The Comment Section with Drew Afualo - HEALING™ Ft. Alok

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

This week, Drew is joined by the incredible, hilarious and always insightful Alok (@alokvmenon)! During their wide-ranging conversation about identity, culture, and deconstructing gender, the duo talk finding your highest self on edibles, thriving outside of the patriarchy, why society is out of it’s logic era, Drew bravely comes out as a straight woman, and so much more! Drew: https://linktr.ee/drewafualo Alok: IG/Tiktok For sponsorships/partnerships, email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Unfortunately, the one given truth that we all know is that we're going to die. And are you going to look back on your life and be like, wow, I spent so much of my time in Drew's comments section. What a noble asphal. Like, I'm so proud of you. You did it. Wow. It was worth it. So that's why there's always a tell.

You're telling on yourself. Absolutely. You're telling on yourself that you don't think that your life is worth leisure, peace. You don't think that your life is worth fun. You're going to waste your precious moments on earth hating me when in fact it's just a proxy for hating yourself. That's tragic. Damn. So that's why.

That's why. Everyone and welcome back to another episode of the comment section show starring me, your favorite. Everybody knows me who cares about me. On to the guest. Today we have the iconic, the legendary, the amazing, a loke. Please announce me for the rest of my life. I'm excited to hear what I have to say now too.

Oh my gosh, right? I really teed you up. I know that's one of the first things. Please don't use sports metaphors going for it because I'm just going to walk out. You're going to be like, okay, clearly. I don't need to be here for this. Yeah, they keep on saying that we have an unfair advantage when it comes to sports, but I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. In order to have an advantage of sports, I'd have to play them.

Or care about them at all. Which, oh, for two. I'm so honored to have you on the show. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. You're such an icon and a legend. It was great to meet you at the Cape Awards. It was. Look at us collecting awards at the same time, period. I just thought it was so powerful what you were saying about how so often these Asian American events don't include Pacific Islander folks. So thank you for for amplifying that. Oh my gosh, of course. Yeah.

And it's May. So now it's AAPI month and no one can be mean to us. No one's allowed to be mean to us. Yeah. If you do actually, you're violating everything. Marshall law. Yeah. We'll be enacted. That's what will happen next. You get thrown in jail for the entire month of May. Sorry. I don't make the rules. Sorry. I don't make the rules. So don't be mean to either of us. But I'm so honored to have you. I look up to you in so many ways. As a activist, as just a figure on social media as a whole, as a comedian, I'm like, genuinely, I admire you so much. So I'm honored to have you as a guest. I think you're incredible.

Thank you. And I'm going to give you your flowers the entire episode. Thank you. Thank you. Florals and Springs. So original. And AAPI? It's like the Macgala here.

We're the two of us are at the Macgallel? Yeah. They'd man. If this was a MacGall, they're mad. They'd be mad. They'd be mad. They spend that much money on a table. Just the two of us.

Welcome to the show. And I would love if you could kind of give everyone a little bit of background on your lore. I'm very familiar with your lore. But I'm so curious if you, or not me, but those who are curious, how you came to be this, like, pillar of activism, of, like, of courage, of hope. Like, I'm so interested for other people to hear. Yeah, so I have a lot of feelings. I've always been an extremely sensitive person. Love.

When I was a young child, I was just confused. Like, how are people pretending like this is okay? And by this, I mean, like, small talk. I can't do it. Not a small talk person. No, and people like, how are you? I'm like existential dread. And let's get into it.

Right? Like, what's the meaning of life? Like, I've always been someone. I used to watch these, like, documentaries about like black holes. And I would just think about how I was like a speck of dusk in the cosmos. Like that's the kind of person I've always been. And so I've never really been here for simple solutions, for easy answers, for immediate categories. I've always wanted nuance.

I've always wanted depth. I've always wanted complexity. But I think that when you grow up in this country, especially when you're trans and when you're POC, you're denied complexity. You're forced into a series of categories you never chose for yourself. You're told that you have to emulate pre-existent, ficient. about you, live up to some cosplay of a character that you never even wrote. And so there was, I think, a discrepancy between my inherent wonder and the ways in which the world reduced me to my body. And so much of the work that I do is in protest of that. And actually being able to

say, like, I get to be the fullest and freest version of myself. Absolutely. And I feel like even someone like yourself, even just having a public presence on social media is not only like an active protest, like you said, but also it's so brave and courageous. I feel like social media has been such a powerful vehicle, especially in the last like five years, for people to see other people that don't live the same life they do, that don't exist in the same bodies they do, that don't have the same life experience. And I feel like someone like yourself is so important to like broadening your perspectives on things, especially when it comes to intersectionality. I mean, honestly, it goes both ways because I follow a lot of cisgender heterosexual influencers.

And they teach me so much about their exotic cultural rituals. I didn't understand. And I feel like I want to say thank you social media for diversifying my feed and my life and helping me grow empathy. Because I just feel like, you know, watching a lot of. media about straight people growing up, it was like, do they know how to make decisions? Like, why do they keep on thinking that love will, like, save them from loneliness, you know? But then, like, through being able to, like, meet them on social media, I feel like I've grown and I've healed. Yeah.

You're always growing. You're always changing. Always. It's important to be inclusive. Yeah. It's always important to be inclusive. To include straight people are, they're dying. They're dying.

There's no more straight people anywhere. It's really. I wasn't going to bring that up. But if you want to broach that topic, I can have it. And I just feel like, you know, right now they're having to deal with a lot. Like they're having to, like, say different pronouns. And they're having to, like, concede ground. Oh, God.

I can only imagine how difficult that must be. How taxing it must be. Right? What a stressful life. To actually realize that you don't have to be miserable. Oh, God. And that your entire personality doesn't have to be, like, an altar to your misery and resentment. minute and that heaven isn't just a place that you go to when you die it's possible when you're

here now i can't even imagine realizing that it's like insane in the membrane like it's a full system collapse they are truly like short-circuiting yes i have loving compassion yeah me same honestly i'm always it's it's it's so funny it's like somewhat similar to when i talk about like the shit that women go through not even if you just factor just people who identifies women, not even factoring in race or if you're fat or able-bodied or anything like that. Men are like, and what about men? What about you? Do you need me to talk about you more?

Right. You shouldn't want me to be talking about you anymore. Right. I'm too mean to them. Right. I think that like progress would be if I could do a what about trans people, right now if I was to do that, people just like laugh, we're so seconded, we're so absented from anyone's awareness that if I was to even enter the chat and be like, what, what are you?

