S04E06 Transcript: Lucy Blakiston (Shit You Should Care About) on Social Media as News

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Gemma Styles [00:00:01] Hello, I'm Gemma and welcome to another episode of Good Influence. This is the podcast where I welcome our guests to discuss their experiences, answer your questions and teach us something new. This week we're talking about social media as news communicating effectively with a global audience. The difficulty of separating individuals from their platforms and not being ashamed to admit we care about all sorts of different things. So joining me this week is Lucy from Shit You Should Care About. Lucy is one of three founders of the popular Instagram account, which now has over three and a half million followers and has also branched out into a whole multimedia platform, including a daily newsletter, multiple podcasts. Shit, you should carve up quite a self-explanatory name, keep subscribers up to date on new and noteworthy events around the world, and has carved out quite a niche by mixing hard news with the strong and proud lean into pop culture, fandom and light-hearted daily pulse.

Lucy Blakiston [00:00:59] It's not fun to wake up and write about another mass shooting in the States or people being stripped of their right to abortion. But the thing that keeps me doing it is that I have this audience that want to hear it and want to share it. And I can feel like by making it make sense, I'm doing something about it.

Gemma Styles [00:01:23] It's a punchy name for a news account. Talk to me about shit you should care about and how you got started with it.

Lucy Blakiston [00:01:31] Well. It was very important that there was a swear word and the name of it, because I think that we just try to tell the news to people in a way that uses the language that we all use in our day to day lives. So how it came about was I was in my third year of uni in New Zealand, which you can probably hear from. My accent is where I'm from, and I was studying media and international relations and I was like, I'm three years into this degree and I don't understand what's happening in the world. And I know it's not because I'm not trying or I'm not smart. It's actually because no one is talking to me in words that make sense to me or like my attention span is so bad that I couldn't handle getting a really dense reading from my lecturer or reading just black and white news after black and white news. So honestly, I just I takes my two best friends, Ruby and Liv, who still run this thing with me, and I said, I think we should start something that helps people care about what's happening in the world. And as I'm sure we're going to get into, that is very much anything you want to care about. That can be pop culture. That can be Harry Styles. It can be the environment. It can be protests happening in Iran or across the globe. Like you don't just have to care about one thing, which is always been very important to me. And yeah, from there, I mean, 2018 it was sort of before the Instagram carousel, I think was even a thing. And so we started a blog on WordPress and then I was like, maybe this information should be meeting us like where we all already are. So I just randomly put it on Instagram, didn't feel groundbreaking, just did it for our friends. I mean, we said it like 900 followers for months and months, I think. And we just I certainly just loved making sense of the world. So just continue to do it. And then not to really fast forward it, but 2020 happened and the world turned to shit, for lack of anything better, or for a very on brand way of talking about the world. And we were all stuck at home. Everyone was trying to make sense of the new pandemic or the resurgence of Black Lives Matter or Donald Trump's fucking shit show of a presidency and New Zealand was having like a big election. It just felt like this perfect storm of news that needed to be made sense of. And then, yeah, after 2021 we realised you probably shouldn't be getting all your news from social media. So then we started a daily newsletter which I wake up each morning at 5 a.m. to write for my wonderful pen pals.

Gemma Styles [00:04:25] Oh my goodness, I know.

Lucy Blakiston [00:04:27] And then a couple of podcasts, and that is the CliffsNotes or the Spark notes of shit you should care about. Can't even remember if you asked about the origin story, just really light into it.

Gemma Styles [00:04:39] I did. That is exactly what I always do. So I thank you so much. So I mean, you're talking there about kind of. During that time, all the kind of like big stories that were going on. And it is quite it's very sort of global news, but it's also. Very Western news, I guess I'm always quite interested in like how do you decide which kind of stories to cover and like, where do you get your news from that you then decide, you know what, what's going into the newsletter, what's going on the Instagram?

