Cancelled: The Dark Side of Wellness Culture with Lee Tilghman (Lee From America) and Leigh Stein

What really happens when the internet turns on you + you're CANCELED? Danielle sits down with Lee Tilghman (aka @LeeFromAmerica), once one of Instagram's first and biggest wellness influencers and now the author of the new memoir If You Don't Like This, I'll Die. Joining her is bestselling author and internet expert Leigh Stein, whose satire Self Care eerily mirrored Lee's real-life unraveling before they had ever met. Together, they unpack the rise, fall, and reinvention of Lee—and what their stories reveal about cancellation, consumerism, feminism, and the cost of turning your life into a brand. Lee and Leigh share:

• The rise and fall of @LeeFromAmerica + the truth behind her "cancellation"
• Why women often cancel women (and what that says about power, belonging, and feminism)
• How influencer culture shifted from smoothies and self-care to social justice and "performative activism"
• The hidden costs of turning your personal life into a brand
• The cycle of consumerism, outrage, and burnout that traps us online
• The role of mob mentality and snark communities in shaping influencer culture
• Why wellness can be both a lifeline and a lie + how to find balance offline
• The loneliness of influencer fame, and why it can feel so isolating at the top
• Why Gen Z still dreams of influencing despite burnout and backlash
• What it really takes to walk away, reinvent yourself, and reclaim your identity

Follow Lee Tilghman on Instagram @leefromamerica

• Grab a copy of If You Don't Like This, I'll Die
• Book Rec: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Follow Leigh Stein @leighstein

• Grab a copy of Self Care
• Book Rec: The Situation and The Story by Vivian Gornick

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask, what if, why not?

(00:28):
And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
the conversation. It's time to question everything well well. The
Internet giveth and the Internet taketh away. One minute. Lee Tillman,

(00:48):
better known to hundreds of thousands as Lee from America,
was one of Instagram's first wellness influencers. The face of
clean Living, Green Juice, sun Salutations, off Light, soft Life.
She didn't just post about self care, she helped invent
the aesthetic until the crowd that built her decided it

(01:10):
was her turn to be undone.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I want to be the Kim Kardashian of wellness.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Let's I hit one hundred thousand, I wanted two hundred thousand,
hit two hundred thousand, I wanted three hundred thousand, and
then I remember, actually around three hundred thousand, and once
you hit around three hundred thousand, at least for me.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
You start to get a bunch of people who don't
even really like you. They're just following you because they
might hate you.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
In twenty eighteen, Lee was publicly canceled, accused of everything
from privilege to exploitation to hypocrisy for hosting wellness workshops
some thought were too expensive. Overnight, her name went from
aspiration to accusation. She cut her hair, retreated offline, deleted
her accounts, and left many followers and critics wondering where

(01:50):
the hell she went. Well, now she's back. She's back
online and out with a new memoir titled If you
Don't Like This, I Will Die, a raw look at
the hies, the heartbreak, and the human cost of Internet fame.
Joining her today is Lee Stein. She's a best selling
author and cultural critic, one of the sharpest observers of

(02:11):
digital culture we have. You may recognize her voice. She
was actually one of the very first guests that I
interviewed back in twenty twenty one, and it was after
I found her writing on girl Boss Culture. She understands
internet culture not as gossip, but as anthropology. What it
reveals about power, about belonging, and the stories we tell
about women and if this all isn't interesting enough. In

(02:34):
a wild twist, Lee Stein, cultural critic had a shocking
confession for Lee from America.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
I have been waiting for this opportunity because you don't
know this, Lee, but you were one of the wellness
influencers I followed when I was writing my novels. So
you inspired one of the main characters.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
So together we unpack what it means to be canceled.
So the question we're circling today is what does it
mean to be canceled? Not as astag but as a human.
It's time to question everything with Lee Tillman and Lee Stein.
Lee and Lee welcome.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
I don't know what to do because you're both named Lee.
Does anybody go by a nickname?

Speaker 4 (03:20):
No, there's no way to shorten Lee.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
When I was growing up, people called me Lee Lee.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, that's very cy You can for the interviews. That's
hardly kind.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
I don't even feel like I can.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
I might just use last names. You both are experts
on our topic today. You've both written books about it,
but you have completely different vantage points because you lived
the experience and Lee, you've studied it, and fictionalized it.
What were some of your early brushes with wellness and
influencer culture? Each of you, Lee, I'd love to start
with you.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Okay, So I remember being in college and recently new
to recovery from any disorder. On that experience, it forced
me at a young age to start paying attention to
my body. Like we learned about hunger cues and any
sort of treatment inherently teaches you, in good ways and
not so good ways, to really focus on your body

(04:12):
and you. And so I got really into that. And
then all of a sudden, I went to college where
everyone's drinking and partying, and I had just gone through
like a very serious kind of life threatening scenario, and
all of a sudden, I was just like care about sororities.
So I turned to the Internet to find other people
who maybe were on the same journey as me, and
I found a very vibrant blogging community on WordPress and

(04:34):
later on Instagram. But it really started like in two
thousand and eight and nine and finding like a bunch
of women who were going on runs and eating oatmeal, which.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Was new to me.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, I found wellness culture, I think much later than you.
It was like after the inauguration of President Trump in
twenty seventeen, and there was so much outrage among the
women I knew at that time, and I was on Instagram,
and I just noticed two things happening at once. There
would be these very aesthetic of like a woman in
a bathtub or woman applying a facial mask, with these
quotes from the black feminist poet Audrey Lord saying, caring

(05:07):
for myself is not self indulgence, it is self protection,
and that is an act of political warfare. And the
combination of like grooming rituals, like taking care of your
hair and skin, but telling yourself this is going to
prepare me for the long fight ahead. I thought, like,
this is so interesting, and the more that I thought
about it, the more I realized on these social media platforms,

(05:29):
we're being fed content that triggers feelings of outrage, feelings
of helplessness, and then when we're in that highly activated state,
we're shown an advertisement for a new pair of shoes
or a new bikini or a new lip bomb, something
to soothe us. So we're trapped in this cycle of
feeling upset and then being offered solutions to shop our

(05:49):
way into feeling better, and so I thought that's interesting,
and I want to write about that.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
And it's sort of the combination or where consumerism meets wellness,
which is what you're book Self Care really satirizes. And Lee,
I've heard you talk a lot about consumerism and self
care or your past job as an influencer, because you
said you looked in the mirror one day and you
were like, my shorts are from this brand, my top

(06:15):
is from this brand. Everybody sent me my blender and
my everything, and you didn't pick any of it. So
I want to talk about your experience as Lee from America.
You were one of the very first influencers to make
a career of it in the wellness space on Instagram,
and this was a very specific time that I think
a lot of us remember in Instagram history. What were

(06:36):
the hallmarks of your page when you.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Started yoga smoothies, self reflection and introspection, which was around
the time of twenty sixteen that you were discussing earlier
Abound the Bathtub, And I was also twenty six and
some of my followers might say that I was sharing
a lot of content about independence and non apologetic self care,

(07:00):
wasn't sharing that exact quote. I definitely had lots of
bathtub photos, and I kind of made the act of
self care and taking care of yourself a very alluring
lifestyle through you know, farmers market halls, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
You were getting thousands of likes on your Instagram photos.
What do you think all of these people were connecting
to in you? What did they see or feel well?