What about us? People are like, do you even go here? So I so think that like my aspiration is to be able to what about. It's to be able to do that. The what about is something. Yeah. You're like, I want that's the privilege I want. When my mom asks me, who do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to be able to troll. You know? Yeah. Because we're at a place right now where we can't even troll because people are even there. Like it's just bonkers to me that I feel like I've been doing this public advocacy work for over a decade. Yeah. And I still feel like I have to start at school. square one every time to say, hey, everyone, I exist.

I have a lot more interesting hot takes. I have so much more fun stuff to say. But it's still seen as a revelation. Yeah, you have to start there every time. And what's embarrassing is that like it's been that way like every century. Yeah. Like gender nonconforming people have been here for thousands of years, especially in indigenous culture.

Absolutely. And so the caucasity to say that non-binary people are new is just utter time. from foolery. Actually, it's embarrassing, really. It's really embarrassing because actually what is new is dividing billions of complex ethereal souls into one of two categories. Actually, indigenous people have been leading the way forever saying that there have always been people outside of these gender binary systems.

And yet, I still have to, in every interview you have to be like, I'm neither a boy nor a girl. And people will be like, whoa. And I'm like, I have much, you know, I have much more interesting things to say about be like, why do I keep on sleeping at 6 a.m.? There's just so many more behaviors that I do that are questionable and erratic than deciding to wear a skirt.

Absolutely. There are much harder things to deal with in life. Believe it or not. Even so, like, once I did a video about, there was this trend going on where men were saying things like, oh, you know, the best relationships are when you take a girl out of her masculine era

and put her in her feminine era, whatever that means, right? I don't even know what the fuck. I guess that's their way of coming out as Swifties, and I'm going to hold out. I'm going to hurt heels undeniable. I was wondering who bought all that latest album, and now I know insoles. There you go. And so when I was getting tagged in the videos, I was, when I made one, I was saying, like,

this is just rebranded misogyny, like, genuinely. And I was like, because, first of all, like, they're talking about energy. I'm like, gender doesn't exist. Like, it's not real. It's like a man-made construction. So you can't gender an intangible, like, energy, for example. I was about to like step up and spin around and sit down to respond to that, but I didn't want to do that. But I'm just saying that verbally so people know that I was enthusiastic about what you just said.

And I said that. I had mentioned that in my video and I was talking about how this is the kind of like buried sinister misogyny where they're they're disguising it as a way to like help you or to let you be like yourself, which is inherently smaller, demure, feminine, whatever they deem to be feminine. And we look at the history of marriage counseling in the United States. What would happen, it sort of became very popular after World War II. Couples would go in to meet an expert. And what they would always say is, oh, it's because the woman isn't being feminine enough. If she just learned how to love doing housework more, she could save the marriage. If she learned how to care more about her appearance, she could save the marriage.

The onus is always put on women to revive the dead horse that is the dead horse that is the gendered system. And I think that's what makes me so sad oftentimes with this turf phenomenon, trans-exclusionary feminists, is that- I'll find a turf any day. Oftentimes, women are defending the enclosure. They're actually been put into a confined space. And they're like, no, no, no, this is my space. But it's like, babe, you deserve the universe. Yeah. What makes you think, there's more than just this space. Hello. Believe it or not. Like to define womanhood just in the ways that men have defined it forever as a tool of subordination. It's deeply concerning and upsetting.

Absolutely. I think that's why for me, what I was so excited to speak to you about and to be on this podcast is the healing that needs to happen such that all genders can come together to thrive outside of patriarchy. Because that's my dream. That's what I grew up with. That's so much of what I do is because my mother had the feminist wherewithal to say no to the world that men prescribed her to be, to pursue her own interests, her own

ambitions. That created the fodder, the fertile ground for me to be able to say, no, I'm going to live my own life too. I see everything I'm doing as a continuation of my foremothers and as feminism. And I think what's deeply sad often is that trans people like me are seen as a violation of that when in fact it's a continuation. Absolutely. A celebration, if you will. Yeah. And even when I when I followed it up because some women turfs were being very strange how they sneak their way in, they sneak past security on my page sometimes. Some women were telling me that I was, they were like, oh, this, this video means that you don't want women to be feminine again, whatever that means, and you don't like stay at home

moms. I'm like, how did you get from one? Right. I don't know how you got there, but I elaborated further. I was like, this is the conversation you all don't want to have with me because you think, because I tell people to suck my wiener on the internet that I'm a stupid bitch. But like, again, I iterated that gender is not real. I said there were so many cultures that did not adhere to a gender binary prior to being colonized.

My own is one of them. We did not have a gender binary prior to being colonized. And before Christianity and Mormonism and Catholicism were brought to my people. So before that, prior to that, we didn't adhere to anything like that. And gender is a racial construct. Period. So what it means to be an Indian woman, a Samoan woman, a white woman, it's different and culturally contingent. Absolutely.

I grew up with strong, badass, hairy brown women. And that wasn't a violation of their femininity. Absolutely. But oftentimes, I think when we're saying look like a woman or act like a woman, what we're saying is look or act like a white woman. Period. And we're policing women of color into that. Absolutely. And that's why for me, like this idea of transness, we're building off of this legacy of actually saying there is no one way to be a woman.

Absolutely. Actually, there's your way to be a woman. And I think people read that as a racer. But actually, that's about entitlement. If you feel like you can universalize your particular. point of view, that's a problem. When I'm saying that I want a world beyond the gender binary, I'm not saying you don't get to be you.

Yeah. Actually, you being you is totally fine. That's nothing to do with me. And it has been for thousands of years. I get to be me. Yeah. And in fact, the more you you are, the more I, I can be. Yeah.

This is zero-sum competitive mentality. We don't need that, babe. Absolutely. And it doesn't get anything done. When I made a video defending Dylan Mulvaney and her song, and they were talking about like a bunch of turfs, like literally so many fucking turfs. I explained to, I'm like, that this is, that's not your experience with girlhood, that's okay.

That's her experience. That's not yours. But at the same time, I'm like, it's starting to stink like fucking turf, and it's pissing me off because some of you are saying you're fans of me. Clearly you're fucking not. And that's where I said intersectionality is really starting to beat the shit out of some of you because you think feminism just means cisgendered heterosexual white women. But there are, I said, even if me, myself, like I identify as a woman, I'm a cisgendered

heterosexual woman. The experience I have with womanhood is completely different. Thank you for sharing your truth with me. You're welcome. That took a lot. That took a lot of bravery. That's me coming out to you. In this conversation, that's the most rebellious identity you can have.