Lucy Blakiston [00:05:16] Everyone always loves this question. And it is it's so interesting because it is just one person. It's just me. Rubes does the commercial side loves does the design, but all the content is me, but with a little asterisks. It is like such a transaction because we have because as you said, it's quite global. We have people all over the world that are sending me emails, sending me DMS, letting me know what's happening where they are, which I otherwise might not have seen. So a huge way that I get my news is honestly from the audience and making sure that I'm always there to chat or to hear them out or to ask them, you know, where they get their local news from. Because often people will say, Why isn't anyone talking about this? Or no one's covering this? But like in fact, local newsrooms often are. It's just that it's not going to get the most clicks. So these big sites or whatever aren't sort of aggregating it to the top. Anyway, very nerdy chat. I wake up in the morning, I read the emails that I've got from people letting me know what's happening, where they are. I read a lot of newsletters myself. I always check like they say, Vox some tech websites. I love to write about the potential tech downfall, or if we're going to be optimistic, like great work, great New world, that could be my go to from all these chat pools. And yeah, I get it from a lot of places, but I just, after doing this for about how many years, four years, 45 years, I feel like I have a very like your gut instinct is like a like a muscle. And the more you use it, the more you sort of know what people are going to want to hear about or what they should hear about. And so mine's quite strong now if we're going to continue with the middle for.

Gemma Styles [00:07:07] Yeah, absolutely. And do you kind of a do you set yourself any kind of targets in terms of this is how many like how many different things we should be covering in like a day or a week or a month or is it so ad hoc as in because I mean, because that's how we are experiencing the world, right?

Lucy Blakiston [00:07:25] Yeah, it's super. It's super ad hoc. It's a perfect way to describe it. It is interesting because I'm in New Zealand and I feel like I wake up in the morning and a whole lot has happened everywhere else. While I'm asleep, it almost feels like I'm in the perfect place to be doing this curation or summarising for people. And because our whole thing is being as authentic and transparent as possible, which you can tell because the way I talk is exactly how I write is exactly how I present myself through maims or whatever it is on Instagram. So I feel like we I don't pre-plan or premeditate things. I just very, very much react and then take it in and then write something based on how my gut feeling and the information that I've read. But yeah, ad hoc, great, great way of describing what we do.

Gemma Styles [00:08:19] Oh well, perfect, great. But I mean, I think that makes sense because that is how we're all kind of consuming news anyway. Right? And I've already kind of mentioned the pop culture element to what you did, which I think is obviously a really massive part of kind of the branding of what you do and is so like weaved into a. To you. And I have got no idea whether I'm even asking a proper question here. But to you, is it about kind of. Bringing the pop culture elements and kind of cross-sections into the more hard news. Or is it kind of looking at the two things side by side and saying they're not the same, they don't interact, but I can be interested in both?

Lucy Blakiston [00:09:08] Oh, that's a great question. And that annoying answer, it actually is a bit of both because obviously, I mean, we have a podcast called Culture Vulture, which talks about the exact sort of second thing you mentioned, where things like culture, celebrity. All of that societal stuff, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. It does impact how we see the world and how we feel about it and and really big and meaningful ways. I mean, we covered the Johnny Depp and Amber heard trial and we didn't do that. And so the Internet had sort of had their say on it. We always like to wait. We don't have to be the first to report on something. We like to wait and get as much as we can. But that was just such a big moment in terms of how we look at domestic violence or even how we look at the court system or helping us understand more. We learn all of that because of what happened in the celebrity world. But then also it is just really it's just really nice to remind people that you can actually be interested in more than one thing at once. You can give a shit about, like I mentioned earlier, you can care about many things at once and we're all people and we all do. And so at the start, I remember maybe in 2019 or 2020 and a lot of a lot of men were and my dame's saying, every time you post about Harry Styles, it discredits everything else that you've written about. And I'm like, okay, you can.

Gemma Styles [00:10:42] Find.