Speaker 3 (07:25):
I wasn't just sharing, you know, my smoothies. I was
sharing my period journey. I was sharing about being single
and being very happily single. I was sharing about my
past with a neating disorder. I was sharing about body image.
I was sharing about getting out of my routine and
feeling out of whack.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
And I was sharing.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
About hair loss, just things that like nowadays, like everybody's
talking about pcos and I wasn't even trying, but I
was one of the first people to be talking about
those things without shame, and a lot of women felt seen,
and so a lot of women were connecting and healing
from those things as well, or maybe knew that they
had to go from those subconsciously, so they were.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Following me and feeling like I was.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
I don't want to say a friend but like a sister,
but like idolatry. Like if I do these things like her,
I'll be like her. And that's what an influencer's job
is to do, is to sell a lifestyle. And I
always say, like, if you feel a little tinge of
jealousy or like not enough news when you see an influencer,
if they're doing their job.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Wow, I've never heard that.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, even like writers, it's just like that's just how
you draw people in, because you make someone feel a
lack and you fill it with a discount.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
Like the gap between who I am and who she is,
And if I just eat what she eats and do
the exercise that she does, I'll fill that void.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Do you remember watching Lee from America's videos or photos?

Speaker 4 (08:48):
Okay, so this is what's so crazy. So Danielle was like,
do you know Lee from America? Like I've start trying
to interview her. I was like, I have been waiting
for this opportunity because you don't know this Lee, but
you were one of the wellness of influencers I followed
when I was writing my novel. So you inspired one
of the main characters. Oh my, So I was definitely
following your content, and I wrote my book. I sold

(09:09):
it in March of twenty nineteen. In October, my editor
sends me an email with a link to a blog
post by Lee from America about going into treatment for
with thorexia, and I had written the character with orthorexia,
and she's like, do you know who this is? I
was like, that is Devin. Like you weren't the only
influencer I followed, but your influence was all over the
other wellness accounts. Everyone was copying you. I read your

(09:29):
book yesterday.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
I covered a cover.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
It was like tripping on Molly reading your book because
it was like I was reading a memoir by the
person that I thought I invented in my head, because
there are just so many eerie similarities, including one of
the things I gave the character was like she's perfect
and beautiful and beloved, and she's extremely lonely. And that's
something that really moved me about your book. It's just
how isolated you were, even as you had so many followers.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
I remember someone writing once like I have these crazy
memories of some of the comments that affected me most,
and they were always like some of the most random,
sometimes from like a random guy, which is crazy because
I had like ninety nine percent female followers. But I remember,
towards the beginning of kind of my breakdown, I was
getting tons of likes and someone saw through it and

(10:15):
someone wrote it must be lonely at the top at
Lee from America, because I was like doing tons of
meditating and I was like posting these videos of meditating
in this like perfect little set, and they wrote it
must be lonely at the top.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
But I had never heard that, and I don't know.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
It was really eerie because I was like, oh my god,
I had achieved everything I thought I wanted. Monetary success,
like popularity success, which is also important in female circles,
some level of fame, like a weird kind of new
level of fame, and material goods, everything taken care of.
And yet I was like, oh my god, I feel

(10:51):
so empty.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
It was lonely.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Had you felt empty ahead of that? Or was the
emptiness a new experience?

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Oh, it was a new experience, like going into that
becoming a wallness influencer. I think I thought I would
always like arrive, like I was like, Okay, once I
have this, I will feel so much better. Once I
hit one hundred thousand, I wanted two hundred thousand, and
once I hit two hundred thousand, I wanted three hundred thousand.
And then I remember actually around thre hundred thousand, I
was like, actually I don't want a million.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Like this is way too many people.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
I think. Once you hit around three hundred thousand, at
least for me, you start to get a bunch of
people who don't even really like you.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
They're just following you because they might hate you.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
And it went from like a small, really cute, supportive,
loving community, which often is the case with smaller Internet spaces,
and then it was becoming kind of bigger than me,
and I was like, there's only one of me, and
there's three hundred thousand of this. I'm feeling the power
dynamic shift. But also I just felt really overwhelmed by
the amount of like eyes on me.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
Something I've been thinking a lot about with influencers and
with content creators, Like on a platform like TikTok is like,
not only is your audience following you for advice or
entertainment or aesthetic lifestyle, but they're also watching you because
they want to judge you for fun, Like that's part
of the recreation. It's like a recreational judgment. The fact
that there are these like blog snarks subreddits, there are

(12:05):
entire communities dedicated to mocking influencers, adds this whole other
layer of participation. So it's not just adoring fandom, it's
also the anti fandom on top of them. You said
you had hate follows, and I just find it like
a really dark side of humanity that there's that additional
layer of judgment of people just doing their jobs in public.
We don't judge other people for doing their jobs in

(12:27):
the same way we judge influencers because we don't see
it as real work.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Is it jealousy or you're saying it's we don't see
it as real work.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
I don't think we count it as labor. We don't
make fun of people who work in factories, and we
don't make fun of plumbers. We make fun of influencers.
It's like fair game, and then we say they asked
for it.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
They're famous, right right, Because I think also we see
plumbers like people who are working more blue collar jobs
as like industrious, and influencers is like frivolous because they
and they're mostly womle that they're mostly male and listen,
that's a totally okay opinion to have, but it doesn't
mean that anyone's job is more valuable. Like if we're
all an even playing field, it shouldn't be made fun of,

(13:04):
just as a plumber should be made fun of. But
I also understand that at least this is where I'm
at with the snark and everything, is that like it's
part of your job, it actually helps you, It really does.
People are talking about you like that's will only help
you get your message out and get your book across
and literally, like every successful influencer has one. So once
you view it that way, it just changes it. And

(13:26):
like complaining about it's not going to change it. So
I just say, okay, onto the next. Well, I just
to focus on what my messaging is and not like
catering to those people. And I know that those people
are going to exist, but this is not really any
of my business.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
And there is this element though, of influencing that I
see because now there are some influencers who are women
over fifty or sixty, and there's from my vantage point
less making fun of them. The making fun of happens
for young girls. Lee, you're nodding.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Yeah, I never thought about it before until now, but
you're right they are. I don't see older women influencers
getting the same level of hate. Well, we know someone
in common, Lyn Slater, the accidental influencer. She's a perfect
example of this. She's very beloved. But you can like
hate Sydney Sweeney. Yes.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Like, also, there's youth and beauty and those things are
very coveted.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
Yeah, when you're youthful, you're more powerful. Yeah, so like
Sidney Sweeney has more.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Power, power than Lynn, and so like, you're not going
to take down someone who doesn't have any power. People
try to take on someone who's above them, so they
feel like Lynn's on their playing field.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
But the weird part about this, I agree with you,
but when you're young, at least me, the older I get,
the more powerful I feel. When you're in your twenties,
you actually feel like you have all the youth and beauty,
but you feel powerless. You don't know how to navigate
the world. People are harassing you. It's a weird dynamic.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
But you do have a power that you don't know
you have.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
That's why they say youth is wat youth, because you
have a power that you don't realize ye, and that
is in our society powerful because it's scarce.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
So we're going to talk about the entire journey of
what made you quit influencing. But I want to hold
up your book. If you don't like this, I will die.
Great title. It follows your career, your cancelation, and then
can I call it a comeback?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Call it a comeback?

