awesome exposure for my newsletter, and I can't remember if she... I think she paid me. And I, I'm almost positive she paid me, and I'm sure it wasn't much.
It shouldn't have been much 'cause I was like liter- you know. And I do remember I had to get my parents' permission to, to do it. Like, I think I, my parents had to email her and be like, "This is okay."
Um, but then that, uh, led to I was the editor of prom.about.com, and that actually brought in good money because it was like affiliate revenue early days. And I can't remember if I was in high school or college when...
I think I was in high school still. Um, but yeah, I was obsessed with fashion, and so I would do like runway to prom or, you know, like sort of like, or red, red carpet stuff like that.
Um, yeah, you really, um, uh, uh, you're reminding me of things that I, that I totally forgot about. That's... Well, I, I hope so. Uh- [laughs]... no, I, I, so I, I wrote this down actually.
Casey's, Casey's Clicks is like, it's so proto After School. There w- like on the website there's this thing.
It said, "Teen, teen scene, stay on top of the latest teen fashion trends by checking out these articles-" I- "... all written by teen fashion expert Casey Lewis of teenfashionista.com." It's the same thing, right?
Like- It's so funny... you're doing the same thing. Yeah. I'm nothing if not, uh- I'm sensing. Yeah, yeah. So funny. Um- I've gotten older, but my interests have remained the same.
Yeah, which, which is really interesting.
Um, it's almost like, I, I wonder if in five years are, like is everything on the After S- if you're still doing After School, is everything on the About page gonna change from Gen Z to Gen Alpha? Like is it...
I don't think it's necessarily Gen Z culture you're interested in as much as it is teen cul- you were writing about teen culture as a teen. Yep. Now you're writing- Yep...
but like as Gen Z becomes, you know, 20-somethings, 30-somethings- Yep. I, I- Do you still write about them or is it Gen Alpha?
I think it, I think you're, you're totally right in that it's, it's youth culture that I'm interested in- Mm-hmm... and not Gen Z.
And I think, you know, when I was in college I, um, also worked at, uh, this website called Y- YPulse, which is, um, uh, sort of a youth insights intelligence.
It's changed a lot since then, but, um, it was like a very scrappy, like early days website. If you look it up on way, uh, internet, you know, the, it, it's awesome.
And, um, and it, it sort of you'll see like that, you'll see how that experience sort of led me to doing After School because I was like tasked with basically scouring the internet and finding relevant to youth marketers, uh- Mm-hmm...
articles. And my... So really [laughs] like I've been doing a version of this for a long time.
But, um, but I re- you know, at that point youth trends were millennials and I was a millennial, but, you know, n- now it's...
And, and I think a- a- throughout my career I've like, I've both reported on youth trends for youth, like with Cloverletter that was for teens and, but now it's like I've, I'm interested in both telling teen stories but also for teens, the audience, and also adults as the audience, and I think that's what I, I'm genuinely more interested in at this point.
Yeah. Uh, you touched on Cloverletter. Can we, can we get into that? As far as I know it's, you did it for about three years with, with a friend, with a co-founder. Yeah. Got to 200,000 subscribers. Yeah.
You were acquired. You had a cool referral system that was like proto what, you know, s- Beehiiv or Substack ha- has built in today. Yeah. Um, and I couldn't find anything really about w- you launched an app.
I couldn't really find anything about monetization. So tell me, yeah, tell me all about Cloverletter.
I'd worked at Teen Vogue, gone to MTV, gone back to Teen Vogue, was getting increasingly disillusioned with the, the media, th- state of media. Of course now it's way worse, but [laughs] but...
And my friend was working, one of my closest friends, we knew each other since we were interns.
I was an intern at Teen Vogue at the time that she was an intern at Elle Girl, which no longer exists, and, uh, we just were, you know, we would get beers in Williamsburg after our, you know, assistant jobs and talk about how b- beholden we were to clickbait and, and what a shame it was, like not only for us professionally, but for these young readers.
Like, I was seeing at Teen Vogue, like the top stories would be Kylie Jenner dyes her hair, and all that traffic is coming through Facebook, and it would just...
It sucked 'cause we were like doing these wonderfully reported stories that weren't getting any traction, and everyone was like working themselves to the bone, and for what?
And at that time there was-Email was starting to bubble up. The Skimm was a big success story at the time. Lena Dunham came out with Lenny Letter.
There were just a, a, some interesting examples of like sort of this newsletter wave that we're in now. Um, but we were especially inspired by The Skimm, which had...
I mean, they raised a ton of money, and we thought that was cool. And but also they just gr- their growth story was crazy, and part of that, of course, was because they raised l- you know.
But so my friend and I put in notice at our jobs. Um, we sat down, created a couple of like example newsletters, decided we were gonna launch on X date. This was 2016.
Um, and because we had been reporters at, you know, different publications, we knew how to pitch ourselves, so we reached out to Women's Wear Daily, New York Times.
We got all this press just because we sort of like w- somewhat through our relationships, but also just we knew what appealed to, you know, when you're on the receiving end of a pitch.
Um, but the newsletter really did grow very quickly in a way that we didn't expect, and if I do say so, like in re- retrospect, I'm like, "Wow, that was kind of brilliant."
So every day we featured a teen girl, and this speaks to the time, but we would look on Instagram and look at the tagged locations of high schools, and then we would then DM these people and say like, "You seem awesome.
We are starting... We're former editors at Teen Vogue and Nylon. We're starting this new newsletter. We think you'd be into it, and we'd love to feature you."
And so then we'd feature them, and we'd be like, "Now please share," you know? And so we would s- these girls would be flattered, and then they would be interested.
And I think that people are kind of inundated with DMs more so this, at this point. Mm-hmm. But in 2016, like they, you know, these young girls were sort of like, "Wow, cool. Okay."
And so then it sort of snowballed, and then girls would be like, "Can I write for you?"
And so very quickly, Liza and I went from writing the entire thing every day to girls would wanna write essays about mental health or like advice columns, or we were like suddenly getting all these pitches from teenage girls.
And so it just, it s- did snowball from there, and we grew to 200,000 subscribers with a lot of... You know, we did every sort of growth thing that you... I mean, we didn't, we didn't really put any...
We didn't buy any subscribers, but we tried all sorts of stuff.
It was awesome to build out a brand to, to have this, to have these relationships with these girls, to see the need that we were filling because it wasn't clickbait.
That's the nice thing about email is like you really do get to sidestep the whole clickbait thing. But we didn't, uh, we didn't stay in the business long enough to like see that through. So- Mm-hmm...
we started thinking about the next step. Did not re- it was a hard time in media. We were seeing a lot of companies shut down or not being able to raise the next round. I mean, nothing's changed.