Lucy Blakiston [00:10:42] One. But but why? I know and why. And particularly for young woman, it's like it's so hard to just love something in an uncomplicated way. And we really just want to show people that, yeah, you can be most multifaceted. It's also just really fun to love things. If I'm going to be working in the news cycle, I need to want to do the job. And for me, that is by talking about pop culture and by talking about the news. Otherwise, like our whole sort of catchphrase is helping you get the news without getting the blows. And if I've got the blues, then it's not going to be a good product. It's not going to be a good company.

Gemma Styles [00:11:20] If you've got the blues we're not getting the news from.

Lucy Blakiston [00:11:22] He's knocking his helmet on a T-shirt.

Gemma Styles [00:11:27] Exactly. I mean, this is kind of I know I've seen you talk about this before and I thought, I feel like it must have been at least a couple of years ago now when I saw you do kind of quite a big post about the whole kind of idea that people were swearing a lot on this podcast already, that people basically shit on things that women, young people, girls are interested in, and the whole kind of idea of them being like the social currency of those things being less because it's young women especially who are interested. Like, I think that kind of idea to me is such like an important part of what you do. Like it's kind of, it's kind of where I guess the elephant in the room, like you obviously like love so much.

Lucy Blakiston [00:12:15] I know, but like.

Gemma Styles [00:12:17] But I'm like, cool. Yeah, cool. Me too. Like, I love what you do with that because, like, because great, like, a lot of people do and a lot of people are so interested, like in, in a lot of different, you know, people things, TV shows, all sorts in pop culture and that shouldn't be something that's used to, yeah, discredit their opinions or everything else. But honestly, I felt like when you first started talking about that, I think we talk about it a little bit more now, but I feel like you were kind of in the ground floor really with that size platform of kind of making the idea more public.

Lucy Blakiston [00:12:53] I mean, I would love to take credit for it. I don't know if I can, but I definitely have felt it since I was like 15. And I love that you brought I was going to start this podcast by saying, sure, bring out the elephant in the room. But I was like, Nah, only I'll let you bring it up. But I think a few things. I mean, I think a lot about that. One of the things is just when I was younger, my brother was a huge fan of the Tour de France and he would host like sleepovers while the Tour de France was on. And then he grew up and worked in a bike shop and it was seen as this really cool hobby that he had and still has. Whereas me and Ruby, who actually also runs shit you should care about. We loved One Direction and we were we were in New Zealand. So when that drop a new music video would be up late night watching it and talking about it on Twitter and my brother's and you know it was seen as quite. And my brothers sort of bless them, but they would roast me for it like it was like, loose. Like, that's embarrassing, that film. They filmed me in robes getting tickets to one of these shows, and I it got played at my 21st because it was so embarrassing that I was screaming or whatever. And I just as I've grown up, I've looked back at that and been like, Why was it seen as really cool to, like, love the sports thing and have sleepovers to watch it? But then when I was doing the exact same thing, but for a boy band, it was seen as really embarrassing and I never felt like I could get a job off the back of it. I didn't feel like I could, you know, be a commentator or work at a bike shop or be a physio for a rugby team. It was very much, this is your hobby, but for someone else the hobby could become their job. And so I feel like because I've kind of been able to do that, it's almost my duty to now be like I have, you know, I have learnt skills, like I would read bad fanfiction and be editing it in my head and now I know how to edit or I would code something on Tumblr and now I know how to build a website or things like that. I have learnt skills that I should have been able to put on a resume. I never felt like I could, but now that I have this platform and I kind of have made a job out of being a fan and also just loving, communicating with people, I feel like it's a huge part of my job to tell people not to shit on Stans or fans. I mean, there's there's there's a line, I think, which comes with I was 15 when I started, and now I'm 25 and I've seen much more of the world and celebrities don't owe us shit. I think it's very, very important that we remember that. And that's something we talk about all the time is like, if they're not choosing to tell you this information, don't go after it like that. Like celebrities are just people. And we've been lucky to interview some celebrities. And then I think you just realise everyone is just trying to figure a way out through life. You're all just people except some people who have this really horrible thing with that in the limelight all the time. And even things I don't want to give you, you're trying to take. And so I think I very much like to advocate as well that we should just be leaving people well enough alone when when they don't want us in their business.

