Sad Boyz - social media is bad actually (w/ Nesrin Danan)

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

we're joined by our friend nesrin to discuss social media, entrepreneurship, and how "hustle culture" is only positive and not a single bad thing has ever come of it #RiseAndGrind​ #NoDaysOff​ Follow Nesrin! ► https://instagram.com/blackprints Watch Us Live ► https://twitch.tv/sadboyzpod​ Follow Us https://instagram.com/sadboyz​​ https://twitter.com/sadboyz​

all right i think we're just gonna uh start the show immediately welcome to sad boy so oh wait no well no do you have something to say jordan um no no i don't want to it's been there's been an issue for the last couple episodes of me sort of i think it's the latency of me talking i do not i truly dude truly bro i don't want that to be a thing and i don't because at this point it's not even funny like i've done it so many times that it's the jokes not even funny. So please we agree. We agree. Yeah, please Take it away Should I start no, no, you're not allowed to talk yet. Yeah, nobody talk Please welcome to sad boys podcast God. Okay. No, I was just gonna say that I wouldn't do it this time

Cuz it's been so long since the last... It would be insane to carry the bed after we did like a... It's funny that it's funnier every single time. It's crazy. I'm just having a great time being the guest. Welcome to Soundboys, a podcast about buildings and other things. Also, I'm Jordan. I'm Jordan and I will never change. Today we're joined by a friend of the pod, incredible photographer, content creator, influencer in her own right, Nezrin Dhanan. Nezrin, thanks for joining us. Hey, thank you for

having me. Thank you for finally letting me speak. I love it here. No problem. You want to take it from here? We're all inclusive here on Sad Boys. Now, if you'd just shut up and let us do our thing. Now, if you could be quiet, though. Just a little while.

We've got these jokes we want to do. Now, does everyone have their scripts? Yeah. Yeah. What are we talking about? I just kind of was like, I'll come on the podcast, but like, what's up? So, I mean, that's like i'll come on the podcast but like what's up so i mean that's pretty much the podcast is we just talk about what's up cool and you know sad boys it's a podcast comedy podcast about feelings we're going to talk about our weeks our feelings

fun stuff anything that's going on probably get off on some tangents cool some mope scores it's a score out of 100 as to how mopey you're feeling in this particular moment oh yeah i'll get back to you on that today i'm actually feeling pretty good but normally my mope score would probably be quite high okay so we'll talk about that some tea to spill fruit for discussion some tea to spill okay fantastic but first before we get into this nezrin how was your week um it was good i've been working a lot so it's been kind of busy. And I had a friend staying with me for a while while she was like finding an apartment. And so I feel like I've just been like, overwhelmed, but it's been fine. You also just moved to LA, right? Like,

like, how recently did you move? I moved in on August 1. So it's been like a little over a month. And you already have a friend staying with you. They couldn't let you like, get your sea legs first. I know. Yeah, she had actually moved here at the very beginning of quarantine from Tokyo. And she was like staying with her boyfriend in Orange County. And then that like wasn't working out. And she was like, I want to find my own place. So she stayed with me while she was looking at places in my neighborhood and she found a spot. So she moved in on Sunday. Oh, that's exciting. So now she's out of your hair i honestly am such like an introvert i love having my own space and like i love having guests like it's fun for me but i'm

also just like i need to be alone so do you want to talk shit now because she's not listening no i would never talk shit she's you want to say some of the stuff you said before we started recording because wait but before we started recording you had so much shit to talk about i literally had no shit to talk jarvis you're making me look bad it's okay it's not like it's being recorded just kidding we're only live to an audience no nezrin wasn't talking shit friend from tokyo congrats on your place this is now a podcast just to you so nezrin you moved from portland i did big mistake i feel like did you say big mistake big mistake yeah i was gonna say we've already we just hit you with a big earthquake um yeah that was my first earthquake i've ever felt actually because i've been here for two other ones and i didn't even feel them

and that was the first one where i was like oh my god is someone like jumping up and down but um yeah yeah giant god is jumping up and down right. You hadn't just not experienced one, but you fully didn't know what it was. Yeah. You've never heard of it. I literally don't even remember the other ones. I think one, I was asleep. And the other one, I remember I was in the shower and I came out later and everyone's like, are you okay?

And I was like, literally nothing happened. And they were like, yeah, there was an earthquake. I was like, yeah, I'm clean. Are you trying to insult me or something? Yeah. And you're like, yeah, I'm clean. Are you trying to insult me or something? Yeah, I was terrified for a hot second because there's always that moment when an earthquake starts where you're like, is this an earthquake? And then I was just kind of like things were starting to shake. And I was like, this is a lot of shaking. Like, is stuff going to fall off the walls?

And then it, you know, calmed down. And I was like, that was a close one. It seems like every couple of weeks, something new appears that makes me go, well, you know, I'd like to get back to LA, but you know, there's a little thing. Don't get me wrong. You know, it's the COVID, terrible, all that. But I'd love to at least be near my friends and it's on fire. It's literally ablaze. Okay.

I might take, but I'd like to get back. You know, all my friends are there. The ground is shaking and I'll die for sure. Okay. okay that's fine i'll keep not being there for a little while longer yeah the air quality was literally so bad and like i'm you know sensitive groups when it says unhealthy air for sensitive groups like that's me and i was like i like couldn't breathe i would like go outside and i like literally couldn't breathe. And I was like, this, why did I move here? Yes, cool. But at least it's more expensive.

On the bright side, yeah. There are also fires in Portland too. So it was like, there's no escape. Yeah. And I think it was actually worse up there. I was like talking to my mom and my friends about it. So there truly is no escape. But now I'm paying more in rent to die from bad air quality.