So I just want to hold space and say, all this is a process I'm learning. Thank you so much. I actively am listening. And evolving and growing. And if there's ever anything I can do besides sending love and light your way, let me know. Yeah, I do need more help from you, actually.

I need you to actually pick up the slack around here. I'm going to try my best. I'm working over time to become. I'm an active ally, not passive. I can't just consume your content online. I have to show up. Yeah, you have to show up more, actually. I need more from you.

Just so you know. And I take that feedback, and I'm going to be crying tonight and somewhere below. But I heard online that tears actually are really good for your skincare regimen, so. I mean, if that's the case, that's probably why we have such perfect skin. And I, um, I even when I was, I was lightened some, some women up. But I was telling them too that it was really pissing me off because I was saying that you excluding trans women from this feminist viewpoint. It doesn't, you don't get to cut the line to equality. Like, that's not how it works.

Just because you cut them out of it doesn't mean you get there faster. In fact, it slows us down even more. So it's so important that you include all women, not just women that you deem to be women. It can't be something that is approved by you personally. And let's also accelerate, let's say women and non-binary people. Absolutely. Right? Because I also feel like there's a way in which people still only understand patriarchy as it impacts women.

But actually, for me, patriarchy is the policing of all people into gender norms. Absolutely. So every single person is harmed by a patriarchal system that doesn't ask them, what's your vibe? Who do you want to be? What do you want to wear? How do you want to show up in the world? Yeah. But instead assumes.

And so what I understand feminism to mean is actually the creation of a world where gender has no stranglehold on people's possibility where people can be the fullest and ripest version of themselves without the fear of violence, that's the bare minimum. Then also be celebrated for that. Absolutely. And now we're going to pivot to the part of conversation where I'm actually vulnerable and not just snarky and deflecting.

I think that's one of my greatest griefs is I feel like so much of the work that I do is out of love, out of a genuine love. Why would we continue to show up to expose ourselves to so much vitrivolve? If it wasn't love, I would have tried, there's a lot of other things I'd be doing. Sorry, I'm deflecting. There's a lot of other things I'd be doing. Yeah. But I think what's so sad is when people receive love as an attack. Absolutely. And I think that's the heart of everything we're experiencing right now. Absolutely. It's like this white fragility, this is, all of that. It's like, what a generous gift migration is. Imagine what this country would be without immigrants. I don't even want to think about it. Like, what a generous gift feminism is. And yet these things get framed as stripping away. is taking away. What we are stripping away and taking away

is like, it's like an exfoliation. It's something that needed to go. Yeah. But it's ultimately for regeneration and for health. Yeah. And so that's why I think the reframe I try to always offer in my work is, it's just that people don't think that they're worthy of love. And one story I could say that someone's bigoted or prejudice or ignorant,

but I think the deeper truth is that they don't feel worthy of love. Yeah. Because the version of love that we're actually advancing is one that says you don't have to hide. Absolutely. single part of you gets to belong. Absolutely. But these systems have taught us that we have to compartmentalize or be shy or closet parts of ourselves.

The kind of love we're advancing, it's like, no, bring you. I want to see you. Fully, authentically. And people don't know how to do that. Absolutely. And then when they see people like you or like Dylan existing and not just like, you know, centered or like anchored in grief or violence or anything like that, it's in love, it's in celebration, it's in community.

And you see people like you and Dylan like being happy and, thriving and having friends and love and romance. And when they see things like that, they get even more mad because they're like, I've been taught my entire life that I need to look and act and be a certain way in order to find love, success, whatever it may be. And I don't have any of those things and I'm doing all the right things. But these people are living completely outside of that or on the complete opposite end of it and they have all the things that I wish I had.

They're outsourcing all of their own shame onto us. Absolutely. That's all it is. It's a like a projection of its finest. Just boop, boop, boop, and they mistake, like, commenting on my body, my life is somehow going to offer them some salvation in their own. And that's what the most tragic part is, is you're still going to die. You know?

Unfortunately. Unfortunately, the one given truth that we all know is that we're going to die. And are you going to look back in your life and be like, wow, I spent so much of my time in Drew's comment section. What a noble, as well, I'm so proud of you. You did it. Wow. It was worth it.

So that's why there's always a tell. You're telling on yourself. You're telling on yourself that you don't think that your life is worth leisure, peace. You don't think that your life is worth fun. You're going to waste your precious moments on earth hating me when in fact it's just a proxy for hating yourself. That's tragic. Damn. So that's why.

It was interesting because one time someone commented in my comment section, like you and Drew both have diametrically opposed responses to haters. And I was like, I don't know if that's true. Like I respond with compassion. You respond with humor. but I think your humor is still compassionate because why engage if you didn't believe in people's transformation. Period. That's a thing.

That's why I'm saying it's about a gift. And the cultures that I'm a part of, being read is a generous offer. Same. Same in mind. Because you're actually reading people to build them up. Absolutely. I want you to come back. That's so funny you say that.

That's how someone's are too. I've said that before. I even said that in my speech. I'm like, they do be making fun of you. That's like the whole point is to like kind of toughen you up a little bit. But every time we do it, it's never in a, a sinister or evil way. It's not a way to pick at your insecurities. It's just for fun and to be silly and to just kind of grow your confidence as a whole. Speaking of confidence, how did you

develop the laughter that you have right now? It's the most distilled version of freedom I've heard in a while. Oh, that's that is such a sweet thing to say. And you just pepper it around. I'll hold on to that. It's like, so delightful. I'm like, either you're really good at evading your depression or you genuinely are happy. And that's really exciting. Yeah, I feel like I even said my laugh is so distinctly Polynesian. Like that's what my laugh is so someone. Like we all laugh the same. Like it's never a laugh.

It's like a cackle. It's more of like a hyena type pitch. That's kind of how we all laugh. Like when me, my mom and my sister. It's not racism when she's saying it herself. Hello. I'm someone.

It's okay. But literally everyone that I like in my like immediate family and my extended family, we all laugh the same. So like me and my mom and my mom. my sister all laugh the same, same pitch, same decibel. And then even like I have a cousin, his name's Josh, and he's, his laugh is so high pitched and like a cackle, like it's mine times a million. So it's like so distinct and it's so boisterous and that's like been the soundtrack to my life growing up is laughter. Like it's laughter like that.