Speaker 1 (15:14):
It gets very personal between all those things. Why did
you feel like now was the right time to tell
the story?

Speaker 3 (15:20):
To be honest, five years ago, it would have been
the right time to tell this story. I think this
is a story that needed to be told. When I
stepped away from influencing, I was like, there's nobody that
I can talk to because nobody has stepped away.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
If they have set away, they've completely gone off the grid.
I don't know how to reach them because.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
They're not online, they've gone to the Witness Protection program.
And why isn't there a memoir out there, like a
book that's about a woman going through something online and
stepping away, like I Pray, Love Educated. All those books
were like huge parts of my upbringing in Glass Castle,
and I've always turned to memoir even if I haven't

(15:55):
been through it.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I always just find relation to the feelings and the thoughts.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
And I thought, Okay, if I've gone through this, other
people will and if they haven't yet, they will. And
I also was like this needs to go down and
I need to write this in history because this is
such a new thing. I mean, the whole experience was
so new. Like I didn't have a mentor when I
was an influencer.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
I could say twenty years ago when I was.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
On Instagram a film and I was reaching out to
brand saying, hey, you know, I've got thirty thousand followers.
Can you send me your yogurt? And they were like, okay,
why And I was like, oh, I have thirty thousand followers.
And then I would sell it out overnight and they'd go,
can we send you more yogurt? And they didn't even
know what, Like influencer gifting wasn't even a thing. Sometimes
I had imagine, yeah, it was the founder sometimes that
I was dming with and they did because the didn't

(16:38):
have social.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Media managers yet. It was twenty sixteen. Social media managers now.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Is a very important job. But back then during PR
and you did social media. But now it's like it's
a totally separate job and sometimes you need five social
media managers, you.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Know, a big company. But it was so new, there
was no blueprint. It wasn't acting, it wasn't comedy, it
wasn't singing.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
It wasn't exactly art, although I really do think of
it as an art, but it wasn't like I would
like going into an artist residency.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
I was like, this is crazy, and.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
I just wanted this book to be out there so
that other people could find solace and help and motivation
in it.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
I can tell you one of the things that struck
me the most, both in your book and hearing you
talk about it live, is that you got on the
internet to find belonging. You want a community, and in
the end, what is cancelation. Cancelation is really saying you
don't belong. It's outcasting somebody. So it was almost like
your worst nightmare had happened.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
The cancelation was my favorite part of the book to write,
because I think that a lot of people, even non influencers,
everybody's afraid of getting canceled, because cancelation gets at that
core human need to belong and so I was so
excited to write it.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
It just poured out of me.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
I want to catch everyone up in case they don't
know why you got canceled. Basically, you would do these retreats.
Would you call the shops workshops. You would do workshops
so that you could meet your community in person, and
they became really popular. Eventually you raised the ticket price.
One VIP ticket was seven hundred and fifty dollars, and
as soon as there was one negative comment, all of

(18:07):
a sudden, there were more. And that's actually the part
that was interesting to me because it was almost like
watching mob mentality online. Do you ever look back at
that time and think why me? Like there was probably
twenty maybe more influencers sort of doing the same thing
you were doing because I.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Was the most popular one. I was definitely like the
biggest one at the top. And it's easy to take
someone down, you know, at the top, because like also
women watching other women continue to gain power.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
It was at the beginning of you know, the tearing.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Down of the Girl Boss, and it was like we
were all go women and all of a sudden, all
these women are watching women gain power and were like, no,
too much power, too much power, too much bring her down.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Bring her down, and.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Then I watched it happen in twenty twenty, like eleven
months after me. I watched Ty Haney, Audrey Gellman, The
Woman the Hand, Yeah, Leandropando.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
It was like, Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
This is what Lee's Peace talks about. When I found
lye from the end of Girl Boss.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
What I would add to this conversation is that from
twenty fourteen to twenty seventeen, I was leading a feminist
nonprofit organization with a Facebook group of forty thousand women.
Oh God, and we had a conference. We did everything right,
We had a scholarship program, we had affordable tickets. Everything
that you were accused of we did correctly. And our
conference was destroyed by online infighting between women. So we

(19:32):
built it and they tore it down. So you could
have done everything correctly and it wouldn't have mattered. And
so that was my lesson. It's like, it's not about
the capitalism, it's not that you were charging too much money.
There's no way to satisfy all the critics. Our conference
was ultimately torn apart over a conflict over whether or
not we should allow babies.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
That's what destroys Yeah, it goes to so that it's
not about the babies or the price, it's just about
like maybe the community.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
It's the community, and it's like there's this genuine like boiling,
Like I think women have a lot of anger and
they have villains, they have targets, but those targets are
like so far away that it's like who's close by? Yeah,
and they end up turning on each other. Did you
ever read that Joe Freeman essay from like nineteen seventy
six on trashing that was in this magazine.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
No, I'm gonna send it to you.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
It's like a classic second wave feminism essay about women,
just like icing this one woman out. She doesn't even
know what she's done wrong. It's like a pre cancelation. Yeah,
how they all turned on her and she has no
idea what she did, but they isolated her from the group.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Once someone's already made up their like mind about you,
you can't argue with that. And it's so funny, like
because watching so many different women get canceled since my cancelation,
it's wild because nobody can actually all agree on.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Why they hate the woman.

Speaker 5 (20:43):
They just hate the woman, and like they think that
they are all behind the same cause, but instead of
outpouring of support, its outpouring. Yeah, it's like they've been
keeping it in, whether it's jealousy or feeling.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Unfulfilled in their life, or feeling.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
A little uncomfortable by maybe this woman has something that
they don't. I don't always just want to say it's jealousy,
but just like when I'm not doing something in my
flow and this might sound so wo or like being creative,
I can start to feel a little bit like why
is that? Like the inner critic of other women comes out,
and so as long as I'm moving forward, it's very quelled.

(21:20):
And so I feel like if I'm focusing on myself
and my craft and my creativity, then I'm not feeling
that hate to me. It just shows that maybe those
men are not focused on that, and it's like so.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Easy to hate.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
Then you tell yourself, I'm standing up for what's right. Yeah,
I'm letting Lee know. Yeah, this is a structural injustice
that she is committing.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
And like, oh my god, I can go on this
for hours, but like it's like moral purity and like
Lee has power. I want power me and all these
girls are going to hate on her, and as a group,
we were going to be more powerful than her. The
criticism was coming from so many different areas, and they
all eventually were like, oh my god, Lee has other
haters too.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Before then I didn't have them, and they all kind
found it.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, and they were more powerful together.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
Yeah, So they found a community through hating the same thing.
It's like I see this on book talk with like
Colleen Hoover, Like there's the Colleen Hoover fans and then
there's the anti Colleen Hoover fans that like have their
own strong anti fandom.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
I'm trying to think as I'm listening to you guys,
I'm like, what's the male equivalent? Like on ESPN, I
see them all talking about who's better Lebron or Michael
Jordan and it's not.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
I think this is how women exert power. Like I
think this is what we learned as girls and teenagers,
Like if you want to hurt someone's feelings, you exclude them,
like you don't punch them.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
It's giving I had on matured since high school.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
But I just think it's the way we learned to
engage in conflict. Instead of punching someone in the nose,
we don't invite you to the sleepover bite everyone else.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Has this changed either of you like being critical or
writing satire about this community? And Lee having seen it
from both sides, has it changed your view on feminism
or women? Yes? Interesting, please same way.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
I don't call myself a femine anymore. I do not
know if that's what feminism is. I want nothing about it.
I want absolutely nothing about it. Like I used to be,
like women, all women, support women. I had such a
naive view of women. Also, what's so funny is I
think that because I was healing myself and sharing about
my healing journey, I attracted a lot of unhealed women.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Well, I think Ali Kreedsman.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
She said that she's also a writer, and yeah, she
was like, you know, what's so interesting about your community specifically,
is that because you were talking about body image and healing,
you attracted a lot of women who were struggling with that,
and they looked you as a kind of a projection
of their own desires and how they wanted to be
and how they wanted to look or how a healed
woman should look. And I attracted a lot of very