So that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. That way you'll run out of money by the time that you choke on the ash. Exactly. I'm like, you know what? When the big one comes and we're all just like sucked into the ground, it's not going to matter.

It's fine. It's not going to matter. It's all good. Or we'll just like go off into the sea and become our little island. Yeah. We were pointing this out earlier, but for people watching the video version of the podcast, Jordan and I are wearing similar enough shirts that it kind of just looks like he is me but with more hair and a mustache from the future from the future yeah facial hair so you know things have changed i'm

here from the future uh don't grow a mustache that's all you came to tell me yeah well it has cascading effects okay are you familiar with the butterfly effect yes this has nothing to do with that it's unrelated yeah just the mustache thing hold on to that okay goodbye jordan how's your week not too bad at all not too shabby pretty good pretty great just did like a three hour three and a half hour stream right before this because the pc arrived dark days are over it's finally here and as for context this has been like a fedEx has been torturing us for quite some time. Oh, no. What happened? Very hard to do.

Oh, my God. They just, you know what? We got to get them on the show. Just FedEx? Michael FedEx or whatever. Just get FedEx on the show. Come on the show. Just whoop his ass with gotcha journalism. We're like FedUpX. Yes, dude. Go off, King. You're FedUp at the Federal Express.

So I said it's more like FedUpX. Yeah. Okay. You said you had a tight five. So take it away. Please don't let me get it the way. It's bad. Welcome to Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things.

Normally when I say this, you do start talking. Yeah. Your nose bleed. It's been good. It makes me feel a little bit more grounded i've been out of been away from what feels like home like the you know la for a long time now but most of this year and i it makes me feel a bit more grounded and also means that i can do stuff with people for the first time in a while the short story is that jordan had to leave America. Creative differences. I lost a bet.

All of his stuff is in storage. And so I shipped him his computer. And then when it got there, it didn't get there because FedEx was like, how about it goes to Poland? Oh, Poland. Wait a minute. We want it to go somewhere else. What? And then they were like, we've got your computer.

Do you want it? And he was like, yeah. Do you want the thing that you own? How about if we broke it in some ways and it's like, uh, Don't do that. It's like that bad. He did. Whoopsie. We're not accountable I already lost the package that I did and I don't work there anymore. Goodbye. Oh my god, I would cry I would literally just start crying. I wouldn't cuz I'm like a cool strong will Oh, yeah, you're cool. Snow-snowflake, epic jock. I'm a strong-willed snowflake. I certainly didn't cry and don't check.

Don't check the footage of my tears. Don't check my Instagram. Pretty good place. Lots of like little pieces of good news, none of which I think would be particularly interesting. But you know when you just have like a functional week? It's like, this worked. Every part of this worked as it needed to. And yeah also watched a lot of video game based documentaries in case you were wondering if i was a cool jock

just a little bit of clarity for you just to go along with my face and actions i would ask you about them but we have company no please we'll we'll we'll do that on a real episode of the show. On an episode of the show where it's just the boys. It's boy town. Just the lads. That's what we get. We get nice and misogynist on a Friday. Yeah.

Oh, man. We hate women. No, I'm just kidding. I can't even say that. I'm just kidding. We hate ourselves. No, be quiet, Nezrin. We didn't say good talk.

I hate this. I know. It's such a horrible bit. Why are we doing it? Jarvis, how was your week? Let me ask a question. How was your week? Yeah, Jarvis, you big piece of shit. There we go. My week was good. I relate to the functional nature of the week. I got some good professional news this week that maybe I can talk about at some later date. And then I was pretty productive, which is exciting. I shot a couple of videos, which is rare. I also dusted off my second channel,

and that's really cool. That's right. Oh, yes. I saw. Didn't you hit 100K? I did. I hit 100K on my second channel. A lot of them aren't bots. So that's exciting because it's an account that on average I post every six months. It's a nice and premium channel called Jarvis Johnson Gold and it's free. Can you believe it? To watch. And I'm going to be posting there more often because I can do unscripted videos there and not feel guilty about it. And unscripted videos are easier to make. Turns out. Yeah. So that's been fun. And then there was a time earlier this week when my apartment was clean. It's no longer that

way because I unfortunately have dishes strewn about, but it's slowly getting cleaner, which is also kind of a litmus test for how I'm doing in life. Is my apartment clean? Life really is the moments in between your apartment being kind of clean. Yeah. It's like, are your clothes on the floor? If so, you're probably going through it right now you might be a redneck you might be a redneck nezrin well how's your asking nezrin cleanliness to sort of mental health and wellness ratio you always it's it's chaotic really yeah i feel like you present very well on instagram thank you i really try oh my god that picture in my room yesterday it's never looked like that there is a actually photoshopped out 20 degree sphere around what you can't currently see in the camera exactly just fill no it's just been kind of hectic because I feel like I'm still

like getting all my stuff like I'm having furniture delivered packages are kind of like I never take out my recycling so there's like a giant stack of like boxes everywhere. And I've had so many shoots and I've had like clothes just all over my, yeah, it's gross. Dishes everywhere. I see some right now. I just, I don't, I don't want to deal with it. No one heard my joke where I called you a bad person for not recycling. So I just want to say that that was a joke.

And it wasn't meant to be. I do recycle. When I take my boxes out, I like take them to recycling. Jarvis, do I strike you as a person who doesn't recycle no not at all I was I was I was just joshing but I am learning that I was reading a think piece about how plastic like manufacturers have like lobbied and advertised to make everybody think that like recycling is a super good thing. And actually it's, it's quite difficult to recycle a lot of plastics and it ends up contributing to a lot of land waste.