Um, so I was on a weed edible recently. Period. As one does. As one does. And my therapist is always yapping about finding my highest cell. And I think I found her. And what I realized is that I couldn't speak, I could just laugh. And what if laughter is the ultimate highest truth in the world? And I realized that for so long in my life, I've been intimately familiar with my pain, the ways I've been hurt, I've been discriminated against. What feels new for me is I'm becoming familiar with my joy. And laughter for me is that crystallized joy.

It's like even when the world feels impossible and these days it does. There's so many times where I'm just like, is this real life? It feels like homophobia has gotten a reboot as transphobia. And we're in a dystopic action thriller film where trans people have been cast as villains. And investors are funneling in hundreds of millions of dollars because it's getting a lot of clicks. And so it feels like the characters people are making about us

are even more real than my own reality. And I feel scared a lot of the time. But then I laugh. And it just does something profound to me. And I think that's why I've really loved doing stand-up now more in my career is because the ability for us to laugh in the face of it is I think one of the most powerful things I've ever seen for us to actually create that medicine of like even though things are awful and gruesome we still have the ability to laugh yeah especially when it comes to

people like yourself who are so like targeted by the like whether it's media or just the country are you talking about the fact that I'm a cancer sign yeah obviously thank you a water sign specifically It's hard out here for us. It is. There's cancel culture and there's cancer culture. You should talk about it. And they both need to be studied. Hello.

Deeply. Yes. I think even to your point about laughter too is I feel like that's another reason why a lot of people gravitated towards my content. Regardless of like obviously I make silly jokes and all that shit. But I've said before when, especially when I was initially growing, I had so many men make fucking think pieces about me. like she's actually really mean. You're right. And I have told people, you're right, I am mean.

I like to think myself as like Robin Hood though. Like I'm, yeah, I'm being mean, but I'm giving back to the poor. So maybe it's, um, pen Das cancels out. But also I, I've always said like my content's not for you. Like my content's in spite of you, honestly. It's honestly at your expense. Like that's what my content is not for you. It's for everybody else.

For once, like I've said before like my platform's like the one table they don't have a seat at. And that's why they're so fucking mad at me all the time. Because this is the one time you're not being. prioritized. You're not prioritized in my space. You're not prioritized on my show. You're not prioritized on any platform I have. I'm prioritizing everybody else who has never been prioritized and everyone who follows me and is tired of having to take the high road. Like I've even said, I've passed like, you know, making people laugh and making silly jokes. I validate them in their anger, like in their, in their frustration and them being

fed up. I've validated that. I've told them like if you want to be mad, if you want to be angry, if you want to laugh at them and make fun of them, back, you absolutely should. You can. You have every right to, in fact. I do. And it's worked out. So it works out pretty well, actually. And I feel like that kind of messaging and that kind of like platform that I've built has given people more courage to be like you said, to laugh in the face of awfulness. Like, because vitriol is awful and it is. And you and I both receive it. I'm sure you get way more than I do. But I get a whole bunch of definitely not a contest. I want to win. Not at all. Not at all.

If this was like America's Next Top Model, like, season 48, I'm down to compete. But when it comes to the severity of our death threats. Right. For real. Yeah. Yeah. Even some people I've met, they're like, how do you do it? I'm like, I don't know.

I just think about everyone else who gets worse death threats. Right. I'm like, sometimes I find my people. We build community. That's what we do. As you were speaking, though, I was thinking also about false equivalencies, right? Calling you mean versus an anti-abortion law. Mm-hmm.

You know? Like what power do you have in under structural sexism to fundamentally shift the quality of life for men in this country, let alone this world? I wish I had more. Right? And so notice the disproportionate attention when these kind of alarmist narratives of women are erasing that when actual rights are being eroded. Yeah, yeah. And so what happens is that people's discomfort is taken. as equivalent to structural discrimination.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a really dangerous moment we're in right now. Totally. We're, we maybe shouldn't have said all feelings were valid. Because now- Should put a little asterisk next to that. So people are like, my bigotry is valid. I think that what we've seen with like the revamping of diversity and inclusion

is now people are saying, if you're a harasser, you're equal to. You know? What about me? Yes. It's literally like, what about me? We actually have like lost a real power analysis, right? And so I just noticed that people fixate more on like a social media personality than like a politician. And when they think about like spheres of influence, it's like this

narratives that get created in the manosphere about women and trans people ruining culture. What's actually ruining Western civilization is climate change. Like you're not going to have a physical land. Yeah, it's really not going to matter. It's not going to mean anything when the world burns up. And so that's why I try to really say like your passion is so valid. It's just misdirected. Absolutely. All of the anger and vengefulness that you're experiencing towards feminist women and trans people. Yeah. That's so beautiful, babe. Let's use it to actually create a society that you want. Right. It's redirected over. Yeah. So I think the big realization I've had in my life is that all the people who are so angry at me are actually grieving from the same gender system I am. Absolutely. But it's so much

easier to pinpoint it on me to say, oh, these nasty men and dresses, they're making me uncomfortable than it is to do the deeper, more introspective work to actually make this entire gender system is rotten at its core. And so for me, my mercy practice, my compassion practice often gets dismissed as not having teeth or not actually clapping back. It is a clapback. I'm hugging them and clapping them on the bag. And saying, isn't it sweet? Isn't it cute that you think you're going to get salvation through making a burner account on social media and commenting on my page. That's not what salvation looks like. What salvation looks like is you need me and I need you and let's actually work towards creating the material conditions that create a better world.

Absolutely. And I even when it comes to teeth too, like I got another butt teeth on social media and even then I get the reverse, which is why don't you try more compassion? Why don't you try more? Which is like the goalposts are always moving, aren't they? Like I'm just never doing enough or never doing it right instead of, like you said, you just introspectively looking and realizing that you're also contributing and also suffering at the hands of the same system that I'm trying to uproot. The greatest irony of it all is that the patriarchy misogy, any facet of bigotry harms all of us, including transphobia. Like transphobia harms cis women too, which is another thing I don't understand about turfs. That's why I said, like, you think cutting them out is

going to give you rights faster, you think it's going to equal the playing field, or you think it's going to save you from suffering from transphobia. Even myself, I, I, people hurl vitriolic transphobic things at me all the time. Okay. Because I'm a tall woman, I'm a brown woman, I'm like, there's all these different facets of my intersectionality that are playing a role into them masculinizing me. But that's another reason why I'm like, you clearly are not advanced enough. Like you're clearly, you haven't been educated enough.