And so we started talking to potential acquirers, and AwesomenessTV, uh, at the time was like a huge YouTube influencer, um, network, and they were interested in exploring email and like real girl sort of like, uh, you know, more like issues.
And, um, so they acquired us, which was not like... It was, uh, it was, you know, it, it- It wasn't the exit of the- It was not-... it wasn't the Morning Brew exit... it was not a Morning Brew exit.
My, my co-founder and I were relieved to just sort of like be in a steady spot again and to not be on that treadmill, and we joined aft- or we joined Awesomeness, and then three months later they were acquired by Viacom.
So then suddenly we're doing this newsletter basically under this huge giant, and no one gives a shit about 200,000 subscribers in an email list at a place like V- Viacom.
So then, yeah, they started like cutting resource... You know, we were supposed to have all this, all these resources. They started cutting resources. They were like, "Actually, can you guys just send it twice a week?
We'd like you to work on other projects." But then other... no projects came, so we were literally going to Times Square every day and just sort of sitting in a cubicle going, "Oh God, this is bad." So yeah.
Long- Do you-... long story long. [laughs] Yeah. Do you think it, do you think it was a success? Like looking back on it, do you qualify it as a success?
[laughs] I th- I think it was a s- success because we both learned so much. I also think it was a success because we're still friends, and I...
now that I've heard so many founder stories, I'm like, she's still one of my best friends, so like that feels like a personal or like a, yeah, a personal success.
But I do think we, it opened both of our eyes to like a, a world beyond straight media. It got me really interested in brand building and marketing. It exposed me to VC.
I- it really did kind of widen my world a bit, and I also feel proud of the product that we put out, and it... I learned a lot about email. And so for th- those reasons it was a success.
Um, am I like gonna retire on that money? Absolutely not. There's no, you know. But so, you know, it depends which way you look at it, but we also went into this not thinking that we'd become billionaires.
We went into it because we wanted a better sort of professional, a professional life for ourselves, but also a better publication for teenage girls. Yeah. It was like this authentic desire to make something- Yeah...
for teenage girls. Truly authentic. Like truly, truly authentic, and, um, yeah. I found an interview with a, as of today I guess, laid off vice staffer that you did a couple years ago.
There was this moment where you were talking about why you started After School, and you said you wanted to be able to consolidate all these trends, track them, to be able to look back a year later.
It was like this, this trend diary, this way I think for you to organize your own internet consumption, uh, consumptionAnd process it.
So I, yeah, I guess that seems to be the mission statement, but I'd, I'd just love to hear you talk more about why you started After School. Because also, actually...
So first you, you, um, Cloverletter, you did the Cloverletter thing, then you went to New York Mag for a couple years, and then you quit, and then you started After School. What was the flow there?
I knew I was leaving New York Magazine. I-- the strategy, I love the strategist, I love, um, like, I love shopping content. I was really interested in that sort of affiliate market.
I wanted to learn about affiliate revenue because that was such a hot... I mean, it still is, but, like, the Wirecutters, the Strategist, they were just killing it at that time, and I wanted to learn more about that.
And I also think the world of New York Magazine, and so, um, was awesome, but it was-- I was also there during the pandemic, so it was a little bleak 'cause we were doing, like, the best masks you can wear or, like, that kind of...
You know, it was... And so it was, it was time to, you know... It just wasn't, um...
I think I, I also learned that coming off of the Cloverletter experience of doing so much beyond editing, that just editing wasn't really doing it for me anymore.
So knew that I, I'd put in my notice, and I have been freelance or, you know, with Cloverletter, like, we were self-employed, so I w- I know myself, and you can probably tell from just speaking to me, like, I have high anxious energy, and I need something each day to sort of look back and be like, "Okay, I did that."
Like, check that off or else I just am sort of unmoored.
And so I super, uh, you know, I have always been super interested in youth trends, but with TikTok and everything that was happening, it felt like every day I was consuming all this stuff and it was going, like, in one ear and out the other.
And it felt like there were some macro insights to take away inside my brain, but they weren't living anywhere.
And so [chuckles] I just remember for the month of April, every day I did After School without telling anybody. It was just, like, quietl- just to see, like, is this-- does this feel good for my brain?
Like, does this feel like a good exercise? Is there enough even on youth consumer trends to do it daily? Like, what, like, what are the learnings here? Because I...
You know when someone's like, "I'm starting a newsletter," and they send out, like, one letter, and then it j- like, I just, I, I was afraid that I would be setting myself r- up for something untenable.
And, um, I think that, like, as creators, the, the, the best work comes from when it's you're doing something that you want to see exist.
Like, I think we all read newsletters that we're like, "Oh, this person is kind of phoning it in," 'cause they have this cadence that they now have to, like, stick to, but they don't know what to say or they're clearly burnt out, you know, whatever.
So I just wanted to make sure it was something that felt personally fulfilling and also just, like, mentally feasible. Um, and so then I, i- it was great.
And so then May, so May, three years ago this coming May, um, sort of like went live with it, which, uh, tweeting about it.
And, um, yeah, it's been like a slow and steady growth since then, and I've learned a lot in three years, and I do want to figure out how to condense all that data in a way that is,
uh, beyond just, like, existing in email form. Um, but even just, like, to have, like, be able to search back feels worthwhile.
Uh, I wanna talk for a second more about, um, the, that first month writing to nobody, which, which I really, I really like that. So many people, myself included, historically, like, have that white page fear, right?
Yeah. Like whether it's a newsletter or a TikTok series, they wanna start something, they have no idea how or what to do. Um, I think clearly that's never been a problem for you ever since you were- [laughs]...
like 12 years old or whatever. Uh, but yeah, like, w- how was it, like, writing to nobody? Is it, is, is it... Did you really, like, set the bones of what it is now still then? Like, what was that like? Yeah. Yeah.
I recently was looking back, I can't remember what story I was digging back to see, but the format has changed a bit. I'm, I'm much more longer-winded now than I was back then.
Like, I'm, I'm obviously more comfortable in my opinions, but I also think that's from three years of researching this, I feel like I have more to say. Um, uh, but the bones are, still exist.
And the w- the one thing that has been more of a evolving thing is the we- the paid weekend edition. But I do think for me it's not the... The blank page is not terrifying. The...
And, and also sending out an email to no one, I felt sort of protected. Like, I don't, I didn't have my byline listed. Like, I literally was like, "No one knows this exists. This is just for me," but I still, you know...
Then it's like, "Well, why even publish it?" But, I, I did. I, I don't know why. But, um, but then I added my byline. But it...
for me, the, the sort of, like, fear comes from, what if I announce this thing or announce, you know, tweet about it, and no one cares? Or, you know... And that's, that's truly been like...