(23:42):
unhealthy people. And that's just what happens when I guess
you were talking about the things that I was talking about.
But if that's what a feminist online community is or does,
then I'm not a feminist.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
My dream of.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Womanhood and the female community and women spporting women is
and will forever be broken.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
And once you've been torn down by other.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Women to the degree that I was, you will start
to be like, Wow, it's really women who actually are
tearing each other down.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
It's not men.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Like there was not a single man in my comments
caring about this if anything, Like all the men in
my life have been like they're busy doing what Like.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
They just don't understand, they don't have time for that.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
Well, Also, we talk about Audrey Gellman so much, and
how much we talk about Adam Newman, Like are people
making TikTok videos about Adam Newman? No, they make videos
about Audrey Gillman's new hotel. Like, are they supposed to
go away and never come back?

Speaker 2 (24:30):
With the visibility women being visible is a threat?

Speaker 4 (24:33):
Yeah, we do.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Like that's exactly I think what people want is for
the canceled women to disappear and to never like you
got your chance.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
I'm having this interesting reaction. I should just be an interviewer,
but I'm having this interesting reaction because my experience of
feminist communities has been largely positive. And it's not to
deny your experience, but I'm like, how could my experience
of women be so different from your experience of women?

(25:03):
And I see, like, it's this visceral pain. I can
tell you've talked about it differently than you talked about
anything else here. I think you're kind of in the
same camp.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
Unfortunately, I'm not going to offer a different No, you
don't have to.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
That was what it was, the betrayal of the lie
we were sold of girlhood and friendship, and growing up,
I was always told by the older women in my life,
it's the girls that are always going to hold your
back and have your back and your best friend. Listen,
my best girlfriends are like my sisters. But it's like
the girls that I didn't realize I had to be
more cautious of, which is these girls who think that

(25:35):
they know me online and for me and watched me
and praying for my downfall.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
So you didn't feel betrayed by your real life IRL friends.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
And now I've learned that those are the only people
that I need to be paying attention to and.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Giving love and care to.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
But back then, I put a lot of care and
weight to what the opinion of random people in line
thought of me.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
What were your largest critics.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Saying that you are harming others with your content because
of your cost prohibited, so you're clearly only for white people,
and that you're culturally appropriate racist.

Speaker 4 (26:10):
I mean that assumes only white people have money, which
I think is racist.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Oh, I mean, it's so many things cultural appropriation because
you're doing macha and Ireveda. And I was working actually
with another Iravedic influencer who was Vendean descent, Like she
was like, can you talk about my stuff? And I
was like sure, I'll promote you, and she wanted to
be in my workshop. And I was accused of stealing
Aravedic ideas, which is crazy, like no context at all

(26:34):
before I left, That's really what they were accusing me of,
and just being like privileged white girl from Connecticut.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yes, of course I'm white and I'm from Conneticut. Are
you insulting me from that?

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Like I'm proud to be from Connecticut and yes I'm white,
Like that's not a secret. Like I don't have shame.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
Another party book I really like is like there's all
these moments where you're learning the changes in instagram sters,
like now we're going to do stories instead of good quotes.
I'll adapt to that, and now we're gonna do this.
Now we're gonna debt. And then there's one moment where
you're like, are we all pivoting to social justice content?
And do I need to pivot too? But that's really
real because there was this kind of peer pressure and
it's just a hilarious moment where you're like on a
plane doing a face mask and you realize it's MLK Day,

(27:12):
and so you decide to post the face masks selfie
with a Martin Luther King junior quote and that is peak.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
I mean, no, but exactly. But what's so funny too
is how I got all these messages being like thank
you for posting a fist with your smoothie.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
But the funniest thing though, still like we're also indoctrinated,
Like if a brand does an Mlkday sale to like
sell mattresses, were like, they're a good one.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
They're selling mattresses, and they've acknowledged Mlkday.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
It's like you, guys, they don't care, they want your money,
they don't care.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
They're doing it so that you come to them because
you think they're good.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Do you feel like the vibe has shifted though with
this in terms of the intersection of social justice activism
and just content online and entertaining wellness other content that's
not after this content, Like I feel like it's less.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
It's such a deep question, ly too deep, no ask it,
but it's not one pronged.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
Like I don't see the same culture online now where
it's like Indigenous People's Day and I don't see people
in the comment Do you know what day it is
today you're posting this. I don't see that anymore.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Yeah, Well, because I think people realize that it's been
taken by consumerism.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
Is that it though it's like cynicism about consumerism or
is the public fatigued of every single thing we look
on online has to also be political in some way,
Like maybe we want to follow politics, maybe we want
to read the New York Times, we well informed citizens,
and then maybe we want to like get a recipe
for something and not have the recipe be democratic Republicans.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Do you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
I think it just went a little too far. I
really do. I agree.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Well, I think you're touching on something that was a
big question mark during the time of your cancelation, which
was what is the responsibility of influencers to speak on
social justice and or political issues? Because we were requiring
influencers to talk about all these things.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
Some of them are twenty one years old.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
I don't know what a lot.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Of them know of.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
That was a big flashpoint civil liberties and things.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, and my belief, this is just my belief, is
that it's okay if they don't.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
There was this pressure, at least for me.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
I remember like feeling that pressure to post on Mlkday
because I was watching other influencers just post their smoothie.
You'll be like silent on MLK Day, unfollowed, And I
was like, I don't want to be unfollowed.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
I want to be good, So I'm going to post
about MLK.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
But I do believe in my heart of hearts that
it's okay to have just a smoothie page.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Here's the flip side of that, though, And I don't
know how to make sense of it, but I think
what the flip side is that a lot of people's
lived experiences don't allow them to be apolitical, and that's
the feeling, and so I don't know the answer.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, but then they can go follow a political person,
like there's totally free will.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Like there's thousands of smoothie people follow one that talks
about politics and smoothies. Right, April in Florida doesn't have to,
she can just post her smoothies.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
It's the intersection that I feel like we've entangled.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, it's really weird.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
And also like one thing that I felt is, like
I talk about in my book, by my feelings around politics,
I wasn't like a political child, rarely is one. And
all of a sudden, now I've got hundreds of thousand
followers and there's a shooting and people are dming me,
you know, feverishly saying what is your stance on gun
control laws in the state of Las Vegas? And I
have an event in three hours, but I'm spending hours

