There Are No Girls on the Internet - The art of “Anti-influencing” - City CastDC

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

As Mr. Peanut Butter might say: “What is this, a crossover episode?”  When she isn’t hosting There Are No Girls on the Internet, Bridget is having conversations about life in her hometown Washington DC on another podcast project called City Cast DC.  This week, Bridget spoke to Jade Womack who considers herself an “anti influencer.”  Working entirely by herself, Jade built an influential online platform called ClockOutDC where she gives suggestions of events to check out in the DC area.  She doesn’t take any money or advertising dollars, so her reviews are always no BS, never bought.  For City Cast DC, Bridget and Jade discussed how she’s building an online empire as a woman of color (without losing herself in the process). City Cast DC is a daily local podcast that will help you feel more connected to the city. SUBSCRIBE TO CITY CAST DC: https://dc.citycast.fm/ It also has a sister newsletter called Hey DC. Subscribe to Hey DC: https://dc.citycast.fm/newsletter/ And City Cast has local podcasts all over the country.  Find a City Cast podcast in your city: CITYCAST.FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your

business. Call 844-844 IHeart. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. So we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS.

Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to futas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are no girls on the internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

So some of you all might know that I live in Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. And when I'm not making podcasts about technology and the Internet and what it all means here on there are no girls on the Internet, I'm also a co-host for a podcast called CityCast, D.C., alongside my friend Mike Schaefer, a columnist for Politico, where we dig into the everyday life of living in Washington, D.C. to help folks feel even more connected to this city that we love so much. And if you don't live in D.C., but you're thinking, wow, that sounds very cool. I wish they had a podcast like that in my city.

They might, because there are city cast podcasts all over the country. And I wanted to share this episode with you because even though it's about Washington, D.C., it hits a lot of the conversations that we have here on there are no girls on the internet, questions about what it means to be a visible woman of color on the internet. The good and the bad and the everything that comes with it. In this episode, we talked to Jade, the human behind the super popular DC Instagram account, Clockout DC, where Jade gives real no BS, never-bought takes about what kind of events, restaurants, and bars are worth your time or not worth your time in the DC area.

Working entirely by herself, Jade has built up a huge following and influence in DC. But, along with it, comes challenges that, as a fellow woman of color creator trying to boot strapped my way in media, I know far too well. So I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Jade for CityCast DC. And be sure to subscribe. You can go to citycast.fm to find a Citycast podcast for your city. And as always, thanks for listening. Today on CityCast DC. I'm not really an influence or cool celebrity. I am Jade Your Neighbor. Jade Romack never expected her clockout DC page to grow as quickly as it did. But here we are. She's got 70,000 followers and her Instagram stories get thousands of views per day. Sounds pretty great, right? Well, as it often is on the internet,

with that success came backlash. And Jade's here to tell us about how she navigates all of it. It's Wednesday, October 5th, 2022. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is CityCast, D.C. When we were talking about doing this interview was like, boy, do I know a little something about the things that Jade is experiencing. So really excited to be connecting. Yeah. What does it feel like to be just one single person who runs this project that you just started out to be like a fun thing that is now blown up in D.C.

And kind of taken over your life. What does that experience feel like for you? Well, the word cloud of this entire experience would probably be like wild, grateful, surprising. and scared, like all the time scared, I guess. And yeah, it's been really fun, though, I would say. You always are learning stuff. You meet so many people.

But, yeah, who knew? Who knew that this would be my pandemic hobby that just somehow, like, blew up? And I started it before the pandemic, and it just kind of just gained this momentum and steam. And here we are now, 70,000 followers later. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's got to be, does it have,

feel like a double-edged sword where it's something that you're so grateful to have built and something so happy to have in your life, but also comes with this baggage that can be a real particular experience to unpack? Oh, for sure. I think it's kind of like the snake that eats itself because, you know, it's fun that you have to share this stuff to people about things to do in events, but that means that as you grow, more people see the stuff that you share. That means that if somebody doesn't like it, the more chances of they will let you know, and the more chances of you getting bullied or quote canceled or whatever that is. So the stakes get higher as things build, I guess. That being said, the impact you can have also gets greater too. So it's hard. I've had