I remember, you know, I, when I was a kid, I started Teen Fashionista. I didn't tell anybody about it. I didn't tell my cl- my classmates about it. I did not tell anyone about it.
And I think that I've always had comfort between my online identity and my offline identity are separate.
But I was recently [chuckles] talking to a cousin, and I don't really talk to my family about, like, my online identity much. And I've started to make TikToks because I've seen subscriber...
It, it helps my subscriber growth.
And I posted my first reel, which was fucking terrifying because I do have personal friends and family follow me on Instagram, and so putting myself out there in that way, you know, you're like, "Am I in the group chat?
Are they making fun of me in the group chats?" But to a certain extent, you have to lean into the cringe, I think, especially if you, you wanna grow online.
Like, if, if you, if you're proud of what you're doing, like, you have to just sort of say, "Fuck it. Probably someone is gonna be like-"Can you believe her? She's trying to be an influencer," or whatever. But yeah.
[chuckles] No, I mean, I, I forget, like, if this is some... where this comes from, but there's that, that led line, like, don't kill the part of yourself that's cringe.
Kill the part of yourself that cringes or whatever, which I think is really- Oh, I love that... really much better. I love heard that. That's so good. Yeah. I don't, I don't know where it's from. But yeah.
Um, but no, so I was looking, I was looking at your socials obviously, and I noticed that you've posted on Instagram 16 times in the past decade.
Uh, but then looking at your TikTok, which you told Brad Esposito in April 2022, that you don't spend much time on TikTok. Um, so I'm curious- Yeah, that has changed... what changed there? Let me tell you. Yeah. Yeah.
So, oh, a-actually, just to finish my, my previous... I realized I, I started...
I, I was talking to a cousin who doesn't know about my online stuff as much, and she is also a couple years younger than me, therefore, like, more plugged in in a way.
And she was like, "Yeah, a couple of my friends have said that you've been coming up on their FYPs." And I was like, "Oh God, that is horrible to hear."
Like, because I just, the, y-I, I can't be the only person who like once, and you know, I, I'm sure even you brought up How, How Long Gone. I bet it's... And not to compare myself to them, I love them. I'm a goner.
But I, I bet it's probably weird and a little uncomfortable when, you know, someone brings up something they say on the podcast and it's like, "Wait, I didn't tell you that. That's on the pod..." You know?
And so I think in order to... for our online and offline selves to coexist, [chuckles] we have to like lean into the, lean into the cringe. Um- Mm-hmm... but to answer your question about TikTok.
So I wanna say in the last year, I r- oh, you know what? I can tell you exactly. As TikTok... A-as Twitter, I used to be huge on Twitter or t-huge into Twitter constantly.
That was my go-to sort of scrolling, standing in line, and then once the Elon stuff happened and the algorithms got so bad and people are posting less, it's like I just don't find the same...
I don't think it's as amus- like I just don't get the same out, same sort of satisfaction out of it.
So when, when Twitter was like constantly disappointing, when T- yeah, when Twitter was constantly disappointing me, I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and figure out TikTok in earnest, at least with my FYP.
Like I don't... I love do- like I have a dog, I don't wanna see dogs. I don't wanna see, you know, like I don't wanna see th-this content. I wanna, I want it to see trend content. I wanna see shopping hauls.
I wanna know what consumers are doing, and I'm gonna try to train my algorithm in earnest." And it has been... I, I get so much satisfaction from scrolling on TikTok now.
Like I routinely laugh out loud at st- like I, it's like I'm obsessed with my feed bec-because, you know, of course it's in many ways a reflection of your interest. But TikTok for me is like al- such a purely good thing
with scrolling. I will say that posting for me is a little more fraught. I, um, do not read the comments, like just don't. I have a hard rule against that just because I
don't take like any sort of cri- like I, I have extremely thin skin, and so I just opt out of looking at the comments. [chuckles] Um, and I also, um, I, I wanna get into a rhythm where I'm...
I posted a lot over holiday break because I had more time, but I wanna get in a rhythm where I'm posting, you know, daily.
But I also think that there are limitations to TikTok in terms of like, yes, it's a fun thing, but like at this point, I think in terms of like professional growth, I think there are serious limitations just because people aren't growing on TikTok the same way they used to be.
Speaking of like how you've scaled your posting, like I, I was looking and now it's like, feels like most of your videos get over 100,000 views, some of them less, but you've got like multiple with millions of views.
The, the Stanley, uh, one was like, I think your biggest, um, and that's all in like the past three or four months. I think you only first posted like last, like eight months ago now or something like that.
So like what, like did, did it really like boost you too once you started getting like actual engagement? Like I know you're not reading the comments, but you're seeing the view count and it's like insane.
So how did, how did that feel like as somebody- Yeah... who fears this kind of parasocial two-way mirror? Yeah. I, I, I haven't gotten into like a regular rhythm of posting, and I think that that might help.
But I will say just in terms of seeing, uh, the sources on my subscribers, I, I really did not think TikTok would translate to newsletter subscribers.
I was really trying it as an experiment and just to do it, you know, just to see, because I feel like there is a little bit in all of us in 2024 of like, could I go viral? I'm... Could I? Like I don't know.
Maybe I can't, but like, uh, could I? And so with, um, w-with like the Stanley thing, like I just felt really like obviously Stanleys are on their way out.
Like I was astounded by how many Christmas hauls included Stanleys. They were tween and sometimes even younger girls.
Like there's literally no way that this trend is gonna keep going up, up, up because they're literally 11 year olds are excited about this purchase, so therefore a 25-year-old or 22-year-old is not gonna be wanting to carry this thing around.
Like that's just the way that trend cycles work. And so... But I also... Yeah. So I, I felt pretty confident that that one would do decent numbers. I did not expect it to, to yield what it did.
Um, but yeah, I would say in terms of just, you know, most Substack, but the Higham Shore too, you can see the source and so seeing that it comes through from TikTok, it's sort of like, holy shit, like people are clicking through on my profile and signing up, which just really surprises me.Yeah.
No, I mean, that infamously it's hard to get people to, to click out of TikTok. Yeah. Um, can we talk about your, your new- your newsletter growth?
I think you're at 38,000 subscribers now in j- like, almost exactly three years. It'll be, in a couple months it'll be three years.
Um, tell me about like, I guess like the, the path from like zero to 10 to 100 to 1,000 to 10... Like, kind of those big milestones, how it progressed. So,
so having scaled, uh, or grown Cloverletter, and also to a lesser extent having worked on Teen Vogue's newsletter strategy back in the day, like I had a pretty good sense of like what is good numbers versus what is not good numbers in terms of open rate and also just sheer size.