Gemma Styles [00:16:17] I mean, it's it's interesting, like, obviously. The position you're in now and being able to kind of look back at it at the same time, because it's kind of it's not like. It's not like growing out of something, but it is just like growing up and like growing as a person and kind of being able to like. Describe that sort of experience and then the perspective that it's given you kind of into your own community, I guess, must be really valuable in terms of judging it all.

Lucy Blakiston [00:16:48] Yeah, hindsight is a beautiful thing. And also the only thing I have to go off, especially being from New Zealand where we're quite isolated, but it's a beautiful, beautiful place to grow up. But the only thing I have to go off is life experience and conversations like this and talking to and straight, interesting people and reading lots of interesting things. And yet time and growing up and being like, Oh, like with being a fan. Ten years ago I would have been super active, super like, I need to wait outside the hotel room. I need to buy everything. I need to listen to everything. But now I'm like, okay, that just people still obsessed with them still want everyone to love them because they bring joy. But I don't need to be going that extra the extra mile that might give us all a bad night.

Gemma Styles [00:17:40] The extra ten miles.

Lucy Blakiston [00:17:41] The extra time. Yeah.

Gemma Styles [00:17:44] It's funny though. I feel like there's so many different things and I think. Growing up, if you like, kind of on the Internet. And I think it applies to lots of things. So like here we're talking about news and kind of the way that we're all taking in our information. And I mean, if you if I think about if we're talking about the whole kind of like fun community culture kind of thing now, I think that in itself has kind of moved with the social media and social movements to kind of become a little bit different as well because. I think now I definitely see a lot more of kind of the things you've been talking about, of understanding a little bit more about like other people's boundaries, for example. And that's a conversation that we've been having on social media about, you know, about ourselves and about each other and our friends and parents and our intimate relationships in life. But it is also something that then kind of bleeds into these other like more celebrity culture and these like bigger kind of news stories and having these conversations about what sort of information we're entitled to or should have access to and. Yeah. Kind of how we should be interacting with people in these kind of parasocial relationships we find ourselves in. And I think there's actually way more of a cross-section on this kind of stuff. Than you would maybe think. At first glance. I do just find it really interesting to talk about. I think you.

Lucy Blakiston [00:19:17] I really like that. I love that we talk about it more because I think obviously ten years ago the Internet wasn't what it is now. So of course, there was no research or not that much conversation happening about how fan communities use the Internet. But now, like during 2020, when K-Pop fans got in there and like booked out a whole bunch of seats at one of Trump's rallies so that he couldn't go.

Gemma Styles [00:19:43] GOT Yeah.

Lucy Blakiston [00:19:43] Just all the new ways that fans are saying to have value outside of just currency and like buying tickets and funding the The Artist five is so interesting to me as well. But then yeah, I think it has come with some really good conversations about there is a limit to what you feel like you're owed and you're actually owed nothing for really enjoying the music or the movie or whatever. The actual art is something I think about a lot.

Gemma Styles [00:20:15] Mhm. So I mean carrying on that kind of conversation specifically about that whole idea of, you know, what people are entitled to, what people think that you owe them in your position. Now as someone who runs a platform, how does that kind of idea impact the work that you do? Because I also think that's quite, I mean it's interesting like where I can obviously see, you know, but talking on Zoom, but you don't put yourself onto your kind of social channels and it's very much like a platform versus a person with a platform. How does that how do you kind of balance that?