Right. It's in ignorance, whether it's on purpose or subconscious. Right. Either way, not my problem. Okay. So your hot take in this conversation is heterosexuality. My most controversial hot take is compassion. And we're both coming in with preconceived notions.

Totally. So I'm going to push a little bit on compassion. Sure. So oftentimes people think that compassion is about doing the higher road, like sacrificing my ability to feel rage. But if I'm going to be very honest with you, I had my seasons of rage. Yeah.

A lot of the early work I was making in my career, was so about vitriol and resentment and clapping back. And then I started to realize this is staying in my body. Actually, if I'm out here saying trans life is sacred, why do I want to kill myself? If I'm out here saying trans life is beautiful, why am I still depressed? My path towards compassion didn't actually come from forgiveness of the other.

It came from wanting to create a sanctuary in me. How do I liberate myself from resentment? How do I liberate myself from even? even having any of the indentations of their oppression into me. And so what I started to say is I want to be a sanctuary for the world that I'm seeking externally internally. So my rootedness and compassion is I'm going to be a non-stickable pan. Everything that you say to me is just a reflection of what you think about yourself,

sending you love and light. And so I feel like there's different traditions of compassion. Absolutely. And I think the kind of compassion that I'm sort of trying to get to is one that actually refuses this idea of self-sacrifice. because I grew up with brown women who were really good at that who really didn't serve anyone else or didn't eat food until they served everyone else

who glorified staying up all night cooking for other people dying at the hands of men who weren't really there for them and that was like I think one of the first kind of models of femininity I had so I templated that myself like okay if I want to express my femininity I have to be self-sacrificial then I had to rewire that and it didn't work out and I have no space for self-sacrifice but I think the instantiating

instantaneous conflation of compassion with self-sacrifice is something we need to tease apart. Yeah. And I want us to be able to hold forms of compassion that are actually deeply self-loving. Absolutely. And what I found for me, my relationship to rage is I want to experience rage, but I want to redirect that rage in the places where it actually matters. Absolutely. Because I think that the scale and the volume of what I'm up against is like every single day I'm in public, I'm being harassed. Every single place that I go, I don't feel safe. I've never been in a safe that I feel physically safe. I have to contend with hundreds, if not thousands of people every single day in person

escalations against my safety. If I was to clap back at every single one of those people, I could not. You get nothing done. Nope. I started to do something different. I started to actually become. So now if someone's taking a photo of me without my consent on a subway, I'll smile and I say, I love you, see what happens.

So now if someone's spitting me on the street. I'll go up to them and say, who hurt you? See what happens. And what I found is that those reactions actually have the same impact that I thought my retaliation would. They make people actually have to reconsider. Why am I doing this? And that's, I don't believe everyone,

I'm not interested in proselytizing. I don't believe everyone should follow this path. You're able to do what you want to do. That's fine in the same way with gender. What you're doing over there has no bearing on me. Yeah. But I think that what I struggle with is that oftentimes people think it's idiosyncratic or ridiculous that someone like me

could default into compassion. And I'm actually like, there's another way to hack at this. There's another way to think about why we're doing it, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. And it's also, like you said, it's prioritizing you in that sense

because it's kind of, it's in the same vein as for me with my content is how I, me choosing to laugh at it. Like people say the most awful shit about me all the time. And I've stitched videos of men literally talking only about me

and saying awful things about me. And then I laugh about it and move on with, with my life and-alcise it out of your body. Absolutely. And a lot of times people ask me, how do I do that? And I have told them before, like, my validation does not come from men.

It doesn't come from literally anyone but me. So including, like, even men that I love in my own life, like that it has nothing to do with them. It only has to do with me. So if I draw all of my power and courage and strength and confidence from myself and myself alone, anything that anybody says to me doesn't mean anything to me, doesn't hurt me, doesn't harm me.

If anything, it says more about them than it does about me. Okay, we're getting real on this podcast. I did not. I just came off a plane for therapy. Okay. I have said some version of what you've said so many times in my life. And I see myself so much in what you're saying right now. And that's a profoundly lonely life.

Yeah. Because everyone expects you to be the resilient one, the confident one, the one is able to clap back. It do be that way sometimes. The one that's always witty, inspirational, able to immediately alchemize. But what happens when it actually sticks with you? And you're like, actually that really did her. hurt because we're human. We're not invincible. Absolutely. And so what I've had to actually realize is I do need validation from other people, not strangers on the internet, period, from people I love

and I'm in community with. Right? And I want to be someone like that for you. Yeah. Because there are people in the world who I believe are out here championing the gospel of self-love and also need to be part of a collective of people doing that. Absolutely. You know, like we need to be able to have other people that we can go to when we are feeling down or when we do need support. Totally. And people have asked me before, like, what hate does get to you? Right. And I was like, the only hate that does get to me is when it comes from people within communities

that I feel so drawn to protect. And a lot of times it's not even, sometimes it is blatant hate, but sometimes it's more of those call-ins. Right. And those are the things that do stick with me because they matter to me. And that's why in those moments, they do really bother me. And they do stick with me. And that's why, first of all, I'm in therapy.

But second of all, I do have a very strong community around me. And that's why I've said before, like my confidence and my self-validation doesn't come from men. It comes from me. And it comes from the only people I care about in my circles. And I even said this on my last episode that women and non-binary people are so, so good at community. Yes. Like building community, fostering community. It truly is.

And it's like to build something so warm and loving and safe. Like they are they have that in spades. And I feel like that's what I've done is built community. Even outside of my, outside of my immediate family and my loved ones, I've built a really, a really, really strong community of people online who it's like enveloping you in a really warm hug. And I feel like that's why a lot of people feel really safe whenever they come to see me in live shows or whatever, because my fan base is just like me. They feel the same way. And something, a slight flex, I always say is a lot of my fans, none of my fans look the same. All of my fans look very different. I come from very different walks of life, different gender identities, sexual identities, whatever it may be. And so I feel

like, I'm sure at this point, though, your laugh is so influential that maybe when they're laughing in the crowd, you're like, am I laughing at myself? Yeah, literally, I'm like, that sounds familiar. I haven't branded my laugh yet, but. T.M. By the way. T. Every time I laugh, there's a T. As you're speaking, you made me think of something. I grew up in a small town in Texas. I just thought it would be a cute exercise in surviving. And so a lot of my best friends were Christian evangelical white conservatives and very odd, odd dynamics, but we're still tight, which is interesting. And so one of my best friends growing up when I turned 18 would drive me to the local gay bar every single Friday. And he would just kind of stand there awkwardly in the corner as I would stand awkwardly in another corner.

and I love this guy so much and we stayed friends for a long time and recently I sometimes bring different friends with me when I'm on tour and I brought him on my tour in Europe and then we were sort of debriefing after my show and he was like you travel in a fundamentally different way from me and I said what do you mean? He said when I travel I have to like Google what are the things I should see

when you travel you meet people and you immerse yourself in community and then you find the places that they're going and then I had to sit back and be like Oh, I have a privilege that you don't. Which is that every single place that I am in the world, because I'm trans, I meet trans people who it's like, that's my sibling. I don't need to know anything about who they are, what they've been through. We have this shared deep experience.