Yeah. I also recently learned that half the stuff you recycle, it actually gets to the recycling center and they're like, nevermind. And then they throw it away. Yeah. And I was like, why did I literally sort all my bottles and cans and papers like for this? Yeah. And I was like, why did I literally sort all my bottles and cans and papers like for this?

Yeah, yeah. The people at the recycling center will put it into the next circle of recycling center. It's like hell. Yeah. And it goes a level deeper. And for every level down it goes, they beat up one turtle. Oh, no. Poor turtle.

They just beat up one endangered animal. Oh, I don't like that. No, you know, it's one, right? So it's hard to go wrong. We're still doing our best. We're doing our best. I watched a dystopian documentary this week. Has anybody watched The Social Dilemma?

I was literally going to watch it tonight because everyone's been talking about it. Yeah. Are you in the mood to be depressed? I mean, always. Come on. Do you want to just kind of double down in case you already are? Yeah. I was like, I'm already in the mood.

It's fine. Yeah. What's the premise? The premise is that we have created social media companies that are like super governments that are more powerful and rich than ever before. And they are like Facebook and such. And they are responsible for a lot of bad in the world. And I have next to no accountability for it. It's a lot of talk

about the polarization of society and echo chambers and how it's a little bit like whoopsie doopsie. We just wanted to make a photo sharing website. How did we erode democracy? Why do we know your blood type? Yeah. It's interesting though. I think it's like, other than the fact that there are basically no people of color in the documentary, which is a problem, kind of speaks to a greater problem with the tech industry. It was a little bit of a flashback into my former life where I was like, oh, I've met that guy before. I know that dude. And a little bit like, yep, that's how it goes. I'm naturally optimistic. So I was like, left it with like, my optimism is still intact. But I was also like,

I think the way that I can affect change, I'm better suited to do it now from my platform than I was when I was working inside of the tech industry. So I'm still glad I left. Interesting. I'm gonna have to watch that. That's my hot take. I mean, it's good. It's just it's also strange. Like they, they it's a strangely shot documentary. They use a mix of like interviews with scripted scenes that illustrate various like uh examples of how people have become addicted to technology is it like those like true crime documentaries where they have actors like come in and like yeah it's like a dramatization okay like like csi tier where it's like he's got into the mainframe and become addicted to facing the

book kind of there's a few scenes from a family who's like kind of being strained by their relationship with social media and then there's also i think the cringiest stuff to me is that there's these cutaways to like the algorithms of like these three guys that are like all right what should we show joe it's like if we show him his ex like maybe he'll come back to our website and the greek fates from hercules yeah yeah and it's will we allow him to look at right-wing propaganda exactly yeah it's like i don't know how good of a metaphor that is but if it activates people to like sort of be on the side of change and regulation of like these big tech companies then i guess that's good it's an interesting documentary i do recommend watching it i don't think it's bad by any means

how do you engage with that since that's sort of your main platform right like that the work that you do is very instagram oh central yeah i mean i i like wish like social media like wasn't such a giant part of what i do i wish i could just like take pictures and like that was it yeah but yeah instagram is like it's where the coins are it's where everyone's eyes are all the time and it's gotta collect you're like sonic you gotta collect as sick as i am of like the algorithm and just like what it favors and what it doesn't, you just have to like learn to play into it and stuff. And it's like, I've also worked with some of these really big tech companies and

I love it. You know, it's been fun. It's been great jobs and stuff. I've met awesome people. I met Jarvis. So, uh, yeah, it's, you know, I just play the game. I'm just a little pawn in the game. I just want to point out that I kind of triggered. I said that Sonic cares about coins. He doesn't. He cares about rings. But it was really funny. Dude, I fucking love Sonic when he's jumping on, like, those Goombas heads and stuff.

Wait, whatever happened to the Sonic live action movie that everyone was, like, so triggered by what he looked like that they changed it yeah they changed it they turned it around into what people are now saying is the best video game adaption to a movie ever really which is yeah i haven't seen it yet though tallest bar no it's not it's not a high bar but the movie was critically like well received which is like never happened before it is uh fine it there are parts of it that slap like a runaway train and that i can really get behind but then there's other parts that are like there's a lot of it that's just a movie right like it's yeah james marsden's in it it's like we got to go across the country me and sonic to figure this whole thing out and at no point does somebody just go like hey sonic you're like super fast right like you could just run there with your

legs that you have and instead it's like no we'll drive there in a guy's car like a human man's car jim carrey's great though glad to see that they don't even fly i wonder if uh he employed his classic technique of abusing people on set and pretending that it was for the sake of the character or whatever oh no is that a thing that jim carrey does that's that documentary about him playing like in the andy kaufman movie man on the moon or whatever it's it's on netflix it's called like me jim and andy or something like that and it's just him like getting into the mind of andy kaufman was andy kaufman a character or was he a man and it's just him like yelling at people on set oh no and then like people on twitter just being like oh it's so insightful how does he how does he do it he's mean to people your mind jim damn can we talk about have you guys

seen this twitter thing where people are calling out platforms for their and this has been happening for ages how algorithms can kind of end up racist because there aren't black people working on a lot of these things so like the through the testing, it doesn't happen. So this goes way back to years and years ago when face tracking wouldn't work on black faces because they weren't ever tested and they're too dark or whatever. These are all lots of quotes around this. Someone called out, recently there's this viral tweet where everyone's on zoom now and someone's student couldn't change the background of his scene because when he changed the background it removed his head it's it's yeah and the reason it removed his head and instead thought like a globe behind him was his head uh is because he was an African dude.