Lucy Blakiston [00:20:57] So I think this was a very easy and very conscious decision that we made back in 2018. And maybe it did come from spending so much time in fan communities and saying what people can do when they get all your information or or not even fan communities, just seeing people get dox online and things like that, but also being surrounded by influencers. It was very much in the era of, let me tell you, some teeth whitening stuff or let me show you some skinny tea or a waist trying to and I think we all sat May Vivian live, sat down and were like, This is so not about us. That's like we shouldn't even like, we drew cartoons and we just used them for about four years. And the question we always came back to was. Do you know who runs the BBC? Do you know what they look like? Doesn't matter. Well, and no, it doesn't. And because we really were like. It's just not about what we look like or who we are or our families. And I mean, we didn't expect it to get as big as it did, but we made a very conscious decision at the start to be like, No. And that's not to say that I don't give a lot of myself to people, because if you read the newsletter, basically every day starts with how I'm feeling, what I did last night. Like what? What's like? Chima asked me to come on a podcast. How fucking cold is that? And so they know a lot about me. They know my tone of voice. They know some things that have happened in my life that I choose to let them know about. But then, you know, not having access to a personal Instagram account, not knowing what I look like, not having me pop up on their face to read them the news and just getting to read it and choose how they take it without knowing what I look like or. Where I'm from really just feels and feels safer. And it honestly, it feels more authentic to us because we never going to try and sell you something based on appearances or pose with a photo, a pose with a product or something like that. It just felt like we set this up to be much more of a. Of a service then. Like upping the product.

Gemma Styles [00:23:14] Yeah. No, not completely. So kind of on on the whole idea of like, what people then expect from you as a platform. How do you manage that? Because, I mean, I have an Instagram platform also, but it's very much, you know, me as a person. But I can imagine that it kind of functions pretty much the same way in that, you know, if there are people kind of in your DMS being like, why haven't you talked about this on, on, on whatever occasion it might be. Like not there's often yeah. Something and sometimes it is, as you said, sometimes it's as simple as like a time zone. I mean we're about as far opposite on timezones as you could be, but it's the kind of idea that we have to be. Across everything all the time. How do you deal with that? Kind of as as a thing?

Lucy Blakiston [00:24:15] So in very literal terms, I try to spend very little time and the Instagram comments and the dams and spend most of the time either directing meaningful conversations to my email or writing responses to the newsletter, because that's always where there's a lot more robust chat, a lot more context, a lot more nuance. So yeah, and and quite a letter away. I don't spend a lot of time on social media after checking that I've made a post and I've got the facts right and people are okay and I haven't heard anyone's feelings and things like that. But then I do think what you said about people having to be across things all the time and make comments on things all the time. I think that's one thing that does worry me about the Internet and differently worried May in 2020 a law and 2021. I feel like it's getting better, but maybe that's just because I've stopped feeling pressured by it. But I mean, these things like you and I were just one person. So as much as it is my job to read and consume and understand and give out findings or, you know, make it make sense, I am still one person. You're still one person. And and then there's limits because, you know, you can only give so much background in an Instagram post. And so, you know, I find myself a lot of the time just directing people to longer form things, things with much more context and people that are smarter than me and people that are much more educated on certain topics. The May I don't claim to be an expert on everything and no one is an expert on everything. And I think it's really bad for information to expect or your favourite celebrities or your favourite people with a platform to know everything about everything all the time. Yeah, because it's just going to, it's just going to lead to really poor information and, and pressure on the people with the platform. I think there are things where it's quite easy to learn about and I mean, if you have values that align with mine, then I think can be quite easy to stand up for. But some things are like, this is a historical thing that's been going on for like a hundred years and one afternoon. There's no way that you or I could possibly know everything there is to know about it. And it worries me that there definitely was that expectation for everyone to share and put their $0.02 in when they really don't need to.

