June 2, 2022 • 50 mins
Happy Pride! This week Psyche and Jess Brohard are joined by writer, producer, host, and all around culture expert Joelle Monique. Joelle shares her many successes and learning moments along the way to where she is now and the excitement around her newest project with iHeartRadio, Comic Con Meta Pod!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Ah, it's a Monday. It is such a Monday today,
one of those days. Like the weather here sucks. It
was beautiful all weekend and then as soon as Monday hits,
it's just like grey. And that happened here too. You know,
I was fine. I was streaming earlier to day. I
welcome to the kitchen to make coffee, and I swear
the heavens opened and it just ORed. I was like, oh, well,
(00:25):
welcome to Boss Level, a podcast where we feature conversations
with guests who have leveled up bringing an XP boost
to the table. JAS is so good to be recording
with you again. How are you doing. I'm good. It's
good to be recording with you as well. I feel
like I finally been doing like a lot of these episodes.
I feel like, you know, I kind of had this
like absence as I started my new job, and I,
you know, the other three of you kind of took
(00:47):
over hosting duties and now I'm back and it's just
been one after another, which is awesome because I've gotten
to meet so many awesome people, so many awesome guests,
such as our guest today Joel Monique. Hi, how are
you Hi? I'm good. I'm a little jealous because it's
not raining here in l A. I love the rain.
(01:07):
Every time it rains is like a small holiday. That's funny.
You're living in the wrong place if you love the rain. Yeah,
but I hate the snow, so like it balances at
our ends pretty great. We rain all the time. We
never get sunshine though, so that's kind of like the
trade off that you have to do just right and
read books all the time. It sounds magical. Yeah, that
(01:29):
sounds like a nice life. Well, Joel, I know you
do a ton of awesome things you work for. I
heart and you. I mean, you've done so much other
stuff as well for BBC um Playboy. Definitely gonna ask
you some stuff about that. But if you had to
kind of introduce yourself, or if you were, you know,
giving an elevator pitch, or what would you want our
(01:50):
guests to know about you? Oh my goodness. Uh, I
am a nerd who found her way into I'll at
the news of work via fandom. I feel like that's
the cornerstone of my work is uh, all things Marvel.
I'm a huge Batman stand. I love the Star Wars
(02:11):
and the Trek. I don't get down with twenty four,
but I could have I'm sorry lost, but I can
have conversations about Lost, less conversations about Yeah, writer, producer
host today. That's a wide range though, it's awesome. Yeah,
it's it keeps you busy, So I guess I would
(02:34):
really like to know your currently the executive producer at
my Heart. You've also provided your own you were talking
about being a nerd you provided your own expertise on
was it? Let me see if I get this right? Nerdificent?
Is that how you would say that? Yes, it's a
producer for Nerdificent with Danny Fernandez and if you we anyway,
and now you are you have your own show as well.
(02:55):
Could you tell us a little bit about that. Yes,
it's called Comic con metapod. It is a convention, a
pop culture convention for your ears. Every single week was
hosted by myself and a good friend, Hector Navarro, who
is King of Nerds. That guy literally has a DVD
and comic book a library that you can loan books
out to two friends. Um, it's the coolest thing ever.
(03:20):
I really, I really love Hector. We once tried to
watch like a huge block of UM. The first arc
of Marvel Movies together and the whole time he was
just behind the scenes commentary, and that was the moment
I was like, listen, that I have to work with him.
And that's been the goal for the past four years.
(03:40):
And so when this opportunity came up, l A comic
con and I Heart teamed up. They knew they wanted
to do a podcast. I had previously pitched a convention
style podcast, so they put me in charge of it,
and I got really lucky they let me work with
Hector and so it's so much fun. We've had really
great guests, like Giancarlo Esposit came on and cried. He
tell us about how much he loves like fan interactions
(04:01):
and how important they are to him as a creator.
He also talks about manifesting, which if you're into manifesting,
hearing somebody who's made it that far, who really believes
in like doing the work of like positive energy and
networking and building in a way that's you know, more
spiritually leaning. It's really cool. I loved that conversation um
with Christy Carlson Romano and will Ferdell oh Yes from
(04:26):
boy Meat's World, which was crazy. We only talked about
it for maybe four minutes. I didn't get into the
Mr Fini of at all because I was not allowed
to go full fan girl. We did talk a lot
about Star Wars and like they love conventions. They have
a new podcast. We talked about that. We had phase
on On and Steph Green where they were supposed to
do a debate, like a fan debate, but they got
(04:48):
they like each other so much they couldn't debate each other,
and so they just started like giving each other answers
and all is so cute and very very funny, and
that's kind of, you know, the angle of the show.
It's like to have some fun people and if you're
a comic book nerd, we also actually go to conventions
and record with artists and writers and do these very
in depth sort of looks at their careers. And that's
(05:11):
a lot of fun. So you know, sometimes if you
miss a convention, you might actually hear it on the show.
And we're probably trying to bring in those local conventions
that have like a really good like community around them,
but maybe are smaller and less known and give some
access and some shine to those guys. So that's comic
con metapod in a in a nutshell. That's really cool.
Thank you for giving us an intro to it. That's
(05:32):
really awesome. Yeah, thank you guys. I'm so excited about it.
I just want more people to uh listen to it
and give us feedback. Like I said, I'm a person
who loves the fandom side of things, so when we
get fans coming in. We did as a segment with
will and Christie where we asked people for their children's
drawings and we had Will and Christie give voice to
the characters so that when the episode comes out, the
(05:54):
kids can look at their drawing and actually have a
voice by professional voice actors. So I really love that segment.
I stole it from Willen Christy's show, stealing this from
you guys. They're like, do it it's flatteryls like perfect,
that's awesome. Um. In gaming, we talked about like the
boss level being you know, the kind of milestone moment
or like the challenge that you've hit and you've overcome. So, um,
(06:17):
what would you say boss level means to you and
your career? Like have you had like that milestone moment?
Have you had a few milestone moments? Man? Uh, yeah,
so many. I feel like I'm constantly counting him. I'm
in a lot of therapy, so we're kind of always
looking back and going over what happened and how did
we get here. I think a major one for me was, um,
(06:39):
I crashed my car when I was working nineteen hour
days as a p A. I fell asleep behind the wheel.
It was very scary. I could have hurt someone that
was writening. Nobody was hurt, thank god. I could have
hurt myself. But I had been like working so hard
for this dream. You know, since I was really little,
I wanted to be in entertainment. You know, at first
I thought it was an actress, and then I had
an acting coach who was I really think, you're a director.
(07:01):
And from directing, I went to writing, and then I
was producing and I loved all sides of it and
I found all that a lot of fun. But the
only way I knew how to get in without a
direct line of connections and asterix that I'll talk about
the other thing in a second, was to be a
p A. And so I got hired to p A
and I ran into a lot of racism, a lot
of sexism, a ton of able is m It just
(07:23):
wasn't working. Um, and I was burning myself into the ground,
and I couldn't figure out why. They couldn't figure out
not only why was I exerting all this energy, but
also you know, why couldn't I get ahead? You know,
I know I've directed movies, I've gone to con Film
Festival and presented there. Why am I still stuck here
as a p A in my mid twenties with a degree.
(07:46):
It was just very confusing to me. So I pivoted
out of that. I was able to find some connections
to do the other route, which is to be an assistant.
You guys, I have a d D. I wasn't diagnosed
until I was thirty. Terrible assistant got off. Assistant like
(08:06):
can't keep tracking your phone calls, don't know where things are,
like bad, bad, bad, And so it was I was like,
I'm never going to get in because I can't. I
don't have enough money to be producing my own things.
I don't have enough money to sponsor a career or
to try to do something like, oh maybe I'll work
part time and supplement Um. A d D caused me
to be a very terrible driver, couldn't be that for like,
(08:26):
everything was falling apart, and I felt, uh a little
bit crazy, um, And I wasn't sure what had happened
between like junior high school, where I was a very
good student and focus to this point in my career
where I, you know, I was pushing eight or nine
years of working in the industry with almost nothing to
show for it. And then I met, um, somewhere in
(08:47):
between all of that chaos, I met a girl. Her
name is Tiana Hobbs, amazing, amazing producer, well connected l
A person. I think her uncle was like an La
Laker or something like. She's one of those l A
girls where you're like, Okay, you know everybody because you've
been here your whole life. Um. And she introduced me
to a network called after Buzz TV I think would
be probably the next big milestone. And after Buzz is
(09:09):
a YouTube channel that would review television and films and
eventually comic books and all kinds of things. But the
cool thing about it was they had a studio where
you would watch a show talk amongst a panel of
like four people, and then immediately go into record with
a live audience right after. So again, fandom was totally
at my alley. I was like, we can geek out
(09:31):
about I don't know, Riverdale together or Gotham when that
was on. These TV shows that had you know, Reverdale
had a huge audience when it premiere. By some of
the shows, I did small audience, but dedicated audience. So
you're in a chat room broadcasting live to YouTube. I
would do three to five shows a night, sometimes five
nights a week. I was dedicated because it was the
(09:51):
most fun I was having and I was I could
feel myself building up a skill, so there was like
a lot of reward in that. And that's how I
got into podcast. I just sort of there. From there,
I became a researcher and a critic. You know, I
was reviewing so much and people found out I could write,
and they will will came right for us, and that's
(10:11):
went off into the reporter room, Playboy and a bunch
of other places, and that's sort of how I landed
up here at my heart. So I think those were
probably the main thing. All failures, I would say, are
all my all of my milestones are marked by like
extreme failure that I then't had to like kill a
part of myself and be reborn and come back and
(10:32):
try to be better. I feel like I connect with
that so much, and like, I really just want to
thank you for your like refreshing sort of explanation of
your journey, because I have had many like failures in
my career, in my life, and they've all led me
to bigger and better things that at the time I
didn't know we're coming. But it just feels like there's
(10:53):
such this culture of like, you know, you have to
tell everyone only the good stuff. You have to be
happy all the time time. You know, if you have
a failure, you've got to spin it in a way
where it's and you know, and I just it's so
refreshing to hear you, like openly, honestly talk about, like
you know, your struggles or your failures before something that
was better for you came along, because that, I mean,
(11:14):
that's happened to me numerous times starting my career and
now I'm in a very good place. But I mean, life,
like everything is cyclical, um, but it's so interesting to
see you, like, you know, have this wonderful career at
my heart. And also one thing I want to ask
about is, you know, what is it like now to
be have us like interviewing you when I feel like
you're probably on the other side of things. Typically, you know,
you're you're producing the podcast, you're the one hosting and interviewing.
(11:35):
Now here here you are in a guest. What does
that feel like? Uh, it's interesting. I feel like I
don't know, it's strange. I do a lot of panels,
and a lot of times panels were like how do
I do hosting? And so on? That side of IL
can constantly be interviewed with, like by fans who are like,
how do I do this YouTube thing? Um? Or you know,
how did you get people to take your writing seriously
(11:57):
or whatever? Um? But then this sort of feels just
like podcasting. It's nice. I I really like being asked
my opinion. It's the have lots of thoughts and no
problem sharing them, very little filters, so so it's a
good time. And you know, just to touch on the
failure thing really quick, I would just say I used
to really let it beat me up a failure like
I would I feel like, oh now I have to stop.