And it's just like, come on guys, it's 2020. It also seems like something that would be, I mean, I know there's a lot of different lighting conditions and there's a lot of factors there that wouldn't always be testable, but it seems like get 10 black people. Yeah, maybe here's a thought, look for some eyeballs. Those do look the same on most people, just the thought. Almost everyone.

Almost everyone. Black people famously have dark same on most people, just the five. Almost everyone. Almost everyone. Black people famously have dark black eyes. Yeah, like a doll. Like a doll. Beady little eyes. No, but- Dia's eyes. And so then another thing that people started to point out, and I want to play with this,

is so Twitter- I was going to say, I saw that one today of Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell, like the top and the bottom thing and it came on mitch mcconnell's face like both times so also never use the thing like landed no no no i know exactly what you're saying i'm like it's not about you it's about why my brain went there tyler cut this. It's challenging for us because we have to continue being alive after you said that. So yes, Twitter reframes photos when you post them. So like you'll notice this because like it'll have a little preview of the photo and then

it'll kind of move around like the photo will like reposition itself. Yeah. And it's typically looking for a face because if it detects a face, then it's like, oh, let me center around the face, which is all well and good. But the weird thing is that it picks white faces over black faces like 100% of the time. Like people posted these like very long photos

where at the top, it was like a headshot of like Obama or a stock photo model that was black. And at like Obama or a stock photo model that was black. And at the bottom, a stock photo model that was white. And then another photo that was the same with their positions switched. And in both cases, they just find the white guy and then center the white guy. To the point, it's like centering them in a way

that it looks like the black person isn't even there. It like frames it such that you wouldn't even tap into the photo because you wouldn't expect there to be more of the photo. So I want to play around with this. I want to Photoshop myself white. And then a portion of the audience is going to love that. That's not what I was expecting you to say at all. I know. I want to Photoshop myself white and then like have other like versions of me i'm gonna put on white face everybody oh i didn't know there was a history to it no no well it's

like a long and storied history of uh minstrelsy where white people uh no wait though that doesn't they were that was no no because they were already suffering is that oh yeah that's right no not a historian yeah no not a sorry I'll have to check the history books. Oh, white people were always good? Okay. Oh, Gucci. History books didn't have anything bad to say about them. Wow, short book.

Short book, yeah. And Christopher Columbus was a good guy. I see. Interesting. Weird, but very specific. Are you going to Photoshop yourself white and just go to town? Actually, I'm just going to post myself as a white guy and move on. I think my life will be a little bit easier. I feel like people on your Instagram are already

shocked enough to find out that you're black. Oh, that's fun. Actually, I was really just going to raise the brightness on my face, but everybody chill, you know, with like a mixed complexion or whatever. Based on the white balance of a photo, I can look like anything. And so people just don't. Like someone in the chat earlier was saying that jordan looked looked white or something don't do that don't say that but it's ever to any black person certainly not like your call i look brighter right yeah weird lighting but that's the lighting yeah i have one pure white no tungsten light in a yellow room. So it is bouncing out my face to be that of a ghost.

No, the lighting definitely does matter. I feel like I look very pale today, especially. But it's also just because of like what happens in, I mean, so that's kind of the thing. Like if you don't have, you know, an equal representation of basically everyone from every background doing every job, you're going to get these weird biases in technology or what have you. And so even getting washed out, even the camera stuff or face tracking or detection and all that shit, it's like, how much of this is just a limitation of the technology versus like not not doing the work or not having the right people in the room early enough where that it's

like after the fact it's like you're you're hiring a bunch of black people to like look at your cameras to test your face tracking i feel like we've gotten too far in the process at that point i would give literally anything to be in that meeting fucking uh six-year-old white dude walks in he's like what up my brother it's like waiting for the fist bump so uh homies we are gonna need a little help figuring out uh because our phones they've gone wiggity wiggity whack right just like trying to play with them yeah i read this article recently too about this kid who he was a black kid but he started like photographing and documenting what different medical like illnesses and like stuff look like on black people. Because when you like,

normally Google that you get like, if you're like, I have like a blister, it shows up on like white skin. And people are like, I don't know like what this illness is that I have. Like, I can't even web MD anything because I'm black. And I was like, wait, that's so interesting. And why have I like even never like noticed that? I don't know. Oh, that's so interesting and why have i like even never like noticed that i don't know oh there's so much like white as the default yeah baked into society where it's like like why is white the default other than you know colonizers and stuff because it's like it's not like they outnumber the world population yeah you know what i mean like there's almost like a complacency in it right because if if I still probably would have to,

like if somebody's describing, say, like a character that I've never seen or has drawn something in black and white, right? It would still be, I think, an exceptional step in my brain to identify that as a non-white character just because I grew up almost exclusively around white people. Yeah. And I've internalized it.

Like, I know that it's not the default but if i weren't encountering how weird that was every day and i grew up around white people and i was white and it never entered the sphere i wouldn't think about it for a fucking second i'd be like yeah of course there's normal and then there's everything else on top of that like yeah it would it would infect your brain man i mean that's why like a lot of people don't write non-white characters because it genuinely just, they finish the screenplay and they go, I'm all done. Yeah.

Like, wait, what? Can you describe these characters in greater detail? Well, we've got pale and sort of ivory. They're olive skin. All normal. Yeah. You're all defined by the undertones of their white skin. Is that something that you've had to interact with as far as your gig goes?