They have my back. And that's my favorite part about touring. I've toured in over 40 countries. And I go to places people are like, is that safe? I'm like, yes, because there are trans people there keeping me safe, picking me up at the airport, telling me we go here, we meet here. we don't do this. And immediately everywhere that I am, I'm able to feel like at a dinner table,

I've known these people my entire life. I love. And I'm like, this is what they're hunting. Yeah. Right? And one story I could say, it's because of what I look like. It's because of my pronouns.

It's not that. What they're hunting is a type of envy that they don't think that they're worth that kind of love connection and community because they've been told as a child, you have to compartmentalize yourself. You have to hide and seek within yourself. Totally.

And then you'll be left. But what we're advancing is a version of love that's like, no, no, no, no. All of you are none of you. And I think that's really destabilizing and scary. Yeah. And so that's why I think I've had to really move the paradigm that I'm operating in the world. In the past, I was so fluent in the ways in which I lacked power. And now I'm so deeply aware and that I have what I've been seeking my entire life.

Absolutely. It's just that I have people in the way of things like safety that are important. But the things that I need, the kind of like community and love, it's there. Yeah, it absolutely is. Especially when someone like yourself is so convicted in who you are and you walk in it, you live it every single day. And that's probably another thing they're extremely envious of is knowing exactly who

you are. That's like probably one of the scariest things they see is someone walking, living, and being their truth. Like, it's just who they are at their core. They have very strange combustible reactions to it. They really do. I spoke about this in my Cape speech, but Jane Spaldon is, I think,

one of the most influential thinkers for all the work I do. He says people go through great lengths to avoid an honest mirror. And I really notice how people are so afraid of looking at their own reflection. They will do whatever they can, pass hundreds of pieces of laws,

completely lie about who they are, just so they don't have to contend with what they see in the mirror. But the difficulty of the law, life that I had made it so that I had to because I wasn't going to get validation for my family, wasn't going to get validation for my culture and my community, wasn't going to get validation anywhere else. So I had to look in the mirror and actually say, who do I want to become? And I made it my life's goal to become myself, which I think is the greatest romance in the

world, actually. I wish there were pop songs about that, like spending deliberate time with a result to be like, what do I actually like? What do I actually want to wear? Not what other people want me to be? Who do I actually want to be? And that was some of the most silent and spectacular work I've ever done. But now that I'm, I don't know if you're ever on the other side, but I think now that I'm further along in that, I notice that I now perceive people's discomfort with me, not about my gender. I don't even use the word gender really as much anymore. It's about my spirit. And I think that move is really important. Absolutely. Because when I'm saying it's about my spirit, it's about my energy. Then it opens up a larger playing field here. This is not just about trans people being persecuted by

people. This is about those of us who are seeking our truth and living a life that's based in truth, being persecuted by people who are living a false self or a lie. And once we elevate to the stakes of that, we have no choice to have connection with each other. Absolutely. And it's also, it's so transparent, isn't it? When people, when you come across people and you meet them and you can tell immediately if they, like you said, they're afraid of your spirit. Like they see it so clearly. And it intimidates them. And a lot of people react differently in those situations. Sometimes they react violently with with anger. Sometimes they retract. Sometimes they celebrate it. Sometimes they want to stay close to it, right? Stay close to the fire. Even in my book that I wrote, I wrote a dedication at the

end. And there was a part I wrote about my boyfriend. And I talked about how I, right before I started dating him, I kind of, I had genuinely made peace with being alone. Because I told myself, if I, if I live a life by myself, like just with no partner, because I'm never truly alone. Am I? But like I'm, just without a partner, I'm okay because I have nothing but love and community and family and warmth and friendship and kinship just within my own life just as it is right now. And I don't need any more than that. To have more would be a privilege.

But what I do have now is also a privilege. So I'm okay either way. And literally three months later I started dating my boyfriend, who's my soulmate. He got me. But I'm in love with a man, bad for my brand. Anyways, so when I wrote my dedication, and I even had told my boyfriend, like, I felt like he truly saw me for the very first time and, like, genuinely really saw me for who I was and saw that light within me. And instead of running away, like, bashed in it, like, felt warm. You know what I mean?

I needed to hear that. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. I think one thing that I'm still healing is believing that I can be loved in that way. Yeah. Because I think that so much of the way that I understand romantic love has been through violence. And I think I'm still trying to heal the part of me that's like, no, I'm going to have to change the way that I am. Yeah.

My life is too hectic. I have too much going on. I'm too loud. Someone will be intimate. What? It's divine filtration. Yeah. And I know that intellectually.

But I don't know if I know if I believe it in my body. Yeah. But like seeing people like you who are actually people who are embodying the kind of might that I want to have is so helpful for me. And I think that's what you said about sometimes when you meet people who are in their higher consciousness, you actually feel magnetized and pulled. That's a story that I didn't know because I think growing up as I did, I was always repelled, pushed away. But then when I finally started meeting my own people, there were people who it's like, oh, you healed a part of me that I haven't healed yet. Yeah. And instead of being afraid of that, I'm drawn to it.

How did you do that? Teach me more. Like, what if we could rewire ourselves to be like, oh, I'm noticing envy, I'm noticing jealousy, that's a really special experience. There's a part of me that I still need to heal. Maybe I can witness that how someone else did that, right? Absolutely. And I think it's important for those of us who are often seen as healed TM to be able to say,

here are the parts of me, I'm still healing. Yeah. And I need to be in relation and in community and witnessing other people who have run marathons around my limiting belief systems. Yeah, I think, I mean, even so, like, when I, I've had that, like, energy pull to before where I felt like, I need, I want to be around this person more. Like, I feel like they're someone, they have something that I wish I had, whether it's, like, an energy or, like, a humor or intellect, whatever it may be.