And I, I'm sure it's different now, but like I can speak to like Teen Vogue's list in 2015 was massive, but the open rate was terrible because sort of what we ran into with Clover, which was like the e- the h- high school, the college, the e- the, the.edu ones.
Um, but, uh, so I wanted to approach cl- uh, After School differently because I wasn't trying to scale this.
I was trying to do something for my own brain, and I felt really strongly of like, if others do benefit from this, great, but like I truly was just trying to like fi- like find something that worked for me.
So what was really, um, gratifying and, um, you know, I wasn't seeing like scale. It's not like overnight I was at 10,000 subscribers.
It was slow and steady, but I felt good about that because my open rate was really high. And because I was seeing... The beauty of an email newsletter is you, for many, for the most part, you know who's signing up.
So I was seeing Nike and, you know, Instagram and, and huge, and agencies c- and it was such a thrill to like see these people like signing up for my newsletter.
And so just seeing the s- and I w- at, at a certain point, like the newsletter growth was so slow and steady that I was literally looking up every person [chuckles] like, "Oh my gosh."
And for a while I had a list of like the CMO of, you know, Red Bull or whatever, and I do not do that anymore, although I should.
I think it was probably a really like w- worthwhile exercise because if I- Well, you probably... This was probably when you didn't have a full-time job too, right? Exactly. When you really [crosstalking] Exactly, yeah.
Um, but so, so that, I, I... That really encouraged me even though the growth wasn't lightning fast, and I, I have never done any sort of like growth tac- like growth exchange.
And in fact, I do think that's probably a missed opportunity or something I would like to pursue in the future, as so much of newsletter growth comes from cross-promotion.
And so like Brad featuring me, I gave him a shout-out, but if I had interviewed Brad in, you know... Like, I think that there is a lot of value in, in those cases.
Um, but because of my format and because of, you know, the short daily, I think there's an opportunity to do some interviews in the long, in, in the weekend one.
Um, but also with my full-time job, I, I haven't been able to, um, explore that, but it is something that is on my mind. But yeah, slow and steady growth a- and, um, there have been no like lightning bolts or anything.
But, you know, you'll...
Anytime someone, you know, a tweet or someone gives me a shout-out in their newsletter, or in the last couple of months I've been in a lot of articles as, you know, as a source, and it's been really interesting to see like what does make a difference and what doesn't.
Yeah. W- I, I was wondering if your current job like came at all, came about at all through the newsletter because it seemed...
Like working at a VC firm, you know, you, in a comms and content role you probably, they probably want your trend insights I would imagine. Like, was that related?
So I have, am about to hit a year on my job and I am tran- I'm actively transitioning out because I'm gonna do After School full time. It just, I've been- Amazing.
[chuckles] It's with the team's blessing, but basically I've just been burning the candle at both ends and, um, the weekend takes the entire weekend really to do. Yeah. And so I've just truly been working like every...
Like, and look, we all work a lot, but I just, the... You know, working for a VC is not a nine-to-five. And- Yeah.
So coming into the new year I saw a lot of growth and I was like, "Shit, like seems like there's an opportunity here that I'm really not able to explore because I'm so... I'm, just don't have the energy or the time."
So I'm planning to like add a pro offering that's more for brands, that's more of a monthly deep dive, which is whe- why the having the brand emails will come in handy because I can do some direct outreach of like, "Hey, I'm getting ready to launch this thing."
Um- Yeah. But to answer, to, to back up, so I definitely do think that the newsletter helped, and I think that especially for the team that I work... Like Alexis is truly a content enthusiast.
He so respects the side hustle. He so respects content creators. Also, he's obsessed with Beehiiv, just so you guys know. Oh. Um, so he's constantly like, "Are you gonna move to Beehiiv?"
Like [chuckles] I mean [both laugh] Like, so I do think it helped in that way because he like...
H- having him as a bo- like he, having him as a boss also helped me like get comfortable with a front-facing camera and trying different content formats out because he is, you know, it helps to have someone who's sort of fearless in that, in content creation.
I counted links in a few of your, in a few of your newsletters and I think like... My, my question really is like how do you source your content because it's, it's insane.
Like I think the format for a regular weekly, weekday edition is like, there's like the f- was it like... I've read it everywhere this, somewhere. It's like five or six- Yeah...
links in the top that are like kind of more tabloidy, gossipy I feel- Yeah... is the difference. And then below is like six to seven that are more long form news articles with, with more context. And then in the...
I, I checked this morning, I looked at a couple of the extra credits, went through 'em, and I counted 74... links, not including TikToks or Spotify embeds. 74, you know, anchor text links. Um, so that's crazy.
Did you- That's like a lot of links... did you manually count? I did. I did. Okay, because I've often thought it would be a fun metric to include of like how many links. Mm-hmm. But I- You should. That's a- Yeah...
that's a cool, that's a good hook. Yeah. Um- Um, but, but my question is like, h- so one, like how are you sourcing this content? And then two, how much time are you spending on the newsletter each week?
So it's interesting. When I first started, I used... I was very reliant on Google Alerts.
So I had like some keywords like Gen Z, youth, things like that, and then [chuckles] in the first like three months of doing After School, Google Alerts went to shit.
Like I don't know what happened, but it's like the news sources that they use are terrible. Like, and so I really had to... I was sort of like, "Okay, need to rethink here." And so I...
Well, I don't wanna give away too much because I do have like a pretty intense [laughs]- Hold your cards if you need.
But I will say I, I have a very large number of, um, sites that I read at least the headlines of every day. Mm-hmm. But I also like, I do... I mean, I've experimented with having keywords set.
Like Google News, you know, looking at Gen Z helps a bit, and I do do that every day just to make sure, and like sometimes I'll search teenagers, but Google News search is also really bad.
And so, but I also take it very personally if I miss some sort of like trend scoop or like something, I'm like, "Shit, I should have included that."
So I, you know, I, I think probably you could boil down the, the publications that I regularly link to. I probably link to like 20 outlets frequently, and then maybe like 50 outlets, you know, regularly.
And I kind of know like I should check Wall Street Journal every day, check New York Times every day.
Though honestly, like it's a workflow that I'm constantly trying to improve upon because I try to also report on any y- general youth trends, but like many youth trends don't include Gen Z in the headline.
So it's a lot of just like having to read everything or at least skim sites. And, um, there's no like shortcut really. I do... I, like there's some like sort of depending on the day, like depending on how...
I mean, I also am like a scrolling maniac, so I am, I have very v- a terrible attention span as all of us do these days.
And so I shouldn't admit this on to, to, in front of my colleagues, but like when I'm on Zooms, I'm listening, but I'm also like maniacally scrolling. Mm-hmm. And so that's why it's hard to do that with TikTok.