Gemma Styles [00:27:02] Yeah, definitely. And I think I mean, you mentioned before, it's kind of. You don't now feel the need to immediately comment on things. Has that kind of changed across the past few years? Did you originally think, Oh, I have to be like the quickest person kind of on the scene with the first hot take a burst like I was that kind of culturally changed?

Lucy Blakiston [00:27:21] I actually did. And I think it's because I grew up in like the wake of clickbait and just really kind of shitty articles popping up all over social media. And so all I knew was, Oh, well, the first thing I'm going to say is the thing that was written first and that's got the most outraged people on Facebook driving it up, the algorithms or whatever. And so when we started on Instagram, I remember being like, I actually have to be so on the pulse. It's like almost ridiculous. And it just doesn't lead to good reporting as we know now. And it doesn't serve anyone except for the big social media platforms that you're on. So now and for a few years now, we've taken a slightly slower but much better approach where it's like, okay, Instagram's great for drawing attention to things, but the newsletter is good because it comes out once a day. It's a bit slower. There's been time to process and gather and then the podcast even better because you can literally hear how you and I are talking and you can hear us thinking and you can hear the nuance. And I mean, I don't have to tell you what podcast you have on I'm on it, but I just think it's been a really it's been a really beneficial thing for me to learn that social media just sounds so bizarre for me to say, But isn't the place that we should all be kidding our news? And I always say I can trust myself to do this job because I studied international relations, I studied media, and I work with journalists, but I can't trust anyone else that has a platform like this to be doing the same job with the same background as me. So you can trust me. I mean, why would I not say that? But you can trust me and maybe take other very shareable, digestible things that you're saying, like just with a little bit of a little bit of caution.

Gemma Styles [00:29:23] Yeah, that makes sense. And all the like, critical thinking media literacy, like all of those kind of ideas that we all think we know. But when you see something shared and if you see a bunch of people sharing it, you kind of take it as wrote straight away. And it is it has to become such a reflex that we're all kind of learning to like check the sources on stuff. And yeah, I think people hopefully are learning that like maybe the first take isn't always the best take. And yeah, when to add their voice to a situation when to not it's really is difficult but like I think that's why it's interesting to hear that kind of thing from someone who literally runs a news platform to millions of people because I think it's something that we're still trying to get to grips with even when we know we should. It's it's a really hard habit to break.

Lucy Blakiston [00:30:13] A really good example of when this happened and why we're maybe a little bit different to the other accounts on Instagram Doing a similar thing is there was this really viral story about 15,000 Iranian protesters getting executed. And I remember I started seeing it going round on Instagram and everyone was sending it to me saying I needed to cover it. Why wasn't I talking about it? I need to post about it. A whole lot of celebrities shared it. Justin Trudeau shared it. And I was the whole time, you know, like looking on BBC, The New York Times saying in Iranian news outlets, I was like, I actually can't see this being fact checked anyway. I can't see a source. There was one source that was quite a known reputable source, and thank goodness I took history at high school and I could sort of learn how to corroborate and all those great media literacy things that we were just talking about. But I could not, for the life of me find where this came from in any meaningful states except for Twitter and this one sort of bogus news source. And it's not wrong that people have been facing the death penalty idea or it's even been used. But the idea that 15,000 people in a mass sweep where were facing it wasn't actually true. And I wrote a big newsletter story about how like my processes for trying to figure out whether this was true. And, you know, I'd seen so many people like I just so many people had shared this just as if it was fact. And I thought, this is a really good chance for me to show what we should do when we see something incredibly viral like that and politicians are even sharing it. And that just that feels like a great example of what we were just talking about and how we. Think that we know in ourselves. We think that we can discern what's true and what's false. But sometimes it is really hard to, especially when people that you respect are sharing it. And that was that was just bizarre to me, the way people ran with that. And it was just not true.