I don't know. Do you get any conflict on Instagram purely because anybody can comment? Oh, well, also, just to add on to Jordan's question, there's the whole thing of like white photographers photographing black people and doing a really, really bad job. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's like a whole that's a whole other thing okay wait answer jordan's thing first and then and then i'll bring that one back jordan wait what was your question again do you receive a decent chunk of problematic comments on your work

or is it more a almost none i remember one of the most critical comments i got was that i actually shot too many girls with long hair. Some lady was very mad that I didn't shoot enough girls with short hair or like she, I think she was bald and she was like, you don't shoot any bald girls. And I was like, I don't know any bald. I I'm sorry. And I was like, you know what? Sorry. I should be more diverse. But I, I really try and have a ton of diversity in my work. I mean, I really started liking photography when I started shooting more like mixed girls and black girls and people that looked like me. Cause I, I shot a lot of white people for a long time. It was very trendy

to shoot like the blonde girl, like hair blowing in the wind. And like, I was working for all these white rappers and stuff. And so that was just like my job, but yeah, I actually actually i don't get very many hate comments because i think i do a pretty good job of being diverse but in that i also get a lot of comments and a lot of bookings um because people are like oh my god you know how to shoot black people and i'm like i sure do do you use like a normal camera for this where do you get the special camera that does that? Do you use the infrared black people lenses that they sell on BET.com? On BET.com. No, but it's actually crazy because that's a comment I've gotten multiple times. And I am always kind of shocked by that because I'm like, who are these people working with that they're turning out orange or white or ashy fucking brown?

I have no idea what. Or just so dark that you can't see any of the complexion yeah and i just i don't know maybe it's because i follow like a lot of black photographers who also you know do a great job of that but apparently that's an issue yeah yeah i mean it's a huge problem because there's like was it simone biles or serena williams simone biles those pictures were not Those pictures were not good. Those pictures were not good. I mean, like no shade to the photographer who I'm sure is very talented. It was Annie Leibovitz.

Yeah. I just was looking at Black Twitter and Black Twitter was very upset. And I understand that some people are like, how is it different? It's all about like how light reflects on like skin and how- And even with editing and stuff,

it's like how you bring up the colors. I just remember those photos, likeone viles looked like gray and i was like that's not a same tone like that's i don't know what was going on with that editing but i was like that's not it like they could have just edited it better but yeah for the people who truly can't like crack the idea of the why you're probably underestimating how much of being a good content producer, especially photography, is invisible. Like you would look at it and go, oh, well, I mean, they just got a DSLR, quick pick, great. Yeah.

That looks just like it would in real life. I could do that. You buy a DSLR, you take a photo. It's like overexposed due to the sun. Your subject is completely black. And it's like, this isn't what I intended to do. Like having a bunch of like pastels or like oil paints and throwing them at a canvas and then be like and it's the picture that i wanted exactly like so

many additional steps and you could mess them up really easily if you just don't know what you're doing someone said blame the editors not the photographer and i feel like that's wrong i mean usually the photographer is also the editor so so one usually it's the same person if not like the photographer is putting their name on it so yeah they're not hands off on the editing process if they're not doing the editing themselves you know yeah i don't know it's wrong i'm gonna go ahead i'm gonna i'm gonna just now i was not up to date on this this is really interesting i'm gonna go ahead and say this person is not a professional photographer so we're not gonna we can probably go ahead and safely assume that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows?

The show Insecure gets a lot of well-deserved praise for how it captures Black people on film. And they have lots of interviews and things about how they do it. And for anyone who's curious about this, you could just watch one of those videos, I'm sure, on YouTube. Yeah. That show is so good i love insecure insecure is great isa right shout out to isa ray come on the podcast yeah thanks for listening i wonder first of all i feel like we could get isa ray on the podcast we might be able to pull some i feel like you could i feel like she's really cool we are i know i feel like two people away from isa true through Patreon stuff. I think maybe even one person. Well, through Patreon too,

but then I actually know somebody who may be able to connect us. Anyway, we like Issa Rae. Nezrin. We like Issa Rae. Yeah, Nezrin. I know someone who's maybe in the room. I know somebody who knows her,

but so I'm also two people away from Issa Rae. Yeah, we'll both go to our people and then we'll sort of surround Issa Rae with our connections. Eventually she'll have to submit to being a friend. I want to jump back to social media because it's kind of where all of us work, including right even this moment. And so how do you, Nezrin, think about your Instagram, how do you think of social media as an extension of yourself, but also your job? I know it's a big question, but it's like, cause we kind of like live, live online. But like when I was in, let's just back up and like, what was your relationship

like with social media when you were in high school? Oh, well I was like Tumblr famous and I thought I was the shit. I was Tumblr famous. I had so many followers on Tumblr. I actually had like 80k, which was kind of a lot back then. What a fan fiction. Literally not fan fiction, but it was like my bad photography somehow was getting me like so much attention.

It was aesthetic. Yeah, I was like a quality blogger, if you will. I really miss Tumblr. It was fun. I felt like I, you know, I would just come home from school every day and like go on Tumb Tumblr. It was fun. I felt like I, you know, I would just come home from school every day and like go on Tumblr and like that was great. And I had Tumblr friends who I'm still like friends with today, but they were my first like internet friends and stuff.

And yeah, I think, I think that like really solidified like my love of the internet and social media. Cause I was like, oh my God, I can like post stuff on here and people like it and people like me. So that was cool. And then Yahoo bought Tumblr and, you know, we all saw where that went. So I had to make an Insta. Literally Russia owns it now, I think. I think so.