(30:32):
researching gun control, the history of gun control laws in
Las Vegas, and I'm thinking my passion is not guns,
and something that is many people's passions.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
The Las Vegas shooting was.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
Very sad, but it just goes to show like I
didn't even know about it. I posted like my oatmeal,
and people were like so mad that I didn't post
about gun control laws. And I think to try to
speak from the fans point of view.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
It's like they see you as a public figure with
a huge platform, and they're like, she has a huge audience.
She could make a difference. She could say something about
gun control, So they want that from you. And as
soon as you do that, they say, well, aren't you
going to speak up about an abortion? But well aren't
you going to tell us who you voted for? Like
it's never enough. But also every issue.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
People said that to Taylor Swift, like she backed Kamala
and Kamala didn't win, so if she is the most influenced,
it's interesting the world and she backed Kamala and Trump won, Like,
listen me talking about gun control. I'm sorry, but it's
not going to help anything. And like the mattress store
down the street doing it MLK, like is it really
helping m okay day, I don't know. It sounds like

(31:33):
they're just trying to sell a couple more mattresses. There's
this performative activism that I just find really disingenuous.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
I think some of your critics and things that I've read,
it's like a tension between your public image and your
private truth. In some ways in your book you talk
about like manufacturing this persona leaf from America, and even
though it is parts of you, this curated version of Lee.
And then there's Lee Tilman, the person right who goes

(32:05):
home at night and makes her bed in the morning
and calls her mom. And how do you look back
on the dissonance between those two people.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
Well, that private self is only for the people in
my life. Like the public doesn't get that, and that's
a very safe and normal and healthy thing to do.
They were never going to get the holy. They can't
handle the holy. Like I tried to come back and
pivot to this goofy selfie girl with a bowl cut,
people were like, we don't want that. So I think
actually the audience has this projection of who I am.

(32:36):
It's like the same old story with women. It's like
she's to this, she's not enough this. You know, there's
always critique there. So I just think I represented and
still do like represent, a projection of like how I
want her to be, showing up, and even if I
showed up exactly how they think they want me to
show up, there would still be critique. And that's what
I am here to talk about. This is what the

(32:57):
book is about. It's funny because we're never truly able
to fully understand someone, even when we read their memoir,
even if we see their social media, all their reels,
and even get to talk to them for two hours,
we don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
The whole person.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Getting to know someone is a very intimate experience that
happens over months, years, a lifetime, and that's a privilege
to be able to get to know someone. And I
think think people need to realize that you're never going
to know who your favorite celebrities truly are.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Deep down. You're never going to know them.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
You're going to see one side of them, whether that
they're manufacturing, I don't know, or maybe just that like
feedback cycle between their audience and them and they're sharing
a little bit and hearing kind of how it goes
and then they'll pivot or whatever. But you're never going
to get to know the whole person, because that's for
their private life.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
They deserve to have that.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Do you identify as a content creator?

Speaker 3 (33:43):
Now yeah, I would say a creator, Yeah, content creator, influencer,
you would still use the word influencer, yeah, because I
guess I'm influencing people to buy my book.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
But this is still okay, this is the thing that
I'm so interested in. It's like I would argue, there's
a difference between influencer and content creator, and it's part
where your income comes from. So if you're an influencer
and you're earning income from brands, the brand is your customer,
so you want to please the brand so you can
continue working with that brand. And then you're selling that
you're a human magazine. You're selling that to your audience.

(34:13):
And the way I think of content creator is like
you have a sub stack, right, You're directly earning income
from your audience. It still has its upsides and downsides
because if your audience is paying five dollars a month,
react entitled, right. But that's how I see the difference
influencer and content creator.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
But I think a lot of people think of influencer
as someone who's just influencing. Who's influential, Yeah, and like
you don't even need to be selling products, Like right now,
I'm not selling products from my book.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
But I'm still called an influencer and that's fine. You're
okay with it totally.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Do you still do brand deals?

Speaker 2 (34:38):
I'm curious.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
No, but on purpose. Oh, you're open to it. I
know That's what I was.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Listen. My fiance is like, you're on Instagram way too
much to not be making anybody for nothing.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
I'm like, I'm selling my book to me.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
You're a creator because the book is something you created. Yeah,
and you're selling it to your own audience.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, what do you identify as?

Speaker 3 (34:56):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Content creator? Okay, I don't make any money from influencing.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Would you be open to it?

Speaker 4 (35:01):
That would be the weirdest plot twist in my life.
I don't think I could. I don't think it would
be really like meta, it would be true. I think
it would be true. That would be true.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Is there a number those there's a number for us.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
I'm thinking of offering some expensive workshops.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Do it.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
I'll support Lee Tillman. Is there something you lost during
that time that you'll never get back?

Speaker 3 (35:22):
No, because I would say I lost myself, but I
definitely got myself back and I have like no regrets
about the whole experience. I got to live this crazy experience.
I was able to put it in a book and
now it's out there. I think that's a gift. I
also believe that everything happens for a reason and have
no regrets that. I'm so glad that I was able
to put it into a book and that it's helping people.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Have you had other people who have been canceled so
to speak reach out to you?

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yes, and I have reached out to be canceled and
had coffee with them or soon. It's always such an
awesome experience because we get to like bond over it,
and it's such a rare thing to be canceled, so
oftentimes they don't really know who to speak to.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
So it's one of your things is to like reach
out when they're canceled and be like, I'm here.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Do you ever feel like they deserve to be canceled? No?

Speaker 2 (36:09):
I don't think anyone deserves to be canceled.

Speaker 4 (36:11):
No, it's like a public death.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
It's a public death.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah. Yeah, what's the saying Every saint has a past
and every sinner has a future, Like when Matilda Jerk
was canceled, or like not letting her employees use her bathroom,
like okay, yeah, just like me and her employees. All
the things that women are canceled like men do every day.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Don't even get me started.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
But I pride myself on reaching out to canceled women
and supporting them in any way I can.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
It's interesting too, because you went through it during a
time it was sort of new. There was no one
to call to be like, hey, how did you handle this?
Or if I apologize, how does it go? You were
navigating in real time?

Speaker 3 (36:49):
I was, but I was lucky enough to be connected
to a couple people in the music industry who deal
with the PR Firm their crisis PR forever. They deal
with like you know, rappers who get to drunk driving
accidents have to make public statements and they're like, well,
your time is comely. Everyone has it. Anyone in your
shoes has it. Like basically what they're saying is everyone
has like a little scandal.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
It's part interesting being in the public.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
So I was reading that fifty seven percent of gen
Z individuals which choose to be an influencer given the opportunity,
and now even the generation below them, I think the
number one profession that they want to be is like
a YouTuber influencer. Your book really highlights the truth of it.
What do you think those seeking a life online should know?