(12:19):
I don't know what I'm doing. Everyone's better, I'm not
going to get any better. Like failure used to be
a huge like controller of my life. But to your point,
it's it's a requirement, and I feel like if you
don't treat it like one, then we can't navigate it well,
you know, because you're constantly trying to avoid failure. I
think a lot of times people don't try, or they're
(12:40):
trying safely, which doesn't usually net big rewards. Um, you
should embrace your failures, listeners, if you're not there yet
in your journey, embrace them in a huge way because honestly,
it's just learning and learning. It's just a series of
failures until you know what you're doing. Um. So yeah,
I I try now try evolutionary process, but I try
(13:01):
to really embrace them when they come. It's really hard.
I feel like some of the times in my career
where I've been the most comfortable and the happiest have
been when I've been an environment where I feel like
failure is treated as, like you say, like a learning opportunity.
They're encouraged to fail, you're encouraged to make mistakes as
long as their mistakes that you can learn from an
iterate on. That's a good thing and it's super super healthy,
(13:24):
and that's been some of my favorite experiences have been,
like being in an environment where that kind of thing
is encouraged, because yeah, I think sometimes you can be
in an environment where you're you're scared to fail. But
especially if you're in a position like we talk a
lot about content creation and stuff, if you're in a
position where you're kind of like your own boss, um,
allow yourself to fail a little bit. And again because
(13:46):
you need to take that risk to be able to
know what's going to work and what isn't. Right. Yeah, definitely, really, really,
it's going to happen anyway, Like the exactly avoid it.
It's it's that there's no way around it. You will fail,
Like you have to come two terms with it and
figure out how to just live in that in the
same way that you have to sort of live and
come to terms of like everyone's gonna like you or
(14:06):
like what you do. Someone the other day told me
my voice was unpleasant when I get excited, I and
I will be honest. It destroyed me a little. I
was like, what does that mean? I can't I've been
told my whole life I have to slow down when
I talk because people don't understand me. That's a note
I can take. I'm very okay. You know, I as
(14:28):
an actor for twelve years, I'm totally fine with like criticism. Um,
I don't always take it with a smile on my face,
but I will listen. I can't change how my voice
comes out of my body. I could do some pitch
exercises and maybe lower it a little bit, but that
feels like sexism. And if you don't like my voice,
that's a you problem, not a me problem. And so
to bring it to my doorstep, partarily from someone I trusted,
(14:51):
it was just it was wild. It was a very
kind of thing. But all of that to say, like
I think, as much as it still is a struggle
to except these these things are going to happen, that
you'renna failure, that people aren't gonna like you, you know,
hopefully you can look back and mark can go. I
handled that much better than I would have, which is
where I got to at the end of that journey,
(15:12):
was like there was a time that would have been
like seven days down, seven days questioning if this should
be my career. I would have taken it seriously for
so long instead of the two or three hours that afternoon,
and then doing my self care routine and getting back
on my feet and getting back to work. Like so, yeah,
small improvements, failures will happen, You'll be okay. It's funny
(15:32):
you mentioned the voice thing because one of the most
bizarre criticisms. But it was really just kind of an
insult that I ever received with someone said that, Um,
when I'm talking, I saw like I'm talking with a
mouthful of peanut butter. I have no idea what that means,
but it's one coach that's never had any success. That's
what that sounds like to me. Your addiction doesn't come
(15:55):
out tripping lee on the tongue. The Bard wouldn't like it,
and I don't like it either. Get out of that's ridiculous.
It was such a random thing, and I was like, Okay,
what am I supposed to do with that information? Like
that's just the Yeah, that's nothing you can do that.
And that's the tough thing though about doing any sort
of like I mean, that's the thing about the Internet
these days is it's like there's so much noise out
(16:16):
there and like kind of Joel, like you were saying,
you know, likes technically some feedback, you could do something
about like if it's like maybe I could go to
voice coaching and pitch up a voice out like yeah,
I know you're not going to or whatever, but it's like, okay,
technically maybe I could, versus there's other stuff that it's
like what am I supposed to do about that? And
how do you separate like what could actually be valuable
(16:38):
feedback versus someone who just doesn't like you, And if
they don't like you, like, that's not really your business
to change their mind. You're not that's not your job.
You shouldn't have to do that. But again, it's like,
you know, how do you know? How do you know
what's valid feedback versus what isn't? It all gets so
you know, you run the risk of like what I
used to do is like I would just any like
(16:58):
any time there was any sort of feedback, I just
didn't like it. I just didn't like hearing it, you know,
So I just wouldn't listen to anything, even if it
was valid feedback, I in my mind would like conflated
with all of this other like stupid criticism that I
would get that like I can't do anything about you know,
you got to protect yourself and that's that's the first
defense mechanism is like, I got a lot of bad,
very mean, cruel not advice things, you know, cast in
(17:22):
the light of advice that we're really um just insults.
Yeah I don't like your voice. Okay, yeah, that's not
I think. I think you have to take it from
to to viewpoints. Right. So the first is who's giving
this advice? This is a person worthy of my trust,
you know, as somebody who's invested a lot of time
in my career or in you know, this thing that
(17:46):
I'm talking about. Do they have a knowledge to be
giving me advice in the first place. Now, that doesn't
mean you're only looking to experts. A friend might know
you really well. Uh, someone may watch a lot of
what you're doing and have But just consider who is
this person? And then the thing is does this advice
apply to me? I don't think there's like a great
success story. You know, we as a human race, or
(18:06):
at least i'll say in Western culture from what I'm
familiar with, we love a first We love a groundbreaker.
We're like, how did they do that? And they were
the first one and no one said it before them.
And if you look at any of those guys stories.
Inevitably someone will say you're crazy. Either you can't do it,
it's impossible, give up like it's a very key point
(18:26):
in the biographic films of these people every single time.
So I think you have to stop and consider. Okay,
this just might not be advice. Dream Maybe that is
the quote correct thing to do, but it's not my journey,
and my dreaming might leave me somewhere completely new and amazing.
I might be the first you don't know, I'm trying
a thing that works for me. I would also say, um,
(18:49):
if it's a piece of advice you're unsure about, you
can always try it, you know, and writing when you
get know. So I say, just try try the note,
see how it feels. Does that not work for the
character or for you? Do you not like it? Okay,
throw it out. You don't have to take every piece
of advice you're given. Um, But those two things I
think will save you a lot of heartache. If you're like,
this person shouldn't be talking to me in the first place,
(19:11):
or this advice doesn't suit me, you can move around
it pretty quickly. I once heard a very wise quote,
never take I think it was never take criticism from
someone you wouldn't take advice from, And I thought, like, oh,
that's really good. And I think for a while, just
now I was kind of conflating the terms advice and criticism,
(19:33):
But like, I think that's such that's so great because
there are certain people who I would actively go to
for advice on like certain parts of my life. And
it's like if one of them had like criticism for me,
then I would know it meant like it was coming
from the right place, and I would be something I
would actually want to listen to, versus like some troll
on the internet is someone where like someone who I've
never met, Well, I wouldn't go to that person for advice.
(19:55):
Maybe they're a great person, maybe they're not, but I
don't know them. I'm not going to them for advice.
So also I would listen to their criticis is m
Yeah completely fair? That yeah? Yeah, Well anyway, I'm going
to drop that very poignant quote and then I think
it's going to be a time for us to take
a little break, so we will be right back with
more boss levels. Welcome back to the boss Level. I'm
(20:18):
just bro hard and joined by Psyche and our guest
today is Joel Monique. We were just talking about some
career advice, or not really career advice. We're kind of
talking about how to how to take advice. But I
guess let's flip it around, Joel, do you have any
advice that you would like to pass on to listeners
for maybe not necessarily like anything really anything anything to
(20:42):
do with your career? Again, I know you've done so
many different things, and that's I mean, that's one thing
that I always really enjoy seeing a lot of our
guests do a ton of different Like I've warn a
lot of different hats in my career, most of our
guests do, and I think that brings forth like a
really wide array of knowledge because then instead of necessarily
not that it's a bad thing to like specialized in
(21:02):
any one area, but especially these days, I feel like
it's so valuable to have like such a wide array
of things that you can do and things that you
have done. So with all this experience do you have
that you have do you have any advice for listeners?
I do UM. I sit on my Heart's Union board
UM and I recently did a call for them with
(21:24):
a bunch of others aspiring writers were talking about you know,
what does meet me part of the union? What are
things you can expect as a writer? How can you exported? Etcetera, etcetera.
And one of the things that kept coming up with
people are like how do I get to They're like,
that guy is making X amount of dollars. I want
to be there. How do I get an agent? Okay um?
(21:47):
I was in this industry for twelve years before I
got an agent, and it was literally my friend was
just like, hey, do you want my agent to be
your agent? And I was like, your agents pretty good?
Just like yes, that was the s There was no
secret other than someone knew me, had a little bit
of knowledge of my work and made a direct recommendation.
I have tried writing letters, improving scripts, like everything you
(22:09):
can think of, and I could not get noticed. And
one of the things I think I've learned most importantly
on my journey is like looking up is detrimental to
your climb. You want to look to your left and
your right, who's at your same level? What are they
doing and how can you work with them? Or how
can you improve upon what they're doing? Or how can
(22:30):
you guys help like promote each other's shows, or you know,
do they have a script and you're a director. You know,
maybe they have a ton of beauty products you've never tried.
And you guys are both makeup influencers. Do you want
to like switch? Do you guys want to do a
video where you're talking about the pros and cons? Like?
Working with the people at your level is to me,
(22:50):
the fastest way to exceed because you're all meeting different people,
you're all at about the same skill level. Most likely
you're about the same financial situation. So understand where you're
coming from and how you're going to be working. And
as they're getting success, the first person they're going to
think of is someone they've already worked with, someone they
can trust, someone who knows how they work. It has
(23:12):
been the god's end of my life to have a
large peer group of professionals that I can trust, that
I call friends that are also co workers you know
that has been and co workers I work with daily
and coworkers in that were the same field, and I
can go to them and say, girl, I don't know
how to do this thing. It doesn't make sense or
(23:34):
you know, I wasn't raised to work in corporate America.
You know, I was treamed as a kid like this
is how you answer phones, this is how you do
a job interview, which Corporate America cares about almost none
of that. It's crazy. They tell you that it's important
on your way up, but once you're in, what they
really want to do is like, how do you order
like a fancy launch? How do you um negotiate this contract?
(23:56):
And one of these big lely's words mean how much
should you be asking for? I was listening to a
podcast the other day where they were talking about getting
paid to perform in their first television show that will
pay five thousand an episode, and me I was like,
that's amazing. Five k. I've never that's tars I've never
made that much money in my life. And friends had
(24:18):
to come and be like, bro, that's a rip off
and you have to go back and ask for more.
