CH.2: A COMPLETE UNKNOWN: WHAT HAPPENED TO ME IN HOLLYWOOD—AND WHY YOU HAVEN’T SEEN ME

the cost of not being able to share my work

CHAPTER 2: THE COST OF NOT BEING ABLE TO SHARE MY WORK

everything at work changed after I did one of the first interviews for the Barbie movie. Barbie was a cultural phenomenon and I think because I was a woman and was obsessed with Barbie growing up, it felt like I was given more autonomy and trust than ever in asking the questions I wanted to ask - A DREAM if you’re an Aries sun, Sagittarius rising, and Aquarius moon with a venus AND mars also in Aquarius. for those of you that don’t speak astrology, that basically means I’m made up of 3 of the most independent signs and thrive when i’m in environments where people trust me to do my thing and i’m able to follow my gut. it also means if you have a hot single brother, him and I are compatible. the Barbie interview went so well it ended up getting picked up everywhere. and all of a sudden I began to start feeling really dishonored at work because the more I felt like I was putting into these big interviews, the less I felt like I was getting back.

It became an unwritten rule that you weren’t allowed to post footage from the interview that the company was posting on social media. so many of the thoughtful questions and moments that I came up with or had gotten, I wasn’t really allowed to share on my own page. I was allowed to post moments they wouldn’t post, and had to hire a social media manager just to scrub through all my interviews and make magic out of the mundane. but going back and forth with the company trying to figure out what they were using and what I was allowed to use (and when) became a major energy suck and cost me a lot of time and money - which felt kinda worth it so that I could share a sliver of my work. eventually I just had my assistant who was already joining me on interviews, get bts footage I could post because that just seemed easier. it worked for the Barbie interview, but what I really yearned to share with people were the thoughtful questions and moments I worked hard on to craft the conversation. what made matters worse in my opinion was the fact that on the company’s channels, they would often cut out the host and the hosts’ questions completely. I didn’t “reshare” a lot of the moments they posted because it excluded a lot of my work. why would any artist or creative repost a clip of something they worked on and got cut out of lol? so a lot of what I worked on and contributed, never made it on social media. I personally felt like they wanted the views and engagement for themselves. which OF COURSE makes sense, the company has to make money, and they have a right to decide whatever they want. they employed me and owned the footage. and it’s not like I had to work there.

we just weren’t aligned in our thinking. I was of the “high-tide, lift-ship” mindset. I figured if I did well on my social media page and was constantly tagging them and linking the interview, we would both do well. what perhaps was most confounding to me is that, I was an independent contractor - so I figured, I should be able to share my work on my own page? I wasn’t a full-time employee with a company e-mail, I didn’t have a real desk, or got any health benefits. what bummed me out the most was that I went around and looked at almost every single outlet that would cover movies and get invited to junkets just to see if my company's rules were industry standard. most outlets at that time did not cut their hosts out of their clips, or if they did, it seemed as though the host was allowed to post any clip they wanted of the interview on their own personal pages. every outlet I looked up: local stations, competitors, etc. would allow their hosts to share their work. I didn’t understand my company’s policy, but of course I honored and respected company standard. like I said, it’s not like I had to work there. it just felt like a weird way to do business with the soldier going out in the field for you, u know?

and just so you know - the only reason I cared about sharing my work is because most of the other gigs I got, that I needed in order to live comfortably in LA, came from someone seeing a clip of a great moment I got during an interview on my instagram feed. It was all for my livelihood. I never cared about amassing this great following. but Hollywood started to put more emphasis on followings. especially when it came to my job. in fact, if you didn’t have a following, you wouldn’t even be considered for some of the well-paid red carpet hosting gigs in the business. I mean look at who is interviewing people on ABC during the Oscars - it’s not film junkies, or journalists, or critics, it’s people with followings. carpet gigs that I would normally get or be up for, were now being offered to influencers, and other people who had amassed big followings. so of course I was like, damn I guess I need followers so I can get paid and keep doing what I love…

there’s one clip I posted of Ryan Gosling + Margot Robbie both admiring my outfit from the Barbie junket, that ended up getting like 4M views. lol I literally don’t understand the internet…I gained a lot of followers on instagram - I went from like 50-60k to 120k in the following weeks after I posted it. allegedly, one of my co-workers said that the company “wasn’t in the business of making stars.” I, of course, actually agreed with this. I came from old school traditional - Ryan Seacrest - media. I didn’t like when any host made it about “them”. and yet here we were in a world where Gosling liking my outfit got 4M views. times had changed. what people liked and engaged with changed. And if you got moments like that and didn’t post them, well you were an idiot because you were missing out on jobs and money. and man did I have moments. even today, the more followers you have, the more you can charge when getting hired to host a live event. It’s all connected.

eventually, I felt like any privilege I had left in terms of being able to share bits and pieces of my work - like have my assistant take bts of me at interviews, or even being allowed to post footage at all - got taken away.

read chapter 3 here.

did you miss chapter 1? read it here. or listen to it here.