I can't do that with TikTok, but that's why I miss like having a better Twitter because I used to source so much from Twitter, um, that I just don't anymore. Um, but yeah.
I, I, I probably- Well, I think- To answer your question about how much time, so I chip away at the w- weekend one pretty much all week.
I'm filing away headlines of like, eh, that doesn't quite, that's not quite good enough for the daily, but I think it might ladder up to a larger trend for the weekend.
So I'm constantly filing away, so I, I, my weekend is a work in progress.
Honestly, a couple of weeks ago, I, um, was sick and I accidentally po- sent out like a newsletter with all of my overflow at the bottom because I, throughout the day am adding links to, straight into the newsletter doc.
Mm-hmm. And so it, you know, and then I do the one last thought, which is a TikTok embed, and I had all the overflow be- below it. But usually I grab that overflow and then I put it into the weekend. So yeah.
[laughs] That's, that's a lot. Yeah. Do you have to have like an hour estimate for like the whole y- I mean it's probably y- it's like every waking hour of your life, every, any moment you're looking at your phone.
But like the whole, the whole project, and then like vaguely how much time you spent. Like I don't... Again, you kind of already said you don't, but like- Yeah...
the, maybe like on a normal weekday issue, is that like an hour, three hour, like? Yeah.
It's hard because I'm doing so much of the sort of background scrolling, shall we, you know, just like collecting- Yeah, which is the real work... but I will say in the morning I wake up at like 6:00, 6:30 on a good day.
It's hard because when it doesn't get light until 7:00, it's sort of like, "Ah."
But I, I usually probably, I spend probably 45 minutes to an hour on it in the morning before I send it, and then I'm doing the pre-work the day before.
And so I usually have a good idea of what I wanna say, but I like to do the sort of final 45 minutes or whatever work in the morning because if anything big came up overnight, I like to include that, or my brain's just also fresher in the morning.
You know, I'm like drinking my coffee and I feel like I'm wittier.
Um, but I will say also the, the time, the, the sort of workflow of that has changed over time based on my jo- Like when I first started After School, I did send it around 4:00 every day. 4:00. 4:00 PM?
4:00, After School. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, duh. That's, that's right. Yeah. And so I'd, I'd sort of work on it during the, my day and then I'd try and get it out, you know, and late- later in the afternoon.
And then given like even before j- taking a full-time job, just like projects and stuff, it's really hard to like carve out that time in the middle of the day. So I shifted it to the morning.
And for a while I was doing the entire thing the night before and scheduling it for 6:50 or whatever. Um, but then I deci- I like to give it a fresh look in the morning. Are you... So you're pressing send manually?
Oh, yes. Usually, or you were? Amazing. I s- no, I- That, that's crazy... I press send manually every single day. I used to schedule it out. Wow.
That's, I, I, I feel like that's so uncommonI mean, I, I, not that I've talked to everyone with a newsletter, but like- Yeah... my in- I mean, with Creative Spotlight I schedule them.
With my little personal one, I, I schedule two, and that's, that's wild to me. [laughs] You're really, like, riding, riding the, the edge of the wave. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. [laughs] Oh, that's amazing. Yeah.
Um, let's get into monetization stuff. Yeah. So I, I see you, like, kind of very rarely sell ads, but sometimes there are. There was one the other day for, like, Day One agency. Um, and then you have premium subscribers.
So tell me, like, when monetization came into the picture, and, like, what's, what's the monetization story? Yeah.
So I'd been doing it for a couple of months, and I was getting good feedback, and I think I was probably at 5,000 subscribers, and thought...
I mean, I, I don't know how much I should talk about Substack, but I think at that time S- Substack was saying you should expect 10% to convert.
And so I thought, okay, if I have 5,000 subscribers and I could get 500 paid, like, that, you know, is not nothing. So by July I had 2,000 subscribers, and that's when I turned it on. Okay.
Th- the way Substack, uh, they put paid separate from all, and so it was- Oh, yeah... it's very confusing. But, so I can tell you that on my first send, 19 of 2,000 converted. That's not bad.
So I, it wasn't- I mean, in my mind. It was not bad, but then there were, like, many weekends where I was sending it to, you know, 20 people, and I was putting so much work into it, and it sort of felt like
I'm putting so much work into this and 20 people are reading it. But then it grows.
It grows slow and steady, and you're also like, "These people believe in me, and their buy-in is enough for me to spend this time doing this."
And I felt with my weekend especially, I spend so much time deep diving, doing weird rabbit holes, and I feel like I come out of it having learned so much that because it's worth it, I learn so much myself that it's, like, worth it for me, es- especially because it's paid now.
But, like, even so, you know, if I was doing, like, a naval gazing personal essay, like, I don't... Uh, well, that's also, I wouldn't do that.
But, you know, I'd, I feel, like, such an intellectual payoff of, like, learning about all these brands and things that people are doing on TikTok and it, it, it, al- I always feel the payoff.
So, um, I'm so glad I, like... Not to, like, be like, "You should also stay with it," you know, newsletter writer.
But to go from 20 to, like, what it is now, which is, I will be just totally candid with you, it's, I'm at 38% or 38,000 subscribers, and I've con- consistently had about 5% convert.
So we're looking at, you know, a good amount. I mean, 5% is, it's been steady that, it's never risen. But I still feel, you know, it's, it's a good amount of money now. And, um, and I have explored partnerships in ads.
I'm really interested in bu- uh, in Beehive's tools around that because I don't have the bandwidth myself to sort of activate that muscle.
And, like, in the last year that I've had this full-time job, I've had brands reach out and I, like, honestly leave them on read because I'm like, "I can't..."
So the Day One thing was, like, a year-long partnership, so I, like, really didn't have to think about it. Like, they're easy to work with and...
But for these one-offs, it's like I don't know that it's worth it for me, the back and forth for a couple of hundred bucks or even 1,000 bucks, the sort of, like, brain space it takes.
Have there been any, like, specific things or themes that you find really drive the premiums? Or is it, like, you know, just kind of like the, the steady 5% you said?
Or was there, like, some issue you put out that was like, "Wow, I got 100 premiums off this one issue"? Yeah. Anytime I do, like, a TikTok haul deep dive, so, like, the Christmas list haul- Mm-hmm...
and the back to school haul, those always convert big time. Those are unfortunately not easily replicable. Like, it's not like I can do that every week. Like- No... girls are- I'm sorry that that's what you do. Yeah.
But, um, but yeah, tho- uh, this Christmas list haul converted a lot. I also, um, was lucky enough to be on CNBC live TV talking ab- um, like, you know, the, like,
public, public markets, [laughs] like, segment where, like, finance guys are watching, and that was really funny because I know nothing about finance and, um, they wanted to talk about Stanleys and the implications of that on the public market.