Don't ever work for that little There's all these things
that you don't know. You don't know until you're confronted
with them. Having a group of people who are at
about same level invested, doing the same thing can help
you out immensely. If you find yourself in a position
to be under you know, the gods or kings and
(24:41):
queens of your industry and you're learning from them. That's
really beautiful and you should definitely take notes in and
you know, do your best to be noticed and be
successful there, but really take care of your peers, really
look at your left and right, and and I promise
you you'll get further and further in your career. I
really value the idea of like looking up can actually
(25:03):
negatively impact your climb. I like that idea because that
is so important. It's something that can be applied to
so many different industries. It can be applied in content
creation again, something that I'm obviously like deeply embedded in
right now. Um, it can be really really hard because
you look at people who are you know, perceived as
being above you and not necessarily looking at the people
(25:24):
who are at the same kind of stage as you.
And there are so many people that are around the
same kind of stage you are in in their journey
and in their growth that you could learn from and
that you could make connections with, and that those things
are really super valuable. And I think a lot of
the time people maybe lose sight of that because, like
you say, they're looking up rather than looking to their
left and right, and that's really really important. Yeah, I
(25:46):
would say, especially for somebody who has a neuro divergent condition.
Like any time I got in front of folks, it
was hard for them to take me seriously because I
wasn't a professional level assistant. I wasn't a professional level
p A. And so the assumption is you can't move
past that. So now that I'm in a position of power,
I work really hard to bring in diverse people's whether
(26:08):
that's you know, from a disabled or l g B,
t q I A or racially diverse who mostly don't
have these skills already. As a way of sort of
I guess it feels a little bit like justice for
younger me UM to be like, these people are very
serious and they care and they're hard workers, but they're
going to need extra guidance up front so that they
(26:29):
can catch up to the lessons that you know, some
people have had the fortune of growing up with UM.
It takes it's a lot more work, you know, for
me the boss, for them as individuals trying to bridge
that gap. You know, because you are still now in
professional capacity and need you have to you know, you
do have to know these things. Um, but when you
(26:51):
have people who, as we were speaking about earlier, have
some grace for you can be patient with, you can
see through the difficult times. It's just it makes for
a world of difference. I think it's it's the thing
that makes me love my current job is. You know,
I have a boss who if I'm having an issue
and go to him with anything, anything at all, and
(27:11):
he's not afraid of any kind of emotion or issue,
whatever it is, there's going to be a way to
resolve it and keep pushing forward. And I think that's
sort of my ideal work situation is like, oh there's
a problem, Okay, how do we fix it? We gotta
fix great, go out and be great, do great things. Um,
that's sort of very loose and easy. We're not going
(27:32):
to yell or get too upset. We're not going to
blame or point fingers, which is my least favorite thing
in the world. But oh well, if you had gotten
it to me two days earlier, what does that matter.
We can't go back and fix it. We can only
move forward and try to make adjustments and hopefully it
doesn't happen again. But I think you know a lot
of my jobs before this one where I was working
(27:52):
under a lot of perfectionists or people who had an
ideal of perfection or who wanted you know, and maybe
rightly so sometimes wanted very like highly organized brain, high
functioning folks, which I was not. So Um yeah, I
think I think what's been most helpful to me is
like accepting I'm not that person and then trying to
make avenues for people who are also like that. So
(28:15):
hopefully our industry can become more inclusive in that way.
We have reached a safe point and we're going to
take a super short ad break. Thanks everybody, see you seeing.
Welcome back to boss level everyone. I am Psyche and
I'm here with Jas Brohard and our wonderful guests this week.
Joel Monique. So, one of the things that you did
(28:38):
while working at Black Girl Nerds was shining a light
on positive improvements within like the TV and film industry. Um,
what was Why was that important to you and how
did you do that? Can you talk a little bit
about all of that? Oh man, Uh yeah, VTM is
such a wild trip. That's the job I got off
of Twitter where they were like right, and I was
(29:01):
like yes, and They're like, great, here's assignments go, and
that wanted taking me to like London to cover the
premier of Justice League. It took me, um to south
By Southwest, where I one of my first my second
solo trip ever, but my first you know, intercontinental down
to Texas trip where I got my first set to
Like that job just opened so many doors. And while
(29:23):
I was there, you know, I was heaving on Twitter.
We were in the Trump era, like approaching, and then
in it we were, um, we were dealing a lot
as especially as a black culture, of being seen for
the first time in different spaces, particularly on film and television.
We were seeing the rise of people like Barry Jenkins
(29:45):
and Ava du Verne too, you know, from festival circuits
to the main eye. And I think that's sort of
what I was clinging to because Ava Duverne was the
thing that got me to move to l A. She
has this great speech that she gave it film into
and it called the Code of Desperation speech. If I
ever feel bad for myself, I played that speech and
I get over that ship real quick. Um, And basically
(30:08):
her whole speech was just if you're desperate, nobody wants you,
which is an unfortunate thing to hear, and it felt
really mean. The first time I heard it, I was like,
that is so cruel and thoughtless, Like if you're desperate
like you do, how are supposed to do anything? Like
it's so frustrating, you don't know you're not broke. It
was my initial thought line, but then it became you know,
(30:29):
what are you gonna do about it? You know, people
can only help you so much, and I think a
lot of times it was going to people who I
felt had already made it, and I was like, give
me the secrets so I can skip this horrible phase.
But the horrible phase was you have to learn your skills,
and you have to learn what you're good at. You
have to learn what you're not good at. And so
being sort of obsessed with Eva in that way and
(30:51):
watching her career blossom, you know she it's a very
talented writer, director. But then she went on to produce Array,
which is a distribution film company, and they go to
film festivals and they pick up unique black cinema that
most people aren't looking at. And then they made it
deal with Netflix, so now it's broadcast across the globe.
(31:12):
Work like that is so freaking inspiring, Like she is
finding the next generation of black great filmmakers and not
asking anyone permission. She's not asking people to look, She's
putting it out there so people can have access to it.
And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to
highlight black creatives that we're doing great things already. I
think so much of Like at least when I was
coming up, if you were black, they were like, oh, well,
(31:34):
do you know how to fill out of resumes? Like yes, bitch,
get out of here, what are you talking about. I
have the skills, I don't have the access. Access is
what we need, not not skills, training, not that. Like
those things are great, and I think they should stay
in place. And I don't have a problem with programs
like that because some people do need access to them,
but there's a large community of people who literally just
need access. They have all of your basic skills, they
(31:54):
need to learn some of the advanced skills, and they
need to get in the door to try these things out. Um,
And so I wanted to highlight the people that were
doing that or had the opportunities. And we're telling great
stories and I want I wanted to connect to people
to the stories that they might love. You know, I
really really love you know, putting the right book in
the right person's hand at the right time. That gosh,
(32:17):
there's a better rush than that, I don't think. So
I think there are lessons in here and it will
feel like it's written directly for you. Please check it out. Um,
that's the best for me. And so yeah, that was
sort of my my time at big En. So while
we're talking about your past experiences, I have to ask
about writing Playboy. Um, like I said, I just think, like,
(32:38):
can you talk about what kind of content you wrote
for them and what that whole experience was like writing
for them. I'm just so fascinated, Like I like it.
I just personally, I'm really interested in the whole Like,
like I watched you know, the what was that show
with Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends? The Money next Door
or whatever? Yeah, the House, know that's the movie. It
was like, oh, was this something next door? Right? It was,
(33:01):
But I don't know, I was just so fascinated by
I'm just fascinated. So my time Playboy was sure, I
have freelance, Um, so I was working for like Playboy
and Variety and the A V Club and The Hollywood
Reporter all at the same time. I came in when
they relaunched, so they stopped printing the magazine and they
took nudes out, and then it died because why is
(33:24):
there a Playboy if not for those things? Um. Then
they hired an entire group of like young millennials to
be the head editors, which was really fascinating to me,
as like I was in my late twenties, they were
all mostly in their early thirties but somewhere in their
early twenties. I was, like so many young people. It's
weird to especially coming off of like The Hollywood Reporter,
which is like legendary icon writers and editors who have
(33:46):
been in the field for forty years switch over there.
It was very bizarre, and they were having me do interviews,
so my favorite one was Kicky Palmer. They have a
fifty questions the thing they do where it's sort of
like is it Variety or I can't remember which magazine
does the hundred questions through so and So's home or whatever,
(34:08):
but it was sort of that vibes. I got to
meet Kekey Palmer at a hotel when she was doing
promotion for Hustlers, and we sat down and we I
watched her do the photo shoot, which was a surreal
moment for me as a girl who came up watching
a lot of like model TV shows, just hot girls
going to photo shoots. And I was like, that's glamorous life. Um.
(34:29):
And then there's kick you like getting in and out
of these very wild costumes and getting her photo taken
in the Beverly Hills Hilton. So it was very swanky. Um.
It was cool. And we did we chatted on the
couch firm and and I wrote out these questions that
were kind of silly. I discovered she had like eighty
four tattoos. It was nuts. It was a lot of fun. Um.
I also interviewed William Jackson Harper. I'm pretty sure I
(34:52):
was for a Playboy who was cheaty in the good place.
Folks watch that if you watch loveto Oh he is
so talented. Um. So that was a fun interview. So
mostly I was doing like celebrity interviews for Playboy, and
it was fun because there are less rules there. They
still want, like, you know, proper structure and the integrity
(35:16):
of the actual writing, but you know, you want to
talk about as play go for it. It's that was
sort of the vibe. It was a lot more open um.
I'm respecting a lot of those like really juicy answers
because like it's Playboy, and like granted, I've never like
read an article in like a Playboy magazine, so like
I didn't know like what kind of content they're putting out,
(35:37):
but you know, type is that it tends to be
like either dry or high, um, like intellect, what am
I thinking of, like theory sort of speaking well educated
opinion makers and influencers, and like I think parts of
on the Road were published in Playboy back in the day.
Like that's sort of the right. And then on my side,
(35:57):
all of that there's because it's supposed to be a
gentleman's magazine, so gentlemen want to see Titch and they
want to think I guess, I don't know. As the vibe,
I would absolutely right for them. Again, I tried to
get them to do I kept pitching, um, I can't
remember this woman's name now. Of course, she was a
transactress who first appeared in Ava Duvernays Netflix series When
(36:21):
They See Us, and she does such a phenomenal job.
She hadn't done much acting before. She's had a couple
of big roles since then. But I met her at
a party and I thought she was just fabulous, and
I was like, you know, now that they're like all
young and trendy, they should do like a whole trans thing.
And so I pitched it and they got busy because
they sort of blew up after I first got with them.
(36:42):
But I might circle back to that and be like,
you know, there's a ton of like amazing trance people
out here are doing great work. Maybe you highlight them
in your pages so we'll see. I don't know. I
really like my time there though. It's a good time.
That's really Storm read. Our our producer Dan is asking
Storm read. Is that I think he's asking. We were
talking about Yeah, yeah, Storm is great. She's fun. Um
(37:04):
she was. I always saw her with her agent at
random events and I would be like, you guys, like
it's gonna happen, Like I'm trying. I really want you there,
you cre that's really cool. I don't know, I guess
sort of Playboy to me has always been kind of
a little bit of a mystery, so it's really kind
of fun to Ireland, like the magazine there. It does exist,
(37:26):
but I feel like it's kind of not something like
I have to ask and you ask, can you just
like walk into a shop and buy a Playboy? Yeah?