Gemma Styles [00:32:26] Yeah, that is a really good example. And yeah, I think it is something that we we all need to continuously kind of be aware of, I think. Yeah, that's, that's a good one to think about. Thank you. Every week my guest and I will be answering your questions on the first one comes in from Mali. How hard is it to reach wider audiences when a lot of content revolves around what is trending and to what extent is branching out into quote unquote lesser known issues feasible when it might not garner as much attention?

Lucy Blakiston [00:33:00] This is a great question. It's definitely feasible, but it is. So I will say this probably forever. When you're at the mercy of the algorithms, it shouldn't dictate what you post about, but it does dictate how many people see the thing that you've spent a lot of time working on. So so it is definitely feasible and it's really important. And unfortunately to keep saying something we do a lot in our newsletter because it's not at the mercy of the algorithms, but it is. So it can be disheartening to know that something you've spent very little time on, like an Instagram reel, for example, of something that happened at the Grammys or something will go super viral because Instagram, like, we really want people to use reels, Let's push it to the top. But then you've spent like all this time fact checking and writing a carousel about something happening in Afghanistan, and it gets like not even 10% of people's eyes on it. So it can be disheartening, but I feel like it's learning not to let the algorithm dictate what you care about or what you post about and then finding better avenues to share them.

Gemma Styles [00:34:17] Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. It's kind of like not not trying to fight the algorithm because you're not going to win. But equally, yeah, not being as kind of overly reliant on the numbers, I guess. I think that's yeah, I've definitely seen that as like different types of content you just know full well are going to Yeah. Do different numbers but it is you know do you. Carry on and do it anyway. Yes, I know I shouldn't.

Lucy Blakiston [00:34:44] Be having to game a system to get the word out there about things, but I constantly feels like I'm coming off. So anti social media. I'm not anti, I'm just very sceptical of where it's heading and we just shouldn't have to game the system to for people to be able to say what we want them to say.

Gemma Styles [00:35:03] Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I agree. Next question from Leo, who asks, What do you put on a resume to emphasise your social media skills gained from being a fangirl? For example, I've had tech talks with millions of views. What do I write on my resume to make that sound important?

Lucy Blakiston [00:35:22] Oh my God. Everyone, especially in the media industry, is searching for people that understand tech talk. So first of all, if you have tech talk experience and you can show that you've garnered heaps of views, some some CEO out there that doesn't understand tech talk is going to want you regardless. I don't think you should. I do not think you should leave that off your resume. I also things like if you've learnt basic HTML or if you've learnt Photoshop or community building is actually a huge one and moderate moderation and things like that. I love that I'm answering this as if as if the person is not even to you, as if the person I'm talking directly to them. But you all know. But I'm.

Gemma Styles [00:36:06] That.

Lucy Blakiston [00:36:07] I am talking directly to you. Truly, anything that you've learnt of your own free will. It's it's actually better because it shows that you've wanted to learn it and now you've gotten really good at it. And so you've got both the skills and the want and definitely put your tech talk thing, definitely put your tech experience on there. People will love that.

Gemma Styles [00:36:32] I mean, I would I would agree. I would be that person, be like, yeah, hire them because I, you know, understand TikTok. I'm kind of I'm scared to put anything on TikTok. I know now I'm like, people are always telling me like, I should put like the podcast clips and stuff on TikTok. And I'm like, I'm scared. Don't make me go over there. They're all so young and so mean.

Lucy Blakiston [00:36:50] They can be TikTok can honestly be a terrifying place. That's why not showing our face is the best thing because it almost stops us from using a video platform. Because what am I going to put all the I just put on? Honestly, I put on concert videos that people see me. Nothing, Nothing. High stakes.

Gemma Styles [00:37:10] I know it's tricky, right? It's a tricky line to line to draw. But that's the thing. You've just got to do what's best for you. That's what I'm going to keep doing anyway.

Lucy Blakiston [00:37:18] Yes, I'm.