Tumblr went really downhill. It's super sad. It tumbled downhill. Yes, exactly. But yeah, I mean, I treat, obviously, as you can tell, Twitter as my personal platform and Instagram as my more professional platform. Nezrin's Twitter sometimes feels like so personal that I'm not sure that I'm allowed, supposed to be reading it.

It's so funny because my mom will text me and she'll be like, like, why did you post that on Twitter? And I'm like, mom, that's not for you. That's for 25,000 strangers. That's not for you that's for 25,000 strangers that's not for you I'm not weird it's for these other weird strangers yeah it's so real it's so real like I also like admire it a lot because I have always been so self-conscious about how I present myself in every space in a way that I don't think is healthy so whenever I see people who are like putting themselves out there in ways that I don't think is healthy. So whenever I see people who are like

putting themselves out there in ways that I couldn't, I'm always like, that's amazing. How do you do that? So I want to give you props on your Twitter. What's the catalyst for that? Is it literally just, Hey, I'm doing this thing and I want to say these things or is it high school and like college and stuff. Also when I didn't have a lot of followers, I would just tweet like, hey, I'm doing this today. Or I like, I just hung out with my friends and it was so much fun. And like, I would just tweet whatever

and haven't stopped. Just haven't stopped. Back in the day, I was like, anything goes. And today, it's the same. Anything still goes. It hasn't changed at all. And neither have I. Jay, how's your,

do you feel like you're evolving in your relationship with social media? Or is it kind of now just it's pragmatic, right? You need to get it right or you're going to look like a right goober. Yeah, I mean, my relationship with social media, I feel like when I was in high school, Facebook was an extension of my social life. But I don't know if it was in a particularly healthy way. It was mostly this weird practice that always happened. When I was in high school,

people would go to parties and then take a fuck ton of photos and then upload them to Facebook so that I could feel bad about myself for not being invited to that party. And I was like, why is everybody always partying and then uploading so many pictures on Facebook? I just get to go, oh, oh, those are all of my friends that are hanging out without me. Great. Fantastic. And no one's thinking about it like that, obviously, because I'm the center of my universe. I just felt very excluded and uncool and very trapped in my little space because I didn't have a lot of agency in high school just due to circumstance. So that was a bummer. But then my Twitter and Instagram and stuff, I feel like on public platforms,

because now I barely like I don't use Facebook really. But my Twitter from like whatever 2009 when I started it, I've always run my social media like I was a public figure, which is not sort of me like it's it's less about me having delusions of grandeur and more being like sort of seeing cancel culture coming a mile away yeah really censored and like edited and stuff yeah it's like i'm just like if you like go back in time through mild tweets all you'll see is a bunch of bad dad jokes you know like i sometimes do that like i'm like what did i used to tweet about and it's like i went to mcdonald's today and this funny situation happened and i'm

like okay man cool like that's fine i guess now let's talk about israel my parents always drilled it into me that they were like you're never gonna get a job if you like say anything crazy on the internet and like me in my head i was like i don't want a job anyway so like i didn't really care but i know that was like a very like serious thing unrelated to social media like you're just not gonna be able to get a regular office gig because you have this yeah that's history i love that idea somebody going on and seeing like a week take about the last season of game of thrones i don't know about that one but yeah now i treat social media very much like a workplace so it's like a game that i'm trying to win at which is, but in that I am keep my

distance from it. There's nothing on social media that really makes me like feel bad about myself as a person. But when my things don't perform well, it's like I'm losing at the game I'm trying to win. And so it's still like hurts. No, I feel that i feel like all the photos i take that i really like end up not doing that well on social media and i'm just like do people hate my art do they hate me should i just never post again hit it with a quick repost and this deserved better and the rest of you are wrong i'm cool you post on the story you post on the story uh attention followers it looks like you made a mistake i would like to direct i'm like hey guys new post for the fourth time please go like i'm thinking yeah i'm thinking about just posting if a if a joke does well on twitter i'm thinking about taking an older one

that i think crushed and didn't get the attention it deserves and just posting it below saying oh oh below yeah i do repost stuff from years prior that never got any traction because I like scroll through my old tweets. I have a document of all my old tweets and I'm like, look at it sometimes for inspiration. Like what are some things that I used to be thinking about? And then I'm like, oh, this is still good. Let me just like reformat this in like 2020 Twitter language and then just like delete the old tweet and like repost it so that no one knows.

You're like, yeah, this is a new thought. It's not recycled. It's a new thought. It's like, weirdly, it's about college, but I guess it was just on the mind. Hey, anybody else notice that these newer seasons of The Simpsons aren't as good as the old ones? I can't believe they're taking community off the air.

I love that show. I'm so mad about it. Oh, I love so much. I just got bought by Yahoo. I'm feeling pretty optimistic. I'm so optimistic about it. Oh, I love so much. I just got bought by Yahoo. I'm feeling pretty optimistic. I'm so optimistic about Yahoo Screen, the future of video. I was going to ask if you ever had any, you know, you talked about your parents being like, you'll never get a job if you're posting on social media like this. But because photography,

it's changed very much in like in the times we live in today, but old people still know what photography is. So like, have you ever encountered the like, what is it that you do exactly type questions? Oh, all the time. All the time. I'm trying to think I get that a lot from like my mom's friends, because she'll she'll like send out like our yearly Christmas letter. It's like, well, Amira, who's like my younger sister, she's like, she went to Northwestern. She graduated. She's doing so good. She's doing so many things.