I mean I imagine you have to be eighteen. No,
they have them behind like they put them in black
bags and then they put those behind like I don't
know how to describe it, but it looks like a pan,
but it's completely flat, like a cookie pan basically, so
(37:47):
you have to like you have to really be certain
you're like, okay, this is Playboys. You pick it up
and you can't flip through it. It's a it's usually bagged, right, Okay.
So we usually have like the more adult kind of
oriented magazines are available in in you know, a bookshop
or like anywhere we would get magazine, but they're like
on the super high shelves because they think that you know,
like kids, kids can't reach those. And there's no such
(38:09):
thing as a short person. So surfboard too, you don't
get anything like ladder for you embarrassing. It does exist,
but it's like something that I guess to me, I
say this as a person. The first time I ever
went to the States. I went to Las Vegas and
(38:31):
I went, is it the Palm Hotel or the Playboy Hotel?
It has like the Playboy Suite, and we had like
a it was it was a company trip. Don't ask
there was a Playboy the company who did like every
year because we had I worked in the games industry.
It's not like anything else, but every year, because they
(38:55):
had offices around the entire globe, they would get everybody
together in US troll location and they always picked casinos
for some reason. So they picked Vegas for the first
one that I was there for anyway, and it just
happened to be that hotel, and I was like, I
don't really understand why this is the Playboy Hotel. This
is really weird. Everything looks like perfectly normal or whatever.
(39:16):
And then at like eight o'clock in the evening, I
came downstairs from my hotel room and all of the
people who were working at like the Blackjack tables and
stuff had been replaced with Playboy bunnies. And I was like, oh,
this was a man in a ToxS a minute ago.
I know, there's there's a lady in like like a
really fluffy kind of like you know what's going on there.
She's got Bunny. This is cool. So that was kind
(39:37):
of weird for me because again, like playboys a thing here,
but it's not like a big thing, I think. So
it's just it's really fun to hear the kind of
behind the scenes type thing. It's interesting. And that's funny
because I didn't even really think about like what a
very probably American like thing it is, but it's pretty
pervasive in our culture. It's like, you know, there's like
the classic like kids sneaking off to his dad's bedroom
(39:59):
and finding a Playboy magazines. You know, that's just like
like every every kid is at that experience, or at
least that's what the movies tell me. I was a
child my dad's Playboys as a kid, I mean I
was fascinated by them as you would be. Yet I
read them at my gay friend's house. Uh it was fun.
Uh he was like, exactly what tiss look Look. I
was like, I guess I don't know the child. The
(40:23):
other thing is when I was a kid, Uh, girls
that would go to tanning beds would always get the
Playboy Bunny like on their hip. Oh my god, yeah,
oh my god, what a like two thousand six memory
I am having. I didn't even think about that, but
holy crap, you're right, like high school girl, high school
college age girls would like, oh my god, that is
(40:44):
so funny. I can't even like because I didn't do
the tanning thing in high school, and so I like thing.
It was like every girl that was like she would
wear her low rice jeans and her like Ambercranti polos
stacked on half of each other and then just a
little hip will be showing and there would be those
bunny ears and it was very very pot because like
(41:04):
because I just now remembered like a cultural phenomenon I
completely forgot about. And it's because like these like high
school age girls couldn't like get tattoos usually without the
parents formission, so instead they would wear like a Playboy
sticker on their hip. So it tan in the logo
that smart. I'd never thought, did you actually speaking of Playboy?
Did um either of you see that? Apparently? Hold on,
(41:25):
I'm trying to find yes. The global head of Creator
and Influencer Marketing from Twitch actually just laughed and has
started a job as the VP for Creator and Influencer
Marketing for Playboy. Wow. That we like, I said, they're
doing very exciting things over there. And apparently producer Dan
has just linked us a little article saying that Playboy
(41:46):
is the twenty one most recognizable brand like logo in America.
I'm not surprised. I actually, in fairness, here's my uh yeah,
we didn't really talk about Playboy all that much in Ireland,
but whenever I was a teenager, I remember many girls
in my class having like their little kind of folders
that hand all of their like notes and stuff for school.
(42:09):
They had like stickers of the Playboy logo or like
they had like the cut out on the front of
the folder, so there was just like a kind of
negative of it on the front of the folder. I
remember that being a thing, even though it's not as
big a thing here as it is in the States.
That's so wild. Yeah, wow, that's crazy. Um So, I
guess we've got so sorry, but I'm just sitting here like,
(42:34):
oh wow, yeah Playboy interesting. Oh let's talk more about that.
That's cool. Um So, earlier on we did kind of
dig into the fact that you've had such a I
guess varied journey through your your career. Um, and you
gave us some kind of like piece of advice that
you had yourself. But what kinds of things can you
think of anything that has actually stood out to you
that a mentor has has given you as a piece
(42:56):
of advice that has really stuck with you, Because I
think that could be super valuable. I've been fortunate enough
to have three mentors. Um. Sue Williamson is my theater teacher.
Had Jack Smith when I got to college, and then
(43:18):
I had Ron fell Zone a little later. And those
guys were instrumental and um teaching me that my voice
had purpose. Um, actually all three of them, Sue Um.
Miss Williamson, I think she would slap me if she
heard me call her Suh. Sue Williamson. I would spend
(43:39):
summer's teaching me how to speak and articulate. Uh. I
really wanted to do theater and she's like, girl, you
speak so quickly, no one can understand you. So we
addiction classes all summer. I never missed a play audition
after that, always used it. And then Ron and Jeffrey
(43:59):
I would debate in class. I'm like a very much
a nerd, So when people would say something that I
was like, that's not accurate. We would really get into
it in class um in film school, and we had
this thing at school called Cinema Slapdown, and it was
cool because all the students were encouraged to calm. You'd
watch a movie. Ron would be in literally a referees
(44:22):
uniform and we would just debate, so you could stand
up in the middle of an auditorium and just talk
about how trash or good that movie was. He had
a whistle, They got cantankerus at times. It was a
lot of fun. I can't I struggle to think of
a single piece of advice. I would say all of
my mentors pushed me to be more authentic. You know.
(44:47):
I think I did a lot of hiding. I was
very uncomfortable in my own skin for a long time,
and I think most of their guidance was just towards
sitting with myself and like, do you like what's happening?
And if so, why don't you do that more? Um gosh,
I wish I could remember. S Williamson was great at
(45:09):
giving these speeches. Oh there we go, Okay, that's a
good one. So in senior year I come up through
theater with these like a huge class with theater nerds. Now,
usually freshman year there's a handful and then it triples
off and then maybe there's four or five kids left
at the end. But my crew had like twelve of us,
and we did it the whole time, and a lot
of them were friends who went to the same church.
(45:31):
I wanted up going there my sophomore year of high school,
just like hang out with. These kids were tight, but
we were also teens and you know, had our TIFFs
or whatever. Someone's car got egged and she was really
hurt by it. Um it happened at a cast party.
It was awful, just from an emotional standpoint, like everybody's fine,
(45:52):
it's a car, but it was awful and not like
her feelings really hurt. And then people felt like assholes,
and then who didn't know who didn't And of course
that starts to ramber Mill and it was messy, as
typical teen drama does. And so Sue brought us into again.
I'm so sorry, miss Williamson if you're hearing this, because
Williamson brought us into the auditorium, just the seniors, and
she set us all down and she gave us this
(46:14):
amazing speech which I cannot recall verbatim, but the gist
of it was basically, in every single seat there has
sat a person who was impacted by something on this stage,
and every stage has been filled with kids like you
who have been impacted by the work they've done here
in this space. This is hollowed ground. And when you
(46:35):
enter a theater, you are responsible not just for your
audience and their enjoyment, but for your crew and your
cast and their experience here. And when you break that trust,
you break the sacred ground that is the theater. And
why would you want to do that when it's such
an important home in space for so many people. And
that really brought home a sense of responsibility to any
(46:57):
setting that I work in. And I think about that
moment a lot. It sort of shocks you, and the
teacher that you pile around with all the time gets
very serious and it's like you've done wrong, and I
gotta correct you before you try to do wrong again. Um.
And I've always sort of viewed theaters really, any theater,
I mean a movie theater, a theatrical space type of theater,
(47:18):
a dance hall or whatever, it's hollow ground because it's
a place where people go to heal and express themselves
and escape and so yeah, I think I think Sir
Williamson's conversations on respecting the space and respecting your peers
that's the best advice that maybe have ever gotten. That's
really powerful. Thank you. Yeah. Should we go ahead and
(47:40):
wrap things up and and and do some social media
plugs and everything? Psych you do you want to lead
the way? Absolutely sure, so super quick. I was at
Advertising Week Europe last week and UM, I don't know
if the panel that I was on is going to
be available on demand. I believe it is, but I'm
not sure, but if it is, it was pretty exciting. Um.
I was talking with POC, disabled and queer content creators
(48:02):
and we were talking about how brands can create a
more inclusive and diverse experience, which was a really really
good conversation and it was a super empowering one for
me to be a part of as a queer content creators.
So that was really exciting. Um. And my schedule is
finally back to normal, so I will be on Twitch
four days a week at twitch dot tv for s
Last Psyche and on socials as Psyche plays wonderful. Thank
(48:26):
you Psyche. Um, I'm Jess bro Hard. I don't really
have anything that I want to plug this week, so
I'll just kind of plug my social media on Twitter
and Instagram. I'm just at Jess bro Hard my name
if you want to follow me there. And then finally,
our wonderful guest this week, Joel, can you please tell
our audience what is your social media where I can
they find you? And is there anything you're excited about
lately that you want to plug? Yeah? Well, thank you
(48:47):
guys so much for having me. This has been a
very lovely conversation. Guys, I'm Joel Monique. Can find me
all over the internet at Joel Monique. It's j O
E l E m owen I q u E uh.
Please please please used check out comic Con, metapod if
you love and if interviews, if you love fan theory.
Hector and I go as deep as our knowledge will
(49:08):
allow when we're excited to bring in some more folks.
I don't know if you guys know Rosie Knight. I
think she's going to come on and talk some fun
marvel thor stuff with us later. Um. It is absolutely
a passion project and I'm so proud of it. And uh,
I just want more people to listen so that we
can talk more about it. To be honest, uh, please
come nerd out with me on my socials even if
(49:30):
you don't listen to the show. Um, I just want
to talk to ner any things with people all day long.
So yeah, thanks for having me, Thank you for being here.
I will definitely be checking out Comic Con metapond because
I I am a huge fan of some of the
guests that you mentioned, so I can't wait to listen
to that. I'm just a huge nerd so I'm pretty excited.
(49:50):
And then and then of course, don't forget to follow
the podcast on social media at the Boss Level pod
that's spelled Boss l v L pod and join our
discord for behind the scenes look at this show. Thank
you so much for listening, and don't forget to check
out our brand new YouTube channel as well, where you
can see some snippets from past episodes. And if you
really have this kindness in your heart, we're going to
(50:12):
ask you please rate and review on iTunes. It's a
great way for the podcast to get discovered by a
new audience. Really really helps us out. If you enjoyed it,
please rate and review on iTunes or whatever other podcast
platform you're listening on, and we will see you next time.