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Okay, so I would say, if you're like in your
late teens or early twenties, to really make sure that
you have a solid in person support system because it
can get really murky when you start to lose sight
of reality, which is what we're talking about before with
that private persona and then your public self, Like they are.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Two separate things, and it's very important to keep the boundary.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
And I think that like anyone who tries to meld
them is in or maybe burnout and loss.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Of identity, loss of self. It's work, it's a job.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
So you're going to show up and you have to
be able to turn it off and go home to
your family and cook dinner and show up and good
boundaries and maybe like write down a list of things
that you don't want to share and why and you
have good boundaries with that because once you share, you
can never unshare.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Can you say more about that? Because there's this protective
layer that I've heard you talk about. It actually really
hit me personally because somebody said to me in like
a high up position at a digital media company, and
she said, Danielle, you're doing this backwards. You're building a
podcast and hoping that people will follow you, and you
need to build a following and then they'll listen to
your podcast. And she's not wrong, but I don't want

(38:42):
to be an influencer. That's not where my joy is.
And so after her conversation, she was like, film, I
get on Ready with me and see how you feel.
So that night, I'm in the mirror, I'm taking off
my makeup, I put the phone. You're looking like you're
either so what? And I'm thinking, like, how can I
do this in a way that feels like me? I
got on Ready six times? Yeah, and I was like,
this is just not for me, And it's that protective layer,

(39:06):
and everybody's is different of what is comfortable to share
and what's not. That video has been deleted and will
never be posted.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
On the internet.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
But I've heard you talk about how that protective layer
is something that you felt early on and you just
purposely ignored.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yes, very intuitive with you to say that a lot
of people are like, how did you get to where
you were? The key to my success was to purposely
ignore that natural human intuition to protect and preserve personal details,
your private life. You know, things that we keep private
and we show up at work. We're not airing our
dirty laundry. So to speak to everybody, you have, you know,

(39:44):
discernment with who and what we share. And I purposely
learned to quell and shut that up because it was
helping me succeed because then, you know, people are seeing
me talk about my period coming.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Back and they're like, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
I feel like I'm talking to my best f friend
because she's sharing about her period and I was sharing my.

Speaker 4 (40:03):
You're getting positive reinforcement for disclosing.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Oversharing, Yeah, oversharing and brands love it.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Brands love it.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Like I hate to say it. It's like fast, cheap love.
But just as quickly as it can be given to you,
it can be taken away. So luckily that muscle has
regrown and I listen to it now.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
If you look at things online in terms of what
is most popular, horoscopes are very popular. Wellness is up
there on every single platform. It's growing, it's not decreasing.
Where do you guys think the wellness community and culture
is going well?

Speaker 4 (40:35):
I think right now we're in a very low trust society,
and we have lost trust in a lot of institutions
that our parents or our grandparents believed in, like the
mainstream media, medical institutions, public health experts. And so I
think when people feel the trade confused, curious, they'll look
for alternative sources of information. So I think this explains

(40:57):
why people would turn to an influencer for health and
wellness information. I think they want some kind of alternative.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, I would say there's that.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
But also I think the pendulum swing again in the
opposite way because like when Make America Healthy Again and
RFK Junior kind of became part of the cultural dialect
earlier this year and he's kind of proposing, you know,
going back to alternative medicines, and a lot of people
because they don't like Trump, they don't like that, and
so they're pro doctor of pro science, pro everything again

(41:27):
and like pro red dye, like just to be like
an fu to RFKJ and White thinking, yeah, that's a
MAHAP pipeline.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
I see all these videos being like going on a
WEEOVA workshop from the MAHAP pipeline. Like raw Butter.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
I don't know if you follow snack shots on Instagram,
she does a lot of really funny memes about beef
tallow and just like the latest trends, I think it
kind of continues to get crazier and crazier.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Like a lot of people are using beef tallow as sunscreen.
I have not done that, but listen, if I was
a wellness influencer, I would probably be doing that. I
was down to clown everything.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
I was like, you have to have a human guinea pig.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
Yes, so you have to have an experimenter's mindset, and
I think in many ways that can help you. Like
I turned to wellness because I felt like the medical
system had failed me. Yeah, I was diagnosed with PCOS
and they said you got to go on birth control
and I was like, I don't want to go back
on birth control.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
I'm off of it.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
My actor was like, well, sorry, next, and I was like, okay,
of course, I'm going to go to holistic health after that.
There's a book I could read about how to heal
PCUS in thirty days. If you eat this way, sure,
sign me up. Got to eat anyway. There's something very
alluring about these quick fixes, or like these life.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
Anything that gives you the idea that you're in control.
You can control what you eat for thirty days, Yeah, exactly.
You can't even control when you can get your Oggian appointment.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
No, I know, Lee Stein. I'd like to start with
you on this one. What do you think the ultimate
cost is of turning your personal life into a public brand?
What have you seen?

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Well?

Speaker 4 (42:56):
I think relationships can become transactional as you grow instatus
or influence. You wonder if the people around you just
want something from you. So I think this is what
creates this loneliness effect that we were talking about earlier.
It can also be impossible to turn off the part
of you that's the creator. It's like very hard to
separate work in personal life and find that balance. If

(43:19):
your job and your personal life are like in the
same little computer that you carry around in your pocket,
it's very hard to leave and take a vacation. Like
it's very hard to sign off. I think that's a
fantasy because I work with so many writers and writers
are like but I don't want to be on social media,
or they want to take a break from social media.
You can leave for a short time, but you have
to live online. And I've lived online since the late nineties.

(43:41):
It's my second home. I have a lot of joyful,
happy memories of being on the Internet. It's not a
place that I want to leave. I think in general,
whether you're an influencer, you're just a user. I think
people right now feel this intense ambivalence about the Internet
where they want to sign off and they can't, and
so that's causing a lot of inner conflict.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Already feeling this self bitchio when I log on, I
don't want to belogging on, and so I'm lugging on
even though I don't want to be on. So I'm
anger at myself when I see content that I'm not
happy about, you know.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
And you're overwriting your time live it, you know, like
we try to set boundaries, like we're like I'm only
going to do this for.

Speaker 6 (44:11):
X number, and then we're like password, Lee, what do
you think I think that you sacrifice your inner peace
and knowing that, like there's a life beyond the Internet, you.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Can just get too lost in the sauce, Lee Stein,
Who do you think ultimately benefits from the wellness industry?

Speaker 4 (44:29):
Who benefits from the wellness industry as it exists now?
I think I once said, no one has ever lost
money by making women feel bad about themselves. So as
long as there continue to be cultural conversations about flaws
that women have and how they could be better, whether
that's at money, at business, their weight, their skincare, their hair,

(44:51):
there's going to be a company to fill that void.
And I just feel like wellness and the beauty industry
are so connected at this point, you know, like what
are you buying from moon juice? And what are you
buy from drunk Elephant? And like who's the one making
the vitamins? And it's all tangled up together, so companies
continue to benefit from us.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Trying to improve.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
I was just gonna say that, Like I agree, and
what's wrong with trying to improve too? Like, there's also
nothing wrong with trying to improve any of this critique
of wellness and beauty can be really like swing to
the other end of the bedroom, where like any time
you care about what you look like, you're engaging in
the patriots And that's like just as extreme and harmful
and judgmental as someone deciding that they want to use retinol.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
I might be the oldest one here, I'm forty, but
what I'm noticing in my pure group is like a
lot of my friends are getting botox. My cousin who's
younger than me is getting botox or using retinol, And
I have no interest in using these products. And I'm
interested in my lack of interest in using these products.
But I realized, like, I don't have a fear of
like losing my beauty. I don't have a fear of
people looking at me being like that woman is in

(45:53):
her forties. That's not my fear. My fear is losing
my relevance culturally, like becoming irrelevant, not being invited to
have this conversation. Let's invite someone younger than the lead.
That's my fear. And so I can relate and sympathize
with my friends who want to use these products to
look younger, because I understand their fear, even if my
fear is like a different shade of the.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Same Yes, it's a different fear to the exact same thing.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. It's a very vulnerable
thing to share. And I think it's interesting your fear
initially was not belonging. Do you still have that same fear?