And, uh, immediately after I had a lot of subscribers paid and, and otherwise, but, um, that converted a lot because I think those people who are working on private market or public markets, they have big budgets and they also need to know shifts, consumer shifts.
Um, so I had a lot of, like, analysts c- connecting with me on LinkedIn, which has never happened before. [laughs] That's amazing. [laughs] No, that makes sense 'cause that's...
Well, going back to the audience question again- Yeah...
like, you were saying how, like, you, I think you, you said that you were surprised by how many teens who wanna know about their peers kind of started subscribing, um, compared to, like, the people,
you know, I would, I would say, like, the people selling the pickaxes, so to speak. Yeah. Um, do you know, like, approximately what the split of that is in your audience? No. Or do you have no sense?
And I need to do a survey to get this informa- like, I should know this. Um, I really have no idea.
A couple of months ago I did ask the breakdown of who is reading for fun versus for work, and I think it was about 50/50. [laughs] Mm-hmm.
And so that's interesting because, uh, like, I actually had an interesting conversation a couple of months ago with a friend who's in, like, biz- media biz dev, and I was telling her that, you know, for, um, a newsletter that is so B2B, like, that kind of limits my-...
partnerships or like ad, you know, you know, it's only so many ad or like brands would be interested in sponsoring. Mm-hmm. And she said, "I don't view you as B2B." And I was like, "What?" Like, "What?"
And it kind of like, it, it was sort of eye-opening to think about that, like there is a contingent of just people who want to know about trends and young people reading that it's, it's not necessarily B2B, but also B2B versus B2C, I think a lot of those categories are s- sort of shifting because so many of us,
I don't know, so many of us want to know about sales data and, you know, s- a lot of these trends do have larger implications on the world, even if not our jobs. Um, so it feels- Yeah...
like an interesting time for like market research because we are endlessly curious about what younger generations are doing, but we're also curious about those larger implications. Yeah. No, that's interesting.
And like I feel like B2B, B2C lines blur.
Like with Beehive, it's like technically you could call it a B2B SaaS, but like so many of those Bs are like, you know, more consumers, individual creatives who like, I don't know, the, the lines start to blur and like B2B marketers are taking cues from B2C, et cetera, et cetera.
And like- Yeah... when I, when I read it too- Yeah...
like I, I don't necessarily always read the whole thing, but it's like even if there's like, oh, this is some, you know, article of the day, article of the week that I read this morning or last night, what did Casey think about it?
What's the, what's the hot take that like- Yeah... does that resonate with my take? Does that, you know, add to my take? Like even just that like, you know, 'cause the things...
It's, it's just like the, the culture, maybe it's just, you know, I'm somebody who lives in New York and like ki- vaguely works in this kind of media. Yeah.
Um, so it's like these are the just things I'm interested in already, but it's like as a consumer, I don't know, I'm just rambling, but, um- No, no, I-... it's like you're just another voice I want to hear, right? Yeah.
I think, uh, you just hit on something too, I think, where we're, we're consuming so much every day, and especially like some of these trend stories or whatever, we, we look at them and we try to give them a close read, but maybe our, our attention wanes or whatever, and then you s- maybe you're like, "Well, what is the, the quote?
What is the, what is the meat here? What is the, what do I want? What's the important thing to take away?"
And that is what I try to, to do in the newsletter is like, what, like what is the quote that is like, has the largest impact here or what is the kernel of like interesting thing in here?
Because I think, I mean, we're just bombarded with information, and I think this is especially true for brand marketers, where it's like you're seeing campaign after campaign and it's like, okay, what is the takeaway though?
Like what do I make of this and how is this actionable, whether I am a brand marketer or just a human who wants to know interesting things? Yeah.
Because it's such a link, link heavy thing, are you comfortable sharing like the click rate on average? Oh, yeah. Let's see. 'Cause like, I'm...
'Cause like what, I mean, what we're just talking about, it's like it is the, it's the one quote or whatever, so it's like the point is that you don't necessarily need to click- I know... on what you're sharing.
See, that's the thing. I don't, I don't necessarily like make it so that you need to click, and that's what I hope too, because a lot of times- But that's your service, yeah.
But yeah, a lot of the stuff I'm, I'm sharing is, you know, a lot, so much is behind a paywall these days that I'm trying to like identify... Here, let's see. This one has 12% click the link.
Wow, that's, that's quite good I feel like. It... What's, what's like industry average? Do you know? I don't know. I'm like not enough of an industry person. I think, I think it's like, I think it's quite low.
I think it's between one and two. Okay, in 2022, average click rates for Beehive newsletters were 1.79, and in 2023 they went up to 1.85. Oh, wow. Okay, cool. Yeah, so you're killing it.
[chuckles] Wow, that's great to know. I, I really don't know. It... Like I only pay attention to open rate because- Mm-hmm... you know, that's such a- Are you, are you comfortable sharing your open rate? So, yeah.
I, I mean, yeah, sure. Okay, yeah. So, so it, it's usually around 60%. I like to keep it around 60%. Um- Wow... with the Stanley tumbler like sort of press blitz that, that happened, I got a lot of, um, n- like in the...
So I hit 30K subscribers I think on like right around the end of the year, and so now I'm at 38, which is like truly like- Huge growth... a big... So I need to do a purge 'cause I like to keep it around 60.
So right now it's probably like closer to 55. That's, that's very good. That's like, that's really good. Wow.
That's so like the Stanley, the Stanley piece really, is that, is that what you're attributing that growth to, those 8,000 people? So it was like a number of things. It's like the TikTok, I, went semi viral- Mm-hmm...
and then Business Insider reached out to me about doing a like, "This trend watcher thinks that Stanley's are on their way out." They've been doing a lot of these recently, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And so then that sort of like was a bump, and then there was a New York Times thing and then that was a bump, and then the CNBC thing was a bump, and then seems like there was one other thing,
um- There was the New York Mag teen shopping thing just the other week. Yeah. The New York Mag shopping thing happened last Friday, and that definitely was a bump.
Um, so I, it's just been like a lot has happened s- in the new year.
But, um, yeah, the growth, I've not seen anything like this, but I do kn- you know, I, I'm like tempering my like excitement 'cause it's like some of these will be lower quality because they're- Mm-hmm...
you know, ju- that's just the nature of it, so. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Before we get into maybe some bigger picture questions, I am curious about like the financial side.
Like are you able to support yourself with the premium subscriptions by now? Or like what's... Uh, does that...
I mean, obviously you're gonna try to bring that up with the new Pro plan, but, um, yeah, what, how are the financials? How do you feel about them? Can you share any specifics?
I would say I, I feel like I could definitely support myself. Um, I've had a full-time job this last year, um, so that's been nice to have.