Bye bye,
Ah, it's a Monday. It is such a Monday today,
one of those days. Like the weather here sucks. It
was beautiful all weekend and then as soon as Monday hits,
it's just like grey. And that happened here too. You know,
I was fine. I was streaming earlier to day. I
welcome to the kitchen to make coffee, and I swear
the heavens opened and it just ORed. I was like, oh, well,
(00:25):
welcome to Boss Level, a podcast where we feature conversations
with guests who have leveled up bringing an XP boost
to the table. JAS is so good to be recording
with you again. How are you doing. I'm good. It's
good to be recording with you as well. I feel
like I finally been doing like a lot of these episodes.
I feel like, you know, I kind of had this
like absence as I started my new job, and I,
you know, the other three of you kind of took
(00:47):
over hosting duties and now I'm back and it's just
been one after another, which is awesome because I've gotten
to meet so many awesome people, so many awesome guests,
such as our guest today Joel Monique. Hi, how are
you Hi? I'm good. I'm a little jealous because it's
not raining here in l A. I love the rain.
(01:07):
Every time it rains is like a small holiday. That's funny.
You're living in the wrong place if you love the rain. Yeah,
but I hate the snow, so like it balances at
our ends pretty great. We rain all the time. We
never get sunshine though, so that's kind of like the
trade off that you have to do just right and
read books all the time. It sounds magical. Yeah, that
(01:29):
sounds like a nice life. Well, Joel, I know you
do a ton of awesome things you work for. I
heart and you. I mean, you've done so much other
stuff as well for BBC um Playboy. Definitely gonna ask
you some stuff about that. But if you had to
kind of introduce yourself, or if you were, you know,
giving an elevator pitch, or what would you want our
(01:50):
guests to know about you? Oh my goodness. Uh, I
am a nerd who found her way into I'll at
the news of work via fandom. I feel like that's
the cornerstone of my work is uh, all things Marvel.
I'm a huge Batman stand. I love the Star Wars
(02:11):
and the Trek. I don't get down with twenty four,
but I could have I'm sorry lost, but I can
have conversations about Lost, less conversations about Yeah, writer, producer
host today. That's a wide range though, it's awesome. Yeah,
it's it keeps you busy, So I guess I would
(02:34):
really like to know your currently the executive producer at
my Heart. You've also provided your own you were talking
about being a nerd you provided your own expertise on
was it? Let me see if I get this right? Nerdificent?
Is that how you would say that? Yes, it's a
producer for Nerdificent with Danny Fernandez and if you we anyway,
and now you are you have your own show as well.
(02:55):
Could you tell us a little bit about that. Yes,
it's called Comic con metapod. It is a convention, a
pop culture convention for your ears. Every single week was
hosted by myself and a good friend, Hector Navarro, who
is King of Nerds. That guy literally has a DVD
and comic book a library that you can loan books
out to two friends. Um, it's the coolest thing ever.
(03:20):
I really, I really love Hector. We once tried to
watch like a huge block of UM. The first arc
of Marvel Movies together and the whole time he was
just behind the scenes commentary, and that was the moment
I was like, listen, that I have to work with him.
And that's been the goal for the past four years.
(03:40):
And so when this opportunity came up, l A comic
con and I Heart teamed up. They knew they wanted
to do a podcast. I had previously pitched a convention
style podcast, so they put me in charge of it,
and I got really lucky they let me work with
Hector and so it's so much fun. We've had really
great guests, like Giancarlo Esposit came on and cried. He
tell us about how much he loves like fan interactions
(04:01):
and how important they are to him as a creator.
He also talks about manifesting, which if you're into manifesting,
hearing somebody who's made it that far, who really believes
in like doing the work of like positive energy and
networking and building in a way that's you know, more
spiritually leaning. It's really cool. I loved that conversation um
with Christy Carlson Romano and will Ferdell oh Yes from
(04:26):
boy Meat's World, which was crazy. We only talked about
it for maybe four minutes. I didn't get into the
Mr Fini of at all because I was not allowed
to go full fan girl. We did talk a lot
about Star Wars and like they love conventions. They have
a new podcast. We talked about that. We had phase
on On and Steph Green where they were supposed to
do a debate, like a fan debate, but they got
(04:48):
they like each other so much they couldn't debate each other,
and so they just started like giving each other answers
and all is so cute and very very funny, and
that's kind of, you know, the angle of the show.
It's like to have some fun people and if you're
a comic book nerd, we also actually go to conventions
and record with artists and writers and do these very
in depth sort of looks at their careers. And that's
(05:11):
a lot of fun. So you know, sometimes if you
miss a convention, you might actually hear it on the show.
And we're probably trying to bring in those local conventions
that have like a really good like community around them,
but maybe are smaller and less known and give some
access and some shine to those guys. So that's comic
con metapod in a in a nutshell. That's really cool.
Thank you for giving us an intro to it. That's
(05:32):
really awesome. Yeah, thank you guys. I'm so excited about it.
I just want more people to uh listen to it
and give us feedback. Like I said, I'm a person
who loves the fandom side of things, so when we
get fans coming in. We did as a segment with
will and Christie where we asked people for their children's
drawings and we had Will and Christie give voice to
the characters so that when the episode comes out, the
(05:54):
kids can look at their drawing and actually have a
voice by professional voice actors. So I really love that segment.
I stole it from Willen Christy's show, stealing this from
you guys. They're like, do it it's flatteryls like perfect,
that's awesome. Um. In gaming, we talked about like the
boss level being you know, the kind of milestone moment
or like the challenge that you've hit and you've overcome. So, um,
(06:17):
what would you say boss level means to you and
your career? Like have you had like that milestone moment?
Have you had a few milestone moments? Man? Uh, yeah,
so many. I feel like I'm constantly counting him. I'm
in a lot of therapy, so we're kind of always
looking back and going over what happened and how did
we get here. I think a major one for me was, um,
(06:39):
I crashed my car when I was working nineteen hour
days as a p A. I fell asleep behind the wheel.
It was very scary. I could have hurt someone that
was writening. Nobody was hurt, thank god. I could have
hurt myself. But I had been like working so hard
for this dream. You know, since I was really little,
I wanted to be in entertainment. You know, at first
I thought it was an actress, and then I had
an acting coach who was I really think, you're a director.
(07:01):
And from directing, I went to writing, and then I
was producing and I loved all sides of it and
I found all that a lot of fun. But the
only way I knew how to get in without a
direct line of connections and asterix that I'll talk about
the other thing in a second, was to be a
p A. And so I got hired to p A
and I ran into a lot of racism, a lot
of sexism, a ton of able is m It just
(07:23):
wasn't working. Um, and I was burning myself into the ground,
and I couldn't figure out why. They couldn't figure out
not only why was I exerting all this energy, but
also you know, why couldn't I get ahead? You know,
I know I've directed movies, I've gone to con Film
Festival and presented there. Why am I still stuck here
as a p A in my mid twenties with a degree.
(07:46):
It was just very confusing to me. So I pivoted
out of that. I was able to find some connections
to do the other route, which is to be an assistant.
You guys, I have a d D. I wasn't diagnosed
until I was thirty. Terrible assistant got off. Assistant like
(08:06):
can't keep tracking your phone calls, don't know where things are,
like bad, bad, bad, And so it was I was like,
I'm never going to get in because I can't. I
don't have enough money to be producing my own things.
I don't have enough money to sponsor a career or
to try to do something like, oh maybe I'll work
part time and supplement Um. A d D caused me
to be a very terrible driver, couldn't be that for like,
(08:26):
everything was falling apart, and I felt, uh a little
bit crazy, um, And I wasn't sure what had happened
between like junior high school, where I was a very
good student and focus to this point in my career
where I, you know, I was pushing eight or nine
years of working in the industry with almost nothing to
show for it. And then I met, um, somewhere in
(08:47):
between all of that chaos, I met a girl. Her
name is Tiana Hobbs, amazing, amazing producer, well connected l
A person. I think her uncle was like an La
Laker or something like. She's one of those l A
girls where you're like, Okay, you know everybody because you've
been here your whole life. Um. And she introduced me
to a network called after Buzz TV I think would
be probably the next big milestone. And after Buzz is
(09:09):
a YouTube channel that would review television and films and
eventually comic books and all kinds of things. But the
cool thing about it was they had a studio where
you would watch a show talk amongst a panel of
like four people, and then immediately go into record with
a live audience right after. So again, fandom was totally
at my alley. I was like, we can geek out
(09:31):
about I don't know, Riverdale together or Gotham when that
was on. These TV shows that had you know, Reverdale
had a huge audience when it premiere. By some of
the shows, I did small audience, but dedicated audience. So
you're in a chat room broadcasting live to YouTube. I
would do three to five shows a night, sometimes five
nights a week. I was dedicated because it was the
(09:51):
most fun I was having and I was I could
feel myself building up a skill, so there was like
a lot of reward in that. And that's how I
got into podcast. I just sort of there. From there,
I became a researcher and a critic. You know, I
was reviewing so much and people found out I could write,
and they will will came right for us, and that's
(10:11):
went off into the reporter room, Playboy and a bunch
of other places, and that's sort of how I landed
up here at my heart. So I think those were
probably the main thing. All failures, I would say, are
all my all of my milestones are marked by like
extreme failure that I then't had to like kill a
part of myself and be reborn and come back and
(10:32):
try to be better. I feel like I connect with
that so much, and like, I really just want to
thank you for your like refreshing sort of explanation of
your journey, because I have had many like failures in
my career, in my life, and they've all led me
to bigger and better things that at the time I
didn't know we're coming. But it just feels like there's
(10:53):
such this culture of like, you know, you have to
tell everyone only the good stuff. You have to be
happy all the time time. You know, if you have
a failure, you've got to spin it in a way
where it's and you know, and I just it's so
refreshing to hear you, like openly, honestly talk about, like
you know, your struggles or your failures before something that
was better for you came along, because that, I mean,
(11:14):
that's happened to me numerous times starting my career and
now I'm in a very good place. But I mean, life,
like everything is cyclical, um, but it's so interesting to
see you, like, you know, have this wonderful career at
my heart. And also one thing I want to ask
about is, you know, what is it like now to
be have us like interviewing you when I feel like
you're probably on the other side of things. Typically, you know,
you're you're producing the podcast, you're the one hosting and interviewing.
(11:35):
Now here here you are in a guest. What does
that feel like? Uh, it's interesting. I feel like I
don't know, it's strange. I do a lot of panels,
and a lot of times panels were like how do
I do hosting? And so on? That side of IL
can constantly be interviewed with, like by fans who are like,
how do I do this YouTube thing? Um? Or you know,
how did you get people to take your writing seriously
(11:57):
or whatever? Um? But then this sort of feels just
like podcasting. It's nice. I I really like being asked
my opinion. It's the have lots of thoughts and no
problem sharing them, very little filters, so so it's a
good time. And you know, just to touch on the
failure thing really quick, I would just say I used
to really let it beat me up a failure like
I would I feel like, oh now I have to stop.