Speaker 3 (46:25):
No, because I know where I belong and I'm just
here to share online and like I believe that my
content will resonate with the people who are supposed to
get it, and once I get it, and the ones
I don't don't And I'm not here to please.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Everyone, Like I used to be.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
The one thing nobody's asking you in interviews that I'm
very curious about is what did your parents think about
all of this?

Speaker 3 (46:44):
When I first went to LA, I was like, I'm
going to try to monetize my Instagram. They're like what,
And I was like, I save the money, I'm going
to do it. I'm biking this decision, packed up my vitamins,
floo to LA and within a year and a half,
like had quit my waitressing job and was full time influencing.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
And they were like really proud. They didn't fully understand
something like they were unsupportive.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
They just like were like, whoa, what You're going to
Hawaii with lu lulam okay okay. And then all of
a sudden, like you know, my mom was from a
Mother's Day campaign with Athleta, Like I got to start
flying my mom out and she got her makeup down.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
I mean she was like this is so cool, Like
my daughter is doing so well.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
And then once it started to get hard. They started
to hear a lot of it, and they were really
excited for me to step back because they just were
like WHOA, Like she's deep in this and it's not healthy.
I remember, like, I'm so grateful because when I was
ready to walk away, I think some parents will be like, no,
you have to keep doing it, like you're making so
much money, and they were just like, pro taking care
of yourself before putting yourself out there.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
Can I circle back to you gave this great stat
about how many gen z want to be content creators,
and I've ccited that stat to It shocks people when
I tell them, But I have a lot of sympathy
for this younger generation because it's like we told everyone
to go get a bachelor's degree. They took out six
figures in dead to get their bachelors. You can't get hired,
and now we're telling them that AI is replacing all
the skilled labor that they learned to do with an
undergraduate degree. So I can understand the point of view

(48:05):
that's like I'm going to hustle like that YouTube star.
I'm going to build an audience. I can take my
audience with me if I build this loyal fan base,
and that's how I'm going to earn income.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Like internships are getting slashed just as much as like
the influencing industry, you can.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Lose it an instance, you can lose the corporate job
in an instant too.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
Work is work, yes, like some work is different and harder,
But at the end of the day, I think like
work is work, and like the lie of like love a.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Job and you never work a day in your life,
you know.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
And I was almost kind of chasing that and like
being like, maybe I'll do intere your design.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
It's like listen, no, Like the work is work.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
But I think until everyone recognizes that contact creating is labor,
they're going to keep being surprised that so many young
people would want to be Like, there's still this disconnect
that it's not a real job. Andrew Yang just wrote
this piece about what AI is doing to the job
mark or whatever, and he's like, we need to train
young people for jobs in the real world with valuable skills.
My kids want to be YouTube of creators. I'm trying

(48:56):
to talk them out of that, and I'm like, Okay,
you don't think that's a real job in the real world.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Oh I know means yeah, he's a technologically savvy person.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
Yeah, but to him, that's not a real job. And
I understand, like, not everyone's going to become an Oscar
winning actress, not everyone's gonna become Taylor Swipt, not everyone's
going to become a YouTube star, But like, can't we
acknowledge that this is a real job? Can I just
start there?

Speaker 3 (49:15):
There's a misunderstanding when people talk like that, like you
create a real job, like go become a plumber, Like
we don't have enough plumber.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Yes we do. I don't think there's like a shortage.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
Of But also, like, who is Andrew Yang watching on Instagram?
Andrew Yang is on Instagram watching content that's created by creators.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
I'm sure he creates content.

Speaker 4 (49:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Yeah, something just kind of happened this morning, Like the
Christian Girl Autumn.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Did you guys see that?

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Yes, So she posted a video yesterday crying saying that she's.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Burnt out, she needs to take a break this fall,
crying because she needs to take a break this fall,
and she's feeling the pressure and that every video needs
to be better than the last.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
And she's crying. And I saw it and I was like,
oh my god.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Immediately reposted it, put it to stories and was like,
influencer burnout is real.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
This is what I want my book to but it
was fake. And then today she posted just kidding it's.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
Full moments on the TikTok video. Work is the satire?
Is the satire? People trying to figure it out?

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Yeah? So that was so Yeah, exactly. So she drove
a lot of engagement time him doing this fake cry video.
But my comment still stands that, like there is so
much burnout. This is a real job. The comments that
I was seeing because right TikTok shows you comments pretending
to what you see, what your algorithm is comments I
was seeing is get a real job.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
This is real. There are people dying.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
As if a woman in the South crying about her
job isn't worthy because someone else is dying, Like she's
allowed to be burnt out. This is a real job,
Like influencers, jobs are real. They're really hard. Like even
if that video was I would be surprised if she
didn't feel a little bit of that, Like, I better
do it bigger and better this year than last year.

(50:44):
I'm going to do this pr stunt to raise myself
even higher. Because you got to outdo yourself as an influence.
Your analytics are the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
How can you be.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Bigger, better and not lose relevance because everybody online is
afraid of losing relevance.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
You reinvent yourself and stay relevant to.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
Being a pop stars to change, you have to stay
relevant and you have to like adapt to the change
in the algorithm and adapt to culture.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, when people pull stunts like that online, as a viewer,
I lose trust. I don't know if that's me being old.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
If you feel like you're left out of the joke,
if you feel like you're in on the joke, like
when I did my prank, you were in on the joke,
right right, Yeah, So I think it's a matter of
whether you feel included or excluded.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Interestingly, that's a great point. I'm curious how you think
AI will or won't impact influencer culture.

Speaker 4 (51:29):
I'm one of the only writers in America who's not
afraid of AI. Everyone's so afraid of it. I love
AI too, I don't even know. I didn't say I
loved it. I said I wasn't afraid of it because
I think as AI gets more and more sophisticated. We're
going to increasingly crave human connection, and so anything that's
providing like a high touch personal service, Like I think
people are going to want to go to a therapist,

(51:50):
not use a therapist chatbot. So I think if you're
a writer and you build a fandom an audience for
your writing, I don't think people want the robot version
of elistine novel, like I think they want my novel.
As long as you're a writer who has your audience, like,
AI can't replace you, So I don't have a fear
of AI.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
So about six months ago, I got an email from
an AI company saying, high Lee, we can make an
AI of you and you can start work with brands.
So if Dove wants to work with you, we can
just type in a script and it will be an
AI AD and you can post it and make like,
you know.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Three grand and I got interesting for the future.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
But right now, no, But how crazy is that they'll
make AI ads like using my likeness, using this blazer
and he's talking about soap.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
But you wouldn't feel that's breaking a contract with your audience.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
No, of course, Okay, so I was kind of kidding.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
No, And also by the way, like Dove, I'm not
saying that Dove's working with them. They're using an example
that's crazy, but also like that's already being happening. H
and M is using AI models. They're talking about it,
but like, I don't think we're that far away from
that happening.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
But then I think people will stop following them, Like
don't you think people will know? Don't you think your
spidery sense will tingle? Like there's something weird about this?