[chuckles] But it's also like been very hard on m- like my personal, you know, like- Yeah... it has been very, um, mentally hard to do both. And so, um, but I do feel, I feel like subscriptions plus, um-...
e-especially a little bit of ad revenue or partnerships, and then plus this, this like pro thing that I'm gonna try, which is inspired by, um, Ry- not inspired by, but I,
some-something that I've looked to as inspiration is, um, Ryan Broderick's Garbage Day. He does a pro. He does like an interesting monthly like sort of recap and data dive, and that got me thinking like, oh, there's...
Because if you think about my dailies as like microtrends, there's some interesting macro stuff to sort of like look back of like, what the hell happened this month? What actually should I take into the next month?
Um, so I'm gonna try it. It's like one to many, it's a one to many consultancy. Exactly. Okay, moving on to some other stuff.
Uh, so we, we kind of touched about, touched on this at the, at the beginning of this, and this is something I've been thinking about a lot. What...
I'll, I'll, I'll share my, my definition after you share yours, but what is the definition of a creator in the sense that we're talking about it here? As... It's interesting that you ask.
So I would say a year ago I was not comfortable with the creator title. A couple of like, um, creator, you know, SaaS company or like all about...
Like, I got some like, some salespeople of different creator startups or whatever reaching out to me for, you know, very... Like, you, you understand. And I kind of was like, "I'm not a cr-creator."
Like, and then especially now that I've been posting on TikTok, and now I, I've gotten more comfortable with like so many of us are creators. Um, creator does not, creator is not influen- like I, I think the- Mm-hmm.
I view it as anybody who is, is putting their creations on- online largely.
I mean, of course there are offline creators too I guess, but for the purposes of this conversation and our definition, I think it is anybody who is creating content, whether it is YouTube or TikTok or newsletters, and so often many of those things.
It's such an all-encompassing word. I get... Let me share what I wrote, which I, I put this on like the about page of the Career Spotlight, uh, page. So it's, one is consistently publishing content online.
Pace doesn't matter as long as there's a consistent output, and content generally, again, which is kind of why I think people have this weird association, like your kind of, you know, backing off of it previously.
It's like, it's just so generalist. Um, but anyways, consistently publishing content online.
Number two is a direct connection or relationship between the creator and their audience, um, unmediated, maybe mediated by a platform, but not mediated by- Exactly... an editor or something like that. Yeah.
So like, you know, a New York Times journalist might not, I wouldn't call them a creator, but if they ha- also have like a Substack on the side, in that capacity they're a creator.
The third thing, which is like, like those first two I think are like always for me, and then the third is that they're monetizing, whether through subscriptions- Ooh...
paid courses, platform payouts, ads, brand deals, tips, or even like, you know, long tail this is helping my career type plays. Um- Yeah... but I think that one is like so broad and like...
But yeah, I think, I think it's those three things, but especially the first two, consistently publishing content online and having this relationship with their audience that's unmediated.
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I'm curious, do you think that you have to monetize in order to be a creator? I don't think so. Again, I'm gonna go back to something you said in a recent newsletter.
You said about Pookie and Jett, love Pookie and Jett.
Um, they're going viral for documenting their lives, but they're not living their lives in hopes of going viral, which I misread it at first of like, I thought it said like they're not creating content in terms of, in hopes of going viral, which of course they are.
Um, Pookie used to have like a fashion blog too, like that is kind of defunct now, a few years ago. There's this degree of intention that I'm also kind of putting into it- Yeah...
because there could be like some, you know, kid who's like making, who's just kind of like just so out there, and they're just making this crazy content, and it's just so weird, and it's not really monetizable or whatever, but they've got a million followers.
And like I couldn't interview them because like what are we gonna talk about for an hour, right? [chuckles] Right. Like, how am I gonna extract learnings from my audience? So are they a creator?
Which is why I kind of put this monetization thing on there, because that adds an intentionality there. Yep. Does that make sense? Yeah. I'm curious by that, would you consider Pookie and Jett creators? Yes, absolutely.
Yeah. She's got brand deals. Well, and it's- Right... it's so clear that it's intentional.
Like, like I said, I, I, when, when I was looking them up a couple months ago, it's like I found her, her fashion blog that I think is defunct, and it refers to like them being newlyweds.
So it's clearly from- Oh, funny... like 2018 or whatever. So like she is, and it's just taken her a while to, to take off. But- Yeah...
so there's no desperate, like there's no need, 'cause Jett is like a mergers and acquisitions lawyer. Um- Yeah. [chuckles]...
anyways, [chuckles] now we're just going very off-script, and I don't think any of this will make it in the newsletter. Yeah.
But I, but I'd be, I, I was interested to hear your opinion because I like respect you as like a internet, you know, trend forecasting person who- Well-... who would, who would have good opinions about this.
I think- So this is more, this is more like research for how I do this newsletter. Yeah.
I think the thing about Poo- Pookie and Jett that, that people do pick up on, and this is my sort of like thought about social media in 2024, that we are looking for...
We, we are all online enough to know when people are creating content for the sake of creating content. Mm-hmm. I truly believe their shtick is not a shtick. I believe that is their very genuine like
sort of thing- Their identity... that they do.
I do not believe that his, him calling her poo- like I, I don't think they were sitting around thinking like, "Let's think of like a thing that would help us, help propel us." Yes.
And I was reading today about this couple, it was, um, Ca- uh, it was in Business Insider about like, it was like this couple are the biggest trolls on TikTok, and it was about this couple who like literally all of their videos are trolling, and many people are in on the joke.
Like they're not, they're absolutely absurd. I'll send you a link. But- Mm-hmm... you know, these people are trollingThey've created a shtick that they believe will get them viral clicks. I tr- I lit- I, I found it.
Yeah. This husband and wife duo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. And I, I think there's an authenticity to...
I mean, obviously this is also resonating for some reason, this troll thi- like, these trolls, but I think that the authenticity of Pookie and Jett, it just resonates, where it's like you can tell that they're not, like, reading a script.
You can tell that they're not necess- I mean, maybe they're trying to, like, play it up a bit now, but I- Yeah, now, if that's the thing... now.
But, like, when they were taking off, like, it just felt so authentic and, and very, like, um, to be a fly on the wall.
And I think that that is really appealing, where it's like, yes, they are creators, but they're also... They're not playing a part for- Mm-hmm... views. Question for you, though.
How much money do you spend on creator subscriptions, other newsletters, et cetera, um- Uh-... compared as well to your traditional media subscriptions? A lot. I spend a lot of money on both- [laughs]...
I would say, because I, I spend a lot, I spend a lot on both for the newsletter really. So it's like- Mm... I want to make sure... Like, I recently just paid for- The write-ups. Yeah.