(12:19):
I don't know what I'm doing. Everyone's better, I'm not
going to get any better. Like failure used to be
a huge like controller of my life. But to your point,
it's it's a requirement, and I feel like if you
don't treat it like one, then we can't navigate it well,
you know, because you're constantly trying to avoid failure. I
think a lot of times people don't try, or they're
(12:40):
trying safely, which doesn't usually net big rewards. Um, you
should embrace your failures, listeners, if you're not there yet
in your journey, embrace them in a huge way because honestly,
it's just learning and learning. It's just a series of
failures until you know what you're doing. Um. So yeah,
I I try now try evolutionary process, but I try
(13:01):
to really embrace them when they come. It's really hard.
I feel like some of the times in my career
where I've been the most comfortable and the happiest have
been when I've been an environment where I feel like
failure is treated as, like you say, like a learning opportunity.
They're encouraged to fail, you're encouraged to make mistakes as
long as their mistakes that you can learn from an
iterate on. That's a good thing and it's super super healthy,
(13:24):
and that's been some of my favorite experiences have been,
like being in an environment where that kind of thing
is encouraged, because yeah, I think sometimes you can be
in an environment where you're you're scared to fail. But
especially if you're in a position like we talk a
lot about content creation and stuff, if you're in a
position where you're kind of like your own boss, um,
allow yourself to fail a little bit. And again because
(13:46):
you need to take that risk to be able to
know what's going to work and what isn't. Right. Yeah, definitely, really, really,
it's going to happen anyway, Like the exactly avoid it.
It's it's that there's no way around it. You will fail,
Like you have to come two terms with it and
figure out how to just live in that in the
same way that you have to sort of live and
come to terms of like everyone's gonna like you or
(14:06):
like what you do. Someone the other day told me
my voice was unpleasant when I get excited, I and
I will be honest. It destroyed me a little. I
was like, what does that mean? I can't I've been
told my whole life I have to slow down when
I talk because people don't understand me. That's a note
I can take. I'm very okay. You know, I as
(14:28):
an actor for twelve years, I'm totally fine with like criticism. Um,
I don't always take it with a smile on my face,
but I will listen. I can't change how my voice
comes out of my body. I could do some pitch
exercises and maybe lower it a little bit, but that
feels like sexism. And if you don't like my voice,
that's a you problem, not a me problem. And so
to bring it to my doorstep, partarily from someone I trusted,
(14:51):
it was just it was wild. It was a very
kind of thing. But all of that to say, like
I think, as much as it still is a struggle
to except these these things are going to happen, that
you'renna failure, that people aren't gonna like you, you know,
hopefully you can look back and mark can go. I
handled that much better than I would have, which is
where I got to at the end of that journey,
(15:12):
was like there was a time that would have been
like seven days down, seven days questioning if this should
be my career. I would have taken it seriously for
so long instead of the two or three hours that afternoon,
and then doing my self care routine and getting back
on my feet and getting back to work. Like so, yeah,
small improvements, failures will happen, You'll be okay. It's funny
(15:32):
you mentioned the voice thing because one of the most
bizarre criticisms. But it was really just kind of an
insult that I ever received with someone said that, Um,
when I'm talking, I saw like I'm talking with a
mouthful of peanut butter. I have no idea what that means,
but it's one coach that's never had any success. That's
what that sounds like to me. Your addiction doesn't come
(15:55):
out tripping lee on the tongue. The Bard wouldn't like it,
and I don't like it either. Get out of that's ridiculous.
It was such a random thing, and I was like, Okay,
what am I supposed to do with that information? Like
that's just the Yeah, that's nothing you can do that.
And that's the tough thing though about doing any sort
of like I mean, that's the thing about the Internet
these days is it's like there's so much noise out
(16:16):
there and like kind of Joel, like you were saying,
you know, likes technically some feedback, you could do something
about like if it's like maybe I could go to
voice coaching and pitch up a voice out like yeah,
I know you're not going to or whatever, but it's like, okay,
technically maybe I could, versus there's other stuff that it's
like what am I supposed to do about that? And
how do you separate like what could actually be valuable
(16:38):
feedback versus someone who just doesn't like you, And if
they don't like you, like, that's not really your business
to change their mind. You're not that's not your job.
You shouldn't have to do that. But again, it's like,
you know, how do you know? How do you know
what's valid feedback versus what isn't? It all gets so
you know, you run the risk of like what I
used to do is like I would just any like
(16:58):
any time there was any sort of feedback, I just
didn't like it. I just didn't like hearing it, you know,
So I just wouldn't listen to anything, even if it
was valid feedback, I in my mind would like conflated
with all of this other like stupid criticism that I
would get that like I can't do anything about you know,
you got to protect yourself and that's that's the first
defense mechanism is like, I got a lot of bad,
very mean, cruel not advice things, you know, cast in
(17:22):
the light of advice that we're really um just insults.
Yeah I don't like your voice. Okay, yeah, that's not
I think. I think you have to take it from
to to viewpoints. Right. So the first is who's giving
this advice? This is a person worthy of my trust,
you know, as somebody who's invested a lot of time
in my career or in you know, this thing that
(17:46):
I'm talking about. Do they have a knowledge to be
giving me advice in the first place. Now, that doesn't
mean you're only looking to experts. A friend might know
you really well. Uh, someone may watch a lot of
what you're doing and have But just consider who is
this person? And then the thing is does this advice
apply to me? I don't think there's like a great
success story. You know, we as a human race, or
(18:06):
at least i'll say in Western culture from what I'm
familiar with, we love a first We love a groundbreaker.
We're like, how did they do that? And they were
the first one and no one said it before them.
And if you look at any of those guys stories.
Inevitably someone will say you're crazy. Either you can't do it,
it's impossible, give up like it's a very key point
(18:26):
in the biographic films of these people every single time.
So I think you have to stop and consider. Okay,
this just might not be advice. Dream Maybe that is
the quote correct thing to do, but it's not my journey,
and my dreaming might leave me somewhere completely new and amazing.
I might be the first you don't know, I'm trying
a thing that works for me. I would also say, um,
(18:49):
if it's a piece of advice you're unsure about, you
can always try it, you know, and writing when you
get know. So I say, just try try the note,
see how it feels. Does that not work for the
character or for you? Do you not like it? Okay,
throw it out. You don't have to take every piece
of advice you're given. Um, But those two things I
think will save you a lot of heartache. If you're like,
this person shouldn't be talking to me in the first place,
(19:11):
or this advice doesn't suit me, you can move around
it pretty quickly. I once heard a very wise quote,
never take I think it was never take criticism from
someone you wouldn't take advice from, And I thought, like, oh,
that's really good. And I think for a while, just
now I was kind of conflating the terms advice and criticism,
(19:33):
But like, I think that's such that's so great because
there are certain people who I would actively go to
for advice on like certain parts of my life. And
it's like if one of them had like criticism for me,
then I would know it meant like it was coming
from the right place, and I would be something I
would actually want to listen to, versus like some troll
on the internet is someone where like someone who I've
never met, Well, I wouldn't go to that person for advice.
(19:55):
Maybe they're a great person, maybe they're not, but I
don't know them. I'm not going to them for advice.
So also I would listen to their criticis is m
Yeah completely fair? That yeah? Yeah, Well anyway, I'm going
to drop that very poignant quote and then I think
it's going to be a time for us to take
a little break, so we will be right back with
more boss levels. Welcome back to the boss Level. I'm
(20:18):
just bro hard and joined by Psyche and our guest
today is Joel Monique. We were just talking about some
career advice, or not really career advice. We're kind of
talking about how to how to take advice. But I
guess let's flip it around, Joel, do you have any
advice that you would like to pass on to listeners
for maybe not necessarily like anything really anything anything to
(20:42):
do with your career? Again, I know you've done so
many different things, and that's I mean, that's one thing
that I always really enjoy seeing a lot of our
guests do a ton of different Like I've warn a
lot of different hats in my career, most of our
guests do, and I think that brings forth like a
really wide array of knowledge because then instead of necessarily
not that it's a bad thing to like specialized in
(21:02):
any one area, but especially these days, I feel like
it's so valuable to have like such a wide array
of things that you can do and things that you
have done. So with all this experience do you have
that you have do you have any advice for listeners?
I do UM. I sit on my Heart's Union board
UM and I recently did a call for them with
(21:24):
a bunch of others aspiring writers were talking about you know,
what does meet me part of the union? What are
things you can expect as a writer? How can you exported? Etcetera, etcetera.
And one of the things that kept coming up with
people are like how do I get to They're like,
that guy is making X amount of dollars. I want
to be there. How do I get an agent? Okay um?
(21:47):
I was in this industry for twelve years before I
got an agent, and it was literally my friend was
just like, hey, do you want my agent to be
your agent? And I was like, your agents pretty good?
Just like yes, that was the s There was no
secret other than someone knew me, had a little bit
of knowledge of my work and made a direct recommendation.
I have tried writing letters, improving scripts, like everything you
(22:09):
can think of, and I could not get noticed. And
one of the things I think I've learned most importantly
on my journey is like looking up is detrimental to
your climb. You want to look to your left and
your right, who's at your same level? What are they
doing and how can you work with them? Or how
can you improve upon what they're doing? Or how can
(22:30):
you guys help like promote each other's shows, or you know,
do they have a script and you're a director. You know,
maybe they have a ton of beauty products you've never tried.
And you guys are both makeup influencers. Do you want
to like switch? Do you guys want to do a
video where you're talking about the pros and cons? Like?
Working with the people at your level is to me,
(22:50):
the fastest way to exceed because you're all meeting different people,
you're all at about the same skill level. Most likely
you're about the same financial situation. So understand where you're
coming from and how you're going to be working. And
as they're getting success, the first person they're going to
think of is someone they've already worked with, someone they
can trust, someone who knows how they work. It has
(23:12):
been the god's end of my life to have a
large peer group of professionals that I can trust, that
I call friends that are also co workers you know
that has been and co workers I work with daily
and coworkers in that were the same field, and I
can go to them and say, girl, I don't know
how to do this thing. It doesn't make sense or
(23:34):
you know, I wasn't raised to work in corporate America.
You know, I was treamed as a kid like this
is how you answer phones, this is how you do
a job interview, which Corporate America cares about almost none
of that. It's crazy. They tell you that it's important
on your way up, but once you're in, what they
really want to do is like, how do you order
like a fancy launch? How do you um negotiate this contract?
(23:56):
And one of these big lely's words mean how much
should you be asking for? I was listening to a
podcast the other day where they were talking about getting
paid to perform in their first television show that will
pay five thousand an episode, and me I was like,
that's amazing. Five k. I've never that's tars I've never
made that much money in my life. And friends had
(24:18):
to come and be like, bro, that's a rip off
and you have to go back and ask for more.