Nezarin, like, I don't really, she's like on tour, I guess. Like, I don't know. She's like a Twitch gamer or some shit. Yeah. So I'll like see my mom's friends in real life and they're like, so like, what do you do? Where are you living? And I would explain to them, yes, I have my own apartment. Yes, I'm actually doing really good. Yes, This is a real job. I pay my taxes. Yeah. They don't get it. It's kind of crazy. Especially the freelance thing,

because I have to explain to them that like I tour with musicians and I do events for YouTube and I do all these other things and I shoot ad campaigns for all these big companies. And then I like do whatever the fuck i want and they like can't wrap their head around that they really really yeah that seems so digestible thank you you know how there's images everywhere i still don't get what you do yeah i mean to be honest i still don't understand what you do you're on tour with the gamer is that what's happening you're on the internet pretty much Yeah. We'll just boil it down to that. You're an engineer or something. You're in IT.

I don't know if we've talked about this much, but my understanding is that you were doing the touring with musicians thing and then you kind of shifted. Did you shift your focus more to portrait photography or more like brand stuff? Was that kind of following the work or was it more like, I don't want to be on tour anymore? No, it was kind of more following the work. I was honestly just getting more offers for stuff like that. And you know, doing events for YouTube and stuff that was like once or twice a month, I would be flying for that. And so I couldn't really book tours as frequently because for that I have to book out like two or three months at a time just to focus on one project where usually all these other separate things are paying way more

than like a tour is paying so I kind of like weighed my options I mean I still definitely love working with artists and someday whenever that resumes that industry um would love to do that again we'll allow you to tour with us oh Oh my God. Thank you. You'll allow it. Thank you so much. You're like, you can't talk, but you can talk. Yeah, you can talk.

You can. The budget is really, really tight. So it's mainly for exposure. But we're so excited to have you along with us. Exposure. That's a photography joke, actually.

Yeah. It's for exposure. Yikes. But yeah. Anyway, I'll see you guys later. You're like, bye. That was the last one

we peaked right now yeah it's mainly like brand stuff portrait stuff um a couple like random behind the scenes things i'm just taking whatever comes out dude covid's so weird for photography like yeah life is not normal but i'm still working all the time so i like can't figure that out but yeah covid is so hard to take a photo of. It's so fast and small. It's so small. Yeah. Airborne too. How has it kind of changed the way that you work?

I mean, for like six months, I was not shooting at all. I was just doing like at home Instagram brand deal type shit just because I was like, I don't want to see people. I was seeing my mom. And so I like didn't want to see like other random people. And then after moving down here, I just just people are booking with me all the time, which has gotten really overwhelming because I'm not used to doing that anymore. And like shooting that frequently. So yeah, just trying to be safe as possible, wearing a mask, getting tested every Monday.

So is that true? That's true yet that like, you can work in the same capacity as long as you're Yeah, you totally can. I mean, I was on a shoot a couple weeks ago, though, and like the stylist and his girlfriend just decided that they didn't need to wear masks. And I was like, you're non-essential, so you can put that back on, sir. Like, I don't know. Some people like don't get it, and that's a little bit scary. But yeah, you can work. You can make it work for sure.

It would be silly of us not to say like, I'm sure that there's people in the chat and people listening to the podcast now that the number one question would be, oh, but to say like i'm sure that there's people in the chat and people listening to the podcast now that the number one question would be oh but how how do i do that yeah i like wait i have a camera also but i'm not doing i can't figure out how to turn it on i know it's so crazy though because i feel like people are always like how do i become a photographer and i'm like i first of all right now is not the time to start i don't really think but second of all it is more than like owning a camera. Like, I mean, I started taking film photo classes in high school and I'm like totally

self-taught since then. So it's definitely been quite a long time coming. Yeah. I mean, like, but with anything, I feel like the answer is you kind of just have to start doing it and seeing where that takes you. And then when things aren't working, change it up and kind of like keep on the, keep on the scent because I can't tell anybody how to do YouTube for a job without saying, make YouTube videos. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You just have to like, keep doing it. Well, and the thing about photography is I feel like a lot of people

used to ask me, like when I was doing music stuff, they were like, how do I like go on tour? And I'm like, it literally took me years to even book my first tour because you have to think about like, you have to have a great relationship with the artist. You have to live with this person on a bus. So they're not just going to hire some random person. It doesn't matter how good your photos are. You have to like get along with them. And it's all about like building connections, meeting people. And also like, I don't know, music photography is not for everybody. I'm like, there are so many different avenues you can take with photography. And I always just tell people like, find what you actually like shooting and what

works for you. Yeah, because music photography like looks glamorous, but it like doesn't pay shit. And it's honestly really stressful. And like, you may not like it. Like, yeah, I guess one nice thing about what you do is you can kind of like pivot into different spaces based on what is and isn't working for you. Totally. Which is cool. But it also speaks to like, you can have a dream of touring with an artist and then do it and then go, oh, maybe this isn't like what I want to be doing 100% of the time. Yeah. I feel like I've done a million different photography things.

And I've honestly enjoyed just about all of them. And so I just kind of like vibe with it see see where it goes seeing where it takes I mean that's great that means you're you're in the right career which is awesome I'm having fun are you getting that hit right now now that you're back at work of oh I needed this bar filled up I needed this type of artistic validation to be my full yesdimensional self no honestly for like the six months that i was not shooting i was like so depressed i was just in this little depression hole every single day and i was like i have no purpose like i didn't like it yeah i just

i want to change somebody else do you have any fun tour stories i don't want to put you on blast for like who you've toured with but if you want want to share, I mean, I have plenty. I'm just trying to think of any that would be appropriate to share on a blog. Okay. All right. TTT. Are you comfortable sharing like what artists you've toured with? Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, so I used to work in like more rap and hip hop stuff. So G-Eazy, Black Bear, Hoodie Allen, you know, all the white rappers. And then I kind of decided. You were on their like number one photographer of white rappers. And that was all three white rappers.