Gemma Styles [00:37:19] Okay. Let's finish up with a question from Serena, who has kind of prefaced this question by saying that she actually met you on your she should care about Rhodey and asked this question, but she thought that the answer was so interesting. She wanted to ask it on the podcast so everyone else can hear the answer, too, which I thought was delightful. So Serena wanted to ask all that any areas of politics or media or content that you covered that you didn't think you would explore, or is there anything you regret covering?

Lucy Blakiston [00:37:48] I can't remember what I said in the first place. I don't regret anything that we've covered because ever and this is going to be a real like lecture answer either I've learnt something from it, like I'm learning in real time, often fixing my mistakes in real time, whether that's just a spelling mistake or whether it's I've titled a story something that could be a bit more sensitive and things like that. So I've never regretted something that I've posted, and most of the things I write probably didn't exist or weren't happening like five years ago, especially with things like tech and also world crises like these things are so they're happening so often. They're happening to a lot of the time, all of us. And so none of us could have predicted them, which means I, as one of us, could not predict them. And so most mornings I'm waking up and there's been a new advancement and something or something else, maybe terrible, maybe really good that's happened that I never thought I'd be covering. It's kind of what keeps the job hot and fresh and fun. It's. It's me having to make sense of something new every day. And even if that's really hard, I feel like I have the privilege of feeling like I can do something about it every single day. So it's not fun to wake up and write about another mass shooting in the States or people being stripped of their right to abortion. But the thing that keeps me doing it is that I have this audience that want to hear it and want to share it. And I can feel like by making it make sense, I'm doing something about it. So to answer your question, yeah, basically everything that I learn, basically everything I write about is new. And I've had to explore so many corners of the world or of the Internet that I never thought I would. And so I actually don't regret anything that I've written. Touch wood.

Gemma Styles [00:39:55] If you want to know about opportunities to send in questions for upcoming guests, then follow us on Instagram or Twitter at Good Influence. Guest Or you can email the podcast at Good Influence Pod at gmail.com. Before you go, I've got three things I ask every guest, and so could you please recommend something to read, something to listen to and something to watch?

Lucy Blakiston [00:40:16] Okay, well, something to read is the thing that I've been banging on about this whole conversation. You should probably read my morning newsletter. Not to make this a promo for me, but it's only toxic. And it's code that you should care about daily, and it just gives us a bit more than we get from social media. And then something to listen to. I'm going to say Harry Styles, because I feel like I owe it to everyone listening that is coming because I know that I'm a fan. But also you should listen to this podcast called Hard Fork on the New York Times. It's all about like all these weird new Internet tech advancements. They've just done a really good episode on Chat. GP2 And how freaky and kind of interesting that is. I don't know. It's just a really good podcast if you want to know a bit more and then something to watch. And thus actually was unintentionally quite on brand. But Schitt's Creek I'm just obsessed with Schitt's Creek, and I think it's a really good comfort show for someone that lives in the news cycle and needs to calm down all the time. And also Dan Levy from Schitt's Creek follows us on Instagram. So I feel like I'm weirdly connected and it's just a great, great show. I don't know if that's what you wanted, but how am I all my recommendations?

Gemma Styles [00:41:47] Listen, I wanted to know what you recommended. Therefore, you've answered that question perfectly. I personally have watched Schitt's Creek about four or five times all the way through. So I'm definitely with you on that one. And I mean, let's let's just that it's criminal. I've never recommended Irish music podcast before.

Lucy Blakiston [00:42:03] And nobody else has either.

Gemma Styles [00:42:05] There we go. Thank God. Thank God you're here.

Lucy Blakiston [00:42:08] Thank God I'm here as his PR.

Gemma Styles [00:42:12] He really needs us. We've been slacking.

Lucy Blakiston [00:42:14] Yeah.

Gemma Styles [00:42:17] Thank you for listening. And thank you, Lucy, for joining me. If you enjoyed the episode, I would love you. Subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you're listening on, and if you're feeling extra generous, you can leave a rating on a review as well. See you next week.