But I recently paid for Ad Age, which was one of the... I was holding out.
I really did not, 'cause I already pay for Adweek, but they do a lot of Gen Z brand content, and it's like I don't want to miss out on an interesting story because I'm- Oh, yeah... too much of a cheapskate.
Although- Payback... then it, you know, you, you do sort... I, something I hear from a lot of people, subscribers are like...
And I, I feel this sentiment, uh, like, some of my favorite newsletters I don't pay for, and it's because- Mm...
I have only so much time to leisurely read, and I feel like I can't get to the pro- to the, uh, you know, the paid or, you know, whatever.
I, I, I have enough content to keep me satiated as it is, and to then pay for more content, it's like I don't even have time to read the content I already get, therefore why would I pay for more?
And I think a lot of people run into that with creators like myself, where it's like, "I like you and I like your free one, but I simply don't have time to read your weekend one."
Which is- Your job is to read content already anyways- [laughs]... so, like... So I, I... And I, I get that. I get the whole... And I do think we're gonna run into that more and more, where it's like we all have...
Many of us have interest...
Are doing interesting things on the internet and are trying to make a living, but at the same time, many of us are on budgets and are trying to reel in our expenses, and we're already paying for Netflix and Hulu, and, like, it's just like we could just see all of our monthly check go to s- to rent, and all of our little monthly [laughs] subscriptions that it, it like...
It... I, I try to keep my subscriptions in check, but I don't. I would guess it's a 50/50 split between, like, creator, like, sort of creators, newsletters, and then traditional media. A 50 p- 50 split- Mm...
probably in terms of, uh, volume of subscriptions.
I don't know about financial split, just because some of the, some of the publications that I now pay for because of the new- of my newsletter, the information added, like, these sort of like, um, industry publications are expensive.
Uh- The Information. Oh my God. Mm-hmm. I... But I, I felt like I was missing a lot of, like, key context on some of these startup stories, and so
I paid for it thinking that it would be a, like, jo- a write-off for my nine-to-five, but now, now that I'm leaving, I'm gonna keep paying for it because I do feel like their reporting is so good, and their paywall is so s- solid that I...
There's just no way to get that without- 12-foot ladder. There's not getting over that.
[laughs] Um, how do you think about your responsibility to your specific audience, and what kind of, like, editorial standards do you impose on yourself, if any?
Broadly from an ethical standpoint, I try to make sure that I'm linking to things that are fairly reported.
But a lot of times or so- o- occasionally I'll link to something that I think is bad reporting, but I think it's important to share around the point of view, but in acknowledging that it is bad or that it is, um, an important point of view to be aware of by acknowledg- and also acknowledge that it, you know...
And, like, sometimes I'll link to stuff where I think it's, like, poorly edited or even occasionally poorly reported, but still think that there is something important to highlight there, where it's like- Mm-hmm...
there's a lot of underreporting that happens, I think, where, especially on youth, where it's like they're talking about what's happening on TikTok, but they're not actually talking to any young people, which really irks me.
But I also know the pressures on journalists to turn things around, so I understand it.
Something else I do is, you know, every once in a while I'll, I get on a high horse about s- bad sponsored content and, um, s- the ethics around that, and y- Highsnobiety, I think it is, does a lot of sponsored content that is not clear that it's sponsored, which, like, also really irks me, but I...
A lot of times it'll be, like, interesting enough to even highlight as a brand example. So I think the thing that s- that, that having your own newsletter affords you is the space to talk direct...
You know, it's like if I was writing this for The New York Times, I wouldn't be able to sort of talk directly to the person and say, "I think it's kind of shitty that they
hi- hid that this is sponsored, but I think it's notable because they're obviously trying to get in front of young people," or Gaza stuff.
Like, I think it is bad that they did it this way, but I think it's also important to understand that this is trending on TikTok at the same time. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
It's hard to navigate sometimes, I think, but, uh, I, I do believe being a newsletter writer versus a journalist, you're able to just admit to your own personal, like-I think this, I'm not sure, would love to hear your thoughts or like it's, it could be more of a dialogue versus, um, you know, this is the story.
That's... No, that's really interesting, which this is like what I was talking about with my kind of second tenet of what is a creator with the, the unmediated, unmediated aspect.
'Cause people talk a lot about like, you know, losing media literacy and stuff, but I feel like people do under- I hope that people understand that, that like when it's a creator, it's built, it's baked in.
Um- You know, sometimes I, I see like TikTok creator Alex Earl or people like this, um, film a TikTok and the comments are all like, "I feel like I was just getting a FaceTime message from a friend."
Like, I think there is a sense of like it's... The thing I love about being a newsletter writer is like being able to talk directly to the audience as if they are my friend, because they...
If they have feedback or thoughts or an opinion to add, like they'll probably hit reply. It makes it more of a like, um, a, a more of a dialogue than, than just publishing a piece in a newspaper.
Um, okay, one more question. What... If you were 13 today- Oh gosh... would you be writing a Teen Fashionista blog or what would you be doing? If I was 13 today? Yeah, what would be the teenfashionista.com?
Man, this is hard because the natural platform would be TikTok, but I love writing. I do- So-... think that-... do 13-year-olds start newsletters? Sorry, I'm interrupting you. No, no.
I do think blogs will make a comeback, but I think that it is sort of a next gen sort of take on blogs, much like Beehiiv's.
Like I love, I love the Beehiiv Substack platform where it's, it exists as both, and that w- when we did Cloverletter, that was before there were these platforms, so it was on MailChimp, and it just lived.
There was no archive really. And so I love that, I love that blogs are coming back in a way through newsletters, and I think that we're gonna continue seeing interesting features, at least it is my hope.
Um, but I think, yeah, I think Teen Fashionista would be pro- because I love writing, probably a newsletter, and I would probably have to be on TikTok too.
You would be being round up by the, by the ca- by the you equivalent doing Christmas hauls when you were doing your Christmas haul on a Friday night. Exactly.
But man, oh, I think about like I just knew nothing then, you know? I was, I was so naive living in rural Missouri.
Like, uh, but who knows how different my life would be now because I would have access via TikTok and the internet to so many more things. Like truly my glimpse into the world was through teen magazines and MTV. Mm-hmm.
So I, uh, what's... So I mean, this is just trend like background.
But my mom is a teacher at my school that I went to, and she was telling me that after h- uh, after the holidays, all of the middle school girls showed up with their Lululemon flares, their crossbody bags, their Stanleys.
It's wild to me because the trends used to reach my small town several years after New York certainly. They'd hit St.
Louis and then my small town finally, and it's wild to think that these girls are on the same trend sort of cycle as girls in New York. Like the f- the sort of, uh, collapsing of culture is fascinating in that way.