Don't ever work for that little There's all these things
that you don't know. You don't know until you're confronted
with them. Having a group of people who are at
about same level invested, doing the same thing can help
you out immensely. If you find yourself in a position
to be under you know, the gods or kings and
(24:41):
queens of your industry and you're learning from them. That's
really beautiful and you should definitely take notes in and
you know, do your best to be noticed and be
successful there, but really take care of your peers, really
look at your left and right, and and I promise
you you'll get further and further in your career. I
really value the idea of like looking up can actually
(25:03):
negatively impact your climb. I like that idea because that
is so important. It's something that can be applied to
so many different industries. It can be applied in content
creation again, something that I'm obviously like deeply embedded in
right now. Um, it can be really really hard because
you look at people who are you know, perceived as
being above you and not necessarily looking at the people
(25:24):
who are at the same kind of stage as you.
And there are so many people that are around the
same kind of stage you are in in their journey
and in their growth that you could learn from and
that you could make connections with, and that those things
are really super valuable. And I think a lot of
the time people maybe lose sight of that because, like
you say, they're looking up rather than looking to their
left and right, and that's really really important. Yeah, I
(25:46):
would say, especially for somebody who has a neuro divergent condition.
Like any time I got in front of folks, it
was hard for them to take me seriously because I
wasn't a professional level assistant. I wasn't a professional level
p A. And so the assumption is you can't move
past that. So now that I'm in a position of power,
I work really hard to bring in diverse people's whether
(26:08):
that's you know, from a disabled or l g B,
t q I A or racially diverse who mostly don't
have these skills already. As a way of sort of
I guess it feels a little bit like justice for
younger me UM to be like, these people are very
serious and they care and they're hard workers, but they're
going to need extra guidance up front so that they
(26:29):
can catch up to the lessons that you know, some
people have had the fortune of growing up with UM.
It takes it's a lot more work, you know, for
me the boss, for them as individuals trying to bridge
that gap. You know, because you are still now in
professional capacity and need you have to you know, you
do have to know these things. Um, but when you
(26:51):
have people who, as we were speaking about earlier, have
some grace for you can be patient with, you can
see through the difficult times. It's just it makes for
a world of difference. I think it's it's the thing
that makes me love my current job is. You know,
I have a boss who if I'm having an issue
and go to him with anything, anything at all, and
(27:11):
he's not afraid of any kind of emotion or issue,
whatever it is, there's going to be a way to
resolve it and keep pushing forward. And I think that's
sort of my ideal work situation is like, oh there's
a problem, Okay, how do we fix it? We gotta
fix great, go out and be great, do great things. Um,
that's sort of very loose and easy. We're not going
(27:32):
to yell or get too upset. We're not going to
blame or point fingers, which is my least favorite thing
in the world. But oh well, if you had gotten
it to me two days earlier, what does that matter.
We can't go back and fix it. We can only
move forward and try to make adjustments and hopefully it
doesn't happen again. But I think you know a lot
of my jobs before this one where I was working
(27:52):
under a lot of perfectionists or people who had an
ideal of perfection or who wanted you know, and maybe
rightly so sometimes wanted very like highly organized brain, high
functioning folks, which I was not. So Um yeah, I
think I think what's been most helpful to me is
like accepting I'm not that person and then trying to
make avenues for people who are also like that. So
(28:15):
hopefully our industry can become more inclusive in that way.
We have reached a safe point and we're going to
take a super short ad break. Thanks everybody, see you seeing.
Welcome back to boss level everyone. I am Psyche and
I'm here with Jas Brohard and our wonderful guests this week.
Joel Monique. So, one of the things that you did
(28:38):
while working at Black Girl Nerds was shining a light
on positive improvements within like the TV and film industry. Um,
what was Why was that important to you and how
did you do that? Can you talk a little bit
about all of that? Oh man, Uh yeah, VTM is
such a wild trip. That's the job I got off
of Twitter where they were like right, and I was
(29:01):
like yes, and They're like, great, here's assignments go, and
that wanted taking me to like London to cover the
premier of Justice League. It took me, um to south
By Southwest, where I one of my first my second
solo trip ever, but my first you know, intercontinental down
to Texas trip where I got my first set to
Like that job just opened so many doors. And while
(29:23):
I was there, you know, I was heaving on Twitter.
We were in the Trump era, like approaching, and then
in it we were, um, we were dealing a lot
as especially as a black culture, of being seen for
the first time in different spaces, particularly on film and television.
We were seeing the rise of people like Barry Jenkins
(29:45):
and Ava du Verne too, you know, from festival circuits
to the main eye. And I think that's sort of
what I was clinging to because Ava Duverne was the
thing that got me to move to l A. She
has this great speech that she gave it film into
and it called the Code of Desperation speech. If I
ever feel bad for myself, I played that speech and
I get over that ship real quick. Um, And basically
(30:08):
her whole speech was just if you're desperate, nobody wants you,
which is an unfortunate thing to hear, and it felt
really mean. The first time I heard it, I was like,
that is so cruel and thoughtless, Like if you're desperate
like you do, how are supposed to do anything? Like
it's so frustrating, you don't know you're not broke. It
was my initial thought line, but then it became you know,
(30:29):
what are you gonna do about it? You know, people
can only help you so much, and I think a
lot of times it was going to people who I
felt had already made it, and I was like, give
me the secrets so I can skip this horrible phase.
But the horrible phase was you have to learn your skills,
and you have to learn what you're good at. You
have to learn what you're not good at. And so
being sort of obsessed with Eva in that way and
(30:51):
watching her career blossom, you know she it's a very
talented writer, director. But then she went on to produce Array,
which is a distribution film company, and they go to
film festivals and they pick up unique black cinema that
most people aren't looking at. And then they made it
deal with Netflix, so now it's broadcast across the globe.
(31:12):
Work like that is so freaking inspiring, Like she is
finding the next generation of black great filmmakers and not
asking anyone permission. She's not asking people to look, She's
putting it out there so people can have access to it.
And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to
highlight black creatives that we're doing great things already. I
think so much of Like at least when I was
coming up, if you were black, they were like, oh, well,
(31:34):
do you know how to fill out of resumes? Like yes, bitch,
get out of here, what are you talking about. I
have the skills, I don't have the access. Access is
what we need, not not skills, training, not that. Like
those things are great, and I think they should stay
in place. And I don't have a problem with programs
like that because some people do need access to them,
but there's a large community of people who literally just
need access. They have all of your basic skills, they
(31:54):
need to learn some of the advanced skills, and they
need to get in the door to try these things out. Um,
And so I wanted to highlight the people that were
doing that or had the opportunities. And we're telling great
stories and I want I wanted to connect to people
to the stories that they might love. You know, I
really really love you know, putting the right book in
the right person's hand at the right time. That gosh,
(32:17):
there's a better rush than that, I don't think. So
I think there are lessons in here and it will
feel like it's written directly for you. Please check it out. Um,
that's the best for me. And so yeah, that was
sort of my my time at big En. So while
we're talking about your past experiences, I have to ask
about writing Playboy. Um, like I said, I just think, like,
(32:38):
can you talk about what kind of content you wrote
for them and what that whole experience was like writing
for them. I'm just so fascinated, Like I like it.
I just personally, I'm really interested in the whole Like,
like I watched you know, the what was that show
with Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends? The Money next Door
or whatever? Yeah, the House, know that's the movie. It
was like, oh, was this something next door? Right? It was,
(33:01):
But I don't know, I was just so fascinated by
I'm just fascinated. So my time Playboy was sure, I
have freelance, Um, so I was working for like Playboy
and Variety and the A V Club and The Hollywood
Reporter all at the same time. I came in when
they relaunched, so they stopped printing the magazine and they
took nudes out, and then it died because why is
(33:24):
there a Playboy if not for those things? Um. Then
they hired an entire group of like young millennials to
be the head editors, which was really fascinating to me,
as like I was in my late twenties, they were
all mostly in their early thirties but somewhere in their
early twenties. I was, like so many young people. It's
weird to especially coming off of like The Hollywood Reporter,
which is like legendary icon writers and editors who have
(33:46):
been in the field for forty years switch over there.
It was very bizarre, and they were having me do interviews,
so my favorite one was Kicky Palmer. They have a
fifty questions the thing they do where it's sort of
like is it Variety or I can't remember which magazine
does the hundred questions through so and So's home or whatever,
(34:08):
but it was sort of that vibes. I got to
meet Kekey Palmer at a hotel when she was doing
promotion for Hustlers, and we sat down and we I
watched her do the photo shoot, which was a surreal
moment for me as a girl who came up watching
a lot of like model TV shows, just hot girls
going to photo shoots. And I was like, that's glamorous life. Um.
(34:29):
And then there's kick you like getting in and out
of these very wild costumes and getting her photo taken
in the Beverly Hills Hilton. So it was very swanky. Um.
It was cool. And we did we chatted on the
couch firm and and I wrote out these questions that
were kind of silly. I discovered she had like eighty
four tattoos. It was nuts. It was a lot of fun. Um.
I also interviewed William Jackson Harper. I'm pretty sure I
(34:52):
was for a Playboy who was cheaty in the good place.
Folks watch that if you watch loveto Oh he is
so talented. Um. So that was a fun interview. So
mostly I was doing like celebrity interviews for Playboy, and
it was fun because there are less rules there. They
still want, like, you know, proper structure and the integrity
(35:16):
of the actual writing, but you know, you want to
talk about as play go for it. It's that was
sort of the vibe. It was a lot more open um.
I'm respecting a lot of those like really juicy answers
because like it's Playboy, and like granted, I've never like
read an article in like a Playboy magazine, so like
I didn't know like what kind of content they're putting out,
(35:37):
but you know, type is that it tends to be
like either dry or high, um, like intellect, what am
I thinking of, like theory sort of speaking well educated
opinion makers and influencers, and like I think parts of
on the Road were published in Playboy back in the day.
Like that's sort of the right. And then on my side,
(35:57):
all of that there's because it's supposed to be a
gentleman's magazine, so gentlemen want to see Titch and they
want to think I guess, I don't know. As the vibe,
I would absolutely right for them. Again, I tried to
get them to do I kept pitching, um, I can't
remember this woman's name now. Of course, she was a
transactress who first appeared in Ava Duvernays Netflix series When
(36:21):
They See Us, and she does such a phenomenal job.
She hadn't done much acting before. She's had a couple
of big roles since then. But I met her at
a party and I thought she was just fabulous, and
I was like, you know, now that they're like all
young and trendy, they should do like a whole trans thing.
And so I pitched it and they got busy because
they sort of blew up after I first got with them.
(36:42):
But I might circle back to that and be like,
you know, there's a ton of like amazing trance people
out here are doing great work. Maybe you highlight them
in your pages so we'll see. I don't know. I
really like my time there though. It's a good time.
That's really Storm read. Our our producer Dan is asking
Storm read. Is that I think he's asking. We were
talking about Yeah, yeah, Storm is great. She's fun. Um
(37:04):
she was. I always saw her with her agent at
random events and I would be like, you guys, like
it's gonna happen, Like I'm trying. I really want you there,
you cre that's really cool. I don't know, I guess
sort of Playboy to me has always been kind of
a little bit of a mystery, so it's really kind
of fun to Ireland, like the magazine there. It does exist,
(37:26):
but I feel like it's kind of not something like
I have to ask and you ask, can you just
like walk into a shop and buy a Playboy? Yeah?