I feel really drawn to people who are more evolved than me in whatever capacity it might be. because I feel like it inspires me and it motivates me. It makes me feel like we're all kind of moving in the same direction. We're all aspiring to something greater. So before this conversation, I was trying to convince Drew to make her debut as a stand-up comedian. And as someone who is more evolved in this space, I'm here to say right now, your unique constellation of trauma makes you an eligible candidate. Period.

For the coup that we're trying to have in comedy right now. Yeah. I just genuinely believe that women of color are the funniest people on earth. Period. I grew up literally cackling, to use your word, around women of color making fun of men. Period. That's my ground zero of where my comedy began. Absolutely.

Right? Like, you're trying to, you can do things with funny that you can't with sad. Yeah. That actually gives you a way to show up in the world, right? And I see that tenor of humor in you so much. And it's actually what the world needs, because what I found is very different about comedy is that people are so, you can sort of,

it's kind of like the peanut butter and the pill kind of situation. Yeah. When you frame it as entertainment, you can actually make people shift their minds. Totally. And so I think for a long time, for a long time, I was coming on podcasts like this and debunking lies about trans people.

Okay, so there's all this misinformation. Let me show you about what's correct. And of course that work is really important. But I think we've reached a point in our culture we can all agree. Where people are not changing their minds based off of truth or empirical data. Exactly. Which is very scary. Logic and reason is out of the way.

It's not very good. But like, we're not in the era of logic. No, not all. We've been far away from her for a while. Yes. So we have to actually have a different way to shift people. Totally. And what I found is that humor actually does that work.

Because then for a second, people can actually be like, wait, I thought a look was absurd because what did they look like? That actually was truly absurd. is that I care about what they look like. You know, it's just like kind of jumps up slash. Yeah. So actually what I for a long time felt like is that someone like me didn't get to deserve levity because there was so much serious injustice

people like we were facing. To be an advocate meant I had to speak with conviction and power. And obviously I can do that. If Dulea can go from being like an ambassador of human rights to being one of the best choreographed dancers on the stage, I can have versatility as well. Yeah. So I can be in a place where I can give like an amazing public intellectual lecture and I can make dick jokes on stage.

Hello. Period. But I didn't believe that for a while. Yeah. Because I think I still had this idea of like severity and levity being oppositional. Yeah. But now I'm actually like, no, these things are co-producing. Absolutely.

And that actually through comedy I can address some of the most serious issues and that maybe we might need silly solutions to serious problems. And so one of the silly solutions I think we need. need is your stand-up hour, I think could heal the world. I think so. I'm with you. You know, and you know, it's really funny because I feel like you and I started on opposite ends and we're moving towards the middle. So like I was all dick jokes, you know, and I'm moving towards more serious stuff. That's why you're doing into comedy. I wrote a book. So that's me like pivoting more into a more intellectual brand. But it's the same kind of idea in my head, which is I've told people before, even when I elaborate a little bit further on like my ideologies and why I

think the way I do and the processes that go in my head when I make videos, whatever, whenever I tell people about it, I tell them like, I like, sometimes I'll get comments where they're like, you're actually like kind of smart, which I, you know, again, like, yeah, again, I tell dick jokes on the internet, but I promise I am smart. But so again, peanut butter pill, I got to like give it to you that way. Otherwise, you're not going to listen otherwise. I mean, regardless, you'll be entertained, but at least you'll take something with you too and maybe learn a little bit more. I think part of that also is like the feminization of social media in our culture. It's seen as like less rigorous or less real, even though if you have millions of more people actually tune into

what you're doing than anyone else. I think especially we're seeing this with this TikTok band. There's a way in which if your genesis begins on the internet, people will always see you as like an underdog or like, and it's like, what are you talking about, right? And so I think also what you're probably facing, wow, now we're workshoping here. This is a very multi-faceted conversation. Look at us. Is that you're also what you're facing in is I think a generational angst where a lot of like boomers don't understand that not only are we no longer in the era of logic, but also we're in an era now where there's a different way in which people are sharing knowledge production. Totally. Now a lot of people are realizing that universities are often really exclusionary.

Yep. And that actually internet's an amazing way to share information. Absolutely. And I feel like, I feel so lucky. to be part of this generation, to have access to so much more information that's actually being done in a way that is delightful. Not boring sitting in a lecture hall,

being like, is this relevant to my life? Right. So I also feel like probably what you're gonna face and probably facing right now is people sleeping on your talent because they think it's just an internet sensation. But I actually believe like the reason I'm here is because you're the real deal. And it's really powerful to be in your presence.

Thank you. And I feel called to like to, to, to join the chorus of people saying, like, you deserve everything. Thank you, thank you so much. That's how I feel about you. When you confirmed, I was like, yes, because I'm such a huge fan.

And I feel like I learned so much from you. And like I said, I feel magnetized to you too because I feel truly like being friends or being in community with people that are living a completely different experience from you. When I was growing up, especially when I went to college, I feel like fundamentally made me a better person. And whenever people ask me about higher

I always tell them, like, if you have the means and you would like to, I encourage it. Just understand that obviously there's barrier of entry to a lot of different universities and everything like that. But I truly feel like the biggest privilege and the biggest asset that I gained from going to secondary schooling was community. I got to learn so much more about so many different people. And I became a better person like I truly did. And I wrote about it a lot in my book, too, even my close circle of friends, my girlfriends from college who I'm still friends with to this day. I had never met a group of women that were so different from women that I had grown up around, not in my own family, but just like girls I went to school with, women that

were so convicted in who they were, their sexual autonomy, their attitudes towards relationships and sex in general. I had never seen anything like that where it was so not something that weighed heavy on their integrity or their morality. It was just a part of life. And they were so convicted in it and so confident in it. And it truly made me a better person. Like I really do think that. That and my sister, my sister's a lesbian. And so her coming out to me and her, that journey I wrote about my book too with her. And that all of those things like genuinely I think evolved my brain and open my worldview more. And there's, I've always told people there's like, there's nothing wrong with unlearning. Like admitting that what what you once believed is not the truth and it's not

what you once felt is rooted in something bigoted. It's okay to admit that, to acknowledge it, and to unpack it, and then move forward and grow and become a better person. Like, we're constantly learning, or at least we should be. What are you unlearning right now? I think in the last, when I gained my platform, fat phobia was something I was genuinely really unlearning. It was very hard for me in the beginning. I feel like I've unpacked mine's misogyny, like almost in time. I'd be such a fraud if I hadn't.