some really great instances where there was this woman. She was a recent Afghan evacuee, and she messaged me, and she was like, I never saw my culture until I moved to D.C. And I saw you shared an Afghan film festival, thank you for letting me find like a home in D.C. powerful, amazing. The Armed Forces retirement home emailed me frantically because they had this volunteer group pull out and I posted something asking my community like, hey, like we send Christmas cards to this like group. Does anybody want to help like volunteer at this retirement home? And 20 people from Instagram spontaneously help this retirement home and they sent me a photo. So the impact is like wild that like people are willing to like show up, do stuff, find their own community and things.

But that being said, if you share the wrong thing or people just have bad days, you can get cyber bullied and attacked very quickly and it can go very south. I am just sort of in my mind internally vigorously nodding. And something I notice about Clockout DC, you have been so successful at effectively building this platform and growing this audience that one might get the impression that you're working with a team that you got, you know, an assistant, a social media person, a PR person, but really it's mostly just a one-woman show yourself, right? It is solely a one-woman show. For example, I sold these t-shirts called Views Not a My Employer, because it's kind of like

a joke because I have a full-time job, right? And I have to ship them. And like two nights ago, I was like, okay, great. So how exactly do we print shipping labels and how exactly do I put them in both? and how am I going to drop 50 envelopes to the mailbox? And I have to get a new supplier because my first supplier won't be able to make all 100 shirts. And cool, right. So I'm not only a content creator.

Now I'm also like a little like Amazon warehouse employee. Great. And so it's like one in the morning and my dog's looking at me and I'm playing Celine Dion like with packaging tape. So yeah, it's a one woman show. Completely. And so being a one woman show, I think it creates this attitude where people feel more entitled to message, because you're so good at what you do, it gives the impression that, oh, she has a team, like, they should be on this.

And so they don't realize that, in fact, that they're messaging one person with a full-time job, you know, and so they might be like, oh, you didn't talk about this, or you talked about that in the wrong way. And it's like, well, I'm one person. So I often feel like when you're a woman, particularly a woman of color who creates something online, people feel a lot more comfortable kind of calling you out and they don't realize that like you are one person who's a human, right? You're going to make mistakes. You're going to miss things. I think it goes both ways, right? That as a person of color is a sole entrepreneur

people who harp on because you're an oppressed person, you should know better about how this affects us and we would expect better of you to be able to learn quicker and to do better. I think that is the onus. Like white girl, Jessica or whatever. we can just call this person, right? She should learn better because she should have read, like, some anti-racist book, but, you know, like, you should know better because inherently, like, you've been oppressed before and we expect this from you. I think that's where the burden is more on.

I agree. I agree. Yeah. And I also think there's just something about being a solo woman of color, creative entrepreneur based in D.C. that I definitely feel because, like, I rep D.C., my Instagram handles, et cetera, et cetera, all like in D.C., D.C., D.C., D.C. I think that D.C. is such a particular kind of city because we are really plugged in,

for the most part, to, like, political and social conversations. And so even if you just started this project to be, you know, fun things to do around the city, there is an expectation that you will be so plugged into what's going on in so many different socio-political communities. I almost feel like it creates an impossible expectation because no one person can be plugged into you know, every cultural and political and social community and happening citywide. Yeah, no, completely. I 100% agree.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Like, there are so many causes to support. And everything is also so nuanced, too. And so many events and things to do also share different purposes as well and spaces for them, too. I personally won't share spaces where I wouldn't feel comfortable going to that event or I don't like those people. I'm not going to share that event.

That's different than me being like, I don't believe in this cause or whatever or something like that. I think that's a little bit different, and I personally am not comfortable with certain things and making that judgment call, and I hope people aren't looking towards me to make that call for them. Yeah, I think that's an important line to keep

of like, I am not your conscious. Like, I'm telling you fun things to do in the city. Don't look to me to be your, like, moral arbiter of what causes you should. should or should not support or champion, that's not what I'm doing here. I'm doing something different. I think maybe it's partially because of like the algorithm, and I know everyone says this word in the sky, like the algorithm. But because we're so used to seeing things that we like all the time, if we see something we don't like, they just go full-fledged into like attack mode on the internet.