I mean I imagine you have to be eighteen. No,
they have them behind like they put them in black
bags and then they put those behind like I don't
know how to describe it, but it looks like a pan,
but it's completely flat, like a cookie pan basically, so
(37:47):
you have to like you have to really be certain
you're like, okay, this is Playboys. You pick it up
and you can't flip through it. It's a it's usually bagged, right, Okay.
So we usually have like the more adult kind of
oriented magazines are available in in you know, a bookshop
or like anywhere we would get magazine, but they're like
on the super high shelves because they think that you know,
like kids, kids can't reach those. And there's no such
(38:09):
thing as a short person. So surfboard too, you don't
get anything like ladder for you embarrassing. It does exist,
but it's like something that I guess to me, I
say this as a person. The first time I ever
went to the States. I went to Las Vegas and
(38:31):
I went, is it the Palm Hotel or the Playboy Hotel?
It has like the Playboy Suite, and we had like
a it was it was a company trip. Don't ask
there was a Playboy the company who did like every
year because we had I worked in the games industry.
It's not like anything else, but every year, because they
(38:55):
had offices around the entire globe, they would get everybody
together in US troll location and they always picked casinos
for some reason. So they picked Vegas for the first
one that I was there for anyway, and it just
happened to be that hotel, and I was like, I
don't really understand why this is the Playboy Hotel. This
is really weird. Everything looks like perfectly normal or whatever.
(39:16):
And then at like eight o'clock in the evening, I
came downstairs from my hotel room and all of the
people who were working at like the Blackjack tables and
stuff had been replaced with Playboy bunnies. And I was like, oh,
this was a man in a ToxS a minute ago.
I know, there's there's a lady in like like a
really fluffy kind of like you know what's going on there.
She's got Bunny. This is cool. So that was kind
(39:37):
of weird for me because again, like playboys a thing here,
but it's not like a big thing, I think. So
it's just it's really fun to hear the kind of
behind the scenes type thing. It's interesting. And that's funny
because I didn't even really think about like what a
very probably American like thing it is, but it's pretty
pervasive in our culture. It's like, you know, there's like
the classic like kids sneaking off to his dad's bedroom
(39:59):
and finding a Playboy magazines. You know, that's just like
like every every kid is at that experience, or at
least that's what the movies tell me. I was a
child my dad's Playboys as a kid, I mean I
was fascinated by them as you would be. Yet I
read them at my gay friend's house. Uh it was fun.
Uh he was like, exactly what tiss look Look. I
was like, I guess I don't know the child. The
(40:23):
other thing is when I was a kid, Uh, girls
that would go to tanning beds would always get the
Playboy Bunny like on their hip. Oh my god, yeah,
oh my god, what a like two thousand six memory
I am having. I didn't even think about that, but
holy crap, you're right, like high school girl, high school
college age girls would like, oh my god, that is
(40:44):
so funny. I can't even like because I didn't do
the tanning thing in high school, and so I like thing.
It was like every girl that was like she would
wear her low rice jeans and her like Ambercranti polos
stacked on half of each other and then just a
little hip will be showing and there would be those
bunny ears and it was very very pot because like
(41:04):
because I just now remembered like a cultural phenomenon I
completely forgot about. And it's because like these like high
school age girls couldn't like get tattoos usually without the
parents formission, so instead they would wear like a Playboy
sticker on their hip. So it tan in the logo
that smart. I'd never thought, did you actually speaking of Playboy?
Did um either of you see that? Apparently? Hold on,
(41:25):
I'm trying to find yes. The global head of Creator
and Influencer Marketing from Twitch actually just laughed and has
started a job as the VP for Creator and Influencer
Marketing for Playboy. Wow. That we like, I said, they're
doing very exciting things over there. And apparently producer Dan
has just linked us a little article saying that Playboy
(41:46):
is the twenty one most recognizable brand like logo in America.
I'm not surprised. I actually, in fairness, here's my uh yeah,
we didn't really talk about Playboy all that much in Ireland,
but whenever I was a teenager, I remember many girls
in my class having like their little kind of folders
that hand all of their like notes and stuff for school.
(42:09):
They had like stickers of the Playboy logo or like
they had like the cut out on the front of
the folder, so there was just like a kind of
negative of it on the front of the folder. I
remember that being a thing, even though it's not as
big a thing here as it is in the States.
That's so wild. Yeah, wow, that's crazy. Um So, I
guess we've got so sorry, but I'm just sitting here like,
(42:34):
oh wow, yeah Playboy interesting. Oh let's talk more about that.
That's cool. Um So, earlier on we did kind of
dig into the fact that you've had such a I
guess varied journey through your your career. Um, and you
gave us some kind of like piece of advice that
you had yourself. But what kinds of things can you
think of anything that has actually stood out to you
that a mentor has has given you as a piece
(42:56):
of advice that has really stuck with you, Because I
think that could be super valuable. I've been fortunate enough
to have three mentors. Um. Sue Williamson is my theater teacher.
Had Jack Smith when I got to college, and then
(43:18):
I had Ron fell Zone a little later. And those
guys were instrumental and um teaching me that my voice
had purpose. Um, actually all three of them, Sue Um.
Miss Williamson, I think she would slap me if she
heard me call her Suh. Sue Williamson. I would spend
(43:39):
summer's teaching me how to speak and articulate. Uh. I
really wanted to do theater and she's like, girl, you
speak so quickly, no one can understand you. So we
addiction classes all summer. I never missed a play audition
after that, always used it. And then Ron and Jeffrey
(43:59):
I would debate in class. I'm like a very much
a nerd, So when people would say something that I
was like, that's not accurate. We would really get into
it in class um in film school, and we had
this thing at school called Cinema Slapdown, and it was
cool because all the students were encouraged to calm. You'd
watch a movie. Ron would be in literally a referees
(44:22):
uniform and we would just debate, so you could stand
up in the middle of an auditorium and just talk
about how trash or good that movie was. He had
a whistle, They got cantankerus at times. It was a
lot of fun. I can't I struggle to think of
a single piece of advice. I would say all of
my mentors pushed me to be more authentic. You know.
(44:47):
I think I did a lot of hiding. I was
very uncomfortable in my own skin for a long time,
and I think most of their guidance was just towards
sitting with myself and like, do you like what's happening?
And if so, why don't you do that more? Um gosh,
I wish I could remember. S Williamson was great at
(45:09):
giving these speeches. Oh there we go, Okay, that's a
good one. So in senior year I come up through
theater with these like a huge class with theater nerds. Now,
usually freshman year there's a handful and then it triples
off and then maybe there's four or five kids left
at the end. But my crew had like twelve of us,
and we did it the whole time, and a lot
of them were friends who went to the same church.
(45:31):
I wanted up going there my sophomore year of high school,
just like hang out with. These kids were tight, but
we were also teens and you know, had our TIFFs
or whatever. Someone's car got egged and she was really
hurt by it. Um it happened at a cast party.
It was awful, just from an emotional standpoint, like everybody's fine,
(45:52):
it's a car, but it was awful and not like
her feelings really hurt. And then people felt like assholes,
and then who didn't know who didn't And of course
that starts to ramber Mill and it was messy, as
typical teen drama does. And so Sue brought us into again.
I'm so sorry, miss Williamson if you're hearing this, because
Williamson brought us into the auditorium, just the seniors, and
she set us all down and she gave us this
(46:14):
amazing speech which I cannot recall verbatim, but the gist
of it was basically, in every single seat there has
sat a person who was impacted by something on this stage,
and every stage has been filled with kids like you
who have been impacted by the work they've done here
in this space. This is hollowed ground. And when you
(46:35):
enter a theater, you are responsible not just for your
audience and their enjoyment, but for your crew and your
cast and their experience here. And when you break that trust,
you break the sacred ground that is the theater. And
why would you want to do that when it's such
an important home in space for so many people. And
that really brought home a sense of responsibility to any
(46:57):
setting that I work in. And I think about that
moment a lot. It sort of shocks you, and the
teacher that you pile around with all the time gets
very serious and it's like you've done wrong, and I
gotta correct you before you try to do wrong again. Um.
And I've always sort of viewed theaters really, any theater,
I mean a movie theater, a theatrical space type of theater,
(47:18):
a dance hall or whatever, it's hollow ground because it's
a place where people go to heal and express themselves
and escape and so yeah, I think I think Sir
Williamson's conversations on respecting the space and respecting your peers
that's the best advice that maybe have ever gotten. That's
really powerful. Thank you. Yeah. Should we go ahead and
(47:40):
wrap things up and and and do some social media
plugs and everything? Psych you do you want to lead
the way? Absolutely sure, so super quick. I was at
Advertising Week Europe last week and UM, I don't know
if the panel that I was on is going to
be available on demand. I believe it is, but I'm
not sure, but if it is, it was pretty exciting. Um.
I was talking with POC, disabled and queer content creators
(48:02):
and we were talking about how brands can create a
more inclusive and diverse experience, which was a really really
good conversation and it was a super empowering one for
me to be a part of as a queer content creators.
So that was really exciting. Um. And my schedule is
finally back to normal, so I will be on Twitch
four days a week at twitch dot tv for s
Last Psyche and on socials as Psyche plays wonderful. Thank
(48:26):
you Psyche. Um, I'm Jess bro Hard. I don't really
have anything that I want to plug this week, so
I'll just kind of plug my social media on Twitter
and Instagram. I'm just at Jess bro Hard my name
if you want to follow me there. And then finally,
our wonderful guest this week, Joel, can you please tell
our audience what is your social media where I can
they find you? And is there anything you're excited about
lately that you want to plug? Yeah? Well, thank you
(48:47):
guys so much for having me. This has been a
very lovely conversation. Guys, I'm Joel Monique. Can find me
all over the internet at Joel Monique. It's j O
E l E m owen I q u E uh.
Please please please used check out comic Con, metapod if
you love and if interviews, if you love fan theory.
Hector and I go as deep as our knowledge will
(49:08):
allow when we're excited to bring in some more folks.
I don't know if you guys know Rosie Knight. I
think she's going to come on and talk some fun
marvel thor stuff with us later. Um. It is absolutely
a passion project and I'm so proud of it. And uh,
I just want more people to listen so that we
can talk more about it. To be honest, uh, please
come nerd out with me on my socials even if
(49:30):
you don't listen to the show. Um, I just want
to talk to ner any things with people all day long.
So yeah, thanks for having me, Thank you for being here.
I will definitely be checking out Comic Con metapond because
I I am a huge fan of some of the
guests that you mentioned, so I can't wait to listen
to that. I'm just a huge nerd so I'm pretty excited.
(49:50):
And then and then of course, don't forget to follow
the podcast on social media at the Boss Level pod
that's spelled Boss l v L pod and join our
discord for behind the scenes look at this show. Thank
you so much for listening, and don't forget to check
out our brand new YouTube channel as well, where you
can see some snippets from past episodes. And if you
really have this kindness in your heart, we're going to
(50:12):
ask you please rate and review on iTunes. It's a
great way for the podcast to get discovered by a
new audience. Really really helps us out. If you enjoyed it,
please rate and review on iTunes or whatever other podcast
platform you're listening on, and we will see you next time.
Bye bye,
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