But I also feel like there are still flare-ups here and there where I feel myself kind of regressing a little bit. And this is actually a perfect example. One time I was talking to a friend, and we were talking about someone, and we both identify as women, and the person we were talking about was a woman. And I was telling, I remember listening to her talk about them,

and I was saying, like, if we really removed how we feel, I think we're just being a hater. Like if I'm just being honest with, honest with myself. I think I'm just being a hater. I think there's something that I envy or maybe there's something because I always think there's a difference between envy and jealousy. I feel like envy is more aspirational, whereas jealousy is more evil and it's more rooted in being a hater, really. It's not it's not really based in truth at all. And so when we, when I said that to her, she was kind of

like, I never really thought about it like that. And then she told me, she still tells me to this day, she's like, you really unpack something for me. When he said that, like, you really unpacked something for me because I told her I think it's inherent that women want to find community and want to foster community with each other. But I also think it's a knee-jerk reaction to rebel against each other or to tear each other down because that's one of the tactics of the patriarchy is to turn us on each other. That includes trans people. Like it's to turn us on each other and it's I always say like look at how much time we're wasting attacking each other and look how much further ahead they get every time we turn. You know? So I feel like

that's something I've been unpacking to lately. One thing I'm unlearning is dissociation. I feel like for me as a young person, because my physical safety was in jeopardy, I learned how to live up here. And that's why I studied so much. Yeah. Is I was like, okay, if I have knowledge, I'm going to be safe. I'm going to be able to argue with people.

I'm going to be able to show the data. I'm going to be safe. And then I had to confront the fact that, like, abusive people don't care about that. About logic at all that or facts. And so a lot of the work I'm doing. and as adult now, I think feels very simple because a lot of other people got to experience that as young people and I didn't. But it's like, oh, actually checking in with myself to be like, am I here in this moment? That's actually a good one. So like I have to like breathe and I have to be like,

it's me. Yeah. This is my hand. Yeah. This is my voice. This is me. Because I think I find myself in many situations where I'm like, I'm not there. I'm there, but I'm not there. And I think it's some of the most challenging work. And I think I sometimes feel a lot of shame about it still because I have these narratives with like, oh, you're 32. You should have done this by now. Or like, you can perform on stage. You can do all this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, the problem is I can perform. That's the problem. Yeah. I can convince my own self. Totally. And to actually be is I think one of the most difficult work. But I think what I've really been trying to do now is to do that work of self-compassion and say, I have to embody the world that I want now.

It's not fair to tell people to wait. To wait for one day, you might be able to be safe. No, I want to create that safety now. And to create that safety now and me means that I have to actually elevate this work of unlearning dissociation as an urgent job. Because I think it's for a long time, I put it off, put it off. But it's too scary. And it sometimes looks like really simple things. Like I've been doing a lot of mirror meditation to just like greet myself and be like, you're alive.

That's you. I think that part of it's like an imposter syndrome for being alive. I think as a kid I thought I was going to be dead. And so now that I'm an adult, I'm like, hold on. I, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I didn't expect that to happen. And now that I'm an adult, I'm like, what do I do with that? Yeah. Because my forecast was like 18.

And now I find myself still being like, when I'm 35, it's all going to be done. Yeah. Or I'm not going to make it to 40. So that's so easy for me to go to. Yeah. And so now I'm trying to get to a deeper and more expansive place and be like, I'm going to be 98. What do I want to live when I'm 98? And that's such a new energy in me.

That's really exciting and very scary. I feel like, and like you said, it probably helps you be more present too and all the wonderful things that you accomplish, have accomplished and continue to accomplish, but it helps you be more present in the moments and celebrate you in the moment. Because I struggled with that a lot

in the beginning of my career because I felt like I had to keep going in order to like stay afloat, you know, like just, I realized in therapy that my validation doesn't come from men, but it did come from my accomplishments. Like being the best at things, like being better than everyone,

everyone and anyone, but especially men. Better death threats. Yeah, better, better at every, better hateer. Yeah, I was just like, that's where I sought my confidence in Coles was always like, oh, I feel good about myself because I'm the best. But I, like, the best at this or the best at that.

But like my therapist helped me unpack that that's not a sustainable way to live either. In fact, it runs me into the ground quite often. So that kind of present thing. That was my New Year's resolution. was to be more present. So I'm basically a plot to us. I'm sent from the universe as the embodied

reality of your new resolution to hold an honest merit to you on your podcast in front of everyone. Are you being present? It's a check. It's a temp gauge. I am obsessed with you. I love you dearly. I'm so grateful you came on the show.

My brain has already evolved. I can't wait to spend more time with you. Yes, it was so fun. Against your will. I'm just going to just show up and start hanging out with you. If you come with glam like that, I can't complain. Period. I just got to come there.

Okay, you said it. You said it. You all saw it. No, she's not a stalker. She looks fabulous. Well, what's the glam look like? Okay, she can come in. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.

I am obsessed with you. I truly genuinely feel like you're a gift to this world. I feel honored to know you. And even more honored to have had you as a guest. Thank you. Thank you so much for all you do for the world and the internet and everything in between. I feel very great. grateful for you. And I hope everyone continues to give you your flowers. Thank you. But just so in case

anyone doesn't know, where can they find you? Yeah, so I'm currently recovering from an Instagram addiction. So you can find me there, and I'm not sure if that's good for either of us, but it's at ALOK v. M-E-N-O-N-O-N-O-N. Period. And do you have anything else you would like to promote? I hope to see you on tour. I'm going to be touring all over the world with my new comedy show. Yes, please go see a loke. And it's your hour, yeah? I'm so excited for you. Oh my gosh. See another thing I got to work on catching up to you. Look at us working from opposite ends to the middle. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

I love you dearly. Thank you all for joining us on this episode. Make sure you guys go follow a loke on literally everything. Go see them on tour. They're hilarious and so inspiring and so, so, so smart. And thank you so much for joining us on this episode. Once again, don't forget new episodes of the comment section drop every Wednesday. You can stream the audio on all streaming platforms

or you can watch the video for free on our favorite platform, Spotify. Thank you so much. to a loke, my amazing guest, thank you all for joining us, and I'll see you next week. Bye!