That's, I think this is a common thing. And then the second thing, too, is that, like, on the internet, there's a lot of, like, black and white. And people don't really have a lot of patience for nuance on the internet. Yeah, that is definitely, I mean, this is something I know far too much about, but that's definitely a true thing that algorithms and platforms are biased toward polarized ways of seeing things and compartmentalized ways of seeing things. And so social media platforms are not set up to honor nuance or humor or, you know, context and things like that. It's better at flattening those things out and taking those conversations out of context, I guess I'll say. Yeah. For sure. I will say just going back, the more generally speaking, I was kind of surprised at how far I've grown for somebody who decided not to do ads.

Why? What drove this decision? What drove this decision? So I actually started the entire page because I was, I don't know how much you know about my backstory about this entire page. It was never like, I'm going to one day wake up and be the anti-influencer. I was bartending Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays. And I found that like the Tuesday night section of, the Washington Post or the Washingtonian stuff. It didn't really have a lot that I was interested in. So I would start looking for my own events list. So I would just kind of start coming up with lists of things to do. And then I would send up this email to my friends, which then I eventually made into an Instagram. And that's what started this entire endeavor.

But because I came from this as like, I'm looking for things to do now I want to give people like an authentic review because they probably only have limited time and money like I do. And they should have a real expectation. going in. I'm so grateful that's where you landed because I have been burned on exactly what you were just talking about, the sort of cottage industry of influencer marketing where I have been burned on sponsored social media ads that make certain immersive artistic experiences in the city look dope. And I'm like, oh my God, like, this looks amazing. I got to go. And so then you buy the

ticket and you're like, well, it's a little pricey, but all right. Then you get there and you're like, oh, it's just an Instagram photo opportunity. It wasn't really a really good event. And so your page is just so different because it allows for a little honesty to be injected into the conversation. No, exactly. And like I think at this point, all the PR people and all the restaurant owners, we have a good repertoire where they know that if they invite me to an event, sometimes before there used to be kind of this disclaimer. Like, if we give you free tickets, there is an expectation that you'll have an Instagram post and three videos. or something in exchange for these comp tickets.

And I will always reply back, sorry, I don't do exchanges like this. I will go as a media preview and I'll give my fair, honest opinion, but I will not do some exchange for tickets or I would rather just go and pay the full price with my friends at a later date. So I think, but I kind of just started the page on that premise. So I didn't realize, though, that people would really support that kind of a model and that it would grow so big under that premise and it has. So I think that's really nice to know.

That's what people want in D.C. Yeah, because as you said, in D.C., we work a lot. We might be working a side job or a side hustle or a passion. We don't really have a lot of time for whack events. We don't really have a lot of time to show up and be like, oh, I kind of got snookered into this event that wasn't good because somebody online got free ticket somewhere and convinced me to spend my money,

which is limited to show up and go. That's always been kind of the biggest premise is the pay to play. No pay to play and no sponsor content. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with. Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcast. Call 844-844-I-heart to get started. That's 844-8-4-8-4-I-heart.

Hey, I'm Jared Adano. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than me. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. And recently, I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite,

I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Sike, I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice.

One ring is too scary. Oh, cream a chicken suit. Hey, cream a chicken suit. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one

hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a perimenopausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with Deanna Maria Riva, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess. happening on my own. I was like, what the hell is that? I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that Ness was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How can it be getting naked at 50 with a new guy? That one's kind of hard. Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt

with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter, and dive into it unfiltered and unbothered and Ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of my Cultur Podcast Network available on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Yeah, so I know that you took a break from the project this summer. What prompted that break?