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Yeah, Like like sometimes when I watch like a commercial,
I'm like, oh my god, this was made with AI.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
You can kind of tell.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
But if it gets so good that you can't tell,
who knows.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
I'm not so concerned about, like you know, whether or
not we can tell.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
I think to get to your first question, I think
the future of AI or of influencing is like I
think we're gonna give deeper into like virtual reality with
it onnswers, we'll like be in the room with them
or like we can put on goggles and be watching
them as they like get writy with me. I mean,
it's really creepy, But why.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
Would that was such a funny scene in your book
where a husband bought his wife you and you showed
up to make breakfast and she was like, can we
take a selfie? And you're like, you have me by
the hour, Like, yes.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
We can take a selfie.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
That was so surreal. But you're saying like that could
happen with like putting on goggles.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Yeah, maybe like pay fifty dollars to get into Emma
Chamberlain's room.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
Like I was at a tech conference and that's what
they were like saying, like that's the future of Instagram.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
But at the beginning of this conversation, Lee Stein, you
turned to Lee Tillman and said, the end of her
book made you emotional. Yeah, can you explain why?

Speaker 4 (53:54):
Yeah, I don't want to spoil the ending, but there's
this hard choice at the end between doing something that
would show your parents that this was a real job
that would impress them some kind of milestone that would
be meaningful to them, and going into treatment for your
eating disorder. And you have this hard choice to make,
and it just made me real emotional because it was
like a genuinely hard choice to make.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Was it emotional for you to write Yes.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
The flood scene?

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Every time I read that or talk about it, or
think about it in my head, just like looking around
and being.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Like I want this, and just like picking up stands
in and leaving.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Yeah, this thing that I had spent years building, this
online world and this brand, and this thing that had
the potential to make millions of dollars. I mean I
had a staff of people that I was working with,
and I had just talking about doing a TV show,
Like there was so much potential and it was so
easy to walk away from.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Just goes to show me like I trust myself.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
I have so much self respect for that that I
was like able to walk the walk and talk the
talk too, Like I had the courage to walk away
and the courage to return.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
My last question is can wellness exists outside of capitalism?
It inherently tied to something.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
My book Self Care came out in twenty twenty, so
people would ask me, like, what are your favorite self
care rituals? Of course, and I would just say, like, honestly,
self care is free, Like self care is like sleeping
and drinking water and like getting outside and getting sunlight,
like all these things are free. But because you can't
sell them, like you don't see them marketed to you
all the time.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
So you see it's like buy the Stanley for your water, right,
your water track by this oil for sleep, like they're
trying to Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
So I think, yes, wellness, how you take care of
yourself does not have to be attached to any products.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
I have a really good role model in my mom,
Like she is a very kind of put this like
non capitalistic, restrained and takes care of herself just engauge
and kind of like the.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Bengals and whatever. You know, the hokah is like it's
always been very.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
Simple, but she does a really good job of taking
care of herself through just daily movement, which has always
been like free either running and now that she's older, walking,
like playing sports with friends.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
She plays tennis with her friends. Community is free and listen.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
The reason that so many people, I think turn to
capitalists wellness is because finding a group of friends.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
And support system is really hard. A lot of people
just want to be at home like this.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
They don't want that in person intimacy that comes from
being vulnerable and sharing and dating, you know, all these
things that a lot of people are dealing with in
post COVID twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
They're hard and uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
So it's kind of easy to just go on Pinterest
and look at this like mood board of like, you know,
fifteen different things I use to change my life and
buy everything and think I can just buy this.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
Yes, this is very American.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Yeah, it's very American.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
Yeah, change my life by buying something.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
But I do believe that like wellness doesn't need to
be tied to capitalism.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Yeah, it's all about like your spiritual wellness.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
This is for me taking care of my mental and
spiritual wellness, which to me is like meditation, journalism, talking
to people, community, which is very important for social support.
You need a social network and movement and hydration.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
And basic foundational things.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Yeah, we just find ways to make money from them.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Is there a line and here that you feel really
proud of or like something that in weeks when this
all dies down, that sort of like outlives you.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Okay, so it's from the epilog. Okay. As far as
jobs go, it influencing can be a pretty good one.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
I'm not denying that so long as it stays a job,
So long as it doesn't blur the line between professional
and personal so much that you jeopardize your sanity. I'm
not against influencing as a career. What I'm against is
not being aware of the dangers and completely losing yourself
online the way I did, and forgetting all the joy
and beauty of the real world. Finding that balance isn't

(57:45):
easy when using a technology that was designed to be addictive,
but I feel that given my experience, I'm perfectly positioned
to help people try. I think a lot of people
want an all or nothing stance with this book. They
want me to be offline forever and be like Instagram,
and people are uncomfortable with the gray. But if I
was truly going to be anti I probably wouldn't have

(58:08):
done this press. But what's the point of working on
work and sharing your art if you're not going to
talk about it and try to get it out in front.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
Of as many people as possibly. It's a very natural
human thing.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
But yeah, I'm really proud of where I am now,
and I want.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
This book to reach all the people that it needs to.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
And many of them had disappeared and the influencers have
gone into the darkness and burnt out, So find them
and give them this book.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
I gotta say this week on TikTok, I don't get
a lot of hate comments. I'm not as famous as
the otherly, but I got the meanest comment I've ever
gotten on TikTok this week. I made a video of
good news and I lip synced a song and kind
of danced for seven seconds. That was a video, and
the person wrote, embarrassing. I think you're a brilliant writer,
and I think it's embarrassing for you to be dancing

(58:51):
like a teenage girl on TikTok to promote your book.
I think all writers should staff doing self promotion on
social media. And this comment was like so triggering to me,
and it reminded me what you just said, because it's
like I worked three and a half years on my
novel and I shouldn't be on camera with my face
smiling and lip syncing to a song.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
But also that tells more about them and what they
believe and how they want you to show.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Up than you.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
Like. That's the one thing that I've realized is like
it's all projections.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
This person doesn't know you.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
They're just seeing a slice, yeah, and they're just like,
this is how I expect you as a woman to
show up.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
You're not showing up the way I see you. This
is triggering me. This is no. No, she's basically trying
to believe you.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
You also have a new I do but coming out.
Will you tell us about it?

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (59:30):
This is a gothic mystery set in a TikTok hyphe house.
A aging millennial woman who can't get a new job
takes a job managing a hyph post of gen Z
content creators, and one of them is a Tarot card
reader who has gone missing from the house. So it's
partly a satire of TikTok culture.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
I don't think about these things. I don't know how
you come up with these and also tell me if
I'm right or wrong. But the title is if you're
seeing this, It's meant for you, which to me feels
like a play on the Drake quote if you're seeing
this it's too late, which went everywhere in a culture.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
I don't know that cultural moment. The title comes from
Tarot TikTok, so as you're scrolling TikTok, a video will
come up and say this video was meant to find you.
If you're seeing this, it's meant for you, and you're like, oh,
what is it? And then you click on it and
it's like someone's thinking about you. It's always the message
you want to hear.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
And then it's like comment babblah blah blah blah, if
you want my.

Speaker 4 (01:00:23):
Comment, my claim. Yeah, so that's where the title comes from.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Oh my god, I really thought I had it figured
out that there was this like double on time.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
No, I'll take it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Lee and Lee, thank you both for your time. This
was really fun and interesting, so fun.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
Thank you, Dan, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day,
to have a good day. I'll see you next week.
You can shut the thing.