That was all of them. That was like the start of my brand was like I was working for this one white rapper who introduced me to all the other white rappers. And they were just like my squad. And I was like, well. Ironically ironically they all know each other yes like black people yeah wait how do you shoot white people i you know it's crazy you have to learn it's a learned skill so you got leah i wish i had the hair to my little debbie ryan like hair tuck but yeah so i started doing that. And then I was like, you know what? White men already like

get everything else. I'm going to like, I've decided to like help like women build their careers. So I kind of pivoted and started working with more female artists, which is super fun. And I think that's where I like really love having my career at just helping women build like cool visuals and stuff for their careers. The only thing in that is a lot of them are much smaller like pop artists and don't have a huge budget or aren't touring all the time so I kind of like wasn't working quite as much and that's when I started like doing some other stuff with photography and like branching out in my free time so that's cool yeah that's awesome is there a part of your discipline that you wish you could do more it doesn't even have to be in your job it could be man I wish I got to do i wish i got to travel and take photos of this location yeah i

travel sometimes for work like you know to really cool places like i went to like laos um to shoot for like an elephant sanctuary which was really cool i was like i got hired by an elephant yeah just like just one really rich elephant flew me out he's trying to build his social media cache and he needed a new study yeah always always in the room and no one will talk about it but i always feel like all my work is in the u.s and i really just wish someone else would fucking hire me i'm like i want to go somewhere like right right oh man so um So, um, I, what I'm thinking is, oh, my elephant in the room. Sorry. Oh man.

Oh, I have a question for you. How do you, how do you manage it all? Freelance is like, so I, I know from my experience that there's a lot of emails. There's a lot of projects to coordinate. It can be very overwhelming. Like externally, you just look like a superhuman who's like able to do it all. But we all know that it's not never that it's never that simple. So like, how do you manage all of your work? Yeah, I mean, I don't. It's hard. I mean, that's the thing. Yeah, I honestly like would love a manager so badly, but I haven't really found anyone who does like the social media and like brand deal content creator aspect of it, as well

as also the photography stuff. So yeah, I just am left to my own devices. I mean, Monday through Friday, I'm at my computer doing emails as much as I can, unless I have shoots and then I have to go out and do that Saturdays and Sundays. I just sit on the couch and stare at the ceiling and like photosynthesize and try and recoup. And that's about it. That's, that's my week. When do you have time to like edit photos? Cause I know that could be like a very time consuming process. Yeah. I'm about to edit tonight because I haven't done any this week. But usually like in the evenings. Yeah. I mean, it's a grind. It's a grind. It's a full time job. Don't have any time to yourself or recover from

your week. Problem solved. I would say that like people and you guys can let me know if this is off base. But for as much as it's glorified, often a lot of freelance work and a lot of the work that we do, we are very grateful, very happy to be doing it. It's fun and it's got a lot of benefits. But oftentimes we are blurring the lines with work-life balance and we are having to put a lot into our work because we don't have the protections of like a corporate structure to guarantee that the jobs will be there tomorrow. So there's always this like tug of, you know, I want to make sure I'm taking care of myself, but I also want to make sure that, you know, I'm going to be able to pay my bills and stuff, you know? Well, yeah. Like dealing with multiple projects at once with multiple deadlines and all these different deliverables and like shit you have to get done. And it's, it's a lot,

honestly. Like I, I love it. I love being able to like work from home and like be my own boss and do all that shit. But I'm like, there is no one motivating me. There's nobody telling me I need to get this done.

Just myself, like having to yell at myself being like, you need to do this. Like, and I'm like, I don't want to. Like, I know I'm the worst boss and worst employee.

Yeah. I mean, part of having a manager at least a social network in an inside of a working environment you need people to remind you who you are independent of what you're doing whereas if you take an evening to edit photos and you go to sleep while you're sleeping you're having dreams about like about light room it's like yeah that is who i am the end oh, that is who I am, the end. That is all of me. The import dialogue in Lightroom is just like

popping up all of your memories from the day. It's very easy to lose track of yourself purely because you're, I mean, don't get me wrong.

I know that we all like to, we as our people like to, black people, we as a civilization like to espouse the idea that, hey,

I don't think you can say that as a white man jordan sorry that's true hang on let me get the light a little closer it's fun to espouse the idea of hey self-care and you know you are you independent of what you do and your behavior and at a certain point the things you're doing all the time it's kind of i remember at various points in my life, people would talk about how they like, don't want to ever have a boss or anything like that. Like, it's like, I don't want to work a nine to five. I actually quite liked working a nine to five. I liked having a boss. I had like a very good and stable career and to do what I want to do,

I have to do it myself. And it's kind of a means to an end for me, but it's not for everybody necessarily, you know? So shout out to all the bosses out there. We love you. We know you're hanging out in the chat. If you want to post a mope score, it's like being a manager right now out of a hundred percent. Big ups to the bosses. We need to give more love to the people

in powerful positions with money. Yeah. Let us know what your Q4 plans are, if your KPIs are working out, how things are going according to plan or not. We end every episode of Sad Boys with a particular phrase. We love you. And we're sorry. Yeah.

Was that good? Did I do it? We did a podcast, everybody. That was a whole thing gucci girl gucci girl how you doing how you moving girl moving girl how she dead looking that future girl future girl yeah we on now take my money go away are you wanting go too rich for me