I was just getting very burnt out. I don't think people realized for a period of time, I was probably, I was responding to about, I want to say, between 200 to 3. 300 DMs a day because I don't know. I was like people fan girl like you're famous. I'm like, no, like I'm your neighbor and like we go grocery shopping at the same store. So I just sort of started just DMing a lot of people back. And then I just realized the point was like, you know what? As this page grows, like when it was a page of a thousand people and I had 50 DMs, that's a lot different now when you're a page of 70,000 people and you have 300 DMs. I think one day when I COVID in December, I responded to about 800 DMs in a day. That was the most DMs I responded. So if you think about one DM takes about one one minute to. respond to, you can imagine the amount of screen time I would have. And it just started to become very unsustainable, both to DM all these people back, to both go to events, to reply, to find stuff, to write the newsletter, to work on Washingtonian, on top of Roby Wade was happening, Ukraine was happening. You know, there's so many things, right? And so every time there's an event,

every time there's something terrible that happens, you share something, people get mad, you don't share something else, they get mad at you, they emotionally dump on you, they yell at you. So it was just reaching a port where I was just getting very burnt out. And I also would just get awful DMs sometimes in the middle of the night. You know, you're terrible, you're ugly. You should go die. Like, you know, it was just like, I want to delete my Instagram. And then I just took the time to like really refocus on my friends and like my family and like my work life and all these other aspects.

And in June, I think I also gained like 20,000 followers. And so I think that was also part of it where you go, everybody dreams about going viral. But it's actually awful. It's just like literally, it's just thinking of a tidal wave. And I'm like, ah, like all these people, like, and like crazy chaos. Like, too much, too much. Yeah, I always say we're not meant to have access to strangers' opinions about us in that way. Like a wave of tens of thousands of people at one time sharing their opinion about you.

Humans are not, our brains are not designed to absorb that experience in a healthy way. Yeah, I, so Nat's part. has 41,000 people. That's the capacity. And I remember I was there for like Lady Gaga and Bad Bunny. And I looked around and I was like, there are more people that follow my Instagram than are currently at this concert. And like the conceptualized that is wild.

And like I remember one day there were like 15,000 people that looked at my Instagram story. And one week when I talked about the. hip-hop party that the African-American Museum was hosting, my reach was one million on my Instagram analytics. That is wild. I mean, it really goes to show the sort of what you were saying, that double-edged sort of this platform, how it's the impact of that. And the fact that you were able to curate that yourself and build that yourself is amazing.

But also, that's a lot of people. That's a lot of people who all have their expectations and their versions of you in their head that they feel that you need to be accountable to you. Yeah. So now that you're back in action after your break, what are you doing differently this time around to make sure that you feel, like that you can approach this work from a good place?

Yeah, so I kind of made this large statement about, I'm not your enemy. Like, I don't want to be your enemy. If you have a problem, email me and we will get coffee. That's kind of, this has always been my house rules, like with anyone. The second thing is emailing me. I think that email allows for more breathing room.

I think DMs have more of this, like, automatically you need to respond to. And also, I think that kind of creates kind of like what things are DM worthy versus email worthy. Less people have been DMing me. I think only like 10 people have DM to me in a week. So just trying to limit some of those ways public facing interacting. And also doing more events. So if people really want to hang out, Like, there are places we can go and do that in real life.

Yeah. Here's to creating the conditions for savoring your real life while also being intentional about your online life. Yeah, for sure. Jade, where can folks, I mean, at this point, who's not following Clockout D.C., but just in case you're the one person listening who's not following, how can folks follow Clockout D.C.?

It's at Clockout D.C. on Instagram. 5 in 100 people in Washington, D.C., follow Clockout D.C. These stats. Every time you say one of these stats, I'm like, oh my God, that's so many people. Wow. Well, it's a testament to what you've been able to build. Thank you so much for being here, Jade.

It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. That's all for today here on CityCast, D.C. Be sure to subscribe to Clockout D.C. And while you're there, check out our page too. We're at Citycast underscore D.C. And that's also our handle on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you.

We'll be back tomorrow morning. with even more news from around the city. Talk to you then. But yeah, being on the internet, man, I never knew what Reddit was until like two years ago. And I'm like, oh, has it improved my life? I don't know. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS. Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to futas to scheduling sacks. Wait, what sex?

Is it just me or does every woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventures, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats.

So we, too, can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprise. of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my

greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was crying. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Mark keep coming to you.

He's like